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Great title!! Is it! Let's listen and find out!

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I don't know! DO you? Great title. Now since you have a great title people will join your talk with high expectations.

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Hmm.... Can you make the title more Appealing? Imagine a way that you make people feel curious and ask themselves: "Oh! What is she is going to share?"

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Love the title!! Anxious to find out a little more.

Now since you have a great title people will join your talk with high expectations.

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World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice

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Twenty-five years ago, the Union of Concerned Scientists and more than 1700 independent scientists, including the majority of living Nobel laureates in the scie

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The theme is just fine. Now think about a title that would make pople feel very interested.

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Lucas, think: Is your title is going to be an affirmative or a questions? have you considered the impact of this sutil difference?

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The title is good, but have you considered a more appealing title? That would make people feel more curiious?

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Valentina, have you considered a more appealing title?

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How much we need to go to another planet and why?

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How much we need to go to another planet and why?

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João, you theme is great! Now think about a title for you TED and write here too.

Nice Joao!!

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Human Impacts on the Environment | National Geographic Society

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Humans impact the physical environment in many ways: overpopulation, pollution, burning fossil fuels, and deforestation. Changes like these have triggered climate change, soil erosion, poor air quality, and undrinkable water. These negative impacts can affect human behavior and can prompt mass migrations or battles over clean water.

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While the world is going through its worst phase courtesy, the Novel Coronavirus; the human race seems to be at it's receiving end in the most ruthless manner. The news about the surging tally of infected cases, simply makes one wonder if this is ever going to end? Essentially, the thought that naturally hits the mind is; who brought on this disaster?
Why are we facing the ire of the nature in its cruelest form?
If we ponder over the current situation with all honesty, pat comes the reply, it is us, the human beings, who is responsible for creating this hazardous environment for ourselves.

Don't we really take the earth for granted and didn't we do everything possible to ruin mother earth's sanity? Well, it is indeed a strange situation to see how a virus emerged from nowhere and took on mankind as its greatest menace. If we, the people do not introspect it now then we will probably never know why it happened to us.

The fact that the planet witnessed a major dip in pollution levels and has remained clutter-free since the lockdown simply goes on to prove, how we the human race have unfairly treated the environs and are actually the real threat to our mother nature.

What was rather surprising was the fact that the health of the holy Ganga river has seen a massive improvement since the enforcement of nationwide lockdown. Despite of many campaigns and efforts by our honourable Prime minister, Narendra Modi to clean Ganaga, we could never succeed to give Ganga, its purest quality, albeit the absence of human beings seems to have done the trick.Come to think of it, it is actually a matter of sheer embarrassment for humans that the Ganga river which we worship religiously had to rely on this lockdown to get clean. In fact, these days, we stumble upon several videos about how animals have even taken to the street and are happily hopping around as never before. So, what does it all tell us? To be brutally honest, all these developments have somewhere proven that human beings are causing an enormous amount of damage to the environment.

Animals are back to claim their space which we had snatched from them and what a perfect timing it is for them to do it so. This lockdown has forced all of us to hole up at home and this has served the other living creatures a golden opportunity to live and breathe freely without any intervention from the human activity.
Isn't it time for us to reflect and rectify the mistakes that we have been committed since time immemorial?
As they say, better late than never, hence it is high time for mankind to respect nature and learn the art of co-existence. We need to accept the reality that the earth does not only belong to us and we have our fellow living beings who deserve an equal right to live.

Here's hoping when this lockdown ends, we will be back to a happy, clean and peaceful world.
Please put down your thoughts down below in the comment section.

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While the world is going through its worst phase courtesy, the Novel Coronavirus; the human race seems to be at it's receiving end in the most ruthless manner. The news about the surging tally of infected cases, simply makes one wonder if this is ever going to end?

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Amazing title! I am curious to find out!

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Whether you plan to turn your hobby into a career, or just use it as a release valve for the stresses in your life, here's how to find time for a little self-care.

Credit... Renaud Philippe for The New York Times

Before Andrew Rea started his popular " Binging With Babish " YouTube channel, he could barely get out of bed. Today, he credits the show, which inspires its three million subscribers to make their favorite "as seen on TV" dishes, with saving his life.

In 2015, six months before starting the channel, Mr. Rea, a former visual effects supervisor, was overcome with depression. But by combining his passions for food and filmmaking, as well as seeking professional help, he rediscovered how using those passions could lead to a rewarding career.

"Even if it hadn't become my career and completely changed my life, the late nights spent tinkering after work would've been worth it," Mr. Rea said. "I was cooking again, I was filming again, I was happy again."

Whether you're looking to cultivate a hobby as a professional steppingstone, or just to feel more fulfilled, extracurricular activities carry measurable benefits. And even if you don't have a passion that really stokes your flames, there's hope for you, too.

Mr. Rea's experience isn't atypical. A 2015 study published in The Annals of Behavioral Medicine found that pursuing your passion both lowers stress and contributes to greater happiness over all. Researchers found that participants who engaged in hobbies were 34 percent less stressed and 18 percent less sad during the activities, as well as for some time after.

Laura Vanderkam, a productivity expert, advocates finding time for yourself as a means to greater happiness over all. "Life just feels better when you have things in your hours that you want to do," Ms. Vanderkam said. "There's moments where time almost has no meaning because we're so happy about what we're doing. The more time you can spend in that zone, the better life feels."

We're all busy. Whether we're juggling demanding careers, family life or both, most of us feel as if we can't cram anything more into our schedules. But Ms. Vanderkam wants to dispel that idea. "When you say you don't have time, what you're really saying is, it's not a priority," she said. While there are definitely moments in which we legitimately don't have time to spare, most of us can find a little time if we know how to look.

To figure out where extra time lives in your schedule, she recommends thinking of time in weeks, rather than days. A week "is really the cycle of life as people actually live it," she said. Each week is made up of 168 hours. If you work 40 hours and sleep eight hours each night, that still leaves 72 hours. "Maybe you can carve out a few hours of really fun, cool stuff per week. That will make the other 165 hours that are in a week feel a lot more doable," she explained.

To do that, Ms. Vanderkam recommends tracking a week of your life. Write down everything you do in half-hour blocks or use these apps recommended by Wirecutter, the New York Times company that reviews products. You may be able to find some wiggle room, especially in those couple of hours before bed most of us spend hitting "next" on the TV queue.

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Credit... Vincent Tullo for The New York Times

Once you find those free hours, it's all about using them effectively and motivating yourself. Going to bed an hour earlier a couple of nights a week might allow you to get up an hour sooner and use that time. If you have children, consider trading "free days" with a friend or neighbor, switching off kid duty for a few hours on the weekends. It may feel like you're trading your precious "free" time for another item on your to-do list, but a pet project you're passionate about is probably better than Netflix, and one that'll leave you feeling more energized and rewarded.

"When you did activities as a kid, they were often built in - there was an adult forcing you to go," Ms. Vanderkam added. "As an adult, you're fully responsible for that. Many people find it easier to let go of promises they make to themselves."

Whereas Mr. Rea has millions of subscribers waiting for him to drop a new video, most of us don't have anyone relying on us to write those pages, paint that picture, or get into downward dog. Sometimes we all need a little external motivation.

"Turn your passion into an obligation," Ms. Vanderkam advised. "If you want to take up woodworking, take a class. If you've paid for it, you're more likely to show up."

If you're prone to procrastination, start small and specific. Maybe you want to hone your cooking skills, but take one look at the cupboard and end up ordering in. Procrastination often happens when we get overwhelmed and stall before we even start. "Taking very small steps is key," Ms. Vanderkam said. "If you take small steps repeatedly, they really do add up."

Knowing your road map is also essential, especially if you want to turn your passion into a career. Make a mental picture of where you want to be in five years, then work backward. "People often overestimate what they can do in the short term and underestimate what they can do in the long run," Ms. Vanderkam explained. "Say, I'm going to do just three things today. That's 15 things per workweek; that's 750 things in a year. If you do 750 important things in a year, that's a pretty good year."

Credit... Alvaro Barrientos/Associated Press

While hobbies both enrich our lives and can turn into rewarding careers, those of us who don't have a particular obsession aren't hopelessly out of luck. Instead, cultivate skills that will give you a leg up in your field. We all carry a "toolbox" to work in the form of specific abilities that make us better at our jobs. Some experts say leveling up on some of these will improve your job satisfaction more than initial enthusiasm ever will.

Cal Newport, a Georgetown professor and the author of "So Good They Can't Ignore You," says the idea that you will find success in your career if you just follow your heart is a false assumption. First, that advice assumes people have a passion to follow in the first place, which isn't necessarily true. And there's no real evidence that feeling, on its own, leads to fulfillment.

Instead, Dr. Newport recommends cultivating skills within your current framework. "As you get better at things that are very valuable, you acquire more career capital," he said. "It is this career capital that you can then turn around and invest into your career, to get things that makes it a deeper source of meaning, passion, or satisfaction."

Just like pursuing hobbies, this takes personal initiative. "It is not enough to just learn about something; it's also not enough just to do something a lot," Dr. Newport said. "You actually have to deliberately practice the skill, which means you have to stretch yourself beyond where you're comfortable, if you're going to actually improve." He recommends thinking about these skills as a professional musician thinks about hers, and pursue more and more challenges accordingly.

Whether you engage in a hobby for its own sake or as a career driver, self-improvement is a win-win.

"If you open yourself to new experiences by gradually stepping outside your comfort zone, you can find the things that truly make you happy," Mr. Rea explained. "And whether those things become hobbies or your life's work, pursuing your passions can give you a renewed sense of meaning and accomplishment."

We can all use a little more of that, regardless of where we find it.

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Why Following Your Passions Is Good for You (and How to Get Started)

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Whether you plan to turn your hobby into a career, or just use it as a release valve for the stresses in your life, here's how to find time for a little self-care. Before Andrew Rea started his popular " Binging With Babish " YouTube channel, he could barely get out of bed.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG3eKnUeqwo

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sportsmanship england rugby values discussion cards rugby league rugby football rugby world cup rfu players referee rugby club

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Why are Contactless Sports not so well known in America?

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Why are Contactless Sports not so well known in America?

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Great idea Enrico! Really liked the title.

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There have been many studies attempting to figure out just how music affects the human mind. For example, why do different people like different kinds of music, what parts of the brain are activated and if said parts are affected more or less by different kinds of music, and others.

Some of these questions have remained unanswered, and might stay that way for a while. One thing, however, is for certain: music does affect our daily lives.

Just look at the simple facts. Most people listen to music. If someone doesn't, they're sometimes viewed in a strange way. How could you not listen to music?

Music affects our emotions. When we listen to sad songs, we tend to feel a decline in mood. When we listen to happy songs, we feel happier. Upbeat songs with energetic riffs and fast-paced rhythms (such as those we hear at sporting events) tend to make us excited and pumped up.

With all this in mind, I sent out a survey to the students of Basehor-Linwood High School, asking some simple questions about their music taste and how music makes them feel. Studying these results show some interesting facts.

When asked about their listening habits, mixed results were found in accordance to the amount of time spent listening to music on a daily basis.

About 22.2 percent of people said that they listen to music between one to two hours everyday, where another 22.2 percent said they listen at least five hours a day.

The category of two to three hours a day sees about 18.4 percent of people in the school, and three to four hours meets a close second to that, at 16.5 percent.

Only 11 percent of people listen to less than an hour's worth of music every day, and even less listen to four to five hours a day; about 9.5 percent.

It seems that there isn't really a happy medium. Either people listen to music a little, or they listen to music all the time. Music takes different standpoints in different people's lives, and it matters more or less to one person than it does another.

A majority of people listen to music in the car, as well as at home; about 90 percent of all those studied for each. Around 71 percent of people here in the school also listen in their classrooms. Both the hallway and the lunchroom receive substantially less; about 37 percent and 25 percent.

It seems that music helps us concentrate and study as well. Out of those studied, 88.5 percent of people said that they listen to music when they study, work on homework, and other activities such as that. That leaves on 11.5 percent of people who don't.

It's no surprise that most people (69 percent) listen to pop music. Pop literally stands for popular. 55.2 percent of all people attending BLHS listen to rock and rap. It's also not surprising to hear that 46.6% of people listen to alternative and indie music. Over half of our students listen to country, at 52.3 percent.

Some genres that didn't hit the chart with full force are funk, jazz, classic, punk, dubstep, and metal. Not one of these, with the exception of classical (at 28.7 percent), crossed the 25 percent line.

No matter what people listen to, there seems to be a common consensus as to why they listen. It seems that genres that have a fast paced, upbeat, and catchy rhythm (like pop, rap, etc.) are attractive to those who do sports, or at least, those who are looking to get pumped up. Rock also stands to achieve this goal. Most people agree that music just makes them happy. They can 'get into a mood' based of the style of the song they're listening too. I must say that I agree.

Personally, I listen to rock and metal, pop punk, and acoustics, that is, if I must limit my choices. I always listen to rock and a whole lot of metalcore. To get pumped up, I listen to rock and metal, sometimes more '80s metal than modern. To help when I'm feeling down, I listen to acoustic and pop punk. When angry, I listen to metalcore and sometimes stuff even heavier than that.

Overall, here's the final conclusion I could come up with; music is simply a force that cannot be explained. It messes with our heads, it makes us feel different emotions, sometimes even physically changes us. Music unites us. Some of those surveyed said that they've had friendships established based off music, as have I. In the end, we know that music has a wide range of effects on us. Honestly, maybe we should leave it at that.

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There have been many studies attempting to figure out just how music affects the human mind. For example, why do different people like different kinds of music, what parts of the brain are activated and if said parts are affected more or less by different kinds of music, and others.

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The growing popularity and profitability of esports are pushing high schools, universities, and non-profit groups to redefine esports and its role as a competitive activity. But is esports a sport? There's no easy answer. Esports doesn't fit neatly into any of the existing definitions of a sport, but that's only the beginning of the esports debate.

Regardless of esports' status, there are many exciting developments for the activity on the horizon.
Is an esports a real sport? When I say the word sports, what do you think of? If you're a fan, it could be football, basketball or soccer. Perhaps it's tennis or golf. For some, it might even be chess or bridge, both of which are recognized as sports by the largest international sports organization. What about competitive video gaming? Is esports a sport? What, you may ask, makes an activity a sport?

As it turns out, there's no one definitive answer. In fact, it's an ongoing debate. One that's been raging for hundreds (perhaps thousands) of years. Even the pinnacle of sports achievement and spectacle, the Olympic Games, has included (or banned) varying "sports" since its start in the 8 th century BC. In our particular moment, esports is at the center of the debate.

Defining Sport

Among the free online dictionaries, each offers a version of this theme: Sport is an activity that includes physical exertion, skill, competition, and entertainment. The one main variation on this theme: the degree of emphasis on the physical aspect of the sport.

According to the Oxford dictionary, a sport is an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment. Dictionary.com downplays the physical. How athletic, after all, is hunting and fishing?

Sport, noun.

An athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, such as racing, baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc.

It all comes down to one word. It's an and/or conundrum. Physical exertion and skill. Versus, skill or physical prowess. Wikitionary.org goes for the "or" but adds the requirement of a set of rules. The American Heritage Dictionary, on the other hand, insists that both are necessary. Merriam-Websterboils it down to bare-bones: Sport, noun. A source of diversion: RECREATION.

Choose one definition and esports qualifies as a sport. Choose another, and it's a harder sell. Sport purists tend to insist on physical athleticism. But the cultural zeitgeist is clearly skewing toward more inclusive views on sport. Should esports be considered a sport? Let's look at what some experts have to say about the matter.

The Sports Authorities

The Euro Sports charter defines sports as: "all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organized participation, aim at expressing or improving physical fitness and mental well-being, forming social relationships or obtaining results in competition at all levels."

At first glance, this definition seems to back the assertion that esports is not a sport. It would also limit the number of other activities often considered "sport." Here's a closer look at each of the components:

1. All forms of physical activity. Sure, esports isn't tremendously physical. But to compete well, esports athletes do need tremendous physical stamina. Consider as well that many call auto and air racing sports. These, too, require stamina more than physical prowess. Finally, there's that "all." Pretty all-encompassing.

2. Casual or organized participation. More than three-quarters of U.S. teens play video games(casually). Organized competitive gaming has become a billion-dollar industry.

3. Aim at expressing or improving physical fitness and mental well-being. Many so-called sports (racing, polo, golf) can't claim physical fitness as their main goal. Virtually all contenders for the title sport, however, improve mental wellbeing. Esports included.

4. Forming social relationships. Many video game enthusiasts form strong social bonds with players they never meet in person.Organized esports teams take the social aspect of gaming to a new level, bringing a purely virtual experience into the physical, social realm.

5. Obtaining results in competition at all levels. Esports tournaments offer competitive venues for high school, collegiate and pro gamers. A host of less elite leagues offer organized competitions online for gamers at virtually any level.

Other governing bodies take a broader view of what should be considered a sport. The International Olympic Committee (through ARISF) recognizes both chess and bridge (as well as air and auto sports) as bona fide sports. The largest, most all-encompassing sport organization, the Global Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF) agrees.

The GAISF recognizes numerous non-traditional, non-physical sports. Among them: bridge, chess, and checkers (draughts). Its members include organizations from a huge range of sporting endeavors. From the traditional, like tennis, ice hockey, and American football. To the less familiar, such as minigolf, tug of war, and sled dog sports.

The GAISF is considered the de facto representative of international sport. If recognizes sports as being primarily physical (boxing, football/soccer). Primarily of the mind (chess, bridge). Primarily based on coordination skills (darts, billiards). Predominantly motorized (air sports, motorcycle sports). Or primarily animal supported (polo). Within this worldview esports clearly has a place to dwell.

Sport vs. Other Leisure Activities

Sport is all about leisure. From couch-bound fans to local league participants. High school athletes to community club members. It's about how we spend our free time. Pro players don't count. Their athleticism is a job. Their spectators, absolutely do. Whether in the stands or on the couch, sports as entertainment is a break from the obligations of life.

A vast range of activities fall under the umbrella of leisure. American's favorites? Watching TV, socializing and non-work computer use. Sport comes in a close 5 th after reading. The "other" category encompasses everything from gardening to doing crossword puzzles. Most of which clearly bears no resemblance to most definitions of sport.

So what makes sports a sport? The following qualities distinguish it from gardening, reading and the like:

Physical athleticism and/or physical dexterity and skill

Structure

Standardized / agreed upon rules

Competition between two or more individuals or teams

Scorekeeping or other assessment to determine a winner

Providing entertainment for spectators

Sport vs. Competition: The ESPN Factor

Another angle in this many-faceted debate is how sports are distinguished from other competitive activities. Countless competitions are held annually across the world. Just about anything imaginable goes. Competitive eating is a thing. So is competitive wife carrying? Hoop rolling, sheep herding, and baby races can be found in the U.S and elsewhere. There's even a rock paper scissors league.

How to decide which qualify as sport? We turn to ESPN for insight. It claims to be the "Worldwide Leader in Sports" after all. Clearly an expert in all things sport. The mega-media conglomerate holds the rights to cover sports ranging from the U.S. College Football Bowl games and Major League Baseball to the Masters Golf Tournament and Formula One racing. ESPN also broadcasts Nathan's Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog-Eating Contest, which, in 2018, earned a higher viewership than any July 4 th Major League Baseball game. And it's been covering the Scripps National Spelling Bee since 1994.

We can infer then, that ESPN considers spelling and competitive eating to be a form of sport. Wife carrying, not so much. (ESPN appears to have written at least one humorous article on the topic, but has never broadcast an event.)

ESPN and Esports

Where does this sovereign of sport stand on esports? In 2014, then ESPN president John Skipper had this to say about esports: "It's not a sport-it's a competition.....Mostly, I'm interested in doing real sports."

Many found this a tad hypocritical, given the network's history of airing coverage of bass fishing and poker. (Not to mention hot dog eating.) Then, just a few months later, ESPN2 televised the collegiate esports tournament Heroes of the Dorm. The two-hour broadcast showcased students competing at multiplayer Heroes of the Storm, with play-by-play commentary by other gamers. That, as it turned out, was the tip of the iceberg.

By 2016 ESPN had added a dedicated esports section to its website. It's right there in the drop-down menu along with the NFL, boxing, and rugby. The coverage is as robust and visually dynamic as for any other sport on the list. (By the way, poker and spelling didn't make the list, drawing a deeper line in the sand between lesser sports ESPN may cover, and those worthy of their homepage.)

In March 2019, ESPN Events announced that it would host the first-ever ESPN Collegiate Esports Championship (CEC).

Defining Sport in the School Environment, part 1

At the college level, the NCAA takes a hard line on the inclusion of physical exertion in its definition of sports. It does not yet include esports on its roster. Neither does it's small-school cousin, the NAIA, which does include competitive cheer and dance as well as bowling - all once controversial in the "is it a sport" debate. In a nod to the growing esports movement, the NAIA posted an article in 2014 about the pioneering Robert Morris University's addition of esports to its varsity sports lineup. Even more telling, it sponsored the National Association of Collegiate Esports 2019 annual convention.

Despite its tight definition of sport, the NCAA appears to be edging toward accepting esports as a varsity collegiate sport. In 2017 it's Peach Belt Conference hosted the League of Legends championship in sold-out NBA-sized arenas. The PBC now includes esports on its official lineup of supported sports. Can other conferences be far behind?

In part due to Riot Games creating its own College League of Legends organization, the NCAA is reported to be taking a long, hard look at bringing esports into its fold. How serious are they? In October 2018, the NCAA's Board of Governors held an in-depth meeting on the consideration. Among the topics: How to structure an NCAA esports championship. And should esports be a fall, winter or spring sport?

In the meantime, Ohio State went around the NCAA, partnering in 2018 with the Electronic Gaming Federation. EGF now operates two distinct divisions: EGFH for high school esports and EGFC for college esports competitors.

A clear sign of the times, collegiate esports even has its own organized governing body, the National Association of Collegiate Esports (NACE). Founded in July 2018, the nonprofit's goals are straightforward. It aims to benefit its member institutions by "developing the structure and tools needed to advance collegiate esports in the varsity space." NACE is working with members to form standards for eligibility, graduation pathways, competitions, and scholarships.

NACE is currently the only association of varsity esports programs at colleges and universities across the U.S. It claims:

130+ member schools

3,000+ student-athletes

$15 million in esports scholarships and aid

Annual national convention

Private discord server (voice-over software) for athletic directors, coaches, and more

As of January 2018, more than 94% of all college-level varsity esports programs in the U.S. were members of NACE. It's 2019 National Convention topics included:

Where Should Your Program Live: Athletics, Academics, or Student Life?

Coaching in Esports

Building and Outfitting an Esports Arena

Budgeting for Your Esports Program

Student Engagement: Beyond the Athlete

It even included a session on "Esports Nutrition and Exercise." Sounds pretty sports legit, right? One of its sponsors is the aforementioned NAIA. (Can the NCAA be far behind?)

Colleges themselves have been rapidly ramping up their esports participation. In 2016, just seven schools had varsity esports programs. By 2018 there were 63 colleges and universities competing with varsity-level esports. NACE now has more than 130 member schools.

Defining Sport in the School Environment, part 2

The National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) is the governing body for most high school sports in the United States. While it serves as an umbrella for education-based athletics and activities, only three listings qualify as the latter: music, speech/debate/theater and spirit. The others are common sports ranging from Baseball to Wrestling.

The NFSH maintains an addition category labeled "other sports," which includes bowling, esports, golf, and tennis. There you have it. The lead arbiter of high school athletics says esports is a sport.

High schools and higher education, it seems, are on a parallel path with regard to the inclusion of esports. They're just a bit behind their higher-ed counterparts. And there's a bit less centralized management.

Several organizations currently compete to offer league participation to high school students. The High School Esports League (HSEL) claims to be the largest, with over 1,500 members. Relative newcomer PlayVS made a big splash with its exclusive contract with NFHS. Other esports leagues offering high school tournament play include the High School Starleague (HSEL), Youth Esports of America (YEA), the Electronic Gaming Federation for High Schools (EGFH), and the North American Scholastic Esports Federation, ( NASEF). Each offers a range of tournaments for popular games like League of Legends, Overwatch and Fortnite, Hearthstone, Rocket League, Super Smash Bros. and DUCKS NHL.

In addition to these nation-wide leagues, some states and regions offer organized high school esports action. For example, Orange County, CA, Connecticut, Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan, have established esports leagues.

Is Esports a Sport? The Final Verdict

It turns out that sport may, in fact, be a cultural construct. Ask "what is a sport" and the answer changes across time and geography. Bullfighting, after all, is the national sport of Spain. Ancient Mexicans played "field hockey" with a flaming ball. A generation ago, the idea of skateboarding in the Olympic Games would have been unthinkable. (Yet the International Olympic Committee has approved its inclusion in the 2020 summer games.) In the U.S., the popularity of the NFL is waning. Esports viewership is expected to surpass all pro sports other than the NFL by 2021.

Colleges, high schools - even parents and teachers - are embracing competitive electronic sports as a positive activity for students. Many wholeheartedly defend esports as a sport. The point of view of teacher and edtech specialist Chris Aviles is particularly convincing, given his personal background. He says:

I was a good high school athlete. I've played sports at the collegiate level. I've also coached varsity sports for ten years. I also enjoy playing video games on a competitive level. I'm pretty good at those, too. Having a foot in both worlds, I have no problem saying esports is as valuable to a student's social/emotional development as any other sport. Esports athletes are athletes. All the social/emotional learning and soft skills I developed in football, wrestling, track, and rugby can be developed through esports.

Let's take a final look at the criteria for sport outlined above.

Physical athleticism and/or physical dexterity and skill. Check. Esports requires dexterity, quick reflexes, and physical stamina.

Structure. Check. There are numerous collegiate, high school, and recreational leagues and governing organizations.

Standardized/agreed upon rules. Check. The aforementioned organizations and leagues have developed standardized esports tournament formats and rules.

Competition between two or more individuals or teams. Check. There are hundreds of esports leagues, thousands of esports teams and countless numbers of esports athletes in the U.S. alone.

Scorekeeping or other assessment to determine a winner. Check. Esports games, leagues, and tournaments track performance and honor the victors.

Providing entertainment for spectators. Check. Millions worldwide watch esports for entertainment. Massive media networks like ESPN, along with online media like Twitch provide broadcast, streamed and live-viewing of esports for spectators.

What do you think? Is esports a sport? At the time of this writing, we say, you bet!

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The growing popularity and profitability of esports are pushing high schools, universities, and non-profit groups to redefine esports and its role as a competitive activity. But is esports a sport? There's no easy answer. Esports doesn't fit neatly into any of the existing definitions of a sport, but that's only the beginning of the esports debate.

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A face mask lies discarded on the beach, in Cilento, Saint Maria di Castellabate Italy. (Photo by ... [+]
KONTROLAB/LightRocket via Getty Images

It's clear enough from the discarded masks and gloves polluting landscapes and the ocean that many humans have not grasped the environmental message of the coronavirus pandemic.

"Now we must become more proactive to avoid another pandemic and address endemic zoonotic diseases," said Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). "This means recognizing that human health, animal health and planetary health cannot be separated, and planning our responses accordingly."

Since COVID-19 swept across the globe earlier this year, scientists have documented the ways that the virus emerged from-and worsened because of-human interaction with the air we breathe, the food we eat, the wild spaces that surround us. Among the lessons they've learned:
1 Clean The Air
Air pollution is known to cause many of the underlying conditions-the notorious co-morbidities like lung and heart disease -that render coronavirus lethal for some patients. But that's not the only way COVID-19 interacts with air pollution.

Early in Italy's outbreak, a team of scientists led by the University of Bologna's Leonardo Setti found COVID-19 RNA attached to particles of air pollution in Bergamo. Setti's discovery raises the possibility that COVID-19 travels on particulate air pollution.

"This is the first preliminary evidence that SARS-CoV-2 RNA can be present on outdoor particulate matter," Setti writes in Environmental Research, "thus suggesting that, in conditions of atmospheric stability and high concentrations of PM, SARS-CoV-2 could create clusters with outdoor PM and, by reducing their diffusion coefficient, enhance the persistence of the virus in the atmosphere."

A subsequent study by Romanian scientists compared particulate air pollution levels in Milan from January to April to COVID total cases, new cases, and deaths.

"In spite of being considered primarily transmitted by indoor bioaerosols, droplets and infected surfaces, or direct human-to-human personal contacts, it seems that high levels of urban air pollution, weather and specific climate conditions have a significant impact on the increased rates of confirmed COVID-19," the Romanians conclude.

Valentina Bosetti, a senior scientist at the European Institute on Economics and the Environment, confirmed that there are two ways air pollution may influence how COVID affects people: by causing preconditions and by keeping the virus aloft longer.

"Both angles are interesting," Bosetti said on Resources Radio, but finer data on air pollution is needed. "I think it's very hard to get the final word on this."
2 Preserve Wild Spaces
In the wake of HIV, Ebola and SARS, scientists documented a potential path for viruses from bats, who have an enviable immunity to them, through other mammals to humans. Some scientists and doctors have further argued that path is paved by deforestation.

"Deforestation and the sale of live wild animals or bushmeat, such as bats and monkeys, make the emergence of new viruses inevitable, while population growth, dense urbanization and human migration make their spread easier," said Dr. Seth Berkley, head of the GAVI Alliance-a non-profit international vaccine initiative- writing in Scientific American.

Bats are not the problem, scientists agree. In fact, their immune systems may hold the answer to viral epidemics, they are not the primary carrier of these viruses to humans, and when these zoonotic diseases do reach humans, it is typically through human activity.
3 Broaden Our Notion of Health
"COVID-19 is one of the worst zoonotic diseases, but it is not the first," said UNEP's Anderson. "Ebola, SARS, MERS, HIV, Lyme disease, Rift Valley fever and Lassa fever preceded it. In the last century we have seen at least six major outbreaks of novel coronaviruses. Sixty per cent of known infectious diseases and 75 percent of emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic. Over the last two decades and before COVID-19, zoonotic diseases caused economic damage of $100 billion."

There are many solutions, Anderson said, which also serve as solutions for climate change and biodiversity loss: stop exploiting wildlife and natural resources, farm sustainably, reverse land degradation and protect ecosystem health.

But Anderson believes we also must stop thinking of human health separately from animal health and environmental health.

"Part of this process is the urgent adoption of integrated human, animal and environmental health expertise and policy - a One Health approach. One Health is not new, but uneven uptake and institutional support means it hasn't hit its potential. The weakest link in the chain is environmental health. We have to fix this."
4 Just Eat Plants
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, called in April for the closure of live-animal markets like the one in Wuhan where COVID-19 is believed to have leapt from animals to humans:

"I think they should shut down those things right away," he told the hosts of Fox & Friends. "It boggles my mind when you have so many diseases that emanate out of that unusual human-animal interface that we don't just shut it down."

But some doctors see little distinction between Wuhan's live-animal market and the live-animal slaughterhouses and meat processing centers in the West.

There are 15 diseases in cattle with the potential to leap to humans, according to Virginia State University's cooperative extension, including anthrax, salmonellosis and tuberculosis. Chickens also carry salmonella, as well as bird flu, campylobacter, and E. coli. In July, the Centers for Disease Control raised the alarm about an evolving H1n1 influenza -a swine flu-with characteristics suggesting it could leap to humans.

Those diseases may spring less of a surprise than COVID-19 did, but the novel coronavirus too has demonstrated a close relationship with meat handling, even in the West.

"Multiple outbreaks of COVID-19 among meat and poultry processing facility workers have occurred in the United States recently," the CDC reported this month.

Writing in the brand-new Journal of Disease Reversal and Prevention, a group of Chicago doctors cited these facts-as well as the relationship between meat consumption and heart disease-as they called for a reassessment of the human diet:

"Given that the two largest pandemics in the past 100 years revolve around our food choices-specifically, the consumption of animals-we would propose a global moratorium on this," write Dr. Mashaal Ikram and Dr. Waddah Malas of Mercy Hospital and Rush University Chief of Cardiology Kim Allan Williams, Sr., "and re-evaluation of our food sources and nutritional choices."
5 Listen To Science
On the bright side, the coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated a human ability to respond to environmental threats at the individual level on a global scale.

"The general public has been compliant-I would say surprisingly compliant-accepting changes in their lives that are uncomfortable if not wrenching," said Princeton theoretical physicist Robert Socolow, who has focused in his career on human interactions with their natural environment.

"The words widely spoken these five months have been identical" to the messaging around climate change, he said: "You must listen to the scientists. But in this case the scientists have been listened to."

Unfortunately, our species seems willing to listen only when faced with imminent threats, letting long-term threats like climate change, biodiversity loss and plastic pollution worsen.

"It's very hard for the human brain to get very excited about things that aren't happening now," Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert told NPR. "That's why people have trouble getting up and flossing in the morning-because the dental problems that they're going to accrue are pretty far off."

As long as we don't floss away pollution, climate change and biodiversity loss, they will continue to throw more and more immediate threats, including more pandemics, in our direction.

So the coronavirus pandemic offers vital lessons for future threats.

"The U.S. has fared worse than other countries not because it lacked information or funding," said Dr. Ali S. Khan, director of the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "but because it failed to learn the lessons of the last outbreaks."

... Read More

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Five Environmental Lessons Coronavirus Could Teach Humanity, If Humanity Would Listen

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It's clear enough from the discarded masks and gloves polluting landscapes and the ocean that many humans have not grasped the environmental message of the coronavirus pandemic. "Now we must become more proactive to avoid another pandemic and address endemic zoonotic diseases," said Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

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The changes in our lifestyle from the pandemic

As I mentioned before, you theme is amazing! Now, consider a more appealing title... be more specific about what you will be talking about. Lifestyle is too open. Remember?

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The influence of music on our lives - Exploring your mind

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What is the influence of music on our lives, minds and emotions? Read on to find out how music can be both good and bad for our emotional health.

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https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jocn.15257

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In the unparalleled and extraordinary public health emergency in which we find ourselves, across the world nurses stand as we always do-at the front line. Nurses everywhere are staffing our clinics, hospital wards and units-in some situations, literally working until they drop, and in some regions, they are doing so while dealing with a lack of essential items. Indeed, we see reports that nurses in many parts of the world are grappling with shortages of much‐needed supplies including personal protective equipments such as masks, gloves and gowns, yet are actively embracing the challenges presented by COVID‐19.

As we contemplate the ramifications of this rapidly moving global pandemic, it is clear that the need for nurses has never been greater. In responding to this dire and unprecedented health crisis, as nurses, we are doing what we have been educated and prepared to do. As nurses, we have the knowledge and skills to deliver the care needed in all phases of the illness trajectory, and in reassuring, informing and supporting people within communities who are frightened, worried and wanting to stay well. As we have seen throughout history, nurses are well able to think outside the box, and develop creative and innovative solutions to all manner of problems, conundrums and challenges. However, there remains much about this current situation that is new and frightening. For one is the speed of the spread of COVID‐19. In the fight against COVID‐19, we are working against the clock. The trajectory of this situation is such that in some areas, infection rates are doubling every 24 hr or so, and this is leading to increasing community anxiety manifesting in various ways including panic buying and hoarding of essential supplies.

It is clear that this health crisis will not affect everyone in the same way. The very strong public health message is to stay home, and stay safe within that home, in the assumption that everyone has a home that is safe, and within which they have some autonomy. There is some speculation as to whether rates of domestic violence might increase at this time as a result of the extraordinary strain that families face. Poverty is also an issue. It is well known and accepted that those who are homeless and impoverished have many less options when faced with health problems, and the challenges faced by these people will be much greater in this time of pandemic (Tsai & Wilson, 2020). Similarly, people who are captive or imprisoned for any reason, such as in corrections or refugee environments and other similar settings, are particularly vulnerable (Iacobucci, 2020).

Older adults are high users of services across primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare settings. Many in this group live with multiple health and social issues that increase their vulnerability, now further exacerbated by the need for social distancing. Older people are known to be at greater risk of calamitous outcomes associated with COVID‐19, and this dire picture is likely to be exacerbated because of the potential for rationing of care based on age, simply because there are not enough ventilators and other life‐saving equipments to meet demand. The risk to older people is greater than to others, and in many countries, limitations on older people activities are in place in attempts to reduce risk of exposure. In several countries, restrictions on visiting nursing homes are in place and people over 70 years of age asked to reduce outings and remain indoors as much as possible to decrease contact with others and reduce the risk of contracting the virus. While necessary, this could put older people at risk of loneliness, isolation and exacerbation of existing problems, and so it is very important that we all look out for older people in our neighbourhoods and provide support, assistance and safe social interaction as required.

Nurses are at the forefront in institutional settings such as nursing homes and prisons, with homeless people, and other hard to reach populations and are grappling with the effects of low health literacy, rapidity of change and health information, and a lack of resources to ensure that all know and understand what is required to keep them safe. It is so important that we all support these vulnerable populations and the nurses working within them by advocating for resources including adequate safe accommodation for all.

We know from our colleagues that despite being actively engaged in this fight against COVID‐19, in a way that few other professions are, and despite appearing calm and professional; like everyone else, many nurses are also experiencing fear of the unknown and concern for what lies ahead, for themselves, their patients, colleagues and their own families and friends. In addition to being nurses, we are also parents, siblings, friends and partners with all of the worries and concerns shared by most people-providing for and protecting ourselves and our families, and so in addition to caring for patients, the well‐being of our own families weighs heavily on us as nurses at this time.

The global nature of this crisis means that while all countries are engaged in the battle against COVID‐19, some have been in the fight for longer and so there is the opportunity to learn from other countries. Indeed, in watching the unfolding horror particularly in Italy, we see just what can (and will) happen in the event that measures such as social distancing, hand hygiene and quarantine are not fully embraced by all in our communities.

Earlier this year, Hong Kong was one of the first places in the world affected by the COVID‐19 virus, evoking unwanted memories of the SARS outbreak of 2003 (Smith, Ng, & Ho Cheung Li, 2020). Despite initial fears, the spread of the virus appeared to have been effectively controlled over the last two months through the use of stringent measures, including practice of good personal hygiene, avoidance of group gatherings and implementation of social isolation measures. Indeed, by the beginning of March 2020 some public services in Hong Kong had started to resume normal activity and many people were returning to the workplace. In some part, these successes were due to the excellence of the clinical nursing workforce. We saw some stability in other countries in the same region including Singapore and Taiwan. There was hope that the corner had been turned in the fight against COVID‐19; however, this has turned out not to be the case. Very recently, Hong Kong and several other South‐East Asian countries have started to face the second wave of imported coronavirus infections, with the total number of cases in Hong Kong doubling during this period. The vast majority of these new cases have involved people flying to South‐East Asia from abroad, especially students returning from North America and Europe, where COVID‐19 infection has been escalating. Singapore and Taiwan, which had each taken comfort from seeing new infections taper off in recent weeks, have also seen surges of COVID‐19 cases amongst arrivals in recent days. Health officials from these densely populated countries are now struggling to contain the new cases to avoid any new community outbreaks.

A similar picture emerged in mainland China. After some sustained and marked reductions in the spread of the virus, China's National Health Commission have recently announced that all new reported cases were imported from overseas. Despite many people fully recovering from COVID‐19 infection in China, there has been some concern that a new subset of patients affected by the virus may be emerging. There are reports that a handful of the many thousands of people declared cured after treatment have been readmitted to hospitals because their symptoms have returned. At the time of writing, this worrying feature of COVID‐19 infection is only beginning to receive attention by the medical community, but clearly requires close consideration in the ongoing global fight against COVID‐19.

Across the world, there are concerns that nursing's capacity to provide care will be stretched by the increased workload and by the number of front‐line nurses that are expected to be affected by COVID‐19. In Australia, authorities are considering various mechanisms such as fast‐tracking return to registration of qualified nurses who may be recently retired and allowing limited registration to people who may be suitable such as internationally qualified nurses. In the United Kingdom, there has also been a call for recently retired nurses to return to practice. Other planned strategies include establishing a COVID‐19 temporary register for nurses who have left the register within the past three years, who will be able to opt into this register. Registered nurses not currently working clinically will be encouraged to consider working within clinical practice, and undergraduate nursing students will be able to opt to undertake the final six months of their programme as a clinical placement. Part of the COVID‐19 temporary register is to include a specific student element for those in the final six months of their preregistration programme and will include details of specific conditions to ensure appropriate safeguards are in place. The fine details are still in development, and there may need to be further measures in what is a continually changing situation.

In considering introducing new cadres of nurses, there are also issues around risk, retraining, refreshing and renewing knowledge. While there are some aspects of nursing that may not have changed too much over the years, health is generally a rapidly evolving field and particularly in the current situation. In contemplating returning to direct care giving roles, many retired nurses or others contemplating re‐entry may have legitimate concerns about the real contribution that they could make in the current crises, particularly when considering direct care delivery and technological advancements in practice. It will be necessary to consider carefully any possible risk for nurses returning from retirement, and the potential ways these nurses could meaningfully contribute. This may be in working in quieter areas to free up current staff, and working in roles supporting front‐line nurses. Either way, it will be crucial to have adequate learning and resourcing available to support these new cadres of nurses. However, as we identify innovative ways to provide a nursing workforce during this time of urgency, it is important that whatever we implement is safe and appropriate for staff and for patients. Patient safety is paramount and integral to nursing practice.

Nurses generally become nurses because of the desire to help people regain and maintain optimal health, and here, we have a situation where there may be very few options to help those who are seriously ill because of COVID‐19. This inability to save lives will take its toll on those at the front line, both physically and emotionally.

As nurses, we know death. We have seen loss of life, and we have borne witness to the pain and the suffering of the dying and the grief of those left behind. For nurses, particularly in environments where the focus is on life preserving, such as emergency departments and intensive care units, death can represent failure, and so is therefore a source of stress and distress for the medical and nursing teams in these settings. We are now in a situation where nurses everywhere are bracing for what really is a tsunami of death. Our colleagues in China and Italy have and are leading the way, and we have seen reports and first‐hand accounts of the distress and exhaustion of our Chinese and Italian colleagues who have been (and are) faced with large‐scale death on a daily basis.

All aspects of nursing activity are affected by this pandemic, and healthcare facilities have responded to nursing education student clinical needs in a variety of ways. Some have restricted student presence in their organisations, while others welcome healthy students. Academic nurses have also been quick to modify in the light of the crisis caused by COVID‐19 and many have very quickly moved to online course delivery, including strategising to ensure reasonable student engagement, and making appropriate changes to examination procedures. There is also the need to recognise that many nurses currently enrolled in post‐graduate courses may now have their current studies jeopardised because of cancellation of study leave or other pre‐existing work patterns that can now no longer be guaranteed. Nurse educators and administrators are tasked with ensuring that students meet academic requirements while recognising the current pressures faced by health services and the need for nurses to be able to simultaneously meet the demands on them as nurses, students, parents, siblings, partners and the myriad of other roles that each nurse has to manage in their daily lives.

The way this crisis has unfolded has meant that we have all sorts of new challenges in seeking to meet the health needs of our populations. For example, we have situations of cruise ships left sailing from port‐to‐port unable to dock; others inadvertently offloading passengers who are ill and contagious into communities, with health services left to set about tracing crew, passengers and those with whom they have been into contact. We have to prepare for the potential ramifications if COVID‐19 takes hold in very vulnerable populations, such as prisons where it will be very hard to contain because of the proximity of people. There is also the aftermath to consider. Of critical importance will be nurses' responses to the increased anxiety and mental health needs of the population as well as within the nursing community.

These are very difficult times, and the scale of the challenges is unprecedented. Every single one of us has a role to play in supporting and advocating for the health of our communities, and in supporting nurses everywhere. Nurses are the backbone of health systems around the world, and this has never been more apparent than now. Amidst all the uncertainty about the virus and how long it might take before life begins to return to normal, there can be no doubt that nursing and the provision of health care will come out the other side of this pandemic stronger and better prepared to face future challenges.

We write these "reflections" in the moment, as the impacts of the pandemic unfold around us daily. We are all living it right now. When it is over, we look back and reflect upon it and with the benefit of hindsight, might make normative judgements regarding what we ought to have done and what might have been best at a certain time. Right now, we all need to be kind to each other (and ourselves) as we grapple with new ways of living and working. We want to thank nurses everywhere for their tireless efforts in this unparalleled health emergency.

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In the unparalleled and extraordinary public health emergency in which we find ourselves, across the world nurses stand as we always do-at the front line. Nurses everywhere are staffing our clinics, hospital wards and units-in some situations, literally working until they drop, and in some regions, they are doing so while dealing with a lack of essential items. Indeed, we see reports that nurses in many parts of the world are grappling with shortages of much‐needed supplies including personal protective equipments such as masks, gloves and gowns, yet are actively embracing the challenges presented by COVID‐19.

As we contemplate the ramifications of this rapidly moving global pandemic, it is clear that the need for nurses has never been greater. In responding to this dire and unprecedented health crisis, as nurses, we are doing what we have been educated and prepared to do. As nurses, we have the knowledge and skills to deliver the care needed in all phases of the illness trajectory, and in reassuring, informing and supporting people within communities who are frightened, worried and wanting to stay well. As we have seen throughout history, nurses are well able to think outside the box, and develop creative and innovative solutions to all manner of problems, conundrums and challenges. However, there remains much about this current situation that is new and frightening. For one is the speed of the spread of COVID‐19. In the fight against COVID‐19, we are working against the clock. The trajectory of this situation is such that in some areas, infection rates are doubling every 24 hr or so, and this is leading to increasing community anxiety manifesting in various ways including panic buying and hoarding of essential supplies.

It is clear that this health crisis will not affect everyone in the same way. The very strong public health message is to stay home, and stay safe within that home, in the assumption that everyone has a home that is safe, and within which they have some autonomy. There is some speculation as to whether rates of domestic violence might increase at this time as a result of the extraordinary strain that families face. Poverty is also an issue. It is well known and accepted that those who are homeless and impoverished have many less options when faced with health problems, and the challenges faced by these people will be much greater in this time of pandemic (Tsai & Wilson, ). Similarly, people who are captive or imprisoned for any reason, such as in corrections or refugee environments and other similar settings, are particularly vulnerable (Iacobucci, ).

Older adults are high users of services across primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare settings. Many in this group live with multiple health and social issues that increase their vulnerability, now further exacerbated by the need for social distancing. Older people are known to be at greater risk of calamitous outcomes associated with COVID‐19, and this dire picture is likely to be exacerbated because of the potential for rationing of care based on age, simply because there are not enough ventilators and other life‐saving equipments to meet demand. The risk to older people is greater than to others, and in many countries, limitations on older people activities are in place in attempts to reduce risk of exposure. In several countries, restrictions on visiting nursing homes are in place and people over 70 years of age asked to reduce outings and remain indoors as much as possible to decrease contact with others and reduce the risk of contracting the virus. While necessary, this could put older people at risk of loneliness, isolation and exacerbation of existing problems, and so it is very important that we all look out for older people in our neighbourhoods and provide support, assistance and safe social interaction as required.

Nurses are at the forefront in institutional settings such as nursing homes and prisons, with homeless people, and other hard to reach populations and are grappling with the effects of low health literacy, rapidity of change and health information, and a lack of resources to ensure that all know and understand what is required to keep them safe. It is so important that we all support these vulnerable populations and the nurses working within them by advocating for resources including adequate safe accommodation for all.

We know from our colleagues that despite being actively engaged in this fight against COVID‐19, in a way that few other professions are, and despite appearing calm and professional; like everyone else, many nurses are also experiencing fear of the unknown and concern for what lies ahead, for themselves, their patients, colleagues and their own families and friends. In addition to being nurses, we are also parents, siblings, friends and partners with all of the worries and concerns shared by most people-providing for and protecting ourselves and our families, and so in addition to caring for patients, the well‐being of our own families weighs heavily on us as nurses at this time.

The global nature of this crisis means that while all countries are engaged in the battle against COVID‐19, some have been in the fight for longer and so there is the opportunity to learn from other countries. Indeed, in watching the unfolding horror particularly in Italy, we see just what can (and will) happen in the event that measures such as social distancing, hand hygiene and quarantine are not fully embraced by all in our communities.

Earlier this year, Hong Kong was one of the first places in the world affected by the COVID‐19 virus, evoking unwanted memories of the SARS outbreak of 2003 (Smith, Ng, & Ho Cheung Li, ). Despite initial fears, the spread of the virus appeared to have been effectively controlled over the last two months through the use of stringent measures, including practice of good personal hygiene, avoidance of group gatherings and implementation of social isolation measures. Indeed, by the beginning of March 2020 some public services in Hong Kong had started to resume normal activity and many people were returning to the workplace. In some part, these successes were due to the excellence of the clinical nursing workforce. We saw some stability in other countries in the same region including Singapore and Taiwan. There was hope that the corner had been turned in the fight against COVID‐19; however, this has turned out not to be the case. Very recently, Hong Kong and several other South‐East Asian countries have started to face the second wave of imported coronavirus infections, with the total number of cases in Hong Kong doubling during this period. The vast majority of these new cases have involved people flying to South‐East Asia from abroad, especially students returning from North America and Europe, where COVID‐19 infection has been escalating. Singapore and Taiwan, which had each taken comfort from seeing new infections taper off in recent weeks, have also seen surges of COVID‐19 cases amongst arrivals in recent days. Health officials from these densely populated countries are now struggling to contain the new cases to avoid any new community outbreaks.

A similar picture emerged in mainland China. After some sustained and marked reductions in the spread of the virus, China's National Health Commission have recently announced that all new reported cases were imported from overseas. Despite many people fully recovering from COVID‐19 infection in China, there has been some concern that a new subset of patients affected by the virus may be emerging. There are reports that a handful of the many thousands of people declared cured after treatment have been readmitted to hospitals because their symptoms have returned. At the time of writing, this worrying feature of COVID‐19 infection is only beginning to receive attention by the medical community, but clearly requires close consideration in the ongoing global fight against COVID‐19.

Across the world, there are concerns that nursing's capacity to provide care will be stretched by the increased workload and by the number of front‐line nurses that are expected to be affected by COVID‐19. In Australia, authorities are considering various mechanisms such as fast‐tracking return to registration of qualified nurses who may be recently retired and allowing limited registration to people who may be suitable such as internationally qualified nurses. In the United Kingdom, there has also been a call for recently retired nurses to return to practice. Other planned strategies include establishing a COVID‐19 temporary register for nurses who have left the register within the past three years, who will be able to opt into this register. Registered nurses not currently working clinically will be encouraged to consider working within clinical practice, and undergraduate nursing students will be able to opt to undertake the final six months of their programme as a clinical placement. Part of the COVID‐19 temporary register is to include a specific student element for those in the final six months of their preregistration programme and will include details of specific conditions to ensure appropriate safeguards are in place. The fine details are still in development, and there may need to be further measures in what is a continually changing situation.

In considering introducing new cadres of nurses, there are also issues around risk, retraining, refreshing and renewing knowledge. While there are some aspects of nursing that may not have changed too much over the years, health is generally a rapidly evolving field and particularly in the current situation. In contemplating returning to direct care giving roles, many retired nurses or others contemplating re‐entry may have legitimate concerns about the real contribution that they could make in the current crises, particularly when considering direct care delivery and technological advancements in practice. It will be necessary to consider carefully any possible risk for nurses returning from retirement, and the potential ways these nurses could meaningfully contribute. This may be in working in quieter areas to free up current staff, and working in roles supporting front‐line nurses. Either way, it will be crucial to have adequate learning and resourcing available to support these new cadres of nurses. However, as we identify innovative ways to provide a nursing workforce during this time of urgency, it is important that whatever we implement is safe and appropriate for staff and for patients. Patient safety is paramount and integral to nursing practice.

Nurses generally become nurses because of the desire to help people regain and maintain optimal health, and here, we have a situation where there may be very few options to help those who are seriously ill because of COVID‐19. This inability to save lives will take its toll on those at the front line, both physically and emotionally.

As nurses, we know death. We have seen loss of life, and we have borne witness to the pain and the suffering of the dying and the grief of those left behind. For nurses, particularly in environments where the focus is on life preserving, such as emergency departments and intensive care units, death can represent failure, and so is therefore a source of stress and distress for the medical and nursing teams in these settings. We are now in a situation where nurses everywhere are bracing for what really is a tsunami of death. Our colleagues in China and Italy have and are leading the way, and we have seen reports and first‐hand accounts of the distress and exhaustion of our Chinese and Italian colleagues who have been (and are) faced with large‐scale death on a daily basis.

All aspects of nursing activity are affected by this pandemic, and healthcare facilities have responded to nursing education student clinical needs in a variety of ways. Some have restricted student presence in their organisations, while others welcome healthy students. Academic nurses have also been quick to modify in the light of the crisis caused by COVID‐19 and many have very quickly moved to online course delivery, including strategising to ensure reasonable student engagement, and making appropriate changes to examination procedures. There is also the need to recognise that many nurses currently enrolled in post‐graduate courses may now have their current studies jeopardised because of cancellation of study leave or other pre‐existing work patterns that can now no longer be guaranteed. Nurse educators and administrators are tasked with ensuring that students meet academic requirements while recognising the current pressures faced by health services and the need for nurses to be able to simultaneously meet the demands on them as nurses, students, parents, siblings, partners and the myriad of other roles that each nurse has to manage in their daily lives.

The way this crisis has unfolded has meant that we have all sorts of new challenges in seeking to meet the health needs of our populations. For example, we have situations of cruise ships left sailing from port‐to‐port unable to dock; others inadvertently offloading passengers who are ill and contagious into communities, with health services left to set about tracing crew, passengers and those with whom they have been into contact. We have to prepare for the potential ramifications if COVID‐19 takes hold in very vulnerable populations, such as prisons where it will be very hard to contain because of the proximity of people. There is also the aftermath to consider. Of critical importance will be nurses' responses to the increased anxiety and mental health needs of the population as well as within the nursing community.

These are very difficult times, and the scale of the challenges is unprecedented. Every single one of us has a role to play in supporting and advocating for the health of our communities, and in supporting nurses everywhere. Nurses are the backbone of health systems around the world, and this has never been more apparent than now. Amidst all the uncertainty about the virus and how long it might take before life begins to return to normal, there can be no doubt that nursing and the provision of health care will come out the other side of this pandemic stronger and better prepared to face future challenges.

We write these "reflections" in the moment, as the impacts of the pandemic unfold around us daily. We are all living it right now. When it is over, we look back and reflect upon it and with the benefit of hindsight, might make normative judgements regarding what we ought to have done and what might have been best at a certain time. Right now, we all need to be kind to each other (and ourselves) as we grapple with new ways of living and working. We want to thank nurses everywhere for their tireless efforts in this unparalleled health emergency.

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Life in the pandemic: Some reflections on nursing in the context of COVID‐19

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In the unparalleled and extraordinary public health emergency in which we find ourselves, across the world nurses stand as we always do-at the front line.

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Overview Industry leaders in the sports tech space provide their insights about whether esports is a sport.

"People huddle around a TV and they watch football and they don't participate, but they just love watching," Ruggiero said in an interview with The Aspen Institute.

"Kids might do the same thing with esports. You can't deny the numbers."

Here are what industry leaders in the sports tech arena had to add to the discussion about whether esports is a sport.

It brings people together socially - bridging both the jocks and the nerds - through shared competition. It gives players a sense of accomplishment, belonging, camaraderie, and an appreciation for hard work. Esports also has spectators, often many more than at physical sports events.

Yes, esports isn't just hype. It produces real-world impacts: The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. And it is on its way to being a bigger business than traditional sports.

Sarah Iooss, Head of Sales, Twitch

In the last decade, esports has grown into a multi-billion dollar industry, with studies suggesting that it will have more viewers that most major professional sports leagues by 2021. Mirroring traditional sports, professional esports leagues have cropped up in Overwatch, League of Legends and others, led by some of the most talented gamers across the globe and household brands including Coca-Cola, Red Bull and Honda are getting involved.

We're seeing the same kinds of fandom and emotion that brands have successfully connected into the traditional sports sector for years with esports: It's an industry rife with opportunities for amazing storytelling. And personally, I'm excited to see women continue to rise in esports.

Bryan de Zayas, Global Marketing Director, Dell and Alienware

Additionally, they both experience the physical and mental challenges of fine-tuning their athletic skills through countless hours of training. Esports and traditional sports athletes embody similar qualities in order to compete against the best players in the world.

Matt Roberts, Director of Research and Analytics, Formula 1

It's like darts or snooker, which are both classified as sports; people make careers out of them and there are sports world championships around them, though they are not known to be as physically taxing as traditional sports like basketball.

It also brings the joy and thrill of on field athletic competition to people from all walks of life who would otherwise never be able to play the live sport!

Learn more about how industry experts see esports evolving and engaging fans by watching session from the CES 2020 Gaming and Esports conference program.

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Overview Industry leaders in the sports tech space provide their insights about whether esports is a sport. "People huddle around a TV and they watch football and they don't participate, but they just love watching," Ruggiero said in an interview with The Aspen Institute. "Kids might do the same thing with esports.

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Esports teams are a relatively new concept. Having grown in scale rapidly over the last decade, esports teams are now taking on traditional sports teams in the fight for public popularity.

So, how do esports teams make money? Esports teams make money from several different sources:

Prize money from competitions

Sponsorship

Streaming and TV rights (along with the associated advertising revenue)

Merchandising

Public appearances

In the rest of this article, we'll examine these sources of income and explain how each can earn money for an esports team.

Esports Prize Money From Competitions

The primary goal of every esports team is to earn prize money by winning competitions. Participation in competitions usually requires an entry fee and a lot of hard work practicing. However, the potential rewards are enormous.

One game alone - - has distributed in total prize money over the last few years. over $200 million While the majority of these winnings come from one competition (The International), even smaller Dota competitions can offer prizes of more than $100,000.

While this may sound like a lot of money for playing a few games over a weekend, you also need to think about how the funds will be spent and split:

Entry fees. Before reaching the finals of a top tournament, a team will have had to practice or qualify in several smaller competitions. These competitions usually have entry fees that quickly add up.

Travel. Next, the team has to travel to the tournament. Seven people traveling cross-country with the associated flights, hotels, food, and transportation can easily cost upwards of $5,000.

Staff costs. Support staff salaries and management fees can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Investors' cut. Some sponsorship or investment deals may include a cut of the winnings from competitions. Depending on the cut, this can be anywhere from a few hundred dollars to $100,000+.

Team savings. Smart teams will put some money aside to cover unexpected expenses.

Hardware costs. Professional players need top-of-the-line hardware to compete at the highest levels. In many cases, the esports organization will pay for this hardware.

Player's cut. After making all the other deductions, each player's share of the prize money will be a small percentage of the overall prize.

After considering all the deductions and the actual return, many teams will realize they require additional sources of income.

Sponsorships for Esports

As with traditional physical sports, sponsorships are an excellent way to fund the team's operation.

Typical sponsorship packages may include:

Branded clothing for players to wear at the competition.

Keyboards, mice, controllers, and graphics cards are all common devices a sponsor may provide as part of their package. Be careful with these types of deals, as you will be expected to use the supplied equipment in competitions and on stream.

Travel costs are often included in sponsorship deals. Make sure you understand the terms of such arrangements before booking any plane tickets, though.

Media features are often obligatory, and you may be required to attend interviews or supply information for articles about the team.

Cash and salaries may form part of a sponsorship package. Make sure you understand the terms of this cash and any obligations related to it, including whether the sponsor is eligible for a proportion of competition winnings.

Here's the takeaway from this section: if you run an esports organization, you must carefully consider all sponsorship offers before accepting them. A bad sponsorship deal may leave you trapped for months or years in an agreement you no longer find favourable.

But on the flip side, a good sponsorship deal can bring in a ton of revenue or help boost your team's visibility. So sponsorships are definitely worth taking - you just need to make sure the terms work for you.

Esports Teams streaming rights and advertising

Esports are becoming more and more popular as spectator sports. Most professional gamers stream their practice sessions and competitive matches online for others to watch. And when streaming or video creation, it is usually possible to monetize the stream or video with advertising.

The revenue you build up from this source will be directly linked to the number of people watching. For high viewing figures and associated revenue, your team needs to have a strong social media following. Team members' personalities and likeability are just as important as their gaming skills.

Esports Teams Merchandise

Merchandising is a classic way for sports teams to make money - and it works in esports as well.

Fans love to represent their favourite teams. As such, placing your logo on T-shirts, mousepads, water bottles, and other items is an easy way to generate income.

Many websites will dropship on-demand printed merch, meaning you don't need to invest in any upfront stock. For small teams trying to make a name for themselves, this is a great way to generate income without significant investment or risky sponsorship deal.

Esports Teams public appearances

Esports teams can make money with event appearances, cutting ribbons at a newly opening computer shop, or being special guests at amateur competitions.

While these gigs aren't all that glamorous, the appearance fees can provide a great source of income. Arranging this type of work is an ideal task for your team manager.

How much prize money is available?

The largest esports prize pool available in 2019 was the prize pool for the Dota 2 International Series.

The International 2019 had a total prize pool of . The top 18 teams all took a split of the winnings.

While this prize pool is jaw-droppingly huge, most events have more modest prizes. Smaller tournaments and qualifiers typically offer winnings in the tens of thousands of dollars.

What are the typical earnings of a professional esports player?

If you are deciding to join an esports team, you should expect to enter at the lower end of the market. It takes a lot of practice and publicity to work your way up to the higher leagues.

A professional player's earnings are linked to the level they play at.

Good amateurs who are dipping their toes into the professional world may start out earning just a few hundred dollars from amateur competition prize money.

On the flip side, those at the top of their game can win hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars as their share of an international tournament top spot.

Average professional gamers are somewhere in the middle. Typical earnings for a mid-tier professional gamer are between $3,000 and $15,000 per month.

Final thoughts

Esports teams have the potential to make significant revenue from several sources.

Prize money is the most lucrative form of income with top prizes in the 6 or 7 figure range. Even mid-ranking teams can earn enough money to keep a team of professionals gainfully employed.

Other forms of income for esports teams include sponsorships, streaming ad revenue, merchandising, and public appearance fees.

While the prize money may sound a lot, the costs of running the team, travelling to tournaments, and the split between team members, drastically reduces the total earnings for individual players.

The popularity of esports will explode over the coming decade. They will most likely become as popular - if not more popular - than traditional spectator sports such as baseball and basketball.

So if you want to join this rapidly expanding world of esports, get involved now.

Hone your skills on one of the high-value games, and make sure you build a social following. These two factors combined will give you the best chance of esports success.

Continue Reading:

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How Do Esports Teams Make Money? 5 different ways discussed | Cyber Athletiks

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Esports teams are a relatively new concept. Having grown in scale rapidly over the last decade, esports teams are now taking on traditional sports teams in the fight for public popularity. So, how do esports teams make money?

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R. Lawrie, Passion, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 41, No. 1/2 (Sep. - Dec., 1980), pp. 106-126

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So Far, We Are Being Alive When it's Time: The Correlation Between Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Allegro", Stephen Sondheim's "Company", and the Impact of Concept Musicals on 21st Century Theatre

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Explore millions of resources from scholarly journals, books, newspapers, videos and more, on the ProQuest Platform.

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After Earth: Why, Where, How, and When We Might Leave Our Home Planet

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Earth won't always be fit for occupation. We know that in two billion years or so, an expanding sun will boil away our oceans, leaving our home in the universe uninhabitable-unless, that is, we haven't already been wiped out by the Andromeda galaxy, which is on a multibillion-year collision course with our Milky Way.

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Um estádio lotado. A torcida vibrante dentro e fora da arena. Adversários em campo na disputa pelo título. Parece até que estamos falando de uma decisiva partida de futebol, mas trata-se de um cenário típico no mundo dos esports - um mundo onde os jogos eletrônicos e seus craques reinam absolutos.

Os esports - ou, se preferir, electronic sports - referem-se às competições de jogos eletrônicos de nível profissional transmitidas para uma legião de fãs ao redor do mundo. Disputados individualmente ou em equipe via internet e computadores em rede, os esports são modalidades competitivas disputadas em games como League of Legends e Counter-Strike. Eles formam hoje uma indústria que agrega competidores, times, desenvolvedoras de games e empresas patrocinadoras, num ritmo que promete movimentar até o ano de 2022 a soma de 3 bilhões de dólares. Números gigantescos para uma máquina gigantesca que disputa atenção junto aos demais esportes tradicionais, exigindo de seu panteão de atletas o mesmo nível de treino e comprometimento. Para saber mais sobre este universo de disputas emocionantes no mouse e no joystick, acompanhe nosso guia básico sobre os esports.

Como tudo começou?

O primeiro evento de esports de que temos notícia ocorreu em outubro de 1972 na Universidade Stamford, na Califórnia, quando alunos organizaram uma disputa de Spacewar - um dos pioneiros jogos de computador. Oito anos mais tarde, a empresa Atari foi responsável pela primeira grande competição de videogame da história: o Campeonato de Space Invaders, que atraiu 10 mil jovens nos Estados Unidos. Desde então, com a evolução da tecnologia e da internet, as competições de jogos eletrônicos ganharam fôlego nas lan houses e se popularizaram para além da América do Norte, ganhando espaço na Europa e na Ásia - especialmente, na Coreia do Sul, hoje considerada por muitos de capital mundial dos esports. Porém, foi somente com a popularização da banda larga ao redor do mundo na década passada que as desenvolvedoras de games passaram a investir de forma maciça nos campeonatos de jogos eletrônicos, dando origens às ligas profissionais e às transmissões ao vivo dos torneios pela internet, o que pavimentou o caminho para o atual fenômeno dos Esports.

Como tudo funciona?

Os esports são uma grande máquina que funciona a partir de quatro engrenagens fundamentais: as empresas de jogos eletrônicos, as ligas, os jogadores e as plataformas de streaming. Quanto mais alinhadas estão essas engrenagens, maior é a longevidade do games, como os consagrados Dota 2, Counter-Strike, LoL e Overwaych. Confira a seguir o papel de cada uma delas:

* EMPRESAS DE JOGOS ELETRÔNICOS: Não há criatura sem um criador. Responsáveis pela elaboração dos jogos e ansiosas por uma boa repercussão entre os jogadores que eleve seus produtos à categoria de esports, essas empresas podem ainda exercer outras funções dentro deste setor, como organizar torneios ou mesmo transmitir as partidas diretamente para o público - ao exemplo da Riot Games, criadora do League of Legends;

* LIGAS: Se uma empresa lança um game que se torna sucesso de público, as ligas surgem para organizar campeonatos de jogadores individuais ou equipes. As ligas têm como principais funções criar regras para as disputas, captar recursos de patrocinadores e promover a divulgação de seus esports. Essas ligas podem ser independentes ou derivadas das próprias empresas criadoras dos games;

* JOGADORES: no mundo dos esports, são eles os protagonistas. Os atletas de esports, como em qualquer esporte tradicional, podem seguir carreira solo ou jogar em equipes, sendo remunerados por seus clubes e recebendo dinheiro de patrocínio, publicidade e dos próprios prêmios dos torneios. Pode parecer a carreira dos sonhos, mas o desafio não é para qualquer um; jogadores profissionais podem dedicar até treze horas diárias nos treinos para os campeonatos;

* PLATAFORMAS DE STREAMING: os Esports jamais conquistariam tamanha audiência sem o streaming, expressão inglesa referente à transmissão de conteúdo via internet. Embora atualmente alguns canais transmitam as disputas pela TV a cabo, são sites como o Twitch e o YouTube que se destacam por permitirem aos mais de 100 milhões de fãs de Esports assistirem ao vivo às partidas e aos próprios jogadores em ação sem precisar pagar nada.

Quais são as modalidades?

Nem só de jogos de tiro e de arena vivem os esports. A riqueza desta indústria está na variedade de gêneros que envolve, abrangendo desde os fãs de esportes tradicionais até os aficionados por cartas - o que exige um rol de jogadores com as mais diferentes habilidades. Conheça a seguir as modalidades mais populares no universo dos esports:

* MOBA: estilo de maior apelo entre os fãs de Esports, o MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) é um gênero de RPG e estratégia em que dois times devem se enfrentar em uma arena com o objetivo de conquistar a base principal do oponente. Dentre seus principais títulos estão League of Legends e Dota 2;

* BATTLE ROYALE: Fortnite e PUBG são as grandes estrelas deste gênero de sobrevivência em que é declarado vencedor o jogador ou grupo de jogadores que sobreviverem às investidas dos demais adversários em uma arena;

* FPS: O gênero FPS (First Person Shooter), ou Tiro em Primeira Pessoa, consiste na vitória sobre o oponente seja pelo cumprimento de uma missão, como destruir sua base, ou pela aniquilação do time. Se você pensou em Counter Strike e Overwatch, acertou;

* RTS: Sigla para Real-Time Strategy, ou Estratégia em Tempo Real, a modalidade engloba jogos de RPG consagrados como StarCraft e Warcraft, que exigem a captação de recursos para o enriquecimento de sua base e fortalecimento de seu exército para o combate aos adversários;

* FIGHTING: Os jogos do gênero Fighting - ou, em bom português, jogos de luta - trazem como objetivo descer a porrada no seu oponente até que seus pontos de vida cheguem ao zero. Geralmente disputado por apenas dois jogadores, o gênero apresenta como expoentes as franquias Street Fighter, Smash Bros e Mortal Kombat;

* CARDGAME: Esta modalidade, também conhecida como Cartas, envolve a disputa estratégica entre dois jogadores em um tabuleiro onde o objetivo é, na maioria dos jogos, zerar os pontos do rival. Hearthstone e GWENT são os grandes nomes atuais do gênero;

* SIMULADORES: Esta categoria engloba os jogos que, como o próprio nome sugere, reproduzem as características de esportes do mundo real, como o futebol e o basquete. Disputados entre equipes, os simuladores apresentam como principais destaques as franquias FIFA, Pro Evolution Soccer e NBA 2K.

Esports em números

* 453,8 milhões é a estimativa global de público de esports no ano de 2019. Os fãs assíduos compõem 201,2 milhões deste total, enquanto os espectadores casuais representam 252,6 milhões. Para o ano de 2021, a indústria prevê que a soma total de audiência atinja a marca de 557 milhões de pessoas;

* O Brasil está em 3º lugar na lista das maiores torcidas de esports do mundo, atrás da China e dos Estados. São, ao todo, 21,2 milhões de espectadores - entre eles, 9,2 milhões de fãs regulares e 12 milhões de entusiastas casuais. Isso representa para o país um aumento de 20% de audiência comparado ao ano de 2018;

* No ano de 2013, o público mundial assistiu a um total 2.4 bilhões de horas de esports via streaming. Com o vigoroso aumento de público nos anos seguintes, o total de horas assistidas em 2018 saltou para 6,6 bilhões;

* Estima-se que o mercado de esports movimente 1,8 bilhão de dólares em 2022. Deste total, 897 milhões de dólares serão derivados de setores como a publicidade e os direitos de mídia.

O ESPORT NO BRASIL
O cenário brasileiro está se aproximando cada vez mais dos esportes eletrônicos e se aproximando dos principais times e jogadores. Coisas que geralmente vemos nos esportes tradicionais estão se tornando cada vez mais presentes nos esportes eletrônicos, como centros de treinamento, patrocinadores e uma multidão de seguidores nas redes sociais de times e jogadores.

No Brasil atletas como Felipe "brTT" Gonçalves e Gabriel "Kami" Bohm, jogadores de League of Legends, possuem milhares de seguidores em suas redes sociais. Outros jogadores, como Gabriel "Fallen" Toledo, saíram das terras tupiniquins e partiram para ganhar a vida lá fora, jogando para equipes internacionais e para uma audiência internacional.

Cada vez mais vemos novos torneios internacionais sendo realizados ou produzidos no Brasil, como a Blast Pro Series de São Paulo, que trouxe milhares de fãs de Counter-Strike: Global Offensive para o ginásio do Ibirapuera em São Paulo em março de 2019 e a ESL One de Belo Horizonte. Em 2017 o Brasil recebeu o Mid-Season de League of Legends em São Paulo e no Rio de Janeiro e em 2018 a capital carioca também recebeu as finais da Pro League de Rainbow Six: Siege.

O cenário de esports está crescendo, é fato. Porém ainda temos muito para explicar nessa série. Então fique ligado nas próximas semanas para acompanhar mais sobre o mundo dos esportes eletrônicos aqui e nos canais ESPN.

Rafaela Caetano Rafaela Caetano é jornalista, tradutora e mestre em Comunicação. Trabalha na área de games desde 2005 e acha que o mundo precisa de mais amor e Silent Hill.

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Um estádio lotado. A torcida vibrante dentro e fora da arena. Adversários em campo na disputa pelo título. Parece até que estamos falando de uma decisiva partida de futebol, mas trata-se de um cenário típico no mundo dos esports - um mundo onde os jogos eletrônicos e seus craques reinam absolutos.

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This is a comprehensive history of stage musicals from the 1840s all the way up to Andrew Lloyd Webber and Broadway as it we know it today. Wide-ranging in content, it covers Europe, the UK, and North American traditions and developments.

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For as long as I can remember, gaming has been said to be a "waste of time". Slowly though, the benefits from gaming started to be researched and brought to the attention of the public. Now that esports is taking off, there are even more benefits to be had when you're part of the gaming community.

If you want to do your "due diligence in research", check out my post on the Top 10 Negative Effects of Gaming & Esports.

HEALTH

In case you haven't noticed, this website is all about bringing better performance to esports and gamers by improving the health and fitness of players.

It wouldn't be a CyberAthletiks list if it didn't include health.

The next few benefits are a little more generic and are the type that parents of young kids would like to read up on.

But if you're a gamer, here are some benefits that gaming can provide you, and probably already has provided you.

Lower Stress

Perhaps this is what hooked many of us to gaming. Gaming can be a great way to deal with unwanted stress.

Getting away from stress and spending time engaging in an activity you enjoy can do wonders for your health and peace of mind.

I'm not suggesting that gaming is a way to "escape all of your problems". Gaming is akin to any other hobby, whether it's gardening, reading or golfing.

If you enjoy gaming and it brings you pleasure then you should feel no shame.

When I was in grad school, I was commuting for school, doing an internship and working. When I would get home after long days, playing CS:GO was a great way to unwind.

I think gaming is particularly effective at relieving stress, especially competitive gaming, because it forces you to "be in the moment".

Don't get me wrong, CS:GO and other competitive games can be stressful themselves at times.

Brain Health

There was a done on older adults who played Super Mario 64 for 30 minutes a day, five days a week, for six months.

The researchers found increases in three of the major areas of the brain: the prefrontal cortex, the right hippocampus, and the cerebellum.

Prefrontal Cortex

This part of the brain is responsible for decision making, personality, cognitive planning and social behaviour.

I'm sure you can imagine how Super Mario 64 would help a players brain plan ahead, analyze how objects can be used and how to interact with them.

Right Hippocampus

The study showed that navigating a 3D world caused this part of the brain to grow.

Cerebellum

This is the part of the brain that controls your fine motor skills and muscular activity. It receives information from your sensory systems and then regulates your motor movements.

This is what you use for your voluntary movements (posture, balance, coordination and speech).

What I found interesting is that the study showed better results for the gamers that took the game more serious, that is, those who really wanted to beat the game and to figure out all the difficulties on different levels.

Eyesight

Gaming has also been found to improve eyesight. A study found that people who gamed, especial FPS, had a better perception of colour contrast. Gaming helps players become more responsive to different shades of colour.

From my own personal experience, once I got a 144hz 1ms gaming monitor, I almost never have to use my reading glasses throughout the day.

Physical Health

This one is a little "shady". There are of course video games that keep kids active, but we're trying to focus on competitive gaming and esports.

Being sedentary for long periods will negatively impact your health, but learning how to negate those effects and incorporate physical training will help improve your health.

Since I don't game on a serious (i.e., competitive) level anymore, I've turned my gaming desk into a standing one.

This can help negate some of the negative effects of being sedentary, help you burn some extra calories and improve posture.

But as I discussed in my post about standing desks, only consider this if you're not trying to be competitive and compete at tournaments.

Sure, use one when you're not gaming, but it's best to practice as close to the environment you'll be competing in.

For a more in-depth look at the physical demands placed on gamers, which is backed by scientific sports research, check out my post on whether professional gaming should be considered a sport.
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HAND-EYE COORDINATION

Gaming is unique in its requirements for hand-eye coordination.

What makes gaming and esports unique is the requirement for asymmetrical hand-eye coordination.

This means that gamers need to be able to do different actions with each hand simultaneously. Think about how you play LoL or CS:GO, the mouse and the keyboard require two very different actions but must be coordinated perfectly.

Even in console gaming, each hand is performing different actions.

In fact, Professor Ingo Froböse's research on esports athletes found that the needed hand-eye coordination went far beyond that required for table tennis.

All of this hand-eye coordination must synch perfectly to what is happening in front of the gamer on the screen (which is often happening at extremely fast-paced rates).

Have you ever tried to get your parents to try the game you were playing after they said it was easy compared to more traditional sports? I bet it didn't end well.

An interesting I came across looked at surgeons who played video games (although it was more specific to the Wii).

The findings show that surgeons who played video games improved their hand-eye coordination and the precise muscle movements necessary for surgery (shouldn't gaming be mandatory for surgeons then?).

CRITICAL THINKING

This should be obvious for those of you already immersed in esports and competitive gaming or even recreational gaming.

Gaming, especially competitive gaming and esports, requires players to take in mass amounts of information, process and analyze it, then make split-second decisions, over and over.

Competitive gaming is like chess on steroids (even that speed style of chess that uses the clock).

Gaming requires you to think about what your opponent is thinking about, and even to think about what you think your opponent is thinking that you're thinking about (I hope that made sense).

Once you've taken in the presented information, processed and analyzed it, you need to then react with what you think the most logical next step should be.

Having played counter-strike since the early 00s, I've noticed that I've carried over certain habits or skills to my driving. When I drive, I am constantly surveying my environment.

I'm checking mirrors, I'm checking beside and behind me, I'm looking at what's ahead. When I see other cars around me, I am anticipating what they're going to be doing, especially if I suspect someone is going to do something really stupid.

I suspect these habits taken from counter-strike to driving have played a role in me having a crisp clean record with no accidents (knock on wood).

I want to add, the ability to take in and process large amounts of information and make split-second logical decisions is going to become more and more of an invaluable skill.

Lots of people take in large amounts of information and think about it, but what can separate gamers, is that they take action.

PROBLEM-SOLVING

In esports, once the match starts, there's a problem, and you need to solve it. I suppose this defines many things in life, even life itself...

Anyways, gaming improves your problem-solving abilities because you are constantly solving problems at an incredibly fast rate.

In LoL, you can be going along with a plan only to have an enemy champion get the drop on you. You don't get to sit back and think about your next steps for a few minutes, you need to problem-solve immediately.

Ever heard the saying "practice makes perfect"? Well practicing solving problems will make you better at solving problems, and gaming is a great, fast-paced way to solve many problems.

Another aspect of solving problems is thinking ahead. Thinking ahead allows you to prevent encountering a problem, and this is sort of like solving a future potential problem.

In CS:GO, this is evident in the way teams manage their economy, and in Starcraft, it's evident in building and managing resources.

Esports and competitive gaming take problem-solving to a much bigger level as you do so with the added stress of being watched and competing for a title.

Messing up in a scrim or SoloQ sucks, but you can shake it off pretty quick. Messing up during a Worlds or Major, that can haunt you for the rest of your life.

INCREASED MEMORY CAPACITY

This point is really directed towards older gamers, but I figured I'd include it so you can feel even better about your choice to game.

As we age, we start to see a decline in our:

cognitive flexibility

attention

working memory

abstract reasoning

Experiments were done with elderly patients, such as and , and they showed that gaming resulted in improvements to all of the above.

One study found that on top of the above benefits, enhanced life qualities such as a better self-concept were experienced by the participants.

I don't know about you, but when I clutch around to win a game, with my team watching me, I feel great for the next few days. Even when I was younger and playing offline games, finally succeeding in something challenging was a huge boost for myself.

Regarding memory, this is pretty self-explanatory. I have a mental image for every competitive counter-strike map, even for different versions that have existed over the years.

Now that I think of it, I have a lot of photographic memories from way back to SNES games. In competitive gaming, you need to know the game inside and out to get an edge on your opponent.

It's not enough to know your own character in Overwatch or champion in LoL, you need to know it all.

Having to exercise and use your memory as you do with competitive gaming is again like "practice makes perfect"; the more you commit things to memory, the better you'll get at it.

COLLEGE ESPORTS SCHOLARSHIPS

That's right, esports scholarships exist. They come in varying amounts financially, but they often mean you are an athlete on a college varsity sports team.

The amount of schools offering esports scholarships has grown rapidly over just a few years and it doesn't seem to be slowing down.

When I was 15, pro gaming and esports was an extremely underground niche that most people had never even heard of. As it grew over the last couple of decades, people kept saying it was a fad or that it's not a real sport.

Well, I'm not sure what's left to argue when there are varsity esports teams offering full-ride scholarships.

Sure, esports may never be as big as some of the more traditional sports, but there aren't many colleges offering scholarships for darts or billiards (I can't think of any, to be honest).

The beginning of varsity esports

In 2014, Robert Morris University made headlines around the world by being the first institution of its kind to bring esports into its athletic program.

This is when esports, at least in the US, became a varsity sport.

Robert Morris University created its own League of Legends team in 2014. Although schools technically had college esports teams, what marked this as the "beginning" was Robert Morris University's designation of their LoL team being a varsity sports team.

Fast forward a bit and in the spring of 2016, University of California Irvine became the first public university to create an official esports program. By September 2016 the UCI Esports Arena, sponsored by iBUYPOWER, was opened.

It has since gained additional sponsorship.

HIGH SCHOOL ESPORTS

As varsity esports continues to grow in colleges, high schools are now starting to realize the potential in esports.

Esports in high schools have gone from recreational gaming clubs to full-on competitive gaming where players compete in high school esports leagues.

The benefits for players participating in high school esports are similar to any other type of sport or extracurricular activity: discipline, commitment, goal setting, socializing.

In team-based esports games, communication is fundamental, and developing these skills in high school will stay with the player throughout life.

As high school esports continues to grow, it will make getting an esports scholarship more accessible for high school students.

Additionally, competitive gaming is a skill in itself, and building that skill while still in high school will increase a players ability to turn pro or play in college.

SCHOOLS BENEFIT

Esports is an untapped market that schools could potentially cash in on. High schools that support esports have the opportunity to receive positive media exposure.

Any school in a city that does something first is going to get an article in their local paper, and potentially bigger media outlets will pick up on the story.

This sort of exposure helps separate schools and shows to the public which ones are actually innovating, and not just talking about it.

There is also the potential for additional revenue. You don't think that the top high school esports teams are going to get attention from big gaming sponsors?

The University of California, Irvine understood this potential and has gained sponsorships from iBuyPower, Logitech and Gameful (it helped them build a fancy esports arena on campus too).

PATHWAY FOR INDUSTRY JOBS

Having a passion for esports and competitive gaming doesn't mean you have to work toward the goal of becoming a professional gamer.

Esports is an industry, and industries require many hands behind the scenes. Here's a list of potential employment opportunities in esports:

Social media manager

Event manager

Agent

Sponsor

Streamer

Host

Coach

Journalist

Sales and marketing specialist

Referee

Organization owner

You will have not only networked with other people in the industry, but you'll have gained a fundamental understanding of what it means to be inside esports, as opposed to outside looking in, and employers will appreciate this perspective.

REAL-LIFE JOB SKILLS

I hope it is evident by now how gaming, especially competitive gaming and esports, can help develop real-life job skills. In case you missed the connection, let's look back on what I discussed.

Critical thinking & problem solving: every single job requires you to think critically and solve problems.

The better and faster you can do this, the more you'll stand out in the workplace as a valuable employee, and gaming is an excellent practice for this.

Something I didn't discuss was how gaming improves a players ability to engage in multiple tasks simultaneously. In this study, it was found that 50 hours of action-based video gaming significantly improved test scores that measured the participants' ability to multi-task.

Let's not forget communication. Communication is imperative for competitive team-based games (sorry solo gamers).

The ability to effectively communicate under high pressure and when things feel like they're falling apart is a skill that will carry forward into any job.

There you have it, what I consider some of the most fundamental and transferable job skills that gaming builds in its players: critical thinking, problem-solving, multi-tasking and communication.

Some jobs may not need all of these, but every job will need at least one.
*It's not all good news, check out my post on the Top 10 Negative Effects of Gaming & Esports.

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Top 10 Benefits of Gaming & Esports | Cyber Athletiks

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For as long as I can remember, gaming has been said to be a "waste of time". Slowly though, the benefits from gaming started to be researched and brought to the attention of the public. Now that esports is taking off, there are even more benefits to be had when you're part of the gaming community.

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A prospective and reliable method of injury surveillance was implemented to document a comprehensive injury profile in female basketball and netball. The study further aimed to compare the injury profiles of the two sports. Trained observers viewed basketball and netball games, noting the occurrence of injuries. Injuries were confirmed by questioning all players on site after the game. Injured players completed a questionnaire and the progress of their injury was monitored by telephone interview. A total of 16,162 player participations were observed; 6,972 for basketball and 9,190 for netball. Comparable injury rates were observed for female basketball and netball players; 18.22 and 17.30 injuries per 1,000 participations, respectively. The ankle, hand and knee were the body parts injured most frequently in both sports, whilst head and neck injuries were prevalent in basketball only. Netball players sustained severe injuries at a rate 3.3 times that of female basketball players. The major and severe injuries occurred at an average of one injury in 625 games in female basketball and one in 250 games in netball. The ankle, knee and calf/shin were the body parts most frequently involved in the more serious injuries.

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A comparison of the injuries sustained by female basketball and netball players.

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A prospective and reliable method of injury surveillance was implemented to document a comprehensive injury profile in female basketball and netball. The study further aimed to compare the injury profiles of the two sports. Trained observers viewed basketball and netball games, noting the occurrence of injuries.

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Stop searching for your passion | Terri Trespicio | TEDxKC

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Periods in Pop Culture: Menstruation in Film and Television

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Periods in Pop Culture: Menstruation in Film and Television

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Menstruation seldom gets a starring role on screen despite being experienced regularly by nearly all women for a good many decades of their lives. Periods in Pop Culture: Menstruation in Film and Television, by Lauren Rosewarne, turns the spotlight on period portrayals in media, examining the presence of menstruation in a broad range of contemporary pop culture.

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Sex equality in sport will always remain an illusion as long as the macho character of modern competitive sport dominates. Against this background the claim of the International Korfball Federation that they are promoting a competitive sport as "the passport to coeducation" can be considered interesting and challenging. The purpose of this study was to investigate to what extent korfball, as it is institutionalized and played in The Netherlands, does, in fact, substantiate this claim. The division of power between male and female players was estimated by a systematic observation of 26 matches at the highest competitive level and by ascertaining the number of male and female presidents and secretaries throughout Dutch korfball clubs. In addition, a questionnaire served to compare the perceptions of male and female korfball players with those of male and female basketball and handball players with regard to sex stereotypes and instrumental aggression. The evaluation of the data showed on the one hand that the equal division of power between males and females in korfball leaves much to be desired and on the other hand that korfball could contribute towards reducing macho perceptions in competitive sport.

Feirstein, B. , 1982: Real Men Don't Eat Quiche. New English Library, Sevenoaks, Kent.
Google Scholar

Heinilä, K. , 1974: Ethics of Sport. Dept. of Sociology and Planning for Physical Culture, University of Jyväskylä. Research Reports 4, 1-71.
Google Scholar

Lee, P.C. , N.B. Gropper , 1974: Sex-Role Culture and Educational Practice. Harvard Educational Review, 44, 369-410.
Google Scholar

Pilz, G.A. , 1982: Wandlungen der Gewalt im Sport.Czwalina, Ahrensburg.
Google Scholar

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A Critical Analysis of Korfball as a "Non-Sexist Sport" - Bart Crum, 1988

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Sex equality in sport will always remain an illusion as long as the macho character of modern competitive sport dominates. Against this background the claim of the International Korfball Federation that they are promoting a competitive sport as "the passport to coeducation" can be considered interesting and challenging.

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Emmett Shear: What streaming means for the future of entertainment

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In a talk and demo, Twitch cofounder Emmett Shear shares his vision for the future of interactive entertainment -- and explains how video game streaming is helping people build communities online. "I am excited for a world where our entertainment could connect us instead of isolating us -- a world where we can bond with each other over our shared interests and create real, strong communities," Shear says.

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Can a daily dose of classical music change your life? It sounds like an impossibly grand claim, but in my case, the answer has been a resounding yes. And January - so often a miserable month of discarded resolutions, debts and diets - is arguably the perfect time to dive in to a new sonic soundscape in all its rich, diverse wonder.

We are a music-making species - always have been, always will be. We are also a music- exchanging species: long before lovesick teenagers started curating mixtapes for each other, or digital streaming services enabled us to swap favourite tracks, we were communicating and connecting through music. We evolved as humans by coming together around the fire after a long day's hunter-gathering, singing songs and telling stories through song. That's what our ancestors did; that's how they made sense of the world; that's how they learned how to be.

It is an impulse that is still fundamental to who we are. Yet our own modern lives are frazzled and fragmented to an unprecedented degree. Who, seriously, has the luxury of making time each day to actively listen to a particular piece of music? Perhaps, though, we have never needed more urgently the emotional space that music - and classical music in particular - can provide. Scientific research is increasingly proving that regular acts of so-called 'self-care' can have untold benefits on our mental health and well-being, but personally I've never been able to get the hang of, say, regular meditation or yoga. I never go to the gym, no matter how noble my intentions. I basically run on coffee and sugar. I always leave my tax return until the deadline. Inevitably then, this time of New Year's resolution-making and breaking is liable to make me feel pretty wretched. Each year, I set annual expectations that I fail utterly to stick to - and become increasingly stressed out as a result. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone. (I hope I'm not alone.)

Yet it turns out that even I have the self-discipline to eke out a few minutes each day to stick on my headphones, listen to a single piece of music, and be transformed. Although I have played the violin since childhood and worked as a classical music broadcaster and writer for a decade, I only fully grasped the miraculous effect of a daily engagement with this music after a particularly gruelling couple of years. Personal grief; juggling the irreconcilable demands of a relentless freelance career with an energetic toddler; feeling permanently on the edge of burnout whilst signalling to the outside world that 'everything's just fine!' - suffice it to say, I wasn't in a very healthy place. And yet none of the potential solutions I tried had any effect.

Except music.

It turned out that, when I converted my listening habits into a conscious daily ritual, I began to feel less anxious almost immediately. I curated myself monthly classical playlists with a specific piece for each day. Getting on the Tube and pressing play, instead of automatically being sucked into a social media scroll hole, seemed to be spiritually stabilising. I began to look disproportionately forward to it. And it occurred to me that, if I could benefit in such a meaningful way from this small but powerful act of soul maintenance, so might others. What if I could build on my lifetime's love of classical music? What if I could open up this vast treasury of musical riches by demystifying both the music and humanising those who created it by giving each piece some context, telling some stories, and reminding readers/listeners that this music was created by a real person, probably someone who shared many of the same concerns as them, who in many ways might be just like them.
Where to start?
Classical music is an art form that, for myriad complex reasons, is often perceived to be the preserve of a narrow elite; an exclusive party to which few are invited. This is painfully ironic, because the work itself is among the most emotionally direct that we have. There's a reason everyone from film to funeral directors invariably relies on classical music when they want to ramp up the feels. And I was losing track of the number of friends, family and even strangers who were asking, often sheepishly, if I might be able to make them a classical playlist.

Sometimes it was a precise request: music to study or work to; music to soothe their newborn babies or fall asleep to or to impress their new partner's parents with; music to exercise to; to unwind to; to garden, commute or throw a dinner party to. The guy who runs my local coffee shop asked me to curate him a classical soundtrack for the late-afternoon/early-evening shift. My teenage niece was after something to help her through her exam revision. And so on. Most often, what I heard from these playlist-hunters was something along the lines of: "I heard a piece of what I think might be classical music on a TV show/film/video/advert, and I loved it. I don't know anything about classical music, but I'd like to hear some more and I have no idea where to start..."

That question of "where to start" is critical. As with practically every other industry, technology has disrupted the music industry in both positive and negative ways. It's true that the decimation of traditional financial models is generally leaving artists and labels less well off than they were previously. But the emergence of legal streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music has blown open the door to that party in a thrilling, democratising way. What many of us now have access to at our digital fingertips would have been unimaginable even 10 years ago. Now anyone with a half-decent internet connection can explore a musical universe that was previously closed to all except those who already knew what they were looking for and had the resources to pay for it.

And yet: the sheer volume of what is now available for free at the click of a button can be daunting, if not paralysing. So I decided to write a sort of field guide, not so much a history of classical music as a hand-curated treasury of music that I dearly love. It includes plenty of women - who for centuries have been written out of the canon - composers of colour; gay and transgender composers; differently-abled composers (Beethoven, after all, wrote some of his most magnificent works while fully deaf); composers who battled - or are battling - mental health issues, addiction, low self-esteem; composers who had to make ends meet by doing all manner of unlikely day jobs (taxi drivers, plumbers, chemists, orange pickers, postal workers) but who kept at it, despite the odds, and created these glorious pieces for our listening pleasure. And maybe for our salvation.

I believe the greatest works of music are engines of empathy: they allow us to travel without moving into other lives, ages, souls. They are also robust: they can handle you multitasking all around them, fitting them into your real life. So don't give another thought to whether you have the right 'credentials' to become a classical aficionado or whether you're listening 'right': trust me, the only entry criterion is to have ears.

You can listen on your commute; take them with you on a walk; stick them on in the background while you hustle your kids' breakfast or do the school run; make them your soundtrack to fixing dinner, pouring a drink, putting your feet up, or doing the washing, ironing, catching up with emails, whatever it is you need to do at the moment where you get to finally press play. I believe there is very little in life that this music can't beautifully complement. This is music to live to - to live your best life to.
Year of Wonder: Classical Music for Every Da y is out now. And if you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called "If You Only Read 6 Things This Week". A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Capital and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.
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Can listening to classical music improve your life?

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Can a daily dose of classical music change your life? It sounds like an impossibly grand claim, but in my case, the answer has been a resounding yes. And January - so often a miserable month of discarded resolutions, debts and diets - is arguably the perfect time to dive in to a new sonic soundscape in all its rich, diverse wonder.

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Quase metade da população mundial passa ao menos cinco dias por mês menstruada.

Essa informação, tão banal para mulheres cis, não costuma ser levada em conta pelos governos e torna o menstruar mais uma questão na vida de pessoas com baixa renda, moradores de rua e mesmo presidiárias, que obrigatoriamente deveriam ser assistidas pelo poder público.

O custo de aproximadamente 50 centavos por um único absorvente - que deveria fazer parte da lista de compras de todas que menstruam -, é suficiente para que o direito à higiene vire luxo. E é aí que entra o debate sobre a pobreza menstrual - ou precariedade menstrual.

O termo, criado na França, mapeia todos os efeitos que a falta de dinheiro e infraestrutura provocam nos cuidados com o ciclo menstrual - mas o problema não tem CEP e atinge tanto europeias pobres quanto asiáticas e sul-americanas.

Pelo menos uma vez na vida, pessoas faltam ao trabalho por não ter dinheiro para absorventes.

É assim que, pelo menos uma vez na vida, pessoas faltam ao trabalho, contraem doenças ou até abandonam os estudos por falta de dinheiro para comprar absorventes. A estimativa da Câmara de Vereadores do Rio, que aprovou um projeto de distribuição de absorventes em escolas, é de que as estudantes perdem até 45 dias de aula devido ao sangue menstrual.

No Brasil, o acesso ao saneamento básico é decisivo para o período menstrual. Segundo levantamento da ONG Trata Brasil, em 2016, 1,6 milhão de brasileiras não tinham banheiro em casa, 15 milhões não recebiam água tratada e 26,9 milhões moravam em locais sem coleta de esgoto. É rara a disponibilidade de absorventes para quem vive na rua ou está na cadeia. Já contamos como, no Pará, as detentas mal recebem materiais de higiene pessoal. Controlar o sangramento exige improvisos como o uso de papel, papelão, jornal e até mesmo miolo de pão, que aumentam as chances de infecções vaginais.

É por isso que precisamos falar sobre pobreza menstrual. Vem comigo que neste neste vídeo eu explico melhor essa questão -e uma estratégia econômica já implementada em outros países que pode ajudar a tornar menstruar apenas mais uma rotina no mês de uma pessoa, independente da conta bancária.
Correção - 3 de fevereiro, 11h30
Diferentemente do publicado originalmente, as estudantes perdem até 45 dias de aula durante o ano letivo devido a falta de acesso a formas de conter o fluxo menstrual.

ULTRAJANTE! A repórter Schirlei Alves foi condenada a um ano de prisão aberta e multa de R$ 400 mil por ter revelado no Intercept Brasil a revitimização de Mari Ferrer por autoridades judiciais em seu processo de estupro.

A reportagem levou a uma lei nacional, à censura do juiz e desencadeou um debate nacional que os membros do judiciário não querem ter. Esse é o impacto de nosso trabalho.

Agora eles querem nos silenciar. Nos ajude a resistir e a cobrir os custos legais de Schirlei e de todos os nossos jornalistas.

FAÇA PARTE
Faça Parte do Intercept

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Falta de dinheiro impede acesso a absorventes - e o governo ignora o problema

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Estudantes podem perder até 5 dias de aulas por mês por conta da menstruação, mas não são só elas que sofrem com isso.

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1- Why talk about the fishing? Why talk about fish? Why talk about peacock bass?
2- Why preservation on Brazil
3- What does predatory fishing represent and what happens?
4- How the species lives, develops and acts in nature.

Which one do you think people would feel more curious when reading?

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Why is One Day At a Time an important TV show?

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Why is One Day At a Time an important TV show?

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I don't know. But I am curious to find out!

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Department of Neuropsychology, Psychological Institute, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

Dynamics of Healthy Aging, University Research Priority Program (URPP), University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

The influence of background music on cognitive functions is still a matter of debate. In this study, we investigated the influence of background music on executive functions (particularly on inhibitory functions). Participants completed a standardized cued Go/NoGo task during three different conditions while an EEG was recorded (1: with no background music, 2: with relaxing, or 3: with exciting background music). In addition, we collected reaction times, omissions, and commissions in response to the Go and NoGo stimuli. From the EEG data, event-related potentials (ERPs) were calculated for the Go and NoGo trials. From these ERPs, the N2 and P3 components were specifically analyzed since previous studies have shown that these components (and particularly the Go-NoGo difference waves) are strongly associated with inhibitory functions. The N2 and P3 components of the difference waves (N2d and P3d) were used for statistical analyses. The statistical analyses revealed no differences between the three conditions in terms of amplitudes and latencies of the N2d and P3d components. In addition, reaction times, omissions, and commissions were comparable across all conditions. Our results suggest that in the context of this paradigm, music as background acoustic stimulation has no detrimental effects on the performance of a Go/NoGo task and neural underpinnings.

Introduction

Today, music is easily available and frequently consumed. In addition, the scientific interest in studying the influence of music listening on different psychological functions has substantially increased. Based on surveys conducted by North et al. (2004) and Krause et al. (2015), respondents reported that music is important to them and that they listened to musical pieces at least 1 h per day. One possible reason for such a high prevalence of music listening in everyday life might be related to the fact that music has previously been shown to be used to regulate emotions ( Thoma et al., 2006). Furthermore, recent advances in technology have put music at the forefront of people's common practices, with instant access to countless musical libraries ( North et al., 2004).

The influence of background music on several activities and on cognition in general is still a matter of debate. Most of the work published so far has focused on exposure to music in a work-related setting or while engaging in routine activities such as driving a car ( Jäncke et al., 1994; Furnham and Bradley, 1997). The influence of background music on the performance of school-related skills and academic tasks has also been investigated ( Fogelson, 1973; Etaugh and Ptasnik, 1982; Crawford and Strapp, 1994; Hallam et al., 2002; Doyle and Furnham, 2012). Although the results are mixed, most studies revealed a detrimental influence of background music on task performance. Furthermore, other cognitive functions such as verbal learning have not been found to be influenced by background music ( Jäncke and Sandmann, 2010). Other studies have revealed better performance in paper folding and cutting tasks during acoustic background stimulation as opposed to silence ( Nantais and Schellenberg, 1999; Thompson et al., 2001). A positive influence of background music was also found in the popular study by Rauscher et al. (1993) where performance of an abstract/spatial reasoning task was temporally enhanced after listening to music. It is also known that music positively influences memory performance ( Peynircioğlu et al., 1998; Platel, 2005; Eschrich et al., 2008). This is because of its ability to evoke strong emotions which in turn increase memory performance ( Jäncke, 2008). A positive influence of background music has also been found for emotional reactions and sports achievements ( Kämpfe et al., 2011). Conversely, some studies have provided evidence that performance is better without than with background music ( Furnham and Bradley, 1997; Sousou, 1997). Furthermore, some studies have concluded that music has detrimental effects on completing memory tests, reading comprehension ( Furnham and Bradley, 1997), or driving a car in a computer-simulated setting ( Jäncke et al., 1994). A meta-analysis by Kämpfe et al. (2011) also revealed that background music has a negative influence on reading comprehension and on a variety of memory tasks. In summary, the findings of studies investigating the influence of background music on several tasks are mixed, but most of them reported that background music exerts a detrimental influence on cognitive functions.

Along with the discussion on how background music influences the completion of a given task, there are several studies focusing on additional phenomena. Sousou (1997) showed that it is possible to induce moods with music. She also suggested that music may interfere with the learning process if the learning material does not correspond to the kind of music played in the background, for example, listening to happy music while trying to memorize sad lyrics. Furthermore, Thompson et al. (2001) revealed that the performance of certain tests of spatial abilities improves if a music piece is applied, which leads to increased arousal and positive affect. A study by Jäncke and Sandmann (2010) reported an increase of cortical activation during a verbal learning task while background music was played in contrast to a noise condition. However, this effect does not seem to be an effect of arousal because no significant differences in arousal were found between the music and noise conditions. Therefore, these results might indicate that increased effort is needed to suppress background music while executing such a task ( Jäncke et al., 2014), which in turn might be reflected in neurophysiological measurements.

Little is known about the influence of background music on executive functions. A study of Zuk et al. (2014) reveals that certain executive skills might benefit from music training, but concerning non-musicians, less is known about the influence of background music on executive functions such as inhibition, conflict monitoring, and cognitive control. Almost all daily activities, such as shopping and working, depend on executive functions which are needed for administrating cognitive control. According to Squire et al. (2012), the term "cognitive control" describes the ability to anticipate possible outcomes and initiate appropriate actions to reach a given goal. Cognitive control includes a whole subsystem of processes, such as initiating, inhibiting, shifting, monitoring, guiding, planning, and simulating possible outcomes ( Gazzaniga and Mangun, 2014). Inhibitory mechanisms are typically examined by using a Go/NoGo task ( Falkenstein et al., 1999). In such a task, participants are instructed to execute a response to specific stimuli (Go) and to withhold the response (NoGo) if other stimuli are presented. A variant of that task is the so-called and frequently used visual continuous performance task (VCPT) ( Kropotov et al., 2011, 2016, 2017; Meier et al., 2012; Kropotov and Ponomarev, 2015).

Two event-related potential (ERP) components which are associated with response inhibition are elicited during Go/NoGo tasks: a negative shift between 200 and 350 ms (NoGo-N2) ( Folstein and Van Petten, 2008) and a positive shift between 300 and 500 ms (NoGo-P3) ( Falkenstein et al., 1999). These components are obtained by computing difference waves of the ERPs by subtracting the Go from the NoGo trials (revealing the difference components for N2 and P3: N2d and P3d) ( Falkenstein et al., 1999). Results from ERP studies using sequential matching tasks suggest that the frontal N2 component can be attributed to mismatch detection ( Suwazono et al., 2000; Wang et al., 2003). In addition, Enriquez-Geppert et al. (2010) reported that the N2 elicited by a combined Go/NoGo and stop-signal task reflects conflict-related processes. Increased NoGo-N2 amplitudes have also been found if the participants were forced to react quickly ( Jodo and Kayama, 1992). Furthermore, Azizian et al. (2006) provided evidence that NoGo stimuli which are similar to Go stimuli elicit larger N2 amplitudes because they trigger a preparation for a false response that has to be suppressed. Otherwise, the P3 component includes two subcomponents that show different topographies: the P3a has a frontally distributed maximum on the scalp, whereas the maximum of P3b lies over parietal scalp sites ( Folstein and Van Petten, 2008). The earlier subcomponent is usually associated with turning one's attention to significant or non-expected events, whereas the latter seems to reflect working memory processes ( Folstein and Van Petten, 2008). In a more general view, the P3 represents motor and/or action inhibition ( Enriquez-Geppert et al., 2010; Kropotov et al., 2016, 2017).

Based on the fact that cognitive control processes are omnipresent in most of our daily activities and by taking into account the essential role of music in our culture, the effects of background music on cognitive performance deserve greater attention. Therefore, in the present study, we collected behavioral and electroencephalographic (EEG) data while participants performed the VCPT three times in randomized order. The task was performed with no music (NM) in the background, while listening to a relaxing song (RLX), and while being exposed to an exciting one (EXC). The musical pieces were selected to test whether different degrees of arousal differentially affect inhibitory functions.

So far, most of the published studies have used a between-subject design. Here, we chose a within-subject design to compare the effect of the experimental manipulations on the same participants. Furthermore, we are not aware of studies that have examined the influence of background music on inhibitory mechanisms in a controlled setting.

Based on Thompson et al. (2001), we assumed that task performance would improve with increased arousal. Therefore, we expected that the RLX condition would lead to worse performance than the EXC condition. Furthermore, we hypothesized that the task performance and the neurophysiological measurements of the two musical conditions would differ from our NM condition in an unspecific direction since there are mixed results regarding the influence of background music on task performance ( Furnham and Bradley, 1997; Sousou, 1997; Nantais and Schellenberg, 1999; Thompson et al., 2001). We also investigated whether an increase in cortical activation, as was found by Jäncke and Sandmann (2010), would take place during a cognitive control task and if it would be reflected by ERP components. The increased cortical activation should be reflected by increased NoGo-N2 and NoGo-P3 amplitudes during the two musical conditions (RLX and EXC). Furthermore, better performance is expected to be reflected by shorter reaction times and fewer errors in task completion.

Materials and Methods

Participants

In the present study, we examined 25 (17 female) volunteers. Participants were screened for mental disorders, medication, drug, and alcohol abuse. Five participants reported present or past neurological, psychiatric, or physiological disorders and were therefore excluded from further analysis. One participant was excluded due to extensive EEG artifacts. The participants were between 20 and 30 years old (average 23 years, SD = ± 2.87). All participants were right-handed ( Annett, 1970; Bryden, 1977) and had at least a certificate from grammar school or a bachelor's degree (years of education: 12.9 ± 1.4). All participants had a normal or corrected visual acuity and reported no hearing impairments. The mother tongue of all participants was German. All participants denied having received musical education for the last 5 years. The reason why we focused on non-musicians was to avoid having musical experts in the sample who could be more affected by the music. The participants provided informed consent and were paid for their attendance in the study. The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Zurich in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Experimental Design

To examine the influence of background music on inhibitory functions, the VCPT was used combined with background music. The entire procedure lasted for approximately 75 min. In each trial of the VCPT, two pictures were presented in succession. The stimulus material comprised a total number of 60 pictures which had similar luminosity and size and were divided into three different stimulus categories, namely 20 unique pictures of animals (a), 20 of plants (p), and 20 of humans (h). Their actual sequential order gave the participants the cue to react as fast and as precisely as possible or to suppress the motor reaction. The stimuli pairs were a-a, a-p, p-p, or p-h, as illustrated in Figure 1.

FIGURE 1. Graphical representation of the tasks and their time dynamics. The instruction in the Go trials was to press a button with the right index finger if two animal (a) pictures were presented in succession. The participant was asked to withhold the reaction in a NoGo trial, when an animal and a plant (p) picture were shown sequentially. For the Ignore trials, two plant pictures were presented in succession and no action was required. In the Novel trials (i.e., no action was required from the participant), a plant followed by a picture of a human (h) and a novel sound were presented.

For the Go trials, pairs of physically identical animal pictures (Figure 1, a-a) were presented, and the participant had to press a button with the right index finger. An animal picture followed by a plant picture represented the NoGo (Figure 1, a-p) trial. In NoGo trials, the participants had to withhold button pressing. In the Ignore trials, a picture of a plant was followed by a second physically identical plant picture (Figure 1, p-p); no response was required. Likewise, in Novel trials no response was required. The Novel trials consisted of a plant picture followed by a human picture (Figure 1, p-h). In summary, whenever an animal appeared as the first picture, a response had to be prepared in case a second animal would appear. As soon as a plant was presented as the first stimulus, no motor response was required. To guarantee a certain level of alertness, the pictures of humans were presented together with a novel acoustic stimulus. Those acoustic stimuli comprised 20 randomly presented tone fragments at different frequencies with a length of 100 ms. The trials were presented in a randomized order with an inter-stimulus interval of 1000 ms and an inter-trial interval of 3000 ms. The pictures were presented for a duration of 100 ms. A block consisted of 100 trials, and for each block a unique set consisting of 5 animal, 5 plant, and 5 human pictures was selected. The probability for each trial category to occur was equal. Four blocks were presented for each run of the VCPT. This resulted in a total of 400 visual trials and a duration of approximately 20 min per run. Before the start of the experiment, the task was practiced by the participants. The VCPT was presented using the software PsyTask ( Kropotov et al., 2016, 2017).

Experimental Conditions

The VCPT was performed three times under different conditions. In one condition, the participants had to complete the task without background music (NM). In the other two conditions, the execution of the task was accompanied by instrumental background music. The music pieces were chosen based on intensity ratings taken from the publication by Jäncke et al. (2014) and were thought to elicit states of excitation and relaxation, respectively. John Williams and William Ross' "Reunion of Friends" served as a soothing piece of music due to its low subjective intensity and was used for the relaxing condition (RLX). The song had a duration of 5 min and 9 s. A stimulating piece and second condition (EXC) was the song "The Planets - Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity" from Gustav Holst due to its high intensity rating. The duration of the song was 7 min and 36 s. Details of the intensity ratings for both musical pieces can be found in Jäncke et al. (2014). The conditions were presented in randomized order. The musical pieces were looped until a run of the VCPT was accomplished. The audio editor and recorder Audacity (Version 1.3 Beta, The Audacity Team, United States) was used to align the songs for volume adjustment to provide the same amplification across both compositions. Acoustic irradiation was undertaken at a moderate hearing volume of 70 dB. The light was kept on during the entire experiment.

Behavioral Measurements

A short arousal and valence in-house questionnaire was filled out by participants after each condition. In particular, the subjective arousal level was rated on a 7-point Likert's scale ranging from 1 (not aroused at all) to 7 (highly aroused). The same procedure was adopted for the mood evaluation ranging from 1 (very sad) to 7 (very happy). Also, the valence was rated for the two songs, namely how much the participants liked them. This scale ranged from 1 (no liking at all) to 7 (liked it very much).

Performance Measurements

Reaction times were calculated as the time elapsed between the onset of the second picture and the participant's button press. Trials with a reaction time within 200-1000 ms after onset of the second stimulus were used for the averages ( Kropotov et al., 2011). Also omission errors, namely, the failure to respond in Go trials, and false alarm rates (i.e., participant failed to suppress a response to NoGo trials) were collected. Mean reaction times, omission errors, and false alarm rates were evaluated separately for every participant and for the experimental conditions NM, RLX, and EXC.

EEG Recording

The EEG measurement was carried out by using Comby EEG Caps with 19 AgCl electrodes, with a Neuroamp ® x23 amplifier system, both manufactured by BEE Medic GmbH (BEE Medic GmbH, Germany). EEGs were recorded using the ERPrec recording software (Version 2.0.x, BEE Systems, Germany). The electrodes Fp1, Fp2, F7, F3, Fz, F4, F8, T3, C3, Cz, C4, T4, T5, P3, Pz, P4, T6, O1, and O2 were placed according to the international 10-20 system. The signal was digitized with a sampling rate of 250 Hz and an online high-pass filter of 0.16 Hz was applied. Impedances were kept below 20 kΩ using conductive gel and the online reference was Cz. The musical pieces were presented binaurally via Bose Companion 2 Series III external multimedia computer speakers. Participants were asked to blink before each measurement, to bite their teeth, and to produce saccades to demonstrate to them the effects of such movements during the experiment. Thereupon, the participants were asked to sit as relaxed as possible during the entire procedure and to omit the aforementioned actions as well as frowning.

EEG Pre-processing

The pre-processing of the data was done in WinEEG (Version 2.84.44, Mitsar, Russia), MatLab (Version R2015b, MathWorks, United States), and Brain Vision Analyzer (Version 2.1, Brain Products, Germany). The initial stages of the pre-processing were done in the WinEEG software. The data were offline re-referenced to the so-called "average montage." This montage includes a bandpass filter with a low-cut of 0.53 Hz and a high-cut at 50 Hz. It also applies a notch filter at 45-55 Hz. Eye movement artifacts were corrected by using individual independent component analysis by removing the corresponding independent components based on the individual activation curves ( Vigário, 1997; Jung et al., 2000; Li et al., 2006). In a further step, segments which contained excessive amplitudes or frequencies were marked and rejected. For exclusion the following thresholds were applied: 100 μV for non-filtered EEG, 50 μV for 0-1 Hz filtered (slow waves), and 35 μV for 20-35 Hz filtered (fast waves) EEG. A total of 200 ms before and after each event were excluded. Additionally, artifacts were excluded after manual inspection of the entire EEG data.

Afterward, averages for Go-ERPs and NoGo-ERPs for each condition and subject were computed, starting from the presentation of the second stimulus. A baseline correction from -200 ms to the onset of the second stimulus was applied to the ERPs. Furthermore, difference waves were computed by subtracting the average Go-ERP from the average NoGo-ERP for midline electrodes (Fz and Cz) for each condition. The values of the difference waves at electrode Fz and Cz were exported, converted with MatLab, and further processed via Brain Vision Analyzer software. We focused on these two electrodes because previous studies have shown that the components of interest, namely, N2 and P3, are most pronounced at Fz and Cz ( Kropotov et al., 2011, 2016; Alahmadi, 2017). Especially, the N2 and P3 components measured at frontal electrodes reflect neurophysiological responses associated with cognitive control like conflict monitoring and action inhibition ( Kropotov et al., 2016, 2017). We conducted semi-automatic peak detection for the N2 and P3 components of the difference waves for every subject and condition. From now on, whenever referring to the N2 and P3 components, we will use the terms N2d and P3d, respectively, to emphasize that they are obtained from difference waves ( Falkenstein et al., 2002). Based on the grand average waveforms (Figure 2A), global maxima were detected in the range of 200-350 ms for the N2d waveform ( Folstein and Van Petten, 2008), and from 300 to 500 ms for the P3d waveform ( Falkenstein et al., 1999). The values for the N2d and P3d components of the average difference wave ERPs were compared for amplitude and latency among the conditions. The amplitudes were evaluated by selecting the peak amplitude and computing the mean amplitude over a time window of 50 ms. The latency onsets were measured with fractional peak latency. This method relies on the identification of the time point where the amplitude of the waveform reaches a given percentage of the peak amplitude ( Luck, 2014). Here, we used the so-called "50% peak latency" because in most cases it has the highest reliability ( Kiesel et al., 2008).

FIGURE 2. (A) The grand average ERP waveforms in the three conditions are shown for the midline electrodes Fz, Cz, and Pz. The onset of the second stimulus is at time point zero, whereas the second dashed line represents its offset. The green waveforms show the average ERPs for the Go trials, the red ones represent the NoGo trials, and the black curves indicate the Ignore trials. (B) The difference waves corresponding to (A) are depicted for the different conditions. Maximal amplitudes of the N2d and P3d components are indicated by arrows. (C) Topographies in the top row were computed for Go trials and the bottom row represents the NoGo trials. (D) Topographical maps of the N2d (top row) and P3d (bottom row) components.

Statistical Analysis

All statistical analyses were conducted by using the software package SPSS (Version 22, IBM, United States). For the subjective arousal level, three Wilcoxon signed-ranks tests were calculated. In particular, we compared both conditions with background music to our NM baseline condition as well as the EXC and RLX conditions. The same was done for the mood ratings of the participants. A further Wilcoxon signed-ranks test was calculated for the valence ratings of the two different songs. The p-values were Bonferroni-Holm-corrected ( Holm, 1979). Omission errors, false alarm rates, and reaction times were compared between the different conditions by means of univariate repeated measures analyses of variance (ANOVA). We also conducted four two-way repeated measures ANOVAs for the ERP components of interest. The first within-subject factor comprised three condition levels (i.e., NM, RLX, and EXC). The second within-subject factor represented the electrode sites and had two levels (Fz and Cz). Before computation of the ANOVAs, we checked whether the data fulfilled all requirements for conducting these analyses. In case of heteroscedasticities, Greenhouse-Geisser-corrections were applied for the ANOVA results. We computed two ANOVAs for mean amplitude values (N2d and P3d) and two for peak latencies. A p-value of 0.0125 (in the context of two-tailed testing) was considered significant according to Bonferroni-Holm correction as a consequence of multiple comparisons. Beside p-values, we also report effect size measures. For ANOVAs, we report the partial eta-squared (η ²), and effect sizes of Wilcoxon signed-ranks tests are given in r. Both effect sizes are interpreted as suggested by Cohen (1988, 1992).

Results

Behavioral Data

Three Wilcoxon signed-ranks tests were computed for evaluating the arousal data. Both arousal ratings with background music differed significantly from the condition without background music. The arousal rating in the RLX condition was significantly higher (median = 4) compared to the NM (median = 2) condition ( z = -2.45, p = 0.013, r = 0.56). In addition, the arousal ratings for EXC were higher compared to the NM condition ( z = -2.39, p = 0.014, r = 0.55). A further Wilcoxon signed-ranks test yielded no significant differences among the experimental conditions, namely the difference between RLX and EXC ( z = -1.23, p = 0.305, r = 0.28). The three Wilcoxon signed-ranks tests computed for the mood ratings revealed no differences between the conditions, and no differences were found between the NM (median = 5) and the RLX (median = 5) conditions ( z = -1.67, p = 0.188, r = 0.38). We did not reveal differences between the NM and the EXC (median = 5) conditions ( z = -1.41, p = 0.312, r = 0.32), and also the RLX and the EXC conditions were comparable ( z = -0.38, p = 1.0, r = 0.09). The Wilcoxon signed-ranks test computed for the valence ratings of the relaxing (median = 5) and the exciting (median = 5.0) songs did not reveal significant differences ( z = -0.79, p = 0.479, r = 0.18).

Performance Data

Table 1 shows that the individual computations for omission rates, false alarms, and reaction times did not reach a level of significance, irrespective of the musical condition that the participants were exposed to. A univariate repeated measure ANOVA revealed that participants' reactions to the stimuli across the various conditions did not differ in terms of reaction times [ F(2,36) = 0.05, p = 0.947, partial η ² = 0.003], omission errors [ F(1.46,26.32) = 0.78, p = 0.432, partial η ² = 0.041], or false alarm rates [ F(2,36) = 1.44, p = 0.250, partial η ² = 0.074].

TABLE 1. Performance data of the three conditions.

EEG Data

In Figure 2A, the grand averages of the Go, NoGo, and Ignore trials are displayed for the different conditions. A maximum deflection at the electrode Pz with a latency of 304 ms is shown for the Go trials. The topographic maps (Figure 2C) reveal a parietal-central distribution. For the NoGo trials, a maximum was identified at electrode Cz with a latency of 330 ms and a central scalp distribution. The corresponding difference waves are depicted in Figure 2B. In accordance with the previous studies ( Kropotov et al., 2011, 2016; Alahmadi, 2017), the minimum and maximum were located around the Fz and Cz electrode (Figure 2D). The minimum voltage was found around 230 ms with a fronto-central distribution. Otherwise, the maximum was found at about 360 ms and reflected by a fronto-central topography.

Figure 3 shows the paired comparisons of the difference waves across the different conditions. The left overlay displays the comparison between the NM and RLX conditions. The middle column shows the NM compared to the EXC condition. The right column shows the comparison between RLX and EXC.

FIGURE 3. Difference waves at midline electrodes Fz, Cz, and Pz across the conditions. Left column = NM and RLX, middle column = NM and EXC, right column = RLX and EXC.

Two-way repeated measure (3 × 2) ANOVAs with the within-subject factors Music (NM, RLX, EXC) and Electrode (Fz, Cz) for the amplitudes and latencies of N2d and P3d did not reveal any significant main effect for the factor Music [N2d amplitude: F(2,36) = 0.11, p = 0.892, partial η ² = 0.006; N2d latency: F(2,36) = 0.02, p = 0.984, partial η ² = 0.001; P3d amplitude: F(2,36) = 0.41, p = 0.666, partial η ² = 0.022; and P3d latency F(1.46,26.31) = 1.99, p = 0.165, partial η ² = 0.100] and its interaction with the Electrode factor. As Table 2 shows, there was only a main effect for Electrode with respect to the amplitude of the N2d component [ F(1,18) = 7.07, p = 0.016, partial η ² = 0.282], which was qualified by larger amplitudes at Fz compared to Cz (Table 3).

TABLE 2. Results of the two-way repeated measures ANOVAs for the N2d and P3d amplitudes and latencies.

TABLE 3. N2d and P3d mean amplitudes and 50% peak latency values for the Fz and Cz electrodes.

Discussion

General Discussion

In this work, we examined the influence of different kinds of background acoustic stimulation on the performance (reaction times, omission errors, and false alarm rates) when working on a standard and frequently used Go/NoGo task. In addition, we recorded the associated neurophysiological responses (amplitudes and latencies of the N2d and P3d components) reflecting the neural underpinnings of Go/NoGo performance. With the N2d and P3d components, we are in the position to disentangle at least two different processes underlying executive control. The frontal N2d is associated with conflict monitoring while the frontal P3d is a well-known and stable proxy for neurophysiological processes associated with inhibition of actions and cognitions ( Jodo and Kayama, 1992; Falkenstein et al., 1999; Azizian et al., 2006; Folstein and Van Petten, 2008; Kropotov et al., 2011, 2016, 2017). The task was conducted once without music played in the background and twice with background music (i.e., RLX and EXC). To increase the ecological validity, entire musical pieces were played instead of simple tones, noises or fragments of songs. Our first hypothesis was that the performance would improve with exciting music compared to relaxing music. Second, we hypothesized that both musical conditions would differ from the condition without acoustic background stimulation. Third, we expected an increase in cortical activation in the musical conditions, which should be reflected by increased N2d and P3d amplitudes. However, none of these hypotheses could be confirmed. In particular, we did not find differences in performance between the NM, RLX, and EXC conditions, nor differences in ERP modulations.

Behavioral Results

When people have the possibility to select their own music, they will usually choose the pieces they like most. However, in our study, we did not take into account personal preferences but rather focused on previously tested material which has been shown to induce different degrees of activation. Therefore, it was beyond the focus of this study to evaluate putative relationships between music preference and performance, and we rather examined the influence of background music in general and also the influence of arousal and valence on cognitive performance. This experimental approach is particularly powerful in that it enables to circumvent several confounding factors caused by different musical features (e.g., musical genre, rhythm, beats per minute) instead of experimental manipulation. Otherwise, a disadvantage of this approach is that some ecological validity has to be sacrificed because people usually choose their own soundtrack. Thereby, it is important to mention that to allow participants to take control over the music they are listening to leads to contentment and further motivation to listen ( Krause et al., 2015).

The instrumental pieces used in the present study have already been used by Jäncke et al. (2014). According to Jones et al. (2000), it is unlikely that a song with vocals will cause more distraction, because the key factor for distraction is to what extent changes in the auditory stimulus occur. This finding concerns solely a memory task with lists of letters. However, this finding was supported by a study of Jäncke et al. (2014) which did not find an effect on verbal learning concerning music with or without vocals. One condition of that study consisted of learning German words while listening to music with German vocals. The task material of our study comprised only pictures that had no similarity to the applied auditory stimuli. Considering that even similar stimuli cause no distracting effect, we can assume that choosing two vocal pieces instead of instrumental pieces would not affect the degree of distraction they might cause.

In our study, a clear increase in the arousal rating was observed between the no background music condition and the two musical conditions, irrespective of the kind of music that was played. This indicates that music might have a lifting effect on the arousal level in general if it is played in the background. It is also possible, that the selected music was not suitable for inducing a sufficient level of arousal, which in turn might be necessary to influence the performance of task completion in any direction. However, no differences were seen in the arousal ratings between relaxing and exciting background music. One possible way to avoid this problem is to let the participants choose their own music, which is commonly used for daily activities and is rated as relaxing or exciting. The fact that the music pieces were looped until an entire VCPT block was completed should not have influenced the data in some direction. In fact, a previous EEG study ( Jäncke et al., 2015) focusing on the electrophysiological effects of music repetition did not reveal EEG changes with the multiple presentation of the same musical piece.

In the present study, we did not give any instructions concerning how the background stimulation had to be treated. This may have resulted in a situation where the participants simply ignored the music. Therefore, only a small amount of cognitive capacity was allocated to it. We decided against giving any instructions because in daily life people also do not follow any instructions about how to deal with the music they are listening to while completing a given task. Our results, as well as those of Jäncke et al. (2014), lead to the assumption that if pre-selected music is used to induce a certain level of arousal in a specific direction, it has to be kept in mind that the manipulation might not show the desired effects.

The performance data (reaction times, omission errors, and false alarm rates) did not differ among the conditions. In general, very few errors (omission and commission) occurred during task completion. Therefore, we can conclude that the participants took the given task seriously and completed it with concentration. This seems to be even more the case because the entire recording took approximately 75 min, and therefore signs of fatigue would be very likely to occur. On the other hand, the low error rates could also indicate that the task was too easy and therefore music did not represent any interference at all. This might be the case because, first, a task with a higher level of difficulty is expected to activate more frontal processes ( Stuss and Alexander, 2000). Second, more resources would be allocated to such a task and therefore fewer resources would be available for the suppression of the distracting stimuli. Perhaps during the completion of a more difficult task, as for example, the task shifting Schuch and Koch (2003) used in their experiments, which would require more cognitive resources, our musical pieces would represent a stronger interference. This would be in agreement with the assumption of Furnham and Bradley (1997) that the more complex the task, the more negative the influence of background music is to be expected. Anyhow, the main aim of this study was to use a task that is quite well established in the literature ( Kropotov et al., 2011, 2016, 2017; Kropotov and Ponomarev, 2015). Another criterion for choosing this task was to keep the task complexity as close as possible to the tasks experienced in daily life. For example, in general, we are able to drive a car properly without violating traffic regulations. Also, the complexity of the background music was not considered in our study. According to Furnham and Allass (1999), one can assume that more complex background music could have a stronger influence on the performance of the main task. However, the authors found this relationship only in conjunction with the personality trait of extraversion. We did not survey extraversion because we were not interested in the effect of particular personality traits but rather on the influence of background music on inhibitory mechanisms in general.

Electrophysiological Results

In the present work, we did not find differences in the two components of interest (N2, P3) as a function of different acoustic backgrounds. The amplitude of the NoGo-N2 is associated with a successful inhibition of a response, as already mentioned in the introduction ( Falkenstein et al., 1999). We could not find a difference in amplitude of the N2d between the different conditions. We also did not reveal differences in the amplitude of the P3d, which is associated with working memory update ( Folstein and Van Petten, 2008), categorization processes ( Azizian et al., 2006), and most importantly action inhibition ( Kropotov et al., 2016, 2017). Furthermore, we did not find any harmful effects of background music on the performance of the Go/NoGo task. Therefore, we suggest that background music has no harmful effect on the execution of moderately difficult cognitive control (as in our study), even if it lasts for a certain period of time. On the contrary, our two musical conditions showed a significant increase in personal-rated arousal, which is generally an appreciated effect and even more so when the task which is being executed is repetitive and therefore boring after a certain period of time.

Due to the fact that some studies revealed a detrimental effect of background music on several tasks ( Jäncke et al., 1994; Furnham and Bradley, 1997), it is important to show that at least in this context one can listen to music without the music interfering with the task performance. The opposite assumption that performance would improve with music played in the background ( Nantais and Schellenberg, 1999; Thompson et al., 2001) could also not be verified by our data. Nantais and Schellenberg (1999) used music and narrated short stories as stimuli. Their work showed that acoustic stimulation, using stories as well as music, leads to better performance compared to silence. This result could not be replicated in any of the examined parameters of the present study. Only an increased arousal was reported by the participants when background music was played. This result is in contrast to the findings of Thompson et al. (2001), who reported better performance with increased arousal and positive affect. On the other hand, we did not find any differences in the mood evaluation between the conditions. It may be that both parameters are necessary for a positive influence on performance, and an increased arousal alone is not sufficient for a positive effect. A meta-analysis by Kämpfe et al. (2011) revealed that the tempo of performed activities was influenced by the tempo of background music, and the authors suggested arousal as a mediator. In our study, the higher arousal induced by the musical pieces had no influence on the speed of performance as reflected by the reaction times. Another possible moderating variable could be habituation ( Behne, 1999). This refers to the fact that that over time, people may become used to the omnipresence of background music in daily life and therefore its influence would decrease. However, Kämpfe et al. (2011) could not find such a systematic decline.

Limitations and Outlook

One of the limitations of this study certainly lies in the circumstance that musical preference is very individual, and that the music was presented without any choice options to the participants, and this usually does not represent common listening habits. Also Krause et al. (2015) hypothesized that music which is chosen by the subject has a positive effect and leads to increased attention in contrast to provided music over which the subject has no control. Nantais and Schellenberg (1999) have shown that performance is closely tied to the preferences of the listeners. It would also be advisable for future studies to collect data on how music is listened to in everyday life, for example, the choice of devices and whether the music is selected deliberately and listened to actively or whether it is consumed passively in the background. This would be interesting in that there might be differences in the commitment that is shown toward the music ( Krause et al., 2015).

Kämpfe et al. (2011) mentioned in their meta-analysis, that a uniform effect of background music could not be found. This fact is also mirrored by the inconsistent findings in the literature overall. According to the authors, a possible reason for this lies in the circumstance that the influence of background music was studied in a too global manner. Therefore, it is important to examine the influence of background music in more detail to disentangle the effect of background music on specific processes, such as was the case in our study. In addition, more studies which investigate subcomponents of cognitive control are needed, because they accompany all our activities in some way.

Conclusion

Listening to background music had no effects on the performance of an inhibition task. We focused our attention on components of cognitive control (N2, P3) and on performance measures (reaction times, omission, and commission errors) during the completion of the VCPT. Studies such as this continue to gain importance due to the growing relevance of music in our culture and its almost natural implementation in many parts of our daily lives. For this reason, it is important to examine whether or not background music has any influence on a given main task. We can state that no negative influence of background music on task performance was found in the framework of a cognitive control task. Therefore, we assume that listening to music does not hamper the accomplishment of various tasks in daily life. This is at least true for tasks of moderate difficulty.

Availability of Data and Materials

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this manuscript will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation, to any qualified researcher.

Author Contributions

AB made contributions to the design and interpretations of the results, performed statistical analysis, and drafted the manuscript. SE made contributions to the design and interpretations of the results, and critically revised the manuscript. DK recorded the data, made contributions to the design and interpretations of the results, and critically revised the manuscript. CB made contributions to the interpretations of the results, and critically revised the manuscript. LJ made contributions to the design and interpretations of the results, and critically revised the manuscript. All the authors approved the final manuscript.

Funding

This work was supported by Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) 320030_163149.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

We thank Juri Kropotov for advising us in using the Go/NoGo task.

Abbreviations

EXC, exciting; NM, no music; RLX, relaxing; VCPT, visual continuous performance task.

References

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The Effect of Background Music on Inhibitory Functions: An ERP Study

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The influence of background music on cognitive functions is still a matter of debate. In this study, we investigated the influence of background music on executive functions (particularly on inhibitory functions). Participants completed a standardized cued Go/NoGo task during three different conditions while an EEG was recorded (1: with no background music, 2: with relaxing, or 3: with exciting background music).

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O que acontece no nosso cérebro quando lemos? Como a multiplicação de telas nas nossas vidas afeta a forma como lemos? E quais os perigos - e oportunidades - da leitura digital? Essas questões são analisadas pela neurocientista norte-americana Maryanne Wolf. Com base em diversas pesquisas, a autora mostra a importância da leitura profunda na história da humanidade e como ela está ameaçada.

Vamos falar sobre O Cérebro No Mundo Digital: Os Desafios da Leitura na Nossa Era? Ler é uma profunda experiência sentimental e cognitiva. E um prazer, se você é daqueles que, como eu, não consegue imaginar um mundo onde os livros não existam. Por isso, achei engraçado quando me dei conta de que estava lendo uma obra que vinha me lembrar algo tão desconcertante: o ato de ler não é uma aptidão natural do ser humano. Ao contrário do "software" da linguagem em geral, pré-instalado nos genes, a leitura é outro dos grandes trunfos exclusivos do homo sapiens.

O exercício da leitura foi responsável - e fundamental - na alteração da estrutura cerebral de nossa espécie. É esse o ponto de partida do livro O cérebro no mundo digital: os desafios da leitura na nossa era, da neurocientista cognitiva e pesquisadora Maryanne Wolf, da Universidade da Califórnia, nos Estados Unidos.

A qualidade de nossa leitura não é somente um índice da qualidade de nosso pensamento, é o melhor meio que conhecemos para abrir novos caminhos na evolução cerebral de nossa espécie. Há muito em jogo no desenvolvimento do cérebro leitor e nas rápidas mudanças que caracterizam atualmente suas sucessivas evoluções.

Para início de conversa, a autora é feliz no uso de um artifício bem criativo para facilitar - justo quem? - a nossa leitura. Pode crer que deu certo. Ela organiza o livro em seções cujos textos tem o formato de cartas, mensagens escritas com capricho para o leitor. Cartas, sim. Um formato antiquado escolhido não por acaso, pois, numa linguagem coloquial e tom reflexivo, a autora quer chamar atenção para as problemáticas que envolvem a leitura nesses tempos hiperconectados que vivemos. Especificamente o impacto que a leitura feita em telas - dos desktops aos celulares - tem sobre nossa concentração e habilidade de compreender e internalizar uma mensagem.

Os suportes digitais, segundo ela, afetam a capacidade de concentração do leitor devido a três fatores, essencialmente: a emissão de luz dos dispositivos, o hiperestímulo sinestésico das interfaces e (sempre que online) a oferta de outros conteúdos brigando pela atenção do leitor.

Wolf apresenta dados obtidos a partir de suas pesquisas, complementando sua fundamentação com o suporte de vasta bibliografia. Por exemplo, quando somadas redes sociais, mensagens eletrônicas e outras fontes escritas, um norte-americano médio lê algo próximo a um romance curto, todos os dias!

Mas nossa atenção pode ser facilmente distraída. Quando você está em um ônibus ou no metrô, pode mergulhar numa leitura profunda, mas é menos fácil de fazê-lo.

Ainda sobre a qualidade da leitura, ela aplicou em si mesma os testes que havia elaborado, e constatou perda significativa em sua experiência pessoal de imersão quando aquilo que lia era lido em meio digital. Ela faz ainda uma análise sobre e-readers como o Kindle, que ofereceriam melhor condição de leitura do que um smartphone, mas inferior quando comparada ao livro físico (o apelo estético e sinestésico do papel também teria relevância na absorção dos conteúdos, ou para aquilo que os leitores mais apaixonados chamam de "mergulhar na história").

O fato da autora evitar os tecnicismos e a linguagem carregada (e às vezes pedante) dos textos acadêmicos é, sem dúvida, um ponto super favorável. Mas manter equilíbrio nessa corda bamba de mais de 200 páginas parece não ter sido moleza para uma neurocientista como Wolf, que, no esforço correto de não escorregar para o academicismo, terminou didática demais um muitas das passagens. Um detalhe mínimo, claro, frente à gigantesca tarefa e contribuição para o entendimento do tema.

Propus a mim mesma o objetivo de compreender como os seres humanos adquirem as palavras escritas e como usam a língua escrita em proveito de seu próprio desenvolvimento intelectual e do desenvolvimento intelectual das gerações futuras.

À primeira vista, talvez alguém pudesse imaginar outra dessas obras tecnofóbicas procurando botar tudo na conta dos gadgets e da internet, da depressão infantil à eleição de Donald Trump. Porém, Maryanne Wolf está longe disso. Ela reconhece (e celebra) os ganhos obtidos com a tecnologia, destacando, por exemplo, a utilização das telas na alfabetização de crianças disléxicas.

Muitas pessoas estão compreendendo que não podemos voltar atrás no progresso tecnológico. Então eu acredito que precisamos educar nossas crianças para que elas aprendam a ler profundamente em papel, mas que sejam ensinadas a ler conscientemente em telas com o máximo de propósito. Creio que possamos fazer isso.

Para além dos dados científicos preciosos sobre a relação entre palavras escritas e sinapses cerebrais, o livro é também um convite para refletirmos sobre a qualidade da nossa leitura nos dias atuais. O quanto nossos suportes e a velocidade de fruição dos textos pode afetar nossa interpretação da realidade. Isso, ampliado para toda uma sociedade, pode comprometer o pensamento crítico e empático a longo prazo, alerta Wolf.

A atenção inicia o resto do que acontecerá no circuito leitor. Se você está parcialmente atento, o circuito não funciona de modo ideal. [...] Se você lê com atenção parcial, não será capaz de inferir o que é verdade e fica mais vulnerável às informações falsas, menos capaz de ler crítica e analiticamente.

O cérebro no mundo digital: os desafios da leitura na nossa era está com certeza entre aquelas obras que merecem toda a atenção possível, seja ela na tela ou no papel. Vale muito a pena! E se você curte o tema, ou se vem acompanhando com interesse o debate atual sobre livro físico versus digital, leia o artigo Kindle: Vale a pena comprar um?

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[Resenha] O Cérebro No Mundo Digital: Os Desafios da Leitura na Nossa Era - Sentimento de Leitor

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O que acontece no nosso cérebro quando lemos? Como a multiplicação de telas nas nossas vidas afeta a forma como lemos? E quais os perigos - e oportunidades - da leitura digital? Essas questões são analisadas pela neurocientista norte-americana Maryanne Wolf.

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Em Lua Vermelha, Miranda Gray resgata a sabedoria do sagrado feminino a fim de mostrar às mulheres modernas como elas podem voltar a aceitar a sua natureza cíclica e se reconciliar com todos os aspectos da feminilidade. Explorando arquétipos da menstruação e da condição feminina contidos na simbologia de mitos, lendas e contos de fadas, a autora oferece métodos e exercícios práticos para você entrar em sintonia com o seu ciclo menstrual, e assim impulsionar sua criatividade, viver sua sexualidade plenamente e aceitar as mudanças naturais do seu corpo e da sua vida.

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The power of musicals: Mike Isaacson at TEDxStLouis

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From ‘devil’s child’ to star ballerina | Michaela DePrince | TEDxAmsterdam 2014

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Changing the Game in Musical Theatre | Joe Deer | TEDxDayton

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Ringball is a century old sport that was introduced at the South African Teachers Colleges as a game for ladies. Over a period the rules were adapted to be more suitable for ladies to compete and a new game was born called Korfball. During 1907 to 1916, the game was played under the banner of the South African Basketball Union, after which the then Transvaal Korfball Board came into existence.

Korfball was introduced as an official school sport at traditional Afrikaans schools and remained a school sport until the 1980s. Men were mainly administrators, referees and selectors for the sport, but could not resist the game and in 1970 at the annual national tournament in Messina two teams comprising referees played the first men's game during the lunch hour. This paved the way for men's teams to partake at national level for the first time in 1971.

The sport continued over the years with clubs competing for various trophies. After club competitions are completed, provincial teams are selected to partake at national level, to be crowned as the top SA provincial team. Due to husbands and wives playing the sport, this became a popular family sport with children playing socially while their parents were busy training. The executive committee realised a competition had to be introduced to keep the children interested.

Current age groups taking part in ringball varies from u/11 boys and girls to masters men and ladies (over the age of 45), emphasising the importance of the game as a family sport.

Various factors over the years prompted administration to consider a name change in order to be recognised by all the sport governing bodies in SA as a unique sport code and during the centenary celebrations in 2007, the name was officially changed from korfball to ringball. The first three years in the history of ringball saw many changes and developments; with most probably the biggest historic event taking place on 27 November 2010 during a gala event when an announcement was made with regard to the newly formed International Ringball Federation.

Considerable development has already taken place at primary and secondary level and today there are approximately 2000 senior players and 900 junior players playing ringball.

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Ringball is a century old sport that was introduced at the South African Teachers Colleges as a game for ladies. Over a period the rules were adapted to be more suitable for ladies to compete and a new game was born called Korfball.

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About two-thirds of all infectious diseases in humans have their origins in animals. Scientists say the ability of a virus to mutate and adapt from animals to the human system is very rare, but the expansion of the human footprint is making that rare event much more likely.

For most people, up until the novel coronavirus took over the headlines, the possibility of a new disease emerging out of nowhere and spreading around the world at a breakneck pace seemed like something out of a science fiction movie. But some members of the scientific community have been sounding the alarm for decades, warning that it was not a matter of if, but when another pandemic would threaten humanity.

Why were scientists so sure that conditions were becoming ripe for a pandemic? CBS News spoke to three experts to better understand how human behavior has made such a development more likely than ever.

Where did SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, come from?

The simple answer is scientists surmise the virus originated in bats, but they do not know exactly how it reached humans. Despite years of working to catalogue viruses, they had never observed this particular virus before.

"It's clear that SARS-CoV-2 is a bat-origin virus. The nearest relative is a virus we found in a horseshoe bat in South China in 2013, and it's 96.2% identical genetically to SARS-CoV-2," said Dr. Peter Daszak, a professor at Columbia University and president of the EcoHealth Alliance.

"What's amazing is that scientists have been actively searching for viruses all over the world for decades and have found thousands of new viruses in many thousands of wildlife hosts, but have never found this particular virus," said Dr. Richard Ostfeld, a disease ecologist from the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, in New York's Hudson Valley.

How did the virus get from bats to humans? Daszak says there are various ways that could happen. People can be directly exposed to bat fluids or feces by being in caves, hunting, killing or butchering bats or simply through contaminated surfaces or the food or drink of people who live in rural China. Alternatively, other animals can act as intermediate hosts through farmed wildlife species or perhaps a livestock species.

How does destruction of the environment and the way we treat animals contribute to the spread of diseases like coronavirus? "We're encroaching into systems that we've never been in before," @ProfKateJones tells @WeatherProf https://t.co/OCSnRLO7OG pic.twitter.com/WG997kRibm
- CBS News (@CBSNews) April 2, 2020

"Some evidence suggests that it might have been present in one or more of the animals that were brought into the wet market in Wuhan, where the first clusters of human cases were detected," explains Ostfeld.

What is clear, explains Prof. Kate Jones, professor of ecology and biodiversity at University College London, is the virus had to morph to make the jump from animal host to human host.

"Most wildlife diseases just stay in wildlife but sometimes they can mutate in a way that can jump those species barriers. It is an incredibly rare event!" she told CBS News.

The impact of changing landscapes

In just the past 40 years an area the size of Europe has been deforested worldwide, and over the past century half of the world's rainforests have been destroyed.

Complicit: The Amazon Fires

"We are changing landscapes and encroaching into systems at a scale that we have never done before," said Jones, explaining that human destruction of natural landscapes is altering the interactions between animals and humans - which also changes the dynamics of the transmission of viruses.

"We disrupt their ecosystems, hunt them, build houses next to them, grow livestock right next to their populations...," said Daszak. "We allow the viruses they carry, that we've never been exposed to in our history, to emerge into our own populations."

Daszak and his team analyzed every known emerging disease over the past 60 years to assess its most likely point of origin and analyzed the changes happening in those places that could have caused pandemics to emerge. "Our analysis shows that land use change - the conversion of tropical forest into agricultural land and livestock farms - is associated with around 30% of known emerging diseases," said Daszak.

The reasons why this disruption of the natural habitat helps spread disease are multifaceted. "Perhaps the most obvious is habitat disturbance can cause the animals to move greater distances, carrying their pathogens with them, explains Ostfeld, adding, "Habitat destruction and degradation can reduce the health of these animal hosts which in turn compromises their immunity and allows pathogens to spread."

Another factor is that the destruction of biodiversity disrupts the predator-prey balance. "When predators disappear, often their prey, such as rats and mice, increase. Rats and mice are the sources of many of the pathogens that jump from wildlife to humans," Ostfeld said.

Human-caused climate change can further exacerbate the situation by pushing animal populations to move into different areas, and by compromising the health of animals through reduced range of habitat and/or less-than-ideal climate conditions in that habitat.

Animal trade and unsanitary conditions

With 7.8 billion people inhabiting the Earth, there is great demand for animals for food and other products or as exotic pets. But in various parts of the world, the way animals are captured, transported, housed and killed poses great risks.

"Both wet markets and the wild animal trade have been implicated in species jumps and epidemics," said Ostfeld. These animals are snatched from their natural habitats and transported surrounded by other animals, wild and domestic, and people in crowded conditions.

"If you were a virus, you'd be very happy in this situation, because jumping to new hosts would be a piece of cake, opening up tremendous opportunities for infection and further transmission," he said.

Coronavirus may have originated from Wuhan market

Jones is also concerned about the clearing of land and the rise in large-scale factory farms. "We now have huge, intensive farms of domestic species which are then interacting with wildlife and those wildlife could be acting as amplifying hosts for many pathogens," said Jones.

"When we house these animals in unsanitary conditions with many other species of animals, we can create ideal conditions for these pathogens to jump to us," Ostfeld added.

How do we reduce the risk of future outbreaks?

Now that humanity is unfortunately acquainted with how dangerous and disruptive a pandemic virus can be, the question is, will we learn from this experience, change our ways and put protective measures in place?

Daszak has a three-point plan he says could help minimize the threat going forward.

First, he suggests launching a global effort to identify viruses in wildlife that could likely emerge in the future. "We estimate there are 1.7 million of them, and we could discover the vast majority (>70%) in a 'Global Virome Project' costing $120 million per year over 10 years," he said. He has already created a 501c3 nonprofit to help fund the project.

Secondly, work with communities in emerging disease hotspots that are on the front lines. Identify the risk behaviors that lead to viruses spilling over from wildlife into the human population and work with these communities to reduce their risk, test for evidence of viruses and stop outbreaks dead in their tracks in the earliest stages.

Lastly, he urges working to develop vaccines to prevent not just the diseases we already know about, but also new viruses we discover in wildlife. Ideally, Daszak would like to see a universal coronavirus vaccine to protect against the whole family of viruses.

Ostfeld would like to see a vast increase in the amount of protected land, to help preserve the ability of natural areas to protect us from infectious diseases. He also supports funding for scientists work on the question of how to better use already developed areas to provide food, fiber, and other resources needed by people.

"Habitat destruction and climate change pose myriad threats to our health and well-being. It's not just viruses," explains Ostfeld. "We continue these destructive practices because we prioritize the short-term gains for relatively few of us and ignore the long-term suffering by all the rest of us. It is not impossible to change this false calculus, but we don't have endless time to get it right."

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Human impact on the environment may make pandemics more likely, experts warn

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About two-thirds of all infectious diseases in humans have their origins in animals. Scientists say the ability of a virus to mutate and adapt from animals to the human system is very rare, but the expansion of the human footprint is making that rare event much more likely.

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https://youtu.be/sNRi9A6LaHM

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A Terra é uma Mulher e o meu Útero, o Universo. | Mónica Guerra da Rocha | TEDxUNIRIO

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Tramita na Assembleia Legislativa do estado de São Paulo, um projeto de lei que pede a proibição, a captura, o embarque, o transporte, a comercialização e o processamento do peixe da espécie Cichla piquiti, o Tucunaré Azul, e do peixe da espécie Cichla kelberi, o Tucunaré Amarelo, nos rios do estado, sendo liberado apenas o consumo local.

O projeto de lei foi apresentado em setembro de 2018 e avançou até a Comissão de Meio Ambiente e Desenvolvimento Sustentável, onde foi aprovado por unanimidade.

Ao que tudo indica o texto não deve ser barrado nas votações seguintes. E então dependerá apenas do governador João Dória (PSBD) para que possa entrar em vigência.

O Projeto de Lei N° 614/2018, de autoria do deputado estadual, Carlão Pignatari (PSDB), prevê a cota zero para transporte e a captura dos tucunarés azul e amarelo. Apenas o consumo local ficaria permitido. Isto significa que o pescador pode consumir a espécie na beira do rio ou no empreendimento onde esteja hospedado, mas, não poderia exceder a cota de 2 kg e respeitar a medida mínima de 30 e máxima de 40 cm por exemplar.

Caso seja aprovado, o projeto prevê que o pescador flagrado desrespeitando as cotas estará sujeito à multa que varia de R$ 400 a até R$ 5.306 mil. Já os estabelecimentos comerciais que forem flagrados vendendo tucunaré também estarão sujeitos a punições, como interdição e perda da licença e do registro.

No texto do projeto, Pignatari explica que a lei é importante "para fins de fomentar o turismo e a economia nos municípios e, especialmente, compatibilizar o desenvolvimento econômico social com a proteção da qualidade do meio ambiente e o equilíbrio ecológico, reconhece-se o Tucunaré, integrante da fauna silvestre local, como um dos animais símbolo da pesca esportiva nacional e mundial e também patrimônio natural".

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Projeto de lei pede cota zero para a pesca do tucunaré azul e amarelo no estado de SP

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Tramita na Assembleia Legislativa do estado de São Paulo, um projeto de lei que pede a proibição, a captura, o embarque, o transporte, a comercialização e o processamento do peixe da espécie Cichla piquiti, o Tucunaré Azul, e do peixe da espécie Cichla kelberi, o Tucunaré Amarelo, nos rios do estado, sendo liberado apenas o ...

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Big game hunting for trophies is cruel, harmful and unsustainable. Trophy hunting rare animals, such as Cecil the lion, for bragging rights is irresponsible.

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Elephants kept appearing in wrinkled herds, loitering near the dusty pans, in search of water. With the September temperature pushing a hundred degrees at midday, the pachyderms were moving at the edge of the Kalahari Desert in Namibia in a community-run wildlife reserve, or conservancy, called Nyae Nyae, where roughly 2,800 San people live today in unyielding conditions.

The elephants left snapped branches and warm scat in their wake. When they caught our scent, our sweat mixing with the sun-scorched grasses, they broke into a trumpeting jog and were gone.

Later, more materialized on the horizon, in the shade of the camel thorn trees, shades themselves. For such enormous creatures, they were nearly invisible but to the sharpest eyes. And those eyes belonged now to Dam, a short, compact man, a tracker from the local San people who stood in the back of the Land Cruiser.

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Trophy Hunting May be Helpful to Conservation Efforts

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Elephants kept appearing in wrinkled herds, loitering near the dusty pans, in search of water. With the September temperature pushing a hundred degrees at midday, the pachyderms were moving at the edge of the Kalahari Desert in Namibia in a community-run wildlife reserve, or conservancy, called Nyae Nyae, where roughly 2,800 San people live today in unyielding conditions.

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"Às enfermidades femininas, na maioria das vezes aplicava-se tratamento local, diretamente na vagina e no colo do útero - injeções, cauterizações, ferro quente, sanguessugas (MATOS, 2003)."

"Um dos exemplos dessa zona de silêncio relativa ao domínio e à violência sobre o corpo da mulher, segundo Miller (1999), verifica-se na China, onde o governo defende a esterilização forçada e o aborto para manter a lei do filho único, além de ignorar os milhares de bebês do sexo feminino que são mortos porque os meninos são considerados mais valiosos. No Sudão e na Somália, pratica-se a mutilação do clitóris."

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“Não vou pedir desculpas por não alimentar o ego e o orgulho misógino de uma sociedade que aceita ver o corpo feminino de lingerie, mas não acha o.k. essa marca [de sangue menstrual]”

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Cerca de 500 veículos de passeio, ônibus e caminhões foram abordados durante blitz especial de fiscalização do Instituto Natureza do Tocantins, com apoio do Destacamento de Polícia Militar Ambiental (DPMA) de Caseara, no município de Monte Santo do Tocantins (113 Km de Palmas).

A operação resultou na apreensão de 167 quilos de peixes de várias espécies, como tucunaré, piau, pirarara, surubim, piranha e jaú. Também foram lavrados autos de infração e aplicação de multas pelo transporte ilegal do pescado, no total de R$ 8.340. A equipe também apreendeu boias, caixas de isopor e duas mochilas de viagem, usadas para esconder o peixe no interior do veículo. O pescado apreendido foi doado uma parte na comunidade de Monte santo e outra na Casa de Apoio Vera Lúcia, em Palmas.

A operação foi comandada pela fiscal do Naturatins Aurilene Carlos Henrique. Ela explica que durante as abordagens as pessoas foram informadas sobre a legislação ambiental vigente no Estado quanto à pesca. "A Portaria 106/2019 do Naturatins, que chamamos de Cota Zero, está em vigor até 2022; ela proíbe o transporte de qualquer quantidade de pescado e limita o consumo de peixe no local da pesca a 5 quilos e mesmo assim há restrições, pois o pescador precisa ser devidamente licenciado", reforça a fiscal.

Além do transporte ilegal, a equipe constatou que alguns exemplares dos peixes apreendidos tinham tamanho inferior ao permitido. "Mesmo para consumir no local, existe um tamanho mínimo para cada espécie e quem desobedece a essa norma também está sujeito à multa", alerta Aurilene.

A fiscal aconselha que quem quiser praticar pesca de maneira legal, sem correr risco de ser flagrado pela fiscalização, deve visitar o site do Naturatins para se informar. "No site do órgão o pescador tem acesso a todas as informações sobre procedimentos para tirar a licença de pesca, legislação vigente e tabela com o limite do tamanho mínimo de cada peixe", informa, completando que é importante que o pescador saiba as regras vigentes no Estado do Tocantins e o que caracteriza ação predatória, mesmo fora do período da piracema.
Prisão
Durante a abordagem aos ocupantes de veículos, os policiais militares identificaram um homem que estava com mandado de prisão em abertopor tráfico de drogas, sendo considerado foragido. O homem (cuja identidade não foi revelada) foi conduzido pelos militares para a Delegacia de Polícia do município de Paraíso do Tocantins.

Linha Verde
Qualquer cidadão pode fazer denúncias de crimes ambientais de forma anônima e gratuita via utilizando os canais do Naturatins. Basta acessar o site naturatins.to.gov.br e clicar em Linha Verde ou também ligar para o número 0800-63-1155. O sigilo do denunciante é garantido, mas é necessário que seja fornecida a localização e o tipo de ocorrência.

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Peixes são apreendidos e pescadores multados durante operação de fiscalização em Monte Santo

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Cerca de 500 veículos de passeio, ônibus e caminhões foram abordados durante blitz especial de fiscalização do Instituto Natureza do Tocantins, com apoio do Destacamento de Polícia Militar Ambiental (DPMA) de Caseara, no município de Monte Santo do Tocantins (113 Km de Palmas). A operação resultou na apreensão de 167 quilos de peixes de várias...

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Overview

Occasional anxiety is an expected part of life. You might feel anxious when faced with a problem at work, before taking a test, or before making an important decision. But anxiety disorders involve more than temporary worry or fear. For a person with an anxiety disorder, the anxiety does not go away and can get worse over time. The symptoms can interfere with daily activities such as job performance, school work, and relationships.

There are several types of anxiety disorders, including generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and various phobia-related disorders.

Signs and Symptoms

Risk Factors

Treatments and Therapies

Join a Study

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Occasional anxiety is an expected part of life. You might feel anxious when faced with a problem at work, before taking a test, or before making an important decision. But anxiety disorders involve more than temporary worry or fear. For a person with an anxiety disorder, the anxiety does not go away and can get worse over time.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQtg1dYJLJ0

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AZlAR4Qonk

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https://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/5-reasons-trophy-hunting-is-not-conservation/

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Original Article

Estimation of peacock bass ( Cichla spp.) mortality rate during catch-release fishing employing different post-capture procedures

Estimativa da taxa de mortalidade do tucunaré ( Cichla spp.) durante a prática do pesque-solte

Department of Fisheries Sciences, Universidade Federal do Amazonas - UFAM, Mini Campus, Av. General Rodrigo Otávio, 3000, Coroado I, CEP 69077-000, Manaus, AM, Brazil

The effect of catch-and-release fishing on the survival of peacock bass ( Cichla spp.) was evaluated by comparing two types of artificial bait (jig and shallow-diver plugs) and two types of post-catch confinement. Two experiments were conducted during the periods January-February and October-November 2012 in the Unini River, a right-bank tributary of the Negro River. In total, 191 peacock bass were captured. Both groups of fish were subjected to experimental confinement (collective and individual) for three days. Additionally, 11 fish were tagged with radio transmitters for telemetry monitoring. Mortality rate was estimated as the percentage of dead individuals for each type of bait and confinement. For peacock bass caught with jig baits, mortality was zero. The corresponding figure for shallow-diver bait was 1.66% for fish in collective containment, 18.18% for fish monitored by telemetry and 0% for individuals confined individually. Our results show low post-release mortality rates for peacock bass. Furthermore, neither the type of confinement nor the type of bait had a statistically significant influence on mortality rates. While future studies could include other factors in the analysis, our results show that catch-and-release fishing results in low mortality rates.

Keywords: Cichla spp.; angling; artificial baits; fish mortality; post-catch confinement

O efeito do pesque-solte na sobrevivência do tucunaré ( Cichla spp.) foi avaliado comparando dois tipos de iscas artificiais, jig e de meia-água, e dois tipos de confinamento pós-captura. Dois experimentos foram conduzidos durante os períodos de janeiro-fevereiro e outubro-novembro de 2012, no Rio Unini, afluente da margem direita do Rio Negro. No total, 191 tucunarés foram capturados. Os peixes foram submetidos a um confinamento experimental (coletivo e individual) com duração de três dias. Além disso, 11 peixes foram marcados com radiotransmissores e liberados imediatamente após a captura, sendo monitorados por telemetria. A taxa de mortalidade foi calculada como a porcentagem de indivíduos mortos para cada tipo de isca e tratamento (confinamento individual, coletivo e sem confinamento). Não houve mortalidade para o grupo de tucunarés capturados com isca jig. A isca de meia-água mostrou uma taxa de mortalidade de 1,66% para o confinamento coletivo e 18,18% para os peixes monitorados por telemetria. Nossos resultados mostraram baixas taxas de mortalidade pós-soltura para tucunaré. Além disso, nem o tipo de confinamento, nem o tipo de isca tiveram influência significativa nas taxas de mortalidade. Ainda que estudos futuros possam incluir novos fatores na análise, os nossos resultados mostram que a prática do pesque-solte resulta em baixas taxas de mortalidade.

Palavras-chave: Cichla spp.; pesca; iscas artificiais; mortalidade de peixes; confinamento pós-captura

1. Introduction

Sport fishing is an important activity worldwide (; Cooke and Suski, 2004). Its social importance and income-generating ability has been recognized in several countries (Pitcher and Hollingworth, 2002), including the United States of America (Muoneke and Childress, 1994; Siepker et al., 2007), Australia (Mcleay et al., 2002; Broadhurst et al., 2005), several European countries (Aas et al., 2002; Veiga et al., 2011) and Brazil (Catella, 2004; ; Holley et al., 2008; Sobreiro et al., 2010; Freire et al., 2012).

In Brazil, sport-fishing tourism has been growing since the beginning of the 90s (Holley et al., 2008). It is responsible, directly and indirectly, for approximately 200 thousands jobs, moving a total turnover of US$ 500 million (). Anglers in various countries have identified Brazil as a special destination with a good pool of target species for sport fishing ().

The rapid pace at which sport fisheries have developed in Amazonian blackwater rivers is closely related to the presence of large peacock bass ( Cichla spp.) in these rivers. Three species of peacock bass can be found in the Negro River basin: Cichla orinocensis (Humboldt, 1821), Cichla temensis (Humboldt, 1821) and Cichla monoculus (Agassiz, 1831) (Kullander and Ferreira, 2006). The aggressive behavior of these species and the way that they attack the bait are the main characteristics that attract anglers from several parts of the world to the Amazonian region (Holley et al., 2008). The most important fishing grounds are located in the middle stretch of the Negro River and its tributaries the rivers Jurubaxi, Aracá, Demeni, Cuiuni, Caurés, Padauari, and Unini (Freitas and Rivas, 2006).

Sport fishing as regulated by the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) is defined as recreational fishing in which the fish must be released after it has been caught and is known as catch-and-release fishing. This type of fishing is predominant in the middle stretch of the Negro River, particularly when peacock bass is the target species.

In the rivers of the Amazon Basin and Brazilian Pantanal, the efficiency of catch-and-release as a means of ensuring sustainable fish stocks remains the subject of debate. Some fishers, environmentalists, researchers and riverine people believe that released fish are highly vulnerable to predation by catfish, crocodilians and dolphins (Ceccarelli et al., , ). There is some evidence that catch-and-release mortality rates are strongly influenced by the biological characteristics of the target species (Muoneke and Childress, 1994). However, certain other factors, such as the body part of the fish that was hooked (Pope et al., 2007; Alós et al., 2008), the type of bait (Reeves and Bruesewitz, 2007) and the fighting and handling time (Cooke and Suski, 2004) could also be determinants of mortality rate.

Broadhurst et al. (2005), studying the mortality rate of the main target species of Australian estuary sport fishing, reported mortality rates between 0 and 36.6% and found that the body part hooked and the time taken to release the fish were the main factors influencing mortality. Reeves and Bruesewitz (2007) estimated the mortality rate for catch-and-release of Sander vitreus to be between 0% and 12.2% and found that it was related to water temperature, bleeding intensity, fish size and the body part hooked. Alós et al. (2008) obtained similar values between 0% and 17.9% and found that hook shape and size were the key factors. In a later study, reported that the body part hooked was also a key factor.

Although peacock bass is the main target species for sport fishing in the Negro River basin (Holley et al., 2008), there are few published data on its post-release mortality rate. Thomé-Souza et al. (2014), in a study in which fish were confined for 72 hours post-catch, found mortality rates of between 2.3% and 5.2% for the three peacock bass species caught in the Negro River. However, their experimental design did not investigate the effects of bait type or post-catch confinement procedure, mainly related with the immediate release to address the question that the fish became vulnerable after capture. Aiming to fill this lacuna, the present study investigated the effects of both these factors on the mortality rate of peacock bass caught using two types of bait were in catch-and-release and including different post-catch confinement procedure at the experimental design.

2. Material and Methods

2.1. Study area

The study was carried out in the upper reach of the Unini River, a right-bank tributary of the middle Negro River ( Figure 1). The Unini River was chosen because there are three environmental conservation units in its basin (Extractive Reserve Unini, Jaú National Park and Amanã Sustainable Development Reserve), where commercial fishing has been forbidden since 2008. There is no history of commercial fishing in the lakes in this region, which is close to the Village Vila Nunes consists of 5 small families, totaling 24 people (1°37'35.87"S and 62°56'27.65"W). People from the Village Vila Nunes, who are used to work as sport-fishing guides, were employed as guides and fishermen during this study.

2.2. Data sampling

Two field trips were done to perform the experiments, each lasting 35 days. The first was carried out in January and February 2012 and the second in October and November 2012. Fish were caught by seasoned fishers, including people who worked as fishing guides in the same area, using techniques and gear identical to those employed by recreational anglers. The experimental fishing was licensed by IBAMA (SISBIO 31951-1/authorization code 71137166) and was conducted in a motorized boat using a cooler filled with water from the river, where the fish caught were stored to reduce post-capture stress. Two types of bait were used: jigs (baits with just one single hook) and shallow-diver plugs (baits with two multiple hooks that run at mid-water) for studies with confinement, and only shallow-diver plugs for studies without confinement.

After the capture, we used three different procedures to monitor mortality rate for the different types of post-catch handling: (i) individual confinement of fish in small buoyancy cages, (ii) collective confinement in a surrounded area and (iii) tagging of fish with radio tags and immediate release after capture. The body part of fish wounded by the hook was visually identified.

To avoid excessive manipulation and stress for fish, they were keeping with a Boga Grip handless to measure total weight (kg). At the same time, an automatic tape measure was employed to measure standard length (cm) and fish girth (cm). The time spent between catch and release into the pen, cages or natural environment was also measured. All the experiments lasted three days, the time considered necessary to assess catch-and-release mortality, as deaths normally occur within the first twenty-fours following capture (Muoneke, 1992; Muoneke and Childress, 1994; Schill, 1996).

2.2.3. Telemetry study (no confinement)

2.3. Data analysis

Mortality rate was calculated as the percentage of fish captured using a particular type of bait that died in each type of treatment. Data for weight, length and girth of the fish caught and time between capture and release were described by measures of central tendency (median e interquartile range - IQR). We used non-parametric procedures for the statistical analysis of the data because of the non-normal distribution (D'Agostino - Pearson normality test, at nominal level of significance of 0.05). The size of the fish caught with the two types of bait was compared with the Mann-Whitney U-test using weight, length and girth data. Also two Mann-Whitney U-test were employed to compare mortality rates by type of bait (jigs versus shallow-diver plugs) and confinement procedures (individual- versus collective confinement). We also plotted graphs to identify a possible relationship between the type of bait and the body part wounded. All analyses were performed using Statistica 9.0 (Statsoft Inc, 2009). The results of the statistical tests were interpreted with α = 0.05.

3. Results

3.5. Effects of housing on mortality rate

There was no difference in mortality rate between fish in individual confinement and those in collective confinement (Mann-Whitney, U=15, p=0.404). Overall mortality rate for the 90 individuals caught with jig baits was therefore 0%. The corresponding figure for the 90 individuals caught with shallow-diver plugs was 1.11%. No intraspecific predation (cannibalism) was detected among the individuals in collective confinement. However, interspecific predation occurred when shallow-diver plugs were used as some of the confined peacock bass preyed upon Serrasalmus sp. that entered the pen.

3.8. Size selectivity by type of bait

Peacock bass caught with shallow-diver plugs had a tendency to be larger and have significantly larger weight, standard length and girth than those caught with jig baits ( Figures 2a, 2b and 2c).

3.9. Telemetry study (no confinement)

Eleven peacock bass were caught with shallow-diver plugs. The fish had weights ranging from 3.5 to 7.5 Kg (median = 5, IQR = 1). Standard length varied from 53 to 69 cm (median = 61, IQR = 7), and girth varied from 40 to 52.5 cm (median = 45, IQR = 4.5.

After three days of telemetry monitoring, only two fish died. One was an individual weighing 7.5 Kg with a standard length of 69 cm and girth of 52.5 cm, which was found dead approximately 2 hours after release (with no marks on its body to indicate predation). The other, which weighed 3.5 Kg and had a standard length of 55 cm and girth of 45.5 cm, was found dead on the afternoon of the second day of monitoring. Only one part of the body of this individual was found. The rest (from the base of the pectoral fin to the tail) may have been eaten by a predator. The mortality rate calculated at the end of this experiment was 18.18%.

4. Discussion

Considering the central objective to determinate the effects of bait type and post-catch confinement procedure on the peacock bass survivorship, we found very low mortality rates. When collective confinement was used, only one specimen of peacock bass died after release, while in individual confinement there was no mortality after three days of confinement. Mortality rates calculated for fish subjected to confinement should be considered conservative estimates (Pollock and Pine, 2007) because confinement does not simulate natural environmental conditions when the fish are returned to water (). In contrast, the mortality rate in the experiment without confinement, in which telemetry was used to monitor the fish in their natural environment, was higher.

This difference may be directly related to the fact that when containment is used, fish caught using catch-and-release are protected from potentially greater vulnerability to predation whereas when released into the environment they will be available to other predators while they recover from the effects of catch-and-release (Cooke and Philipp, 2004; Thorstad et al., 2004). Cooke and Philipp (2004) found a mortality rate due to post-release predation of 39% for Albula spp. in a site with a high abundance of predators.

Our results partially corroborate a study of peacock bass mortality in the Negro River developed by Thomé-Souza et al. (2014). These authors found mortality rates between 2.3% and 5.2% for fish subjected to collective confinement and most of the deaths occurred in the first hour after capture. These findings suggest that the first hours after release are crucial to the survival of peacock bass caught in catch-and-release fishing. In general, post-release mortality has been associated with damage to vital tissues or organs, which leads to profuse loss of blood. This trend was also reported for other species targeted in sport fishing (Muoneke (1992); Muoneke and Childress (1994); Schill (1996); Butcher et al. (2006)), in which the highest fish mortality occurred in the first 24 hours after release.

For fishes returned to the water after capture that have been out of the water for a long time, predation is the major cause of mortality and is the result of physiological and behavioral deficiencies (Cooke and Philipp, 2004). Therefore, telemetry, or any technique that allows fish to be studied in their natural environment, should be used in studies that seek to quantify catch-and-release fish mortality.

Post-capture stress, which is caused by factors such as physical injuries () and other disturbances associated with catch-and-release (Stockwell et al., 2002; Siepker, 2005; Pope et al., 2007), can inhibit feeding in the short term. Feeding varies according to the severity and duration of stress factors, as well as the species, age, size and condition of the fish (). When the experiment with collective confinement was over, we had sacrificed some fish at random and observed that they ate Serrasalmus sp. that entered into the surrounded area (personnel observations). These unpredicted events showed that the stress caused by capture was apparently short-lasting and that the injuries from the hooks did not affect the ability of these fish to feed.

It is important to note that none of the fish caught in our experiments suffered injuries to internal organs (apart from the gills). This is most likely due to the use of artificial baits, which are usually not swallowed deeply. Schill (1996), Schisler and Bergersen (1996), Dubois and Kuklinski (2004) and Reeves and Bruesewitz (2007) observed that the chances of fish swallowing the bait are greatly diminished when artificial baits are used as these are operated actively. Although mortality varies between species, higher mortality rates in general are associated with injury to internal organs and lesions with the presence of bleeding that could be associated with the use of natural bait (Muoneke and Childress, 1994; Bartholomew and Bohnsack, 2005; Broadhurst et al., 2005; Reeves and Bruesewitz, 2007; Alós et al., 2008; ).

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Amazon Research Funding Agency (FAPEAM) and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) for providing financial support for this study, and Vila Nunes community for help with field work.

References

KULLANDER, S.O. and FERREIRA, E.J.G., 2006. A review of the South Americancichlid genus Cichla, with descriptions of nine new species (Teleostei: Cichlidae). Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters, vol. 17, pp. 289-398. [ Links ]

MUONEKE, M.I., 1992. Hooking mortality of White Crappie, Pomoxis annularis Rafinesque, and Spotted Bass, Micropterus punctulatus (Rafinesque), in Texas reservoirs. Aquaculture Research, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 87-93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2109.1992.tb00598.x. [ Links ]

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Estimation of peacock bass (Cichla spp.) mortality rate during catch-release fishing employing different post-capture procedures

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Original Article Estimation of peacock bass ( Cichla spp.) mortality rate during catch-release fishing employing different post-capture procedures Estimativa da taxa de mortalidade do tucunaré ( Cichla spp.) durante a prática do pesque-solte Department of Fisheries Sciences, Universidade Federal do Amazonas - UFAM, Mini Campus, Av.

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State of Roraima wants to ban peacock bass fishing

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State of Roraima wants to ban peacock bass fishing

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Pescadores em Boa Vista têm reagido negativamente ao projeto de lei do governo estadual que proíbe a captura e comercialização do peixe Tucunaré da Amazônia. O projeto também proíbe o embarque, o transporte, o processamento e a industrialização da espécie.

A intenção seria preservar o tucunaré, recuperar o ecossistema onde a espécie vive, além de contribuir com seu repovoamento, mas pescadores destacam que isso pode prejudicar quem trabalha com a espécie em determinada época do ano.

O pescador Raimundo Nonato da Silva Filho afirma que no verão o acesso ao tucunaré fica mais fácil, sendo o peixe mais capturado pelos pescadores. "Prejudica demais o nosso trabalho, pois tem período que geralmente achamos mais tucunaré. Não pegamos os grandes, mas tucunarés médios pegamos muito. Vendi muito tucunaré aqui, principalmente no verão, pois tem mais acesso para pegar ele. O tucunaré é um peixe difícil de pegar", afirma.

Raimundo explica que o tucunaré é achado muito em lagos e igarapés no estado. "Cada qual tem o seu período. Agora está na época da "arribação" dos peixes. O que está subindo mais aí é mamori, pacu, pirapitinga, matrinxã e jaraqui. Tucunaré conseguimos pegar, mas pegamos pouco no rio e geralmente é mais em lago e igarapé. Tem lugares que possui muito tucunaré. Meu irmão, que também é pescador, quando chega o verão e o rio está seco, traz muito desse peixe. De mil quilos, um total de 600 é de tucunaré, e de porte grande", afirma.

O projeto de lei destaca que o manejo e o consumo ficam livres apenas para a população ribeirinha que tem o intuito de consumir a espécie para alimentar sua família e para quem pratica a modalidade esportiva chamada "Pesque e Solte". Esta modalidade é aquela em que o pescador pesca e o devolve o animal vivo para a água.

Está previsto também que a punição para quem for flagrado desrespeitando a lei pode ser multa, além de punição aos estabelecimentos comerciais que estiverem vendendo a espécie, que podem ser até mesmo interditados, ter a licença, autorização e registro suspensos, e nos casos em que houver reincidência pode levar até ao cancelamento de licença, autorização e registro.

Para o chefe da fiscalização ambiental da Femarh, Yuri de Lima Teixeira, o projeto de lei destaca bastante a punição para quem estiver fora da lei. "Fica permitido somente para pesca esportiva e tem a questão dos ribeirinhos, mas tem que provar a necessidade de subsistência. Também fica explícito a questão da comercialização. A pessoa pode até ter o comércio suspenso, embargado, a licença pode ser cancelada. Tem que ser levada a sério a questão", analisa o chefe.

Ainda conforme o chefe de fiscalização ambiental, o motivo da proibição tem o intuito de fomentar o turismo através da pesca esportiva. "Acredito que se tenha levado a essa proibição é o hábito do próprio roraimense de não consumir tanto o peixe tucunaré e também para trazer mais turistas para o estado de Roraima. O foco do turismo é o tucunaré em relação à pesca esportiva, fortalecendo o turismo baseado no modelo da cidade de Barcelos, no Amazonas", afirma ainda Yuri.

Contudo, para o pescador Ricardo Cruz Mangabeira, mesmo com intuito de preservação o projeto de lei acaba prejudicando a renda dos pescadores no estado. "O tucunaré é um dos mais achados. Em lago é só o que dá. O baixo rio Branco tem para mais de mil lagos e você acha muito tucunaré. Na sua época, sem dúvida, vai atrapalhar o nosso comércio. Não gosto da ideia de não proibir também com relação àqueles hotéis de turismo de pesca esportiva. Acho aquilo muito errado, porque fere o tucunaré. Aquilo vai acabar? Acho que não, e isso é muito errado também", destaca ainda o pescador.

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Governo quer proibir pesca de Tucunaré nos rios de Roraima

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Pescadores em Boa Vista têm reagido negativamente ao projeto de lei do governo estadual que proíbe a captura e comercialização do peixe Tucunaré da Amazônia. O projeto também proíbe o embarque, o transporte, o processamento e a industrialização da espécie.

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Pirarucu and peacook bas may disappear from lake in Amapá

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Pirarucu and peacook bas may disappear from lake in Amapá

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O mapeamento do Lago Pracuúba, localizado na região dos lagos que compreende os municípios de Pracuúba, Tartarugalzinho e Amapá, é uma estratégia da Agência de Pesca do Amapá (Pescap) para evitar a extinção de espécies como o pirarucu e o tucunaré. Os peixes correm risco de desaparecer da região por causa da pesca predatória, segundo atestou o engenheiro de pesca Anderson Pantoja.

A ação pretende identificar a quantidade e a possibilidade de reprodução das espécies na região. "Fizemos um estudo onde os pescadores relataram que esses peixes estavam sumindo do lago Pracuúba. Porém, a prática de pesca é a mesma, com a ajuda de redes, mesmo sendo proibida por lei ambiental", explica Pantoja.
Orientações de manejo podem garantir a
continuação das espécies no lago
(Foto: Divulgação/Embrapa Amapá)
A pesca para essas espécies deve ser feita com arpão, o que diminui a quantidade de filhotes que acabam sendo capturados com o uso de redes. Outro fator que contribui para o desaparecimento é a abertura de 'varadouros', que são novos caminhos abertos pelos pescadores para facilitar o escoamento da água, o que diminui a profundidade do lago.

Serão realizadas com os pescadores da região, orientações de manejo sustentável para garantir a perpetuação das espécies. Dados da Pescap atestam que em 2012 foram capturadas 25 toneladas de pirarucu.

O modelo que será aplicado com os pescadores é o utilizado em várias regiões da Amazônia, como na comunidade do Sucuriju, no município de Amapá. "Vamos motivar os pescadores a cultivarem os alevinos em cativeiro, além da transposição de espécies de áreas que secam no verão", prevê o engenheiro de pesca.
Pesca para as espécies deve ser feita com arpão, o que diminui a quantidade de filhotes que acabam sendo apreendidos com o uso de redes (Foto: Embrapa/Divulgação)

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Pirarucu e tucunaré podem desaparecer de lago no Amapá

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O mapeamento do Lago Pracuúba, localizado na região dos lagos que compreende os municípios de Pracuúba, Tartarugalzinho e Amapá, é uma estratégia da Agência de Pesca do Amapá (Pescap) para evitar a extinção de espécies como o pirarucu e o tucunaré.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has completely changed our lives. Take something as fundamental as our experiences of space: our mobility has become severely restricted - reduced to jogs or walks a few kilometres around our homes. Perhaps less obviously, the lockdown has also affected our experiences of time.

As an anthropologist of time, I investigate how human beings relate to time, particularly during crises. The current crisis, like many others, could be seen to deprive us of our " temporal agency " - the ability to structure, manage and manipulate our experience of time. For example, many of us will have already lost track of time, wondering which day of the week it is. It feels a bit as if time has come to a standstill.

The most important feature of our experiences of time during crisis is what anthropologist Jane Guyer termed " enforced presentism ": a feeling of being stuck in the present, combined with the inability to plan ahead. We currently don't know when we can see our loved ones again, or when we can go on holiday. More severely, many of us don't know when we'll go back to work - or indeed if we have a job to go back to. In the midst of this crisis, it is hard to imagine a future that looks different than the present.

Tricking time

So how do we cope? I argue that this crisis has prompted us to be more creative with our relations to time. Most of us are even " tricking time" to some extent, as Roxana Moroşanu and I termed it in a recent paper. We speed up and slow down, bend and restructure time in many different ways.

"Corona time" in fact consists of many different times, such as the "time of lockdown", "quarantine time" or "home office time". We have learnt to inhabit these new presents. These lessons are deeply personal and differ in each household. Still, they speak of an experience shared worldwide.

Over the last few months, you will have deployed many temporal strategies yourself. This might include the construction of new rhythms and temporal structures. Daily exercises, weekly family Zoom meetings, a 6pm glass of wine or weekend cake baking all mark the passage of time. And home schooling has demanded new schedules - not to mention endless persuasion.

The clock of capitalism

For many, this feeling of stuckness is not new. Those who cannot keep up with the ever accelerating global flows of money, ideas, commodities and people often feel left behind. Critics of capitalism have therefore argued we need a slowing down of time.

In my work on postindustrial cities, I have studied our relationship with the future in times of economic crises. These crises are part and parcel of capitalism, as Marx told us more than 150 years ago. After the second world war, however, welfare states largely kept economic crises at bay.

But the 1980s neoliberal reforms of capitalism resulted in a dismantling of the welfare state. National governments stopped fathoming five-year plans. Just-in-time production and new technological developments, such as the internet, led to an unprecedented acceleration of time.

Temporally, neoliberalism has put humanity into crisis mode for several decades already. Without job security and in ever changing markets, many of us struggle to plan ahead - getting stuck in the present. The way to beat this stuckness is to "muddle through", or as the British more heroically say, "keep calm and carry on".

Many postindustrial cities, such as those in Wales and north-east England, have lost a take on their collective prospects. After years of industrial boom and high employment rates, many inhabitants now feel their towns have "no future". The dismantling of local industries, such as mining, has led to high unemployment and unforeseen levels of migration out of the areas. The young and well-educated move away in search for jobs, while those who stay behind witness the slow decline of their hometown.

To overcome a lack of foresight and enforced presentism, their urban governments have had to reclaim the future planning rather than just responding to events. Despite ongoing decline, they have had to ask themselves: how do we want our city to look, say, in five years time?

Reclaiming the future

This applies to our current situation, too. Now is the time to think ahead about how life should look like in the post-COVID-19 future - we need to trick time further than for our personal households. Although a vaccine or proper treatment for COVID-19 is still not in sight, we have to try to shake the feeling of being trapped in the present. We now need to engage with the emerging politics of time, which will determine our near future.

For example, we will soon see different attempts at declaring an end to the pandemic, based on, for example, low numbers of new infections, and we should carefully assess them. We will also have to ask more fundamental questions about when this crisis is over: how can we solve the ongoing climate crisis? How can we prevent social inequalities in an unforeseen economic recession? How can we prevent another pandemic? The politics of time will also be crucial retrospectively: Have governments acted quickly enough?

Because the corona crisis has allowed us to experience a very different time, it will be interesting to see whether parts of this new normality, such as home offices and reduced mobility, will remain. But even if it is just an involuntary pause from capitalist times, we should reconsider neoliberalism's temporal regimes of growth, decline and acceleration that have shaped life on Earth.

Our experiences of corona time has given us a training in temporal thought and flexibility. Humanity will weather this crisis, but there are others ahead. Perhaps then, it will be comforting to know that we can, and must, trick time and plan for the future - even when we feel stuck in the present.

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Coronavirus: how the pandemic has changed our perception of time

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The COVID-19 pandemic has completely changed our lives. Take something as fundamental as our experiences of space: our mobility has become severely restricted - reduced to jogs or walks a few kilometres around our homes. Perhaps less obviously, the lockdown has also affected our experiences of time.

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The Covid-19 changes that could last long-term

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From the extinction of the daily commute to transforming our relationship with food, Covid-19 is changing our world already - and in some ways, it looks set to get better.

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A return to how life was at the start of 2020 is some way off. Even when lockdown restrictions are eased, coronavirus will affect our lives in many ways. What will struggle to get back to how it was before, and what might change for ever?

Twelve BBC correspondents offer their thoughts.

From Zooming clients to neighbourhood WhatsApp groups, digital platforms have become the only way for many of us to work, get fit or be educated and entertained.

We're more relaxed about screen time hours for us and our kids, a huge culture shift from just a few weeks ago. It feels unlikely that'll disappear overnight.

In March, BT said it was "well within manageable limits", and it is still intending to roll out ultrafast full-fibre broadband to 227 rural communities across the UK in coming months.

Going forward, with lines between home and work blurred like never before, we'll need to think carefully about which platforms we use and what we say on them.

Still, video conferencing, once the poor relation to face-to-face meetings in the corporate world, is - for the moment - the norm. Remember that meme: "This meeting could have been an email"? Perhaps it's finally within reach.

Businesses in good financial health, and able to give customers what they want, will prosper. But weaker players - already grappling with falling sales, rising costs and intense competition - will fall by the wayside during the next 18 months.

But there's also a more immediate question. How many outlets will reopen at all?

After lockdown, there'll be an immediate sales bounce and stores are likely to lower prices to shift stock. But it may be short-lived if people have been made redundant and are unable to spend.

Fashion relies heavily on shoppers with spare cash and many of us will have endured the past weeks buying hardly any clothes at all - and survived!

It will be interesting to see if shoppers rethink their habits and priorities.

Covid-19 is the greatest shock to business for a century.

Emergency measures forced on reluctant companies will form part of future thinking. Questions such as "do we need large city office space with staff relying on crowded public transport?" will be asked. Home-working could make the rush hour history, which might then affect property values in satellite "commuter towns".

Staff will also demand more from employers in terms of flexibility, facilities and safety at work.

The digital transformation of business will get faster, with more automation and artificial intelligence to approve loans, profile customers, control stock and improve delivery.

Supply chains will be shorter, more resilient and possibly more local - but there are pluses and minuses to that. Economic nationalism, when governments try to protect their economies by cutting imports and investments from other nations, is popular right now - but some warn it results in a selfish and damaging "beggar thy neighbour" approach.

Finally, international institutions like the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, the World Health Organization and the European Union may be challenged to up their games - or go away.

We all hope for a return to business as usual. It's not going to happen.

Teaching has moved online, with digital lessons on a scale never seen - highlighting concerns that digital poverty is locking children out of learning. Even in a major economy such as the UK, a significant minority don't have ready access to a device of their own, which they can use for schoolwork.

Ofcom estimates that 59% of 12 to 15-year-olds have their own tablet, while 83% have a smartphone. However, some disadvantaged teenagers in England will be able to borrow laptops to help them study at home, thanks to help from the Department for Education. This temporary solution may need to become long term though, which is one legacy of this pandemic.

UK universities face other challenges. They're globally connected and have successfully marketed the value of a British degree around the world.

Mainland China alone is used to sending 120,000 students to the UK each year. That number will fall, as will numbers from other countries. The appetite to study far from family will not be as strong as it once was.

Sweet air and tranquil roads - in the grimmest of circumstances, the coronavirus lockdown offers a sense of how a greener world might feel.

What happens next though is open to question.

One scenario is that the world repeats the fossil fuel frenzy that followed the banking crisis, unleashing pent-up demand for oil and coal. Governments know this response well as a method to revive flagging economies.

Another option is for a more sustainable recovery, with policies to encourage a low-carbon future. This would see determined pushes for renewable energy, public transport and home energy efficiency.

Legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly famously said: "Some people believe football is a matter of life and death... it is much, much more important than that." He was joking, of course, but now, more than ever, football's relevance has been put into perspective.

However, sport is a serious pleasure for many. It supports an industry employing hundreds of thousands and has been affected like never before.

In future, social distancing will be a massive headache for sporting governing bodies. How can close contact physical sports, like rugby, continue? Even playing behind closed doors presents a myriad of problems.

An English Premier League football season without a champion was once unthinkable, but now the campaign hangs in the balance. Even if sport can return this year, the global recession likely to follow will surely affect business for years, especially in areas like transfer fees, wages, broadcast deals and prize money.

For millions of fans, weekends are now very different. Moments of unbelievable effort and sporting talent often ripple through the nation, providing collective "did you see it?" experiences. The future of sport, without those moments and the fans to watch, looks very different indeed.

The arts sector is split 50-50 about the post-pandemic future, between the optimists and the pessimists.

The upbeat half think the UK arts scene will come back stronger than ever, providing an eager population with longed-for shared experiences and feel-good content.

I suspect the reality will settle somewhere between the two. The post-lockdown transition from closed to bustling venues won't be straightforward. Social distancing is likely to limit activity. Producers will need time to rehearse and finish productions. There'll also be size limits on film and TV crews making new content. Reruns could be a staple for a while.

But let's not forget the UK's creative industries have long been strong economic driving forces. They are world renowned and full of talented individuals. It's going to be tough, but I'd back the arts and entertainment sector to not only keep us amused and intellectually sustained, but also to lead from the front.

But our suspended life in lockdown could be incubating a grievance that, when released, triggers angry questions, a search for blame, and demands for reprisals. Economic hardship will strain social ties. That's the real test for this generation - not "can we keep our temper in lockdown?" but "can we quietly repair our social fabric in the tough times?".

The fear is that our behavioural norms will have become infected by distress and hardship, that we will emerge more individual and less together.

The hope must be that our society, like a virus, is mutating into something stronger.

"This pandemic has shone a spotlight on the overlooked and undervalued corners of society." The words of the director of the World Health Organization in Europe, Dr Hans Kluge, as he described the shocking death toll in care homes across the continent.

His sentiment will chime with many who have constantly warned about the looming care crisis in the UK, particularly in England. An ageing population, years of underfunding, low pay, staff shortages and the failure of successive governments to reform the system, has left the sector on its knees.

Many staff looking after older and disabled people - in care homes and in the community - will say they felt forgotten when the pandemic first took hold. The focus on the NHS was not surprising, but they were caring for those particularly vulnerable to the virus.

The struggle to get protective equipment, and slowness of testing in the community in England, have become symbols of their distress. Questions will be asked about the apparent failure to prioritise support to the care front-line, and what it may have cost in lives.

Then, we'll have a choice to make. Do we recognise, value and fund a properly integrated system that provides support in the community? Or, as our memories become hazy, will we again allow the importance of this type of care to fade into the background?

This pandemic has exposed other vulnerabilities.

But key to a recovery will be job creation and keeping down living costs. The former means that, however uneasy, governments may have to tolerate China's continued investment around the globe.

As for the latter, businesses need to keep costs low, and overseas sourcing of non-essential will continue. Some of the biggest brands, including H&M, have committed to helping workers in factories thousands of miles away to keep supply chains functioning.

Those companies were already looking beyond China to lower cost nations such as Vietnam, Ethiopia and Bangladesh - countries which will work even harder to attract foreign customers.

Catastrophe inevitably produces new priorities, even if old geo-political tensions remain. The pandemic has demonstrated, yet again, that global questions require global solutions.

But it has also shown that governments' first responses have been national. China and the US have squared up to each other over Beijing's responsibility for the pandemic, nations have closed borders, and there has been unseemly competition for medical resources.

Multinational organisations have fared poorly. The EU apologised to Italy for its limited support and President Trump attacked the World Health Organization for being too close to Beijing. Those who see these building blocks of global order as outdated have more ammunition.

Beijing's position is contradictory. It's the source of the virus and the global provider of much of the equipment to fight it, so expect the "China problem" to be a focus for Western governments. How do they rely less on Chinese goods and resist Beijing's efforts to get the world to play by its rules - while still pursuing co-operation on problems like climate change and, yes, future pandemics?

There'll be a lot less money in defence budgets for shiny new weaponry - with security being redefined because of the extraordinary weaknesses revealed by the pandemic. National security capability will be judged by stockpiled medical equipment and preparedness for the next pandemic or environmental catastrophe, not just on how many tank brigades can be deployed.

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How will coronavirus change the way we live?

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A return to how life was at the start of 2020 is some way off. Even when lockdown restrictions are eased, coronavirus will affect our lives in many ways. What will struggle to get back to how it was before, and what might change for ever? Twelve BBC correspondents offer their thoughts.

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She's one of the main characters of One day at a time. In this video we can see how someone may react during this episode.

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O CVV realiza apoio emocional e prevenção do suicídio, atendendo de forma voluntária todas as pessoas que querem conversar por telefone, email, chat e voip.

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The real importance of sports | Sean Adams | TEDxACU

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Psicologia, educação e a formação da personalidade humana

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Cézar de Alencar Arnaut de ToledoI; Marcos Ayres BarbozaII IDoutor em Educação.

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https://www.uol.com.br/tilt/noticias/redacao/2019/09/14/viagem-a-marte-o-que-falta-para-a-humanidade-pisar-no-planeta-vermelho.htm

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https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/a21330/nasa-wants-martian-resources-for-martian-colony/

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https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars/overview/index.html