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"Empathy Pill" Makes People Act More Fairly with Money
Researchers think they may have found a way to make people more empathetic. Perhaps one day in the future we'll be able to prescribe "kindness" pills.
What if there was a way to turn all the Ebenezer Scrooges of the world into kind, empathetic people? Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, San Francisco, think it may be possible, some day.
With a little tweak in brain chemistry, researchers wrote in their paper, published in Current Biology, that they were able to make participants more generous. Just by dosing them with some dopamine.
The study was quite small, only 35 participants, but the test raises some questions that may help aid in future research. The participants were split into two groups, one that would receive a placebo and the other would take a pill containing tolcapone. The drug is typically used for Parkinson's patients to help prolong the effects of dopamine in the brain, and dopamine is a feel-good “reward” hormone. Neither group was aware of which pill they had taken.
The participants were then asked to take part in an “economic game” where the volunteers distributed wealth amongst themselves and a group of anonymous individuals. EurekAlert! writes, “After receiving tolcapone, participants divided the money with the strangers in a fairer, more egalitarian way than after receiving the placebo.”
One of the co-authors commented on the results, saying:
“We typically think of fair-mindedness as a stable characteristic, part of one’s personality. Our study doesn’t reject this notion, but it does show how that trait can be systematically affected by targeting specific neurochemical pathways in the human brain.”
The question will be if in the future we'll be able to tap into these traits and prescribe them to people in the future.
In his interview with Big Think, Nicholas Kristof from The New York Times, talked about how good storytelling can help turn people on to issues. Rather than highlighting the plight of a million people, tell readers a story about one — they're more likely to connect.
COVID-19 amplified America’s devastating health gap. Can we bridge it?
The COVID-19 pandemic is making health disparities in the United States crystal clear. It is a clarion call for health care systems to double their efforts in vulnerable communities.
19 November, 2020
Willie Mae Daniels makes melted cheese sandwiches with her granddaughter, Karyah Davis, 6, after being laid off from her job as a food service cashier at the University of Miami on March 17, 2020.
Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Sponsored by Northwell Health
- The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated America's health disparities, widening the divide between the haves and have nots.
- Studies show disparities in wealth, race, and online access have disproportionately harmed underserved U.S. communities during the pandemic.
- To begin curing this social aliment, health systems like Northwell Health are establishing relationships of trust in these communities so that the post-COVID world looks different than the pre-COVID one.
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<p>In the last 100 years, we've made incredible advances in health care, advances that would be viewed as miraculous to any previous generation. To pick one example, the<a href="https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy" target="_blank"> U.S. life expectancy</a> in 1950 was 68.2 years. We've since added 10 years to that average. Social programs have helped the young and elderly, two of the most health-vulnerable populations, receive unprecedented levels of care and attention. And telemedicine has decoupled many Americans' health support and monitoring from brick-and-mortar hospitals, expanding access to care.</p><p>Yet, despite these advances and despite handily<a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/a-dozen-facts-about-the-economics-of-the-u-s-health-care-system/" target="_blank"> outspending other OECD nations on health care</a>, the United States preserves vast health disparities. As James Madara, CEO and executive vice president of the American Medical Association,<a href="https://www.ama-assn.org/about/leadership/america-s-health-care-crisis-much-deeper-covid-19" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> </a>wrote on the organization's site: "The U.S. health system that exists today is a hodgepodge of ideas, programs, and regulations that is both extraordinarily expensive and highly inefficient. And despite its size and technological advancements, our health system is beset by tremendous gaps and inequities that favor some groups while unfairly disadvantaging others."</p><p>Our current predicament has its origins in tectonic sociohistorical forces that have shifted and fractured the health care landscape. For those at the peaks, access to superior care, education, resources, and social networks serve to protect their health. For those in the canyons, the ground continues to weather away with each past and ongoing crisis—consider, for example, the disproportionate fallout from<a href="https://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/60/11/2667" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> </a><a href="https://www.salon.com/2013/09/29/ronald_reagans_shameful_legacy_violence_the_homeless_mental_illness/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the dissolution of the Mental Health Systems Act</a>.</p><p>Then came COVID-19.</p>
COVID-19 deepens U.S. health disparities
<p>Communities on the pernicious side of America's health disparities have their unique histories, environments, and social structures. They are spread across the United States, but they all have one thing in common.</p><p>"There is one common divide in American communities, and that is poverty," said <a href="https://www.northwell.edu/about/leadership/debbie-salas-lopez" target="_blank">Debbie Salas-Lopez, MD, MPH</a>, senior vice president of community and population health at Northwell Health. "That is the undercurrent that manifests poor health, poor health outcomes, or poor health prognoses for future wellbeing."</p><p>Social determinants have far-reaching effects on health, and poor communities have unfavorable social determinants. To pick one of many examples, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/09/27/913612554/a-crisis-within-a-crisis-food-insecurity-and-covid-19" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">food insecurity</a> reduces access to quality food, leading to poor health and communal endemics of chronic medical conditions. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified some of these conditions, such as obesity and Type 2 diabetes, as increasing the risk of developing a severe case of coronavirus.</p><p>The pandemic didn't create poverty or food insecurity, but it exacerbated both, and the results have been catastrophic. A study published this summer in the <em><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-020-05971-3" target="_blank">Journal of General Internal Medicine</a></em> suggested that "social factors such as income inequality may explain why some parts of the USA are hit harder by the COVID-19 pandemic than others."</p><p>That's not to say better-off families in the U.S. weren't harmed. A <a href="https://voxeu.org/article/poverty-inequality-and-covid-19-us" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">paper from the Centre for Economic Policy Research</a> noted that families in counties with a higher median income experienced adjustment costs associated with the pandemic—for example, lowering income-earning interactions to align with social distancing policies. However, the paper found that the costs of social distancing were much greater for poorer families, who cannot easily alter their living circumstances, which often include more individuals living in one home and a reliance on mass transit to reach work and grocery stores. They are also disproportionately represented in essential jobs, such as retail, transportation, and health care, where maintaining physical distance can be all but impossible.</p><p>The paper also cited a positive correlation between higher income inequality and higher rates of coronavirus infection. "Our interpretation is that poorer people are less able to protect themselves, which leads them to different choices—they face a steeper trade-off between their health and their economic welfare in the context of the threats posed by COVID-19," the authors wrote.</p><p>"There are so many pandemics that this pandemic has exacerbated," Dr. Salas-Lopez noted.</p><p>One example is the health-wealth gap. The mental stressors of maintaining a low socioeconomic status, especially in the face of extreme affluence, can have a physically degrading impact on health. <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/index.cfm/_api/render/file/?method=inline&fileID=123ECD96-EF81-46F6-983D2AE9A45FA354" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Writing on this gap</a>, Robert Sapolsky, professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University, notes that socioeconomic stressors can increase blood pressure, reduce insulin response, increase chronic inflammation, and impair the prefrontal cortex and other brain functions through anxiety, depression, and cognitive load. </p><p>"Thus, from the macro level of entire body systems to the micro level of individual chromosomes, poverty finds a way to produce wear and tear," Sapolsky writes. "It is outrageous that if children are born into the wrong family, they will be predisposed toward poor health by the time they start to learn the alphabet."</p>Research on the economic and mental health fallout of COVID-19 is showing two things: That unemployment is hitting <a href="https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2020/09/24/economic-fallout-from-covid-19-continues-to-hit-lower-income-americans-the-hardest/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">low-income and young Americans</a> most during the pandemic, potentially widening the health-wealth gap further; and that the pandemic not only exacerbates mental health stressors, but is doing so at clinically relevant levels. As <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7413844/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the authors of one review</a> wrote, the pandemic's effects on mental health is itself an international public health priority.<blockquote>We need to find ways to unify this country because we're all human beings. We're all created equal, and we believe that health is one of those important rights.</blockquote>
Working to close the health gap
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDc5MDk1MS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNTYyMzQzMn0.KSFpXH7yHYrfVPtfgcxZqAHHYzCnC2bFxwSrJqBbH4I/img.jpg?width=980" id="b40e2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1b9035370ab7b02a0dc00758e494412b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />Northwell Health coronavirus testing center at Greater Springfield Community Church.
Credit: Northwell Health
<p>Novel coronavirus may spread and infect indiscriminately, but pre-existing conditions, environmental stressors, and a lack of access to care and resources increase the risk of infection. These social determinants make the pandemic more dangerous, and erode communities' and families' abilities to heal from health crises that pre-date the pandemic.</p><p>How do we eliminate these divides? Dr. Salas-Lopez says the first step is recognition. "We have to open our eyes to see the suffering around us," she said. "Northwell has not shied away from that."</p><p>"We are steadfast in improving health outcomes for our vulnerable and underrepresented communities that have suffered because of the prevalence of chronic disease, a problem that led to the disproportionately higher death rate among African-Americans and Latinos during the COVID-19 pandemic," said Michael Dowling, Northwell's president and CEO. "We are committed to using every tool at our disposal—as a provider of health care, employer, purchaser and investor—to combat disparities and ensure the <a href="https://www.northwell.edu/education-and-resources/community-engagement/center-for-equity-of-care" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">equity of care</a> that everyone deserves." </p><p>With the need recognized, Dr. Salas-Lopez calls for health care systems to travel upstream and be proactive in those hard-hit communities. This requires health care systems to play a strong role, but not a unilateral one. They must build <a href="https://www.northwell.edu/news/insights/faith-based-leaders-are-the-key-to-improving-community-health" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">partnerships with leaders in those communities</a> and utilize those to ensure relationships last beyond the current crisis. </p><p>"We must meet with community leaders and talk to them to get their perspective on what they believe the community needs are and should be for the future. Together, we can co-create a plan to measurably improve [community] health and also to be ready for whatever comes next," she said.</p><p>Northwell has built relationships with local faith-based and community organizations in underserved communities of color. Those partnerships enabled Northwell to test more than 65,000 people across the metro New York region. The health system also offered education on coronavirus and precautions to curb its spread.</p><p>These initiatives began the process of building trust—trust that Northwell has counted on to return to these communities to administer flu vaccines to prepare for what experts fear may be a difficult flu season.</p><p>While Northwell has begun building bridges across the divides of the New York area, much will still need to be done to cure U.S. health care overall. There is hope that the COVID pandemic will awaken us to the deep disparities in the US.</p><p>"COVID has changed our world. We have to seize this opportunity, this pandemic, this crisis to do better," Dr. Salas-Lopez said. "Provide better care. Provide better health. Be better partners. Be better community citizens. And treat each other with respect and dignity.</p><p>"We need to find ways to unify this country because we're all human beings. We're all created equal, and we believe that health is one of those important rights."</p>
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Study: Medieval arrows were as damaging as gunshots
A study by UK archaeologists finds that longbows caused horrific injuries similar to modern gunshot wounds.
15 May, 2020
Injury to the right tibia caused by a puncture wound.
Credit: Oliver Creighton/University of Exeter
Surprising Science
- UK archaeologists discover medieval longbows caused injuries similar to modern gunshot wounds.
- The damage was caused by the arrows spinning clockwise.
- No longbows from medieval times survived until our times.
<p>A recent study found that one of the most powerful medieval weapons, the <strong>English</strong> <strong>longbow</strong>, was so forceful it could create wounds as bad as from modern gunshots. The bows, revealed a team of archaeologists from the University of Exeter in the UK, could break long bones and were key to military victories like the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Agincourt" target="_blank">Battle of Agincourt</a> in 1415.</p><p>This news looks to settle the long-standing debate about the impact of these weapons. No longbows from medieval times have made it intact to the present day, making their true strength somewhat of a mystery. It's also rare to come upon signs of trauma from arrowheads. </p><p>Much of what we know about medieval warfare and injuries has come from sites like those linked to the Battle of Visby in Gotland, Sweden in 1361, and the Battle of Towton in North Yorkshire in England in 1461. Experiments have also been performed with replicas based on 16th-century longbow examples but the new paper says they did not give the full picture of how the weapons operated and what damage they could cause. The UK scientists focused their research on <em>osteological</em> or bone-related evidence to arrive at crucial new details.</p>
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI4MTA3OS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NjQ5NDQ0NH0.RrdkqHge6l7z55Xa9PIO6VYlOZElXl-a7kYJj8os0fg/img.jpg?width=980" id="b6c2c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="369d3cff12b1f2548101fc4b15c9ef02" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Battle of Agincourt.
From an illuminated manuscript of Jean Froissart's Chronicles, 14th century.
<p>While drawing upon previous studies of medieval warfare, the archaeological detectives analyzed 22 bone fragments and three teeth from the burial ground of a Dominican friary in Exeter, consecrated in 1259. They discovered a cranium with a puncture wound that started above the right eye and went all the way to the back of the head. By examining the structural elements of the wound, the researchers believe it was caused by an arrow that was spinning clockwise when it slammed into the head. </p><p>Another gruesome detail – the shaft of what was likely a diamond-shaped "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodkin_point" target="_blank">bodkin</a>" arrow probably fractured the skull even more as it was pulled back through the head on its way out.</p><p>While we already had evidence of medieval arrows with <em>fletching</em>, which made them spin for the sake of stability and accuracy, this may be the first finding of arrows being fletched to make them spin clockwise, reports <a href="https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/05/medieval-arrows-caused-injuries-similar-to-gunshot-wounds-study-finds/" target="_blank">Ars Technica.</a></p><p><a href="https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/05/medieval-arrows-caused-injuries-similar-to-gunshot-wounds-study-finds/" target="_blank"></a>This approach is similar to what we find in guns of today, with the researchers, led by <strong>Oliver Creighton </strong>from the University of Exeter, writing "Notably, gun manufacturers have historically rifled barrels so that bullets spin in the same—clockwise—direction." </p>
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI4MTA4NC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0ODMyOTY1NX0.nQ2Vjb2ZuDtje1QlB6yEFy6VDz-HV8sfeGn0HCUbFGs/img.jpg?width=980" id="d7dc9" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7d67f376dc30611d837bab7a40e5d444" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
The angle of entry into a cranium found during the excavation at a medieval Dominican friary in Exeter, England.
Credit: Oliver Creighton/University of Exeter
<p>The study also analyzed another puncture wound, at the top of a right tibia. It stemmed from an arrow going through a calf and getting stuck in the bone, think the archeologists. Another wound they saw was possibly an arrow glancing off a femur bone.<br></p><p><span style="background-color: initial;">Trying to reimagine what could have caused the terrible wounds, the authors propose the fatal strike at the scull took place first, with arrows puncturing the legs shortly after, when the victim was already dead. </span><span style="background-color: initial;">"Although this can only be a matter for speculation, this would probably account for the otherwise off angles of entry, which are hard to explain if the individual was standing up," they wrote. Another explanation – the person could have been on a horse or standing on something "elevated".</span></p>
<p>Highlighting the significance of their research to the site <a href="https://www.medievalists.net/2020/05/skull-wound-deadly-medieval-arrows/" target="_blank">Medievalists.net</a>, Creighton explained "In the medieval world, death caused by an arrow in the eye or the face could have special significance. Clerical writers sometimes saw the injury as a divinely ordained punishment, with the 'arrow in the eye' which may or may not have been sustained by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Godwinson" target="_blank">King Harold II</a> on the battlefield of Hastings in 1066 the most famous case in point. Our study brings into focus the horrific reality of such an injury."</p><p>Check out the study published in <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquaries-journal/article/face-of-battle-debating-arrow-trauma-on-medieval-human-remains-from-princesshay-exeter/635CF25C2252F62EAD82C124224914A4/core-reader#" target="_blank">Antiquaries Journal.</a></p>
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Skyborne whales: The rise (and fall) of the airship
Can passenger airships make a triumphantly 'green' comeback?
24 November, 2020
R. Humphrey/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images
Technology & Innovation
Large airships were too sensitive to wind gusts and too sluggish to win against aeroplanes. But today, they have a chance to make a spectacular return.
For decades, die-hard fans of airships have had to accept the fact that their beloved airborne vessels had no chance of making their way back to air travel routes. The ever more technologically advanced aeroplanes are more comfortable and practical than these sluggish giants. Yet the situation changed over a year ago when people in Sweden started talking about 'flight shame'. Along with the heightened fear of global warming, calculations were being made that, for example, a Boeing 747 emits as much carbon dioxide into the air during 24 hours of flight as 250 passenger cars riding uninterruptedly for a year. Although aeroplanes are responsible for only 4% of the CO2 that goes into the atmosphere in the territory of the European Union, 'flight shame' became a hit. The Green parties, especially in Germany, started to bang the alarm that in Europe 45% of all flights are operated on routes shorter than 500 kilometres. The first airlines have just embraced this new trend; at the end of 2019, Dutch airline KLM announced that as of March they will replace flight connections from Amsterdam to Brussels with train routes, together with railway operator Thalys. Likewise, Air France – part of the same holding company as KLM – announced a New Year's resolution that by 2021, the French air carrier will reduce its domestic flights by 15%.
<p>This trend brings with it the unique opportunity for the much more environmentally-friendly passenger airships to make a triumphant comeback. Much like they did 100 years ago, today's airships move with the help of propeller-type turbines powered by petrol or diesel engines. However, they emit considerably less CO2 than jet engines. On shorter distances, their speed, on average nine times lower than passenger jets, does not make that much of a difference. Especially since an airship can pick up passengers even in the centre of a metropolis.</p><p>Working on refining such a solution is the British company Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV), founded in 2007. For the past decade, its engineers have been fine-tuning the Airlander 10 project. Standing behind the name is a 92-metres-long vehicle that combines the benefits of an aeroplane and helicopter. It can land and take off from practically any location, take 14 tons of cargo or 60 passengers on board, and then fly at a speed of 140 kilometres per hour for up to five days without having to land. In September 2019 in London, HAV representatives signed a contract with the US company Vertex Aerospace LLC, thereby opening up the possibility of supplying Airlander 10 to the US Department of Defense. Soon after that, the management of HAV announced it was launching preparations for the development of a passenger model powered by electric engines. It is indeed this type of drive unit that could ultimately tip the scales and let these huge machines, the development of which was halted by aeroplanes 100 years ago, take to the skies once more.</p>
<h3>A balloon with an engine</h3><p>The balloon designed and built by Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier never became a useful flying machine due to one fundamental drawback: the direction that it flew in was defined by the blowing wind. For several decades since the summer of 1783, when the brothers held a demonstration of their invention for King Louis XVI by sending a lamb, rooster and duck flying in the air, designers were not be able to overcome this challenge. Granted, there were designs of balloons equipped with sails or even propellers, yet the secret to success lay in a proper drive unit.</p><p>French designer Henri Jules Giffard was the first to recognize this. He managed to build a steam engine weighing a little over 100 kilograms that could be installed in the balloon's gondola. He attached his structure to a cigar-shaped balloon 44 metres in length and filled it with hydrogen. Then he loaded 150 kilograms of coke into the gondola and, on 24th September 1852, set out from Paris to Trappes. The flight proceeded in the direction chosen by Giffard, as the French inventor equipped the vehicle with a triangular sail serving the function of a rudder. Yet the flying giant proved to be helpless in the face of slightly stronger gusts of wind. And once again, the problem lay in the drive unit; to be able to squeeze additional power out of a steam engine, it had to be enlarged. That, in turn, meant that the balloon needed to be bigger to be able to lift the heavier load into the sky. But then the vessel would become even less controllable and vulnerable to the wind.</p><p>Numerous designers attempted to improve Giffard's masterpiece. An airship designed by two captains of the French Army, Charles Renard and Arthur Krebs, looked very promising. The propeller that pushed the vehicle forward was powered by an 8.5 horsepower electric engine, eight times more powerful than Giffard's steam engine. Thanks to the new drive unit, on 9th August 1884, <em>La France</em> was able to fly eight kilometres in 20 minutes, turn back and return to the place it started from, in spite of the wind. However, Krebs and Renard were not able to manage the issues created by lead acid batteries, as they were too heavy, inefficient and required constant recharging.</p>
<h3>The flying count</h3><p>While French inventors were walking in circles, the Germans set off to conquer the heavens. At the end of the 19th century, Germany was producing the most sophisticated combustion engines in the world. The small yet powerful 28 horsepower engines from the Daimler factory caught the attention of Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin. In 1890, with his 50th birthday on his heels, General von Zeppelin decided to end his military career and engage in the construction of flying machines, thereby fulfilling the dreams of his youth. He caught the aeronautics bug in the US during the Civil War, when he flew in a balloon high above the battle fields as the envoy of the King of Württemberg. 25 years later, he started work on the construction of an innovative airship along with engineer Theodor Kobert. They drew inspiration from the ideas of Hungarian engineer David Schwartz, who had patented the design of an aerostat based on a stiff frame covered with a cotton or aluminium shell, which in turn concealed soft balloons filled with hydrogen.</p><p>The fulfilment of his dream proved to be a costly venture, and after eight years of struggling, Von Zeppelin founded the <em>Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Luftschiffahrt</em> in Stuttgart in 1898. In July 1900, on the coast of Lake Constance, he was able to present to shareholders and onlookers his enormous flying machine, the <em>Luftschiff Zeppelin (LZ 1)</em>. The cigar-shaped creation, which was 128 metres in length, majestically glided across the sky around 300 metres above the waters of the lake thanks to two Daimler engines. Following that success, and thanks to public fundraisers and lotteries, Von Zeppelin managed to collect 250,000 marks to build yet another airship, abbreviated the<em> LZ 2</em>. The count was expecting that the German army would buy it for 1.5 million marks, but the price proved to be prohibitively high. The army was initially not interested in the <em>LZ 3</em> model either, although it made 45 flights safely, covering an air distance of 4000 kilometres.</p><p>A breakthrough did not come until the matter of the high-profile catastrophe of the <em>LZ 4</em> airship appeared. The count had turned the <em>LZ 4</em> into a near masterpiece. The 136-metre-long cigar-shaped vehicle was divided into 17 chambers filled with hydrogen, and attached beneath it was a gondola for the pilots and mechanics, as well as a second luxury passenger gondola. Even King Wilhelm II of Württemberg, who had been persuaded to try the airship out in July of 1908, had no complaints about its level of comfort. After the marketing success, Count Zeppelin announced that his vehicle would make a 24-hour flight without landing, hoping to convince the head of the German army that airships were the perfect solution for attacking the deep hinterland of the enemy. However, on 5th August 1908, a storm forced the <em>LZ 4</em> pilot Hugon Eckener to land near the city of Echterdingen. There, a gust of the storm wind snapped the airship's tether and threw it to the ground; the hydrogen exploded and the machine burned to ashes.</p><p>That loss pushed Count Zeppelin's company to the brink of bankruptcy. When the news became widespread, the Germans spontaneously organized a fundraiser for the engineer, whom they were proud of. Soon, he received a sum of over six million marks. This capital allowed Zeppelin to found Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH, a company that, in line with its name (<em>Luftschiffbau</em> means 'airship engineering'), specialized in the construction of airships. Financial aid was also promised by the Minister of War Karl von Einem, who was increasingly more interested in the combat potential of the flying machines.</p>
<h3>Civil and bomber</h3><p>The mass participation of regular Germans in the fundraiser gave Von Zeppelin the idea that his airships could compete with train travel. In November 1909, he surprised the world by founding the <em>Deutsche Luftschiffahrts Aktiengesellschaft</em> (DELAG) passenger airline. DELAG transported the first 20,000 passengers for free, thereby promoting the trend for air travel, and after that he offered tickets for 200 marks. The amount was equivalent to average monthly wages in Germany at the time; nonethless, its flights were becoming more and more popular. On board the 12 DELAG airships, servicing routes connecting the 10 largest cities of the German Empire, you could travel in the company of aristocrats, politicians, millionaires, generals, or even members of the Imperial Family. In 1914, the airline proudly announced that it had transported 34,000 passengers, and that not one of them died during the flights. Users of highly unreliable aeroplanes could only dream of such statistics at the time.</p><p>So when World War I broke out, as the late Walter J. Boyne wrote in his book <em>The Influence of Air Power</em> <em>Upon History</em>, "Germany was so convinced of the potential of dirigibles [...] that it allowed the Army and the Navy to develop their own airship fleets [...]." Ferdinand von Zeppelin, now nearing 80 years of age, was at the height of his fame, while his factories were working at full capacity. Right after the airships, commonly referred to as Zeppelins, appeared over the front lines in France and Great Britain, they raised alarm. In September 1914, in an attempt to anticipate any actions of the enemy, the First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill planned a series of attacks of British bombers on airship bases in Cologne and Düsseldorf, and on an airship manufacturing plant in Friedrichshafen. Despite the great dedication of the airmen, the action brought little effect, as only one Zeppelin burned down on the ground when it was hit by a bomb. Yet the expected retaliation attacks did not take place right away. "At a joint meeting September 1914, representatives of the Army and Navy decided that there were as yet too few airships to bomb England, and further, that they were inhibited by Kaiser Wilhelm's reluctance to bomb the homes of many of his royal relatives," Boyne explains. It wasn't until Germany realized enormous losses on the front that the monarch changed his mind.</p><p>"The first attack took place on January 19-20, 1915, with two out of three Zeppelins – L 3 and L 4 – successfully reaching England," Boyne describes. <em>L 3</em> dropped over a dozen 50-kilogram bombs on Great Yarmouth, while <em>L 4</em>, led by Captain Magnus von Platen-Hallermund, nearly gave the German Emperor a heart attack. Its bombs fell onto Sandringham House, where the cousin of Wilhelm II, the British King George V, happened to be staying at the time. Luckily nothing happened to him, but the public were shocked by the fact that for the first time in 800 years, since the times of William the Conqueror, an enemy from the continent had launched a direct attack on the monarchs of England.</p><p>At first, the airships operated over the island with complete impunity. Rifle bullets shot from the ground were not able to pierce the duralumin sheeting of the vessels' hulls. In addition, Zeppelins flew at higher altitudes than fighter planes and were able to climb up more quickly, in spite of their large dimensions. For the first time ever in history, Lieutenant Reginald Warneford managed to shoot down the <em>L 37</em> airship, but this was only after he flew above it in a plane and dropped six bombs from the top. Therefore, the Germans used them even more boldly. "All the fears seemed to be realised on the night of October 13-14 [1915], when five Zeppelins slashed across England, dropping almost two hundred bombs and killing seventy-one people and injuring another 128," Boyne reports.</p>
<h3>The blind path of evolution</h3><p>"Looking up the clear run of New Bridge Street and Farringdon Road I saw high in the sky a concentrated blaze of searchlights, and in its centre a ruddy glow which rapidly spread into the outline of a blazing airship. Then the search lights were turned off and the Zeppelin drifted perpendicularly in the darkened sky, a gigantic pyramid of flames, red and orange, like a ruined star falling slowly to earth," are the words reporter Michael MacDonagh noted in his journal entry dated 1st October 1916. "It was so horribly fascinating that I felt spellbound – almost suffocated with emotion, ready hysterically to laugh or cry. When at last the doomed airship vanished from sight there arose a shout the like of which I never heard in London before – a hoarse shout of mingled execration, triumph and joy; a swelling shout that appeared to be rising from all parts of the metropolis, ever increasing in force and intensity," he added. A month earlier, right after midnight on 3rd September 1916, London experienced the 'Night of the Zeppelins', when as many as 16 dark cigars hovered over the British capital, each 200-metres long and each dropping bombs to the ground. They seemed to be mighty and impregnable, yet as a result of the wartime arms race, planes and anti-aircraft artillery was being perfected at an amazing pace. A few months down the line, all you needed to take down an airship was an accurately launched machine gun series with ammunition designed to puncture the aluminium shell, or a few artillery shells. When British fighter planes shot down 17 Zeppelins in 1917, the Germans backed out of the London bombings.</p><p>The bombs dropped by the airships killed 557 British subjects and caused material damage amounting to $7.5 million. Yet the construction of 17 Zeppelins cost $8.3 million, and over 300 crew members were lost. From a military and economic perspective, the balance was disastrous. Nevertheless, in the Versailles Treaty, the triumphant superpowers prohibited the production of airships in the Weimar Republic.</p><p>Fortunately, Ferdinand von Zeppelin did not live to see that day, as he had died in 1917. His successor at Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH, Hugo Eckener, initiated long-term lobbying efforts in the US that lasted until 1922, when American President Warren G. Harding stated that it would be an excellent idea for Germany to pay out part of the war reparations due in brand new airships. London and Paris did not protest to this. In the meantime, engineers had developed a new generation of machines. The first <em>LZ 120</em> series airship 'Bodensee' had the shape of a 120-metre-long 'teardrop', which was able to fly at a speed of 130 kilometres per hour thanks to four Maybach engines with 245 horsepower each. An improved version of the 'Bodensee', the <em>LZ 127</em> 'Graf Zeppelin', was extended to 236 metres. As a result, it allowed engineers to achieve a significant increase in lift, to the point where in 1929, humanity could follow the flight of the 'Graf Zeppelin' around the world with fascination. At the time, the press was all over the topic of its comfortable cabins for 40 passengers, which were even equipped with separate toilets and showers with hot water, a luxurious restaurant and a lounge, indispensable for evening receptions.</p><p>But not too long after that, the factories of William E. Boeing in Seattle started to offer to airlines its innovative passenger aeroplane model, the <em>B 247</em>; it was a beautiful twin-engine machine able to fly at speeds of over 300 kilometres per hour. It provided a sound-proof cabin for 10 passengers with the possibility of controlling the temperature. But it didn't outbid the offer of luxurious airships just yet; the decisive factor in this new race was... gas. German engineers replaced the flammable hydrogen with the much safer helium. They had to buy it from the Americans though, as only they had the technology available to produce helium on an industrial level. When Hitler came to power in Germany, fears were increasingly expressed across the Atlantic that a fleet of combat airships could launch an unexpected attack on American cities and ports. To the great joy of Boeing, President Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced an embargo on the export of helium to the Third Reich. So Zeppelins would once again be filled with hydrogen. The explosion of hydrogen during a landing at the airport in Lakehurst (New Jersey) on 6th May 1937 destroyed the <em>LZ 129</em> 'Hindenburg'. The catastrophe, in which 35 people were burned alive, resounded to the point that potential air travel buffs lost all trust in airships. It wasn't such a great sacrifice for them though, as only a few months after the 'Hindenburg' had burned, Boeing offered them the four-engine <em>B 307</em> 'Stratoliner', the first passenger plane with a pressurized cabin that was able to fly at an altitude of nearly 8000m and had a range of 3800 kilometres. Airlines no longer needed the giant cigars. The army used them for third-rate patrol operations at sea and as barriers attached to cables to make it harder for bombers to attack cities.</p><p>That's how the age of the airship came to an end, but maybe not an indefinite end. According to the study concept by Hybrid Air Vehicles, the new generation vessels would be powered by electric engines supplied not only by energy from batteries, but also by energy from solar panels. That would allow the vehicle to embark on flights lasting several days continuously, not to mention neutrality for the natural environment. And that advantage can only gain importance in the very near future.</p><p><em>Translated from </em><a href="https://przekroj.pl/kultura/wieloryby-czystych-przestworzy-andrzej-krajewski" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>the Polish</em></a><em> by Mark Ordon</em></p><p>Reprinted with permission of <a target="_blank" href="https://przekroj.pl/en/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="">Przekrój</a>. Read the <a href="https://przekroj.pl/en/culture/skyborne-whales-andrzej-krajewski" target="_blank">original article</a>. </p>
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Vegans are more likely to suffer broken bones, study finds
Vegans and vegetarians often have nutrient deficiencies and lower BMI, which can increase the risk of fractures.
24 November, 2020
Credit: Jukov studi via Adobe Stock
Surprising Science
- The study found that vegans were 43% more likely to suffer fractures than meat eaters.
- Similar results were observed for vegetarians and fish eaters, though to a lesser extent.
- It's possible to be healthy on a vegan diet, though it takes some strategic planning to compensate for the nutrients that a plant-based diet can't easily provide.
<p>Non-meat diets may help you maintain healthy cholesterol, body weight, and blood-sugar levels. But these diets, particularly veganism, may also boost your risk of suffering broken bones, according to a new study published in <a href="https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-020-01815-3" target="_blank">BMC Medicine</a>.</p><p>While the causes aren't totally clear, the researchers suggested it might stem from vegans not consuming enough calcium and protein, or from having a lower body mass index (BMI), which leaves the body more vulnerable to fractures.</p><p>The study is the largest to date on the relationship between fractures and non-meat diets. The researchers examined data from the long-running EPIC-Oxford study, which issued health surveys to nearly 55,000 people in the U.K. between 1993 and 2001, and followed up with them in 2010. </p><p>For the recent study, the researchers collected additional follow-up data in 2016 using National Health Service records. To study the relationship between diet and fracture risk, they sorted participants into four groups: meat eaters, fish eaters, vegetarians, and vegans. </p><p>After controlling for variables like physically activity, sex, smoking, dietary supplement intake, and alcohol use, the study found that vegans had a 43 percent increased risk of any kind of fracture compared to meat eaters. The increased risk for vegetarians was 9 percent.</p>
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDgwNjU5OC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0OTA1NDkyN30.if3oiMGzMJs25S5_qGO_NetVfJ_juYlgrMQKvG13xoA/img.png?width=980" id="5177c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4b6244ab7f711f53c87f32f7e7cb45af" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Comparison of fracture cases by diet group
Credit: Tong et al.
<p>The results showed that vegans were especially vulnerable to hip fractures, suffering 2.3 times more cases than meat-eaters. Vegetarians and pescatarians were also more likely to suffer hip fractures, though to a lesser extent.</p><p>One explanation may be that non-meat eaters consume less calcium and protein. Calcium helps the body build strong bones, particularly before age 30, after which the body begins to lose bone mineral density (though consuming enough calcium through diet or supplement can <a href="https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Calcium-Consumer/" target="_blank">help offset losses</a>). Lower bone mineral density means higher risk of fracture.</p><p>Protein seems to help the body absorb calcium, <a href="https://www.bonejoint.net/blog/did-you-know-that-certain-foods-block-calcium-absorption/#:~:text=Historically%2C%20nutritionists%20have%20warned%20that,may%20increase%20intestinal%20calcium%20absorption." target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">when consumed in normal levels</a>. The recent study, along with past research, shows that people who don't eat meat tend to have lower levels of both protein and calcium. When the researchers accounted for non-meat eaters who supplemented their diets with calcium and protein, fracture risk decreased, but still remained significant.</p><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDgwNjYzMy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NDQ5NTA0NX0.Bv3xDHpgkjGHJoXQhrYYKbZAiQ50oN8KzGJozI4SwD4/img.jpg?width=980" id="72fcc" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c375cf2bd55d73ccaca466fd2aa3cb02" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="fruit and vegetables" />
Credit: Pixabay
<p>Another explanation is body mass index (BMI). Non-meat eaters tend to have a lower BMI, which is associated with higher fracture risk, particularly hip fractures. In the new study, vegans with a low BMI were especially likely to suffer hip fractures. That might be because having more body mass provides a cushioning effect when people fall.</p><p>Still, the study has some limitations. For one, White European women were overrepresented in the sample. The researchers also didn't collect precise data on the type of calcium or protein supplementation, diet quality or causes of fractures.</p><p>Another complicating factor: Producers of vegan products, such as plant-based milk, are increasingly fortifying foods with nutrients like calcium and protein, so modern vegans are potentially at lower risk of deficiency.</p><p>The researchers wrote that their findings "suggest that bone health in vegans requires further research."</p>Staying healthy on a vegan diet
<p>So, does a vegan diet necessarily lead to worse bone health? Not necessarily. But it's safe to say that people who don't consume meat, dairy and eggs should be extra vigilant about consuming enough essential nutrients. That can be harder than it seems.<br></p><p>One major reason is that the body generally has an easier time absorbing nutrients from animal foods than plant-based products. So, while a salad could contain the same amount of calcium as a glass of milk, the body absorbs more calcium when you drink milk. What's more, there are some molecules and <a href="https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/7-nutrients-you-cant-get-from-plants#5.-Docosahexaenoic-acid-(DHA)" target="_blank">nutrients you simply can't get from plants</a>.</p><p>As such, many vegans round out their diets with supplements, including zinc, iron, iodine, long-chain omega-3s, and vitamins D, K-2, and B-12, to name a few. If you're on a vegan diet or considering making the switch, it's probably best to consult a dietician, and to make sure you maintain a <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/assessing/bmi/adult_bmi/english_bmi_calculator/bmi_calculator.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">healthy BMI</a>.</p>
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Surprising Science
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