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Century-old vaccine may lower coronavirus deaths, finds new study
A new study suggests that an old tuberculosis vaccine may reduce the severity of coronavirus cases.
08 July, 2020
Credit: Kekyalyaynen / Shutterstock
- A new study finds a tuberculosis BCG vaccination is linked to its COVID-19 mortality rate.
- More BCG vaccinations are connected to fewer severe coronavirus cases in East Germany.
- The study is preliminary and more research is needed to support the findings.
<p>Preliminary findings from a new study show that Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG), a vaccine given to kids in countries where tuberculosis is prevalent, might be able to reduce COVID-19 mortality rates.</p><p>Analyzing globally-collected coronavirus mortality data, the researchers made adjustments for income, education levels, medical services, population density, age, and more. Across all variations, they saw a clear relationship where countries which had higher rates of BCG vaccinations also had lower peak mortality rates related to the coronavirus pandemic.</p><p>The study was spearheaded by Professor Luis Escobar of Virginia Tech as well as Alvaro Molina-Cruz and Carolina Barillas-Mury from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).</p>
<p><span style="background-color: initial;">Escobar, who teaches as part of the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation, said that the correlation they found does have some caveats.</span></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"In our initial research, we found that countries with high rates of BCG vaccinations had lower rates of mortality," <a href="https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-preliminary-tuberculosis-vaccine-limiting-covid-.html" target="_blank">explained</a> Escobar. "But all countries are different: Guatemala has a younger population than, say, Italy, so we had to make adjustments to the data to accommodate those differences."</p><p>In the example of Germany, the scientists were able to compare two population samples – the East German, which had older periods of BCG vaccinations (1951-1975) and the West German, which started and ended later (1961 - 1998). The data demonstrated that older East Germans were more protected from COVID-19 than their West German counterparts, exhibiting a mortality rate that was 2.9 times lower. This correlated to the possible efficacy of the BCG vaccine. </p>
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQ0MzU1Ny9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwNTE5NDUwMX0.dqWxBj7yAvn84tZZm8-uC9rpi8axnqNZepv7pugVKs0/img.jpg?width=980" id="bf717" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="899c1432fd9723fca0cdb1c29e42acbf" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="Professor Luis Escobar" />
Professor Luis Escobar
Credit: Virginia Tech
<p>"The purpose of using the BCG vaccine to protect from severe COVID-19 would be to stimulate a broad, innate, rapid-response immunity," shared Escobar, adding that previous evidence already pointed to BCG vaccines offering cross-protections not just for tuberculosis, but for a multitude of viral respiratory illnesses.</p><p>The vaccine gets its name from French microbiologists Albert Calmette and Camille Guérin, who developed it in 1919. It is widely used around the world, with 130 million people receiving it every year. It is, however, rarely given in the United States.</p>
<p>As the analysis is preliminary, more research is necessary to support the results and to recommend a course of action. Some clinical trials are <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/can-century-old-tb-vaccine-steel-immune-system-against-new-coronavirus" target="_blank">currently underway</a> to further investigate the role BCG vaccine might play in reducing the severity of COVID-19. The researchers hope that if further research supports the findings, the BCG vaccine might at least offer short-term protection from getting a bad case of the coronavirus. This can be especially helpful to frontline medical workers and people with compromised immune systems.</p><p>You can read the new study in the <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1101%2F2020.05.05.20091975" target="_blank">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).</a></p>
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How often do vaccine trials hit paydirt?
Vaccines find more success in development than any other kind of drug, but have been relatively neglected in recent decades.
07 July, 2020
Pedro Vilela/Getty Images
Vaccines are more likely to get through clinical trials than any other type of drug — but have been given relatively little pharmaceutical industry support during the last two decades, according to a new study by MIT scholars.
<p>Over a two-decade span from January 2000 to January 2020, private-sector vaccine-development efforts succeeded in bringing a drug to market 39.6 percent of the time, the researchers found. By contrast, programs to develop anti-infective therapeutics — medicines that lessen the severity of illness, including antibiotics — succeeded 16.3 percent of the time.</p><p>"The probability of success for vaccines is reliably higher than for any other drug development area," says MIT economist Andrew Lo, co-author of a new paper detailing the study.</p><p>At a glance, that might seem to augur well for drug-development prospects during the Covid-19 pandemic, since over 100 projects globally are aimed at finding a vaccine for the virus. But scientists may be racing to make up for lost time, in a sense — because as the study also shows, vaccine development for some of the world's most dangerous diseases has lagged in recent decades.</p>
<p>For instance: Out of nearly 10,000 drug-development projects in the study, just a relative handful have addressed the high-profile, highly problematic contagions of the last 20 years.</p><p>"If you look at the most significant diseases outside of Covid-19, like MERS, SARS, Ebola, and Zika, among those diseases, there's been a total of only 45 nonvaccine programs initiated over the last two decades for them," Lo notes. "And there's been only one vaccine approved, for Ebola, in December 2019. That's worrisome, because we know for a fact that these diseases are real threats, and yet there's been relatively little attention paid to them."</p><p>The paper, "Estimating Probabilities of Success of Vaccine and Other Anti-Infective Therapeutic Development Programs," was released on May 18 as part of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper series and has been accepted for publication in the <em>Harvard Data Science Review</em>. The authors are Lo, who is the Charles E. and Susan T. Harris Professor in the MIT Sloan School of Management and director of MIT's Laboratory of Financial Engineering; Kien Wei Siah, a PhD candidate in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; and Chi Heem Wong, a PhD candidate in the Computer Science and Artifical Intelligence Laboratory and the Laboratory for Financial Engineering.</p>
<h3>Limited big pharma investment</h3><p>To conduct the study, the scholars examined information collected by Citeline, a firm that maintains proprietary pharmaceutical-industry databases about drug development and clinical trials. The study reviewed 2,544 vaccine programs and 6,829 nonvaccine development programs. After an initial preclinical research and development phase, a drug candidate usually undergoes three formal trial phases in human subjects, the first generally aimed at examining its safety, and the next two more focused on efficacy.</p><p>Among other findings, the scholars identified lower success rates for drug-development programs outside of private industry — such as those led by investigators in academic hospitals. These efforts succeeded 6.8 percent of the time for vaccines and 8.2 percent of the time for therapeutics, something Lo chalks up to the smaller scale of many of the projects.</p><p>"Academic medical centers don't have the resources big pharma does," says Lo.</p><p>Lo also points out that the relatively low success rates for nonvaccine therapeutics, including antibiotics, "jumped out" at him. "I don't think people realize just how important antibiotics are, and how few of them we currently have in our medical arsenal," Lo adds. "We're just not investing enough resources into this critical field."</p><p>The researchers also found widely varying outcomes by types of illnesses. Out of 27 disease categories for which vaccine development efforts occurred, only 12 have seen drugs receive government approval. The disease type with the highest success rate, among those with more than one drug candidate, was rotavirus; in this category 78.7 percent of programs have been successful.</p><p>By contrast — and in addition to MERS, SARS, and Zika — HIV is a case with a notable lack of a successful vaccine, after hundreds of projects attempting to develop one.</p><p>Lo notes that only four of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies are heavily invested in vaccine development, down considerably from two decades ago — despite the fact that vaccines have easily the best odds of becoming successful drugs.</p><p>"This tells me that the economics of vaccines must be really challenging, if fewer and fewer big pharma companies are willing to commit resources to this business," Lo says. "If there's a silver lining to this terrible pandemic, it's that things are going to change in the aftermath of Covid-19."</p>
<h3>Why an "insurance" drug may be less profitable</h3><p>Indeed, Lo suggests, the specific economic challenge is that vaccines are the equivalent of "insurance," among medicines: We apply them to limit the cost of disasters, but do not always think to invest in them in advance. Many governments may not have perceived a need to develop and stockpile vaccines, thereby reducing the demand for vaccine research and making it less rewarding for private industry.</p><p>"Vaccines used to be [more] profitable," Lo says. "But over the course of the last 15-20 years, I think governments have started cutting budgets and ignoring issues that aren't clear and present dangers, perhaps expecting private insurers to pick up the slack. Unless there's an immediate threat to public health, it's really hard to get people to focus on it. It's like insurance … You don't think you're going to need it, until you do. And then it's usually too late."</p><p>That fiscal austerity may also have been combined with historical complacency, as past successes against smallpox, polio, and other diseases created a perception that terrible pandemics were a thing of the past.</p>
<p>In any case, Lo says, the data paints a clear picture: Vaccine research is both promising and underfunded.</p><p>"The reason we wrote this paper is to bring more awareness to this situation," Lo says. "Now that we've experienced the deadly consequences of a pandemic, the hope is that governments around the world — and it really has to be governments — will pay more attention."</p><p>Lo adds: "As the saying goes, 'crisis is a terrible thing to waste,' so we need to take advantage of this opportunity to come up with a more enduring solution, not just for this pandemic, but for all future pandemics, because inevitably another pandemic will emerge, whether its SARS, MERS, or some other pathogen we've never encountered. Thanks to a number of recent biomedical breakthroughs, we now have many more ways of creating anti-infectives than ever before — we just need the political will to do so."</p><p>The study drew upon research support from the MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering and funding from The Rockefeller Foundation. Lo also helped found a consulting firm that analyzes drug development data.</p><p>Reprinted with permission of <a href="http://news.mit.edu/" target="_blank">MIT News</a>. Read the <a href="http://news.mit.edu/2020/how-often-vaccine-trials-succeed-0527" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
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Hannah Gadsby has a message for anti-vaxxers
In "Douglas," the Australian comedian opens up about her autism diagnosis.
08 June, 2020
Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for AFI
- In her new Netflix special, "Douglas," comedian Hannah Gadsby targets anti-vaxxers.
- Diagnosed with autism four years ago, Gadsby discusses the dangers of believing vaccinations cause autism.
- Some high-profile anti-vax activists use their platform in order to sell supplements and books.
<p>Hannah Gadsby couldn't understand why people kept telling her she might have autism. She believed the developmental disorder mostly applied to young boys. Then the Australian comedian was <a href="https://www.stylist.co.uk/people/nanette-hannah-gadsby-autism-tv-comedy-netflix/218114" target="_blank">diagnosed</a> with autism and ADHD four years ago, fitting a lot of pieces into the puzzle of her life, including her response to constant noise and motion while on stage and the feeling of being sober in a room full of drunk people (or vice-versa) all of the time. </p><p>The diagnosis came shortly after her comedy special, "Nanette," was receiving critical praise around the planet. Growing up lesbian in a conservative Tasmanian community, "Nanette" is a powerful social commentary merging with raw storytelling. Her emotional roller coaster makes it difficult to distinguish tears from laughter or despair. That's the point. </p><p>After considering quitting comedy, Gadsby returned with "Douglas." As with "Nanette," it's difficult to label it comedy. Pure and simple, Gadsby is a masterful storyteller. While she touches upon a number of issues in her latest special—the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recto-uterine_pouch" target="_blank">pouch of Douglas</a>, patriarchy, Renaissance art—grappling with autism and, specifically, anti-vaxxers, is the highlight.</p><p>Anti-vax rhetoric is <a href="https://undark.org/2020/04/16/anti-vaccine-covid-19/" target="_blank">thriving</a> during this pandemic; its trajectory had already been rising. A <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/276929/fewer-continue-vaccines-important.aspx" target="_blank">Gallup poll</a> from January found the number of American adults that believe vaccinating their children is "extremely or very important" dropped 10 percentage points from 2001. This is still a far cry from a <a href="https://www.infectioncontroltoday.com/vaccines-vaccination/45-percent-surveyed-american-adults-doubt-vaccine-safety" target="_blank">suspect survey</a> by an osteopathic group claiming 45 percent of adults are vaccine-hesitant. Still, the number is moving in the wrong direction.</p>
How Hannah Gadsby's High-Functioning Autism Works | Netflix Is A Joke
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b2bb91d719bd25e853753d4ade362893"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5lXbpgU9OWk?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>In a scathing yet hilarious indictment of the anti-vax movement, Gadsby says activists are highly organized and coordinated. They're also prone to "willfully manipulate statistics," as the osteopathic study proves. This doesn't change the fact that anti-vaxxers are woefully outnumbered, however loud social media seems. Tragically, the loudest voice in the room gets taken seriously, sometimes. </p><p>After discussing her autism diagnosis, Gadsby begins the skit. </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Do you know what causes autism? No, you f***ing don't. If you honestly think you do, your confidence is making you stupid." </p><p>She's aware anti-vaxxers are likely in the room. Her core demographic is wealthy, entitled white women, which is "a Venn diagram with a lot of crossover." Gadsby holds no hope in changing minds, because that's not how closed minds work: "They don't work; they're closed for business." </p><p>She then pretends vaccines cause autism, although "pretending is not science." She's not upset about being on the spectrum. That doesn't mean having autism is easy; quite the contrary. It's difficult to always be the odd one out. That said, Gadsby brilliantly advocates for autism. </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"As difficult as this life is, it's nice to have a life. And it's particularly nice to have this life in a world without polio. Polio is bad, and that is a fact, not a feeling."</p><p>Text on a screen will never compare to Gadsby's delivery: the crescendo of "polio," the playful yet serious expression on her face when delivering this information. Her critique doesn't stop there. </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"I would rather have autism than be a sociopath like you."</p><p>Tough statement, which she qualifies. Believing your child is more important than all other children means you're not playing for the team. You've wrapped yourself up so tightly in a belief system that self-righteousness has become your creed. Far from being a posture on Twitter, this mindset has real-world consequences. </p><p>First, there's the economic angle. Discredited physician Andrew Wakefield, who was <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c5347" target="_blank">paid to falsify data</a> in his infamous measles vaccine-autism study, <a href="http://www.medicine.mcgill.ca/epidemiology/hanley/c609/Material/BMJpartII.pdf" target="_blank">filed a patent</a> for a single-jab measles vaccine as the same time he was decrying vaccines. His objective appears to have been financial from day one. </p><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzM3NzEyMC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0ODU4ODMwN30.eZlNT53fdAy_5rWj_TZTsq5BlQ9mFZb3LsXvkGrKGVA/img.jpg?width=1245&coordinates=0%2C27%2C0%2C77&height=700" id="8aeb2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9273ef3331cc5687217da72e1b803b6d" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Protesters hold banners against the 5G technology and vaccines as others shout slogans during an anti-government protest in front of the parliament in Sofia on May 14, 2020.
Photo by Nikolay Doychinov/AFP via Getty Images
<p>Wakefield isn't the only opportunist. Osteopath Joseph Mercola's net worth has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2019/10/15/fdc01078-c29c-11e9-b5e4-54aa56d5b7ce_story.html" target="_blank">grown to over $100 million</a> as he promotes his products to anti-vaxxers. Then there's Judy Mikovits, the subject of the discredited film, "<a href="https://bigthink.com/coronavirus/the-plandemic" target="_self">Plandemic</a>," whose book <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/plandemic-judy-mikovits-plague-of-corruption-998224/" target="_blank">became a bestseller</a> after the film's release. Her book was published by a house whose <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9WuTxRZFNQ&t=74s" target="_blank">sole focus</a> is promoting anti-vaccination rhetoric.</p><p>Second, the health consequences. As Gadsby says, anti-vaxxers are coordinated. Two case studies: Samoa and Orthodox Judaism. </p><p>Recently anti-vax rhetoric has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/samoa-has-become-a-case-study-for-anti-vax-success/2019/12/09/76848830-1ac8-11ea-b4c1-fd0d91b60d9e_story.html" target="_blank">rooted</a> in Samoa. The result: over 4,000 children were infected with measles last fall. At least 70 died. An anti-vax advocate <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-50682881" target="_blank">promoted</a> the use of papaya leaf for treating measles; he was later arrested. The situation was so bad, the Samoan government declared a state of emergency and banned children under the age of 17 from gathering publicly. </p><p>Anti-vax rhetoric <a href="https://khn.org/news/why-measles-hits-so-hard-within-n-y-orthodox-jewish-community/" target="_blank">also hit</a> Orthodox Jewish communities hard last year. In March, 2019 over 275 cases of measles were confirmed in New York state. The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/meet-the-new-york-couple-donating-millions-to-the-anti-vax-movement/2019/06/18/9d791bcc-8e28-11e9-b08e-cfd89bd36d4e_story.html" target="_blank">funding</a> for this effort was provided by a wealthy Manhattan couple that has donated over $3 million to anti-vax organizations. One group is Informed Consent Action Network, an anti-vax organization run by a former television producer that specifically targets Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn and Rockland County. </p><p>"Douglas" is a masterful piece of common sense propaganda. Gadsby is ready for the vitriol certain to come her way for exposing the public to basic science. She snacks on hate. Following that statement, she stares out into the crowd to ask if they understand why she would eat the bluster of haters. Her response is priceless.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"It builds immunity; it's called microdosing. Your hate is my vaccine."</p><p>A slight pause. </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"What are you going to do? I already have autism."</p><p>--</p><p><em>Stay in touch with Derek on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/derekberes" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DerekBeresdotcom" target="_blank">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://derekberes.substack.com/" target="_blank">Substack</a>. His next book is</em> "<em>Hero's Dose: The Case For Psychedelics in Ritual and Therapy."</em></p>
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Dr. Fauci: 'Good chance' we have COVID-19 vaccine by end of 2020
Currently, more than 100 COVID-19 vaccines are being developed worldwide.
28 May, 2020
Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images
- Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, made the remarks on April 27 while speaking to CNN.
- There are currently ten COVID-19 vaccines in clinical trials, according to the World Health Organization.
- A new report warns that people who refuse to get vaccinated could jeopardize the success of a COVID-19 vaccine.
<p>The U.S. could have a vaccine for COVID-19 by the end of 2020, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, <a href="https://youtu.be/vGj5XrPP6Mw" target="_blank">told CNN</a> on Wednesday.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"We have a good chance—if all the things fall in the right place—that we might have a vaccine that would be deployable by the end of the year, by November-December," Fauci said.</p><p>This would be a best-case scenario. Currently, more than 100 vaccines are being developed worldwide, and making one available in under a year would be a record achievement. After all, the quickest a vaccine has ever been approved is four years. That was the <a href="https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/features/tracing-story-mumps-timeline/" target="_blank">mumps vaccine</a> in the 1960s. Fauci added that a second wave of the virus is "not inevitable" if people continue to follow guidelines and self-isolate.</p><p>Moderna Therapeutics, a U.S. biotech company, is developing one of the most promising COVID-19 vaccines. The Food and Drug Administration has already fast-tracked the approval process for the company's mRNA-1273 vaccine, which showed <a href="https://www.contractpharma.com/contents/view_breaking-news/2020-05-26/modernas-phase-i-interim-data-of-mrna-1273-shows-promise/" target="_blank">positive results</a> this week in an early clinical trial led by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).</p>
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<p>But there are concerns. One patient in a clinical trial on the Moderna vaccine developed a fever of 103 degrees, and he later fainted at his home, according to a Stat News <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/05/26/moderna-vaccine-candidate-trial-participant-severe-reaction/" target="_blank">report</a>. It's worth noting that the patient was taking high doses of the vaccine, and there are many negative side-effects that would likely be considered acceptable risks of a COVID-19 vaccine.</p><p>Other research groups whose vaccines are undergoing clinical trials include the University of Oxford, CanSino Biological Inc., Pfizer, and <a href="https://www.who.int/who-documents-detail/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines" target="_blank">seven others</a>, according to the World Health Organization. But despite the worldwide push to develop a vaccine, there's no guarantee researchers will produce one in 2020.</p><p>Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the F.D.A., told CNBC:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"I think we'll have to have one more cycle of this virus in the fall, heading into the winter, before we get to a vaccine," Gottlieb said on <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/squawk-box-us/" target="_blank">"Squawk Box</a>." "I really think a vaccine is probably a 2021 event, in terms of having wide availability of a vaccine for the general population."</p>
COVID-19 and herd immunity
<p>But even a perfect vaccine won't do much good if people don't get vaccinated. That's because vaccines don't work on all people. For example, vaccines aren't as effective for the elderly, and people with certain pre-existing conditions can't be vaccinated. </p><p>As such, the safety of these vulnerable groups depends on the rest of society getting vaccinated, and not spreading the virus. This results in herd immunity.</p><p>A <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2766370" target="_blank">new analysis</a> published in JAMA warns that society might not be able to extinguish the virus if more than 10 percent of the population refuses to get vaccinated. Noting that vaccine skeptics are likely to be a problem, the authors suggest starting public-health campaigns as early as possible. More broadly, they suggest four approaches to maximize vaccine uptake:</p><ul><li>First, a COVID-19 vaccine should rapidly be delivered to the public as soon as rigorous testing has been completed, and efficacy and safety have been established. The vaccine should be equitably and justly distributed, particularly targeting individuals at highest risk for complications and disease transmission to others if initial vaccine supply does not meet demand.</li><li>Second, the plan for a COVID-19 mass vaccination program should proactively address known potential obstacles to vaccine acceptance using linguistically and culturally competent messaging.</li><li>Third, public health officials should develop a robust COVID-19 vaccine educational campaign harnessing traditional and social media, with a particular focus on involving social influencers and targeting misinformation.</li><li>Fourth, frontline health care workers should be taught how to make strong recommendations for COVID-19 vaccination, including, if relevant, sharing their personal experiences with COVID-19 and the vaccine.</li></ul>
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Don't worry about making a mistake. It's how we learn.
A new study at UPenn found that effective learning includes mistakes—just not too many.
13 May, 2020
- Humans learn best when avoiding too much complexity and getting the gist of situations, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania.
- Instead of remember every detail, we learn by categorizing situations through pattern recognition.
- We wouldn't retain much if we considered a high level of complexity with every piece of information.
<p>Humans learn in patterns. Take a bush that you pass every day. It's not particularly attractive; it just happens to exist along your normal route. One day you notice a brownish tail sticking out of one side. A nose pops out of the other side. The bush happens to be roughly the size of a tiger. The only thought you have is <em>run</em>.</p><p>You didn't need to see the entire tiger to get out of there. Enough of a pattern had emerged for you to get the gist.</p><p>Getting the gist is how we learn, according to a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15146-7" target="_blank">new study</a> by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania. Published in Nature Communications, the paper looks at the balance between simplicity and complexity. Human learning falls somewhere in the middle of this spectrum: enough to get an idea, not enough to avoid mistakes. Mistakes are an integral aspect of learning.</p><p>The team, consisting of physics Ph.D. student Christopher Lynn, neuroscience Ph.D. student Ari Kahn, and professor Danielle Bassett, recruited 360 volunteers. Each participant stared at five grey squares on a computer screen, with every square corresponding to a keyboard key. Two squares simultaneously turned red. Participants were asked to tap the corresponding keys every time this happened.</p><p>While volunteers suspected the color changes were random, the researchers knew better. The sequences were generated using one of two networks: a modular network and a lattice network. Though nearly identical at a small scale, the patterns produced appear different from a macro level. Lynn explains why this matters: </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"A computer would not care about this difference in large-scale structure, but it's being picked up by the brain. Subjects could better understand the modular network's underlying structure and anticipate the upcoming image."</p>
The Science of Learning: How to Turn Information into Intelligence | Barbara Oakley
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b6be792c257886a1178b552498caf590"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1FvYJhpNvHY?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>Comparing a human brain to a computer is inaccurate, they say. Computers understand information on a micro level. Every tiny detail matters. One errant symbol in one line of code can bring down an entire network. Humans learn by staring at the forest, not the trees. This allows us to avoid complexity, which is important if the goal is to understand a lot of information. It also means we're going to make mistakes. As Kahn phrases it,</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Understanding structure, or how these elements relate to one another, can emerge from an imperfect encoding of the information. If someone were perfectly able to encode all of the incoming information, they wouldn't necessarily understand the same kind of grouping of experiences that they do if there's a little bit of fuzziness to it."</p><p>Recognizing that something is <em>like</em> something else is a major reason we can consume so much data. In cognitive psychology this categorization process is known as <em>chunking</em>: individual pieces of data broken down and grouped together to form a whole. It is a highly efficient process that also leaves us prone to errors. </p><p>Ten percent of participants had high beta values, meaning they were extra cautious. They didn't want to make errors. Twenty percent exhibited low beta values—highly error-prone. The bulk of the group fell somewhere in-between. </p><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI3NDA3Mi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NTA1NDI5MX0.d6lGHOIS34RiTfDCvVCZ4Qhh82N2uyln6EeTmAou1Zg/img.jpg?width=1245&coordinates=0%2C152%2C0%2C521&height=700" id="06f09" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="2157ca3ddf472c933790772e2002ffc5" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>Fans of a recent <a href="https://bigthink.com/coronavirus/the-plandemic" target="_self">anti-vaccination film</a> could be said to exhibit low-beta value. Vaccines are one of the most beneficial protective measures ever discovered. You can't actually estimate how many lives have been saved; that's not how proactive measures work. You can look at population charts, however. When vaccines were first put into clinical use there were over a billion people on the planet. That's after 350,000 years of <em>Homo sapiens</em> development. We're approaching eight billion people just 139 years after Louis Pasteur's vaccine experiments. (Germ theory, food distribution, antibiotics, and technology also play a role, though vaccines are relevant.)</p><p>Vaccination has never been a perfect science. As with every medical intervention, they're complex. Low-beta thinkers eschew complexity for simplicity. Many confuse a few trees for the forest. This is important during a time in which information is being weaponized to promote agendas. Sifting through complexity is exhausting; thus more people take the easiest route. </p><p>Not that learning should be too complex. As stated, only one in 10 people overly complicate their thinking. Most people sit in the middle, making mistakes while mostly getting the gist. </p><p>The researchers hope that this information will help address psychiatric conditions (such as schizophrenia) in the future. They cite the emerging field of <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2017/07/21/242297/the-emerging-science-of-computational-psychiatry/" target="_blank">computational psychiatry</a>, "which uses powerful data analysis, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to tease apart the underlying factors behind extreme and unusual behaviors."</p><p>Don't get frustrated with your mistakes. We all make them. The key is to recognize them and learn from the experience. Mostly, the gist is enough. </p><p>--</p><p><em>Stay in touch with Derek on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/derekberes" target="_blank">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DerekBeresdotcom" target="_blank">Facebook</a>. His next book is</em> "Hero's Dose: The Case For Psychedelics in Ritual and Therapy."</p>
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