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Robotics and AI

25 Oct 2016

Changing the self through immersive Virtual Reality: an interview with Mel Slater

“I still find immersive Virtual Reality as thrilling now as when I first tried it 20 years ago,” writes Professor Mel Slater, Field Chief Editor of Frontiers in Robotics and AI, on his personal blog. Slater, recipient of the IEEE VGTC’s 2005  Virtual Reality Career Award, is ICREA Professor and Head of the Event Lab at Barcelona University and part-time Professor of Virtual Environments at UCL. Here, we talk to him about his research, technical advances and challenges in the field, and how virtual reality can help raise awareness about sustainability and global change. VR as a research tool A major focus of research for Slater and his team is to use VR as a tool in psychology and neuroscience. Many interesting questions can’t be studied in real life, because they are dangerous or distressing to the participants. But in VR, you can safely simulate the situation, and gauge people’s response. For example, “We did a study where we look at (…) an important area in social psychology called the bystander problem: if you see two other people who start fighting, (…) do you run away, do you try to intervene? (…) This is very hard to study in physical reality, but in virtual reality you can.” In […]

Frontiers news

24 Oct 2016

Frontiers publishes its 1000th eBook

By Eva Brown, Frontiers We are very proud to announce that this week we published our 1000th eBook In “The Economics of Protected Marine Species: Concepts in Research and Management”, an array of prominent researchers synthesizes current protected marine species economic research and expand the discussion on present and future challenges related to protected species economics, to advance our understanding of the ecological and economic aspects of managing and recovering these species. Frontiers Research Topic eBooks enable access to a wide variety of specialty Research Topics, effectively clustering a congregation of peer-reviewed articles under a related topic, and providing an immediate and largely relevant collection to their readers. Work on eBooks has been rapidly growing since the first volumes were published, under the objectives of maximizing dissemination, visibility and impact of knowledge, and the eBook team have reached this milestone thanks to a large degree of dedication. Apart from the exponential growth of Research Topic eBooks over the past few years, progress has also been made with the addition of Theme Books (featuring collections of articles on a specific theme) and Abstract books (collections of abstracts presented at academic conferences). Our 5 most read eBooks for 2016 are: 1) Plants as Alternative […]

Life sciences

12 Oct 2016

Serendipity, Sulfur bacteria, and Open Science: interview with Tom Hanson

Meet Professor Tom Hanson, Associate Director of the Marine Bioscience Program in the College of Earth, Ocean & Environment of the University of Delaware, and Specialty Chief Editor Microbial Physiology and Metabolism in Frontiers in Microbiology. Tom Hanson is an expert on the metabolism and physiology of photosynthetic microbes. Already as a young researcher in 2005, Hanson was awarded a NSF CAREER Award, one of the NSF’s highest honors for new faculty members. Here, in an interview in our Science Heroes series, he talks about his career, his research, the need for undirected basic science, and how Open Science is beneficial to scientists and society. Hanson’s research specialization is partly due to family tradition and partly to serendipity, he explains. “I’m a 2nd generation microbiologist, so my dad is a microbiologist. Although what I started out doing was working on methane oxidation, that was what he worked on his lab (…) And then, when I went to graduate school I wanted to distance myself, so I went and started working on phototrophic microbes because they weren’t E. coli, which had been studied for 50, 75 years. (…) I got into sulfur metabolism as the result of an experiment. We knocked out a gene that we thought might be involved in carbon metabolism – the phenotype was sulfur metabolism. […]

Psychology

12 Oct 2016

“Don’t hit your brother” – moms are strictest on their infants’ moral wrongdoing

Moms respond more strongly to moral faults by infants than to other type of misbehavior, regardless of the potential harm, shows a new study. Research in the journal Frontiers in Psychology shows that mothers typically respond more strongly to any “moral” faults by their infants – that is, which risk hurting other people or pets – than to any other type of misbehavior. Even misbehavior that puts the infant herself, but no-one else, at potentially risk, for example running down the stairs, is generally disciplined less strongly by moms than moral wrongdoing. Conversely, infants are more ready to obey, and less likely to protest against, their mother’s prohibitions on moral faults than prohibitions on other types of misbehavior. These results indicate that mothers tend to treat moral wrongdoing as a special, more serious type of misbehavior, regardless of the potential harm. “Mothers were more insistent on the moral prohibition against harming others than prohibitions against doing something dangerous or creating mess or inconvenience, as shown by their greater use of physical interventions and direct commands in response to moral transgressions,” says the author Audun Dahl, Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of California at Santa Cruz. […]

Frontiers news

10 Oct 2016

Join us in Vancouver, Canada for the American Society of Human Genetics 2016 conference (ASHG 2016)

  Between the dates of 18th – 21st October 2016, Frontiers in Genetics will be in gorgeous Vancouver for #ASHG16. If you are an attendee at the conference, then we invite you to our exhibitor booth #1106 to discuss our community journals; our collaborative, rigorous and fair peer-review system; and how publishing with Frontiers will unlock your research’s true impact. If you are in Vancouver and wish to chat, but will not be at ASHG, then we would still love to meet! We have several guest passes available. Please immediately get in touch with our team, to express your interest and arrange a meeting: Email: genetics@frontiersin.org Twitter: @FrontGenetics Whether in Switzerland or Vancouver, Frontiers looks forward to meeting you!  

Health

07 Oct 2016

Mental illness genetically linked to drug use and misuse

By Tania Fitzgeorge-Balfour, Frontiers Science Writer A person’s genetic risk for psychiatric disorders is related to his or her vulnerability to substance use and misuse There are many reports of drug use leading to mental health problems, and we all know of someone having a few too many drinks to cope with a bad day. Many people who are diagnosed with a mental health disorder indulge in drugs, and vice versa. As severity of both increase, problems arise and they become more difficult to treat. But why substance involvement and psychiatric disorders often co-occur is not well understood. In addition to environmental factors, such as stress and social relationships, a person’s genetic make-up can also contribute to their vulnerability to drug use and misuse as well as mental health problems. So could genetic risk for mental illness be linked to a person’s liability to use drugs? This question has been addressed in a new study, published in the open-access journal Frontiers in Genetics. “Our research shows that if someone is genetically predisposed towards having mental illness, they are also prone to use licit and illicit substances and develop problematic usage patterns,” says Caitlin E. Carey, a PhD student in the […]

Psychology

07 Oct 2016

Enjoying your workout is the best motivation

By K.E.D. Coan Emotions may help build the foundation of a sustainable exercise routine, suggests a new study in Frontiers in Psychology. It’s an all too familiar story: Despite resolutions to lose weight, get in shape, or simply stay fit, it’s all too easy to fall off the exercise band wagon. Studies estimate that up to 50% of gym members drop out within the first six months of a new exercise program. But why is it so hard to stay motivated? “Training plans are based on sport science, rather than psychological factors, and we thought that there must be a different way to analyze this behavior,” says Benjamin Wienke, the first author of the study published in Frontiers in Psychology and a doctoral student at Humboldt University in Berlin. “So we decided to look at whether there could be an emotional explanation.” Wienke and his collaborator, Darko Jekauc, interviewed a group of 24 men and women about their exercise habits, lifestyle, and their preferred activities. Unsurprisingly, their results quickly showed that enjoyment was a common factor amongst those who kept a regular exercise routine. But the next question was, exactly what factors trigger this enjoyment? Further analysis of the interview […]

Frontiers news

06 Oct 2016

Frontiers eBooks published in September 2016

Below is a list of Frontiers eBooks published in September 2016. All Frontiers eBooks are free to download, share and distribute. Science: How Fear and Stress Shape the Mind, hosted by  Luke R. Johnson Single Membrane Channels Formed by Connexins or Pannexins: Focus on the Nervous System, hosted by Juan Andrés Orellana Components of the Language-Ready Brain, hosted by Cedric Boeckx and Antonio Benítez-Burraco Frontiers of Sulfur Metabolism in Plant Growth, Development, and Stress Response, hosted by Stanislav Kopriva, Dibyendu Talukdar, Hideki Takahashi, Rüdiger Hell, Agnieszka Sirko, Stanislaus F. D’ Souza and Tulika Talukdar Emotional Intelligence and Cognitive Abilities, hosted by Pablo Fernández-Berrocal and Purificación Checa Neural Signal Estimation in the Human Brain, hosted by Christopher W. Tyler, Clare Howarth and Lora T. Likova The Proteins of Plastid Nucleoids – Structure, Function and Regulation, hosted by Thomas Pfannschmidt and Jeannette Pfalz Neurophysiology in Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia, hosted by Davide Vito Moretti Auditory Efferent System: New Insights from Cortex to Cochlea, hosted by Paul H. Delano and Ana B. Elgoyhen Perception and Cognition: Interactions in the Ageing Brain, hosted by Harriet A. Allen and Katherine L. Roberts Anthropogenic Impacts on the Microbial Ecology and Function of Aquatic Environments, hosted by Maurizio Labbate, Justin R. Seymour, Federico Lauro and Mark […]

Psychology

05 Oct 2016

Study shows infants pay more attention to native speakers

By Marcus Banks, Frontiers Science Writer Almost from the moment of birth, human beings are able to distinguish between speakers of their native language and speakers of all other languages. We have a hard-wired preference for our own language patterns, so much so that the cries of very young infants reflect the melodies of their native language. The connection between language and social preferences is well-established. New research, recently published in Frontiers in Psychology, demonstrates that infants also pay attention to language cues in deciding where to place their attention. Dr. Hanna Marno (Department of Cognitive Science at the Central European University, Hungary and International School for Advanced Studies, Italy) conducted a study to determine whether young babies would selectively pay attention to different speakers in their environment, even when they do not understand the meanings of the words. In the experiment, forty 12-month-old infants first listened to two adult female speakers — one in their native language of Italian, the other in Slovenian – for two minutes. The infants then observed movies of both women — the native and non-native speaker separately — gazing at two colorful objects. At this stage the infants attended equally to both objects for […]

Environment

30 Sep 2016

Restoring the world’s oceans and seas

by Emily Barker, Frontiersin.org In the Bay of Biscay, the anchovy catches went from 90,000 tons to less than 10,000 tons in the early 2000s. After intervention from scientists and the European Union, the population recovered and is now at its highest level since the 1980s. Anchovies are an important resource for people living on the coast, and just one of the stories, which show that by linking science and policy – we have helped restore the world’s oceans. Angel Borja, Frontiers’ Specialty Chief Editor for Marine Ecosystem Ecology, is not completely pessimistic about the world’s oceans. “The oceans are not being destroyed, this is a bit of a mediatic issue;” he said. Despite the view that there is no hope left for the world’s oceans in the news, there are many areas that are beginning to be restored. “We are doing much better than twenty or thirty years ago;” he said. Angel Borja is the coordinator of the EU funded DEVOTES project, (DeVelopment Of innovative Tools for understanding marine biodiversity and assessing good Environmental Status). He explained that there are some areas where we have seen great improvements in the last decade. This includes estuaries, where the sea meets the rivers, […]

Frontiers news

29 Sep 2016

Open for submissions: New Specialty Section Obesity

by Victor Kouassi, Frontiers Under the leadership of Prof. Katherine Samaras  of St Vincent’s Hospital and the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Sydney, the journals; Frontiers in Endocrinology, Frontiers in Public Health and Frontiers in Nutrition have launched a new specialty section on Obesity. The section is now open for submissions. The Obesity Specialty Section is intended to reflect the multidisciplinary research and strategies developed in this subject from “champions from every paradigm of science, clinical practice, public health, economics and policy” states Specialty Chief Editor Prof. Samaras. With figures from the WHO showing a doubling worldwide of obese individuals since 1980, obesity has rapidly become an issue deserving of immense attention in countries of all levels of income. The need for faster and widespread dissemination of research findings to mitigate and tackle this issue are increasingly in demand. In her recently published Specialty Grand Challenge article, this threat is described as an “Obesity Armageddon” which can be dodged by encouraging “innovative science in obesity, to integrate scientific effort between the disciplines”. Asked on what attracted her to launch this section in Frontiers, Dr. Samaras said, “The Frontiers series of journals are at the cutting edge. The process of Peer Review is innovative, […]

Health

26 Sep 2016

Why do more men commit suicide than women?

by Simon Watt, Frontiers Science Writer Why do more men die when they attempt suicide than women? The answer could lie in four traits, find scientists. More than 6,000 British lives are lost to suicide each year, and nearly 75 per cent of those are male. However, research has found women are more likely to suffer from depression, and to attempt to take their own life. Scientists interested in this sex difference looked into why men’s attempts at suicide were more likely to be fatal, in a study published in open-access journal Frontiers in Psychiatry. Although men tend to choose more lethal methods than women do, the study found that even when men and women try to kill themselves using the same method, men are still more likely to die. 4 traits for suicide Prof. Gopikrishna Deshpande and his team from Auburn University in USA found there are four traits defined as “the acquired capability for suicide” which men are more likely to have than women. The traits are fearlessness of death, pain tolerance, emotional stoicism and sensation seeking. People experiencing a desire to commit suicide will not do so without first losing their fear of dying and developing the […]