Cooking with Gas

The Republican-controlled House approved bills that protect gas stoves from overzealous government regulators. One bill would prohibit use of federal money to regulate gas stoves as a hazardous product; a separate measure would block an Energy Department rule setting stricter energy efficiency standards for stovetops and ovens.

Neither bill is expected to advance in the Senate, and the Biden administration does not support any attempt to ban the use of gas stoves.

Cooking with gas (from flamingoappliance.com/oven-repair/gas-stove-maintenance-tips/).

Welcome back. What is going on with gas stoves? Permit me to skip the politics and jump to the science. To help explain the issue I’ll review a recent study of the carcinogen benzene by researchers affiliated with Stanford University, PSE Healthy Energy, University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkely National Lab.

Natural Gas Emissions
Natural gas appliances emit carbon dioxide through combustion and methane through leaks and incomplete combustion. Methane, the principal component of natural gas, is second only to carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas contributor to global climate change. Home gas appliances also release health-damaging air pollutants, though only stoves typically release these pollutants into home air rather than through outdoor vents.

Some 47 million U.S. households cook with gas. A recent population-level analysis concluded that approximately 12% of childhood asthma in the U.S. is attributable to gas stoves.

Benzene
Benzene, a chemical linked to a higher risk of leukemia and other blood cell cancers, forms in flames and other high-temperature environments, such as oil field and refinery gas flares. Unfortunately, benzene also forms in gas stove flames.

The researchers sampled 87 stoves in 14 California and Colorado counties between January and December 2022. Sampled residences included kitchens in homes, apartments and Airbnb rentals. They calculated benzene emission rates attributable to gas combustion by measuring the increase in benzene concentration over time in sealed and unsealed kitchens, sometimes testing more than one burner or oven separately.

They also measured benzene concentrations in kitchens and bedrooms for various stove-use scenarios, such as cooking a meal on a gas range. In six houses, they measured 8-hour time course concentrations in open kitchens, without using fans or other active air circulation means. Ovens were set to 475 °F for 1.5 hours, and after turning off the oven, benzene concentrations were monitored for 6.5 more hours in the bedroom farthest from the kitchen.

Benzene Sampling Results
Benzene emissions from gas and propane burners and ovens were substantial, much higher than electric modes, and repeatable for replicates of gas ovens at 350 °F and gas burners set on high up to three months apart. In a subset of the sample, a single gas burner or oven raised kitchen benzene concentrations above the upper range of indoor benzene concentrations attributable to secondhand tobacco smoke.

Benzene emission rates (micrograms/minute) per stove type and setting (Table 2, from pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.2c09289).

In all six cases of ambient benzene in bedrooms farthest from open kitchens’ burner or oven use, the elevated peak bedroom benzene concentrations were 5 to 70 times above baseline levels. In some cases, they exceeded the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment acute and chronic Reference Exposure Levels.

Wrap Up
The study findings suggest that concentrations of benzene produced by gas and propane combustion in stoves and ovens may increase health risks, especially if the hood is not used regularly and vented to the outside.

The results also suggest that the EPA significantly underestimates benzene emissions from residential gas combustion. Though the quantity of benzene attributable to stoves and ovens is small, it could have a disproportionate effect on health because the benzene is emitted directly indoors.

The researchers emphasize that further research is needed to assess actual exposures and the full health impacts. In the meantime, it’s your call regarding overzealous government regulators and stricter energy efficiency standards for stovetops and ovens. Thanks for stopping by.

P.S.
House bills to protect gas stoves: apnews.com/article/gas-stoves-ban-biden-energy-climate-regulation-d70577c96570cffd8bec84129b2c1a29
Benzene public health statement: www.atsdr.cdc.gov/ToxProfiles/tp3-c1-b.pdf
Study of U.S. gas stoves and childhood asthma in Inter. Jour. of Environmental Research and Public Health: www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/1/75
Study of benzene from stove gas and propane combustion in Environmental Science & Technology journal: pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.2c09289
Article on study on EurekAlert! website: www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/992631

Fear of Clowns

Welcome back. Seeing “clowns” in the blog post title, you of course think I’m writing about politicians. Good guess, but not this time. I’m really writing about clowns.

My appreciation of clowns began in the early days of television. I can still remember the Howdy Doody Show with Clarabell the clown. And the joy of being taken to the circus when it was nearby boosted that appreciation as did taking my daughter or son years later. 

The Howdy Doody Show, 1947-1960, with (right to left) Buffalo Bob Smith, Howdy and Clarabell, who only mimed to communicate and was played by three actors over the years (photo from m.imdb.com/title/tt0165594/mediaviewer/rm3628482304).

In fact, I only learned that people could be afraid of clowns from an episode of the television series Bones. The male lead, FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth, was portrayed as suffering from coulrophobia (extreme or irrational fear of clowns). That episode, “The Mummy in The Maze,” aired in 2007, though I have no idea when we watched it. 

Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz from long-running TV show Bones
(photo from www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/bones/s10).

All that aside, I must admit that I overlooked “Clowns” in the citation of my October 2015 blog post, This is Scary! That post reviewed the Chapman University Survey of American Fears of April 2015. The survey sampled 1,541 U.S. adults, asking their level of fear about 88 different fears, including clowns. How did I miss it? I focused, as the survey did, on the top 10 fears. Only 6.8% of respondents reported being afraid or very afraid of clowns, placing clowns near the bottom of the list. Subsequent Chapman University Surveys of American Fears didn’t change clown’s ranking significantly--2017, #76 of 80 fears, with 6.7%; 2019, #85 of 88 fears, with 8.2%.

Fear of Clowns Study
A team of researchers with the UK’s University of South Wales set out to determine why people in many different cultures are frightened by clowns. The researchers devised a Fear of Clowns Questionnaire to assess the prevalence and severity of coulrophobia. They surveyed an opportunist sample of 987 international participants, 790 females and 197 males age 18 to 77 (mean 29.8).

More than half of the participants (53.5%) reported being scared of clowns to some degree, with 5% saying they were “extremely afraid” of them. (5% is slightly higher than the percentage reported for extreme fear with many other phobias, such as heights, 2.8%, closed spaces, 2.2%, and flying, 1.3%.)

The survey also showed that females were more afraid of clowns than males. Although the reason is unclear, that echoes phobias such as the fear of snakes and spiders. Coulrophobia was also found to decrease with age as do other phobias.

Seeking the Fear’s Origins
The researchers prepared a follow-up questionnaire relating to eight possible explanations for the fear’s origins for those participants who reported at least some degree of clown fear. 

Possible explanations for the origins of clown fear (from www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00207411.2022.2046925?scroll=top&needAccess=true&role=tab).

Of the eight explanations, a frightening experience with a clown ranked lowest, suggesting that life experience alone does not explain the fear. In contrast, negative portrayals of clowns in popular culture was a much stronger contributing factor. Most notable is the fear-inducing clown “Pennywise” from the 2017 and 2019 movies based on Stephen King’s 1986 novel “It.” Even there, however, some people fear Ronald McDonald, which suggests there might be something more fundamental about the way clowns look.

The evil clown Pennywise from the movie It (photo from Pennywise’s Facebook page www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=277351666103104&set=ecnf.100077942030166).

The strongest factor identified was hidden emotional signals. For many people, a fear of clowns arises from not being able to see their expressions because of make-up. Failing to see their true faces, we cannot understand their emotional intent. Not knowing what clown are thinking or what they might do next keeps some of us on edge when we are around them.

Wrap Up
The study provides insights into why some people fear clowns, yet questions remain. For example, if clown makeup causes fear by hiding emotions, is there something specific about clown makeup or does other face painting also create a negative affect?

In any event, as much as I empathize with peoples’ fears, I’ll skip the horror stories and movies with or without creepy, threatening clowns. I’m content with all of my happy clown memories. Thanks for stopping by.

P.S.
Fear of clowns study in International Journal of Mental Health: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00207411.2022.2046925?scroll=top&needAccess=true&role=tab
Article on study on The Conversation website: theconversation.com/why-are-we-so-scared-of-clowns-heres-what-weve-discovered-199352
Chapman University Survey of American Fears
2015: blogs.chapman.edu/wilkinson/2015/10/13/americas-top-fears-2015/
2017: blogs.chapman.edu/wilkinson/2017/10/11/americas-top-fears-2017/
2019: www.chapman.edu/wilkinson/research-centers/babbie-center/_files/americas-top-fears-2019.pdf

Global Language Loss

Global language experts estimate that, without intervention, about one language will be lost every month for the next 40 years.

Welcome back. My 2012 blog post on linguistics may have only been a concern to me--that “mom” is replacing “mother” and “no problem” is replacing “you’re welcome” (see Linguistic Longings)--but today’s topic, the loss of languages, has been described as a linguistic crisis. Reflecting its importance, the recently published study, led by researchers with the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, has more than 100 contributors affiliated with institutions from around the world.

A key reason for the wide-ranging involvement is that most if not all of the contributors were involved in the development of the Grambank database, which the study introduces and relied on to answer long-standing questions about global linguistic diversity--in essence, the differences among different languages and the ways people communicate with one another.

Countries with most languages spoken in 2021 (from www.statista.com/chart/3862/countries-with-the-most-spoken-languages/).

One of those questions is what the consequences of language loss will be on our understanding of linguistic diversity.

Grambank Database
Grammar defines the rules of a language--words, sounds, how they are combined and interpreted. A language’s grammatical elements include word order, tense, comparatives (words that express ‘bigger’ or ‘smaller’) and whether the language has gendered pronouns.

There are about 7,000 spoken languages in the modern world and published grammatical descriptions for about 4,300 languages.

Grambank is the world’s largest publicly available comparative grammatical database. With more than 2,400 languages and 400,000 data points, it has encoded over half of all possible grammar information that can be extracted from existing data sources.

Language Loss
The loss of languages has occurred throughout human history. What’s new is that, due to social, political and economic pressures, the speed of loss has accelerated. The study’s co-first author from the University of Colorado at Boulder described it as if, while mapping the human genome, scientists saw the genes themselves rapidly disappearing before their eyes.

This global language loss is not evenly distributed. Among the regions at higher risk of losing indigenous languages are Aleut in Alaska, Salish languages of the Pacific Northwest, Yagua and Tariana in South America, and languages of Kuuk-Thaayorre and Wardaman in Northern Australia.

Characterizing the Loss
The comprehensiveness of Grambank allowed effective investigation of the potential loss of linguistic knowledge using a metric borrowed from the field of ecology, “functional richness.” This metric quantifies the area occupied by a species (languages in the study) by the set of features and estimates the diversity the data represent.

Computing this metric, first with all languages, and then only with languages that are not endangered, the researchers were able estimate the potential loss in structural diversity. They found that, although functional richness declines only moderately on a global scale with the loss of languages that are now under threat, the consequences of language loss vary significantly across regions.

Wrap Up
The researchers conclude that the pronounced reduction of the functional space occupied by languages, even in regions with many non-threatened languages, will undermine the ability to investigate the basic structures of language and the diverse expressions used to encode them.

Without sustained efforts to document and revitalize endangered languages, the linguistic window into human history, cognition and culture will be seriously fragmented.

Recognizing the state of language endangerment, the United Nations has declared this the International Decade of Indigenous Languages to promote language preservation, documentation and revitalization.

Thanks for stopping by.

P.S.
Study of Grambank analyses of linguistic diversity in Science Advances journal: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adg6175
Article on study on EurekAlert! website: www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/986975
UN International Decade of Indigenous Languages 2022-2032: www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/indigenous-languages.html

The Photo View

Welcome back. Do you take lots of photographs? I used to. Selfies? My photo heyday was long before selfies or digital cameras (see P.S.). Do you post your photos on social media, such as Instagram?

I ask because a recently published study examined photo perspective, comparing “first-person” photographs that capture the scene as the photographer sees it, with “third-person” photographs that capture the scene with the photographer in it, i.e., selfies.

First-person photograph of beach and ocean (from www.planetware.com/virginia/top-rated-beaches-in-virginia-us-va-141.htm).

Earlier research suggested that third-person photographs (selfies) do a better job of depicting the meaning of events, while first-person photographs favor the physical experience of events. For example, visiting the beach with family, you take a photograph of the ocean to capture the physical experience of the day; you take a selfie to capture the bigger meaning of being with family.

Taking a third-person photograph (“selfie”) (from www.freepik.com/premium-photo/family-taking-selfie-photo-beach-family-beach-vacation_5294091.htm).

Six-Part Study
The researchers conducted a six-part study to test the goals and consequences of taking first-person and third-person perspective photographs. Each part had different participants, in all a total of 2,113.

At the time of the work, the researchers were affiliated with Ohio State University and the University of Waterloo. The lead researcher is now a postdoctoral scholar with Germany’s University of Tübingen.

The participants read a brief note that photographers might want to capture the physical experience or the meaning of the moment. They also read instructions about first-person and third-person perspectives. Participants for the first three of the six parts then read hypothetical scenarios for taking a photograph.

Part 1: For each scenario, participants rated the importance of the activity’s experience and the importance of the activity’s bigger meaning. They were then asked whether they would take a first-person or third-person photograph for the scenarios.

Part 2: Participants were randomly assigned three scenarios to capture the physical experience of the moment and three scenarios to capture the meaning of the moment. They were then asked whether they would take a first-person or third-person photograph for the scenarios.

Part 3: The hypothetical scenarios were similar to those in Part 2 but about other people, with other objects and backgrounds.

Part 4: Participants viewed 5 or 10 of their most recent Instagram photographs, indicated the perspective of each and reported whether each made them think about the physical experience or the meaning of the moment.

Part 5: Extending the finding of Part 4, participants were tested on whether the goal of capturing meaning or physical experience caused them to use third-person or first-person photographs.

Part 6: Participants were instructed to open their most recent Instagram post, share a photograph, and answer whether they were trying to capture the physical experience or meaning of the moment. They then rated how well they did, whether the photograph was first- or third-person and how they now felt about the photograph.

Wrap Up
Overall, the study not only provides insight into decisions people make about an inherent dimension of their personal photographs but also suggests consequences of the decision.

Part 1: The importance of how participants viewed the meaning (or physical experience) of hypothetical events predicted the likelihood of taking third-person (or first-person) photographs.

Parts 2 and 3: Demonstrated how the goal of capturing meaning (or physical experience) caused participants to favor third-person (or first-person) photographs.

Part 4: Viewing their photographs on Instagram, participants reported that third-person (or first-person) photographs reminded them more of the meaning (or physical experience).

Part 5: Given the goal to choose photographs that capture meaning (or physical experience), participants were more likely to select their third-person (or first-person) photographs.

Part 6: The extent to which the perspective of photographs matched (or mismatched) the goal for taking the photographs predicted whether participants would like (or dislike) the photographs.

So, take a new look at your photos with my thanks for stopping by.

P.S.
Study of photo perspective in Social Psychological and Personality Science journal: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19485506231163012
Ohio State news release of study: news.osu.edu/why-people-include-themselves-in-photos/

Selfie: An image that includes oneself (often with another person or as part of a group) and is taken by oneself using a digital camera especially for posting on social networks. The first-known appearance of "selfie" in written form occurred in 2002 on an Australian news website, but the word didn't see much use until 2012. By November 2013, selfie was appearing frequently enough in print and electronic media that Oxford Dictionaries (publisher of the Oxford English Dictionary as well as other dictionaries) chose selfie as its Word of the Year. Merriam-Webster

Check The Back Seat

Welcome back. A recently published study by University of Notre Dame researchers reminded me that I never completed a blog post I began in 2019 on work by David Diamond at the University of South Florida. The background for both is that, since 1998, approximately 496 children have died of pediatric vehicular heatstroke in the U.S. because their caregiver forgot they were in the car.

Media reports of the 938 pediatric vehicular heatstroke deaths 1998 through 2022 show: 52.6% forgotten by caregiver (496 children), 25.3% gained access on their own (237), 20.3% knowingly left by caregiver (190), 1.8% unknown (17) (from https://www.noheatstroke.org/).

I’ll begin with Prof. Diamond’s research, which is more basic and direct. The Notre Dame researchers conducted an experiment to simulate how forgetting could occur.

Prof. Diamond’s Research
Diamond has studied the phenomenon from a neuropsychological perspective for over two decades. He has served on federal committees to assess why children are forgotten in cars and how the auto industry can respond. He has also served as an expert witness in cases in which parents have been charged with crimes, including murder, offering testimony that enabled judges and juries to understand how attentive and loving parents are capable of forgetting their child in the car.

He has concluded that all of these tragic occurrences involve the failure of the brain’s prospective memory system, which is defined by three features: (1) the person has an intention to perform an action later when circumstances permit; (2) there is a delay between forming and executing the intention, a delay typically filled with activities not directly related to the intended action; and (3) there is typically an absence of an explicit prompt that it is time to retrieve the intention from memory.

Diamond first published his hypothesis in 2016 in an on-line article in The Conversation. He then described the phenomenon at length in 2019 in the peer-reviewed journal Medicine, Science and the Law. In short, (1) the driver loses awareness of the child in the car; (2) the driver exhibits a failure of prospective memory, (3) intervening events during the drive, including stressors and strong distractions, may contribute to causing the prospective memory failure.

Notre Dame Study
To better understand this lapse in prospective memory, the Notre Dame researchers designed an experiment to measure if and how college students could forget their cellphones, their “babies” so to speak.

When students arrived to participate in a planned experiment, the researchers got their approval to add the memory experiment without providing details. They took the cellphones of 192 students and gave them activity trackers to attach to the back of their waistbands.

When they released the students at the end of the planned experiment, the researchers checked (1) how often students forgot to retrieve their phone and return the trackers and (2) whether it mattered if the students were given explicit reminders to take their phone when testing was complete.

Depiction of Notre Dame study procedure (from psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2023-70258-001.html).

Study Results
About 7% of students forgot their cellphones without the reminder, compared to almost 5% of those who were reminded. Nearly 18% of both categories forgot to return the tracker.

Proportions of different cues that caused students to remember cellphone and tracker with or without explicit reminder (from psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2023-70258-001.html).

Debriefing the students confirmed that prospective memory failure can happen to anyone. Forgetting occurs when environmental cues fail to trigger one’s memory of the intention at the right moment.

Wrap Up
Several points of interest:

Forgetting babies in cars was uncommon before laws were passed in the 1990s requiring car seats be placed rear-facing in the back seat.

The chance that a child could be forgotten increases, of course, if the driver is not the caregiver who usually has that responsibility.

Legal opinion is such that if the caregiver who forgot the child did not possess mens rea -- knowledge or intent of wrongdoing at the time of their inaction -- a crime has not occurred; the caregiver should not be prosecuted.

Although many automakers now offer rear-seat alert systems, Biden’s infrastructure bill signed into law a provision requiring all automakers to install some manner of rear-seat alert systems in all new vehicles. It takes effect with 2025 model year vehicles.

Thank you for allowing me to complete that 2019 blog post. And thanks for stopping by.

P.S.
Diamond’s article (updated) in The Conversation: theconversation.com/children-dying-in-hot-cars-a-tragedy-that-can-be-prevented-60909
Diamond’s study in Medicine, Science and the Law: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0025802419831529
Article on study on EurekAlert! website: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-03/uosf-wtb030419.php
Notre Dame study in Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition: psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2023-70258-001.html
Article on study on EurekAlert! website: www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/989784
Legal opinion on mens rea in Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law: lawcat.berkeley.edu/record/1163936