As part of a national “moonshot” to cure blindness, researchers at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus will receive as much as $46 million in federal funding over the next five years to pursue a first-of-its-kind full eye transplantation. “This is no easy undertaking, but I believe we can achieve this together,” said Dr. Kia Washington, the lead researcher for the University of Colorado-led team, during a press conference Monday. “And in fact I’ve never been more hopeful that a cure for blindness is within reach.” The CU team was one of four in the United States that received funding awards from the federal Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health , or ARPA-H. The CU-based group will focus on achieving the first-ever vision-restoring eye transplant by using “novel stem cell and bioelectronic technologies,” according to a news release announcing the funding. The work will be interdisciplinary, Washington and others said, and will link together researchers at institutions across the country. The four teams that received the funding will work alongside each other on distinct approaches, though officials said the teams would likely collaborate and eventually may merge depending on which research avenues show the most promise toward achieving the ultimate goal of transplanting an eye and curing blindness. Dr. Calvin Roberts, who will oversee the broader project for ARPA-H, said the agency wanted to take multiple “shots on goal” to ensure progress. “In the broader picture, achieving this would be probably the most monumental task in medicine within the last several decades,” said Dr. Daniel Pelaez of the University of Miami’s Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, which also received ARPA-H funding. Pelaez is the lead investigator for that team, which has pursued new procedures to successfully remove and preserve eyes from donors, amid other research. He told The Denver Post that only four organ systems have not been successfully transplanted: the inner ear, the brain, the spinal cord and the eye. All four are part of the central nervous system, which does not repair itself when damaged. If researchers can successfully transplant the human eye and restore vision to the patient, it might help unlock deeper discoveries about repairing damage to the brain and spine, Pelaez said, as well as addressing hearing loss. To succeed, researchers must successfully remove and preserve eyes from donors and then successfully connect and repair the optical nerve, which takes information from the eye and tells the brain what the eye sees. A team at New York University performed a full eye transplant on a human patient in November 2023, though the procedure — while a “remarkable achievement,” Pelaez said — did not restore the patient’s vision. It was also part of a partial face transplant; other approaches pursued via the ARPA-H funding will involve eye-specific transplants. Washington, the lead CU researcher, said she and her colleagues have already completed the eye transplant procedure — albeit without vision restoration — in rats. The CU team will next work on large animals to advance “optic nerve regenerative strategies,” the school said, as well as to study immunosuppression, which is critical to ensuring that patients’ immune systems don’t reject a donated organ. The goal is to eventually advance to human trials. Pelaez and his colleagues have completed their eye-removal procedure in cadavers, he said, and they’ve also studied regeneration in several animals that are capable of regenerating parts of their eyes, like salamanders or zebra fish. His team’s funding will focus in part on a life-support machine for the eye to keep it healthy and viable during the removal process. InGel Therapeutics, a Massachusetts-based Harvard spinoff and the lead of a third team, will pursue research on 3-D printed technology and “micro-tunneled scaffolds” that carry certain types of stem cells as part of a focus on optical nerve regeneration and repair, ARPA-H said. ARPH-A, created two years ago, will oversee the teams’ work. Researchers at 52 institutions nationwide will also contribute to the teams. The CU-led group will include researchers from the University of Southern California, the University of Wisconsin, Indiana University and Johns Hopkins University, as well as from the National Eye Institute . The teams will simultaneously compete and collaborate: Pelaez said his team has communicated with researchers at CU and at Stanford, another award recipient, about their eye-removal research. The total funding available for the teams is $125 million, ARPA-H officials said Monday, and it will be distributed in phases, in part dependent on teams’ success. U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, a Democrat who represents Denver in Congress, acknowledged the recent election results at the press conference Monday and pledged to continue fighting to preserve ARPA-H’s funding under President-elect Donald Trump’s administration. The effort to cure blindness, Washington joked, was “biblical” in its enormity — a reference to the Bible story in which Jesus cures a blind man. She and others also likened it to a moonshot, meaning the effort to successfully put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon nearly 50 years ago. If curing blindness is similar to landing on the moon, then the space shuttle has already left the launchpad, Washington said. “We have launched,” she said, “and we are on our trajectory.”
Advisors Asset Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Essential Properties Realty Trust, Inc. ( NYSE:EPRT – Free Report ) by 58.6% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 3,218 shares of the company’s stock after acquiring an additional 1,189 shares during the quarter. Advisors Asset Management Inc.’s holdings in Essential Properties Realty Trust were worth $110,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. A number of other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the business. Blue Trust Inc. lifted its holdings in Essential Properties Realty Trust by 95.2% during the 3rd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 818 shares of the company’s stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 399 shares during the last quarter. Asset Dedication LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Essential Properties Realty Trust during the 2nd quarter worth about $27,000. Quarry LP boosted its holdings in shares of Essential Properties Realty Trust by 611.3% during the 2nd quarter. Quarry LP now owns 1,195 shares of the company’s stock worth $33,000 after buying an additional 1,027 shares during the period. CWM LLC grew its stake in Essential Properties Realty Trust by 122.9% in the 2nd quarter. CWM LLC now owns 1,244 shares of the company’s stock valued at $34,000 after buying an additional 686 shares during the last quarter. Finally, GAMMA Investing LLC grew its position in shares of Essential Properties Realty Trust by 116.4% in the second quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 1,945 shares of the company’s stock valued at $54,000 after purchasing an additional 1,046 shares during the last quarter. 96.98% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Essential Properties Realty Trust Stock Down 0.6 % NYSE:EPRT opened at $34.10 on Friday. Essential Properties Realty Trust, Inc. has a one year low of $23.49 and a one year high of $34.88. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.69, a current ratio of 5.59 and a quick ratio of 5.59. The company has a market cap of $5.98 billion, a PE ratio of 30.19, a P/E/G ratio of 2.85 and a beta of 1.37. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $33.19 and its 200 day simple moving average is $30.63. Essential Properties Realty Trust Dividend Announcement The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, October 11th. Shareholders of record on Monday, September 30th were given a $0.29 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, September 30th. This represents a $1.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.40%. Essential Properties Realty Trust’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 100.87%. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades EPRT has been the topic of a number of research reports. Scotiabank upped their price objective on Essential Properties Realty Trust from $32.00 to $33.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a report on Monday, November 25th. Evercore ISI lifted their price objective on shares of Essential Properties Realty Trust from $33.00 to $34.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a research note on Monday, September 16th. Truist Financial increased their target price on shares of Essential Properties Realty Trust from $33.00 to $36.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 3rd. Raymond James lifted their price target on shares of Essential Properties Realty Trust from $28.00 to $33.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 21st. Finally, UBS Group increased their target price on Essential Properties Realty Trust from $39.00 to $40.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, November 14th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Essential Properties Realty Trust has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $33.44. View Our Latest Stock Analysis on Essential Properties Realty Trust Insider Activity In other news, CEO Peter M. Mavoides sold 27,817 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, September 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $32.33, for a total transaction of $899,323.61. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 446,076 shares in the company, valued at $14,421,637.08. This represents a 5.87 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website . Insiders own 0.81% of the company’s stock. Essential Properties Realty Trust Profile ( Free Report ) Essential Properties Realty Trust, Inc, a real estate company, acquires, owns, and manages single-tenant properties in the United States. The company leases its properties to middle-market companies, such as restaurants, car washes, automotive services, medical and dental services, convenience stores, equipment rental, entertainment, early childhood education, grocery, and health and fitness on a long-term basis. Further Reading Five stocks we like better than Essential Properties Realty Trust How to Know Which Cryptocurrency to Buy: A Guide for Investors The Latest 13F Filings Are In: See Where Big Money Is Flowing Investing in Commodities: What Are They? How to Invest in Them 3 Penny Stocks Ready to Break Out in 2025 Insider Trading – What You Need to Know FMC, Mosaic, Nutrien: Top Agricultural Stocks With Big Potential Receive News & Ratings for Essential Properties Realty Trust Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Essential Properties Realty Trust and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter .Stock market today: Wall Street slips to a rare back-to-back loss
Another week, another opportunity to grab some free games! Epic Games and Amazon Prime Gaming are back with a new selection of titles you can claim at no cost. The Epic Games Store is offering Brotato this week. The game will be available to claim from November 29 to December 5, 9:30 PM IST. In addition, Epic Games is also hosting the , which includes discounts on various games, including AAA titles. Good day for some mashed potatoes. Or maybe just to let a potato do some mashing! 🥔 Grab Brotato for FREE this week: — Epic Games Store (@EpicGames) Amazon Prime Gaming is offering the following titles: In order to claim these titles, the user must have an active subscription of . The Amazon Prime Gaming subscription costs ₹1,499 annually. Brotato Brotato is a top-down arena shooter roguelite game where players control a potato wielding six weapons at a time, fighting aliens. Players can also create their own builds and setups. The game was developed and published by Blobfish and was released on June 23, 2023. Elite Dangerous Elite Dangerous is a multiplayer online space simulation game developed and published by Frontier Developments. It was released on April 2, 2015. In the game, players begin with a small ship, which they can build on, explore, and more. The game features a dynamic economy and a background simulation that influences the political landscape of the galaxy based on player actions.
Here's what we're seeing Russia's warships and aircraft doing in new satellite images of Syria amid regime change
Zach Bryan rages at crowd as object is hurled at him onstage for second time in a weekAs part of a national “moonshot” to cure blindness, researchers at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus will receive as much as $46 million in federal funding over the next five years to pursue a first-of-its-kind full eye transplantation. “This is no easy undertaking, but I believe we can achieve this together,” said Dr. Kia Washington, the lead researcher for the University of Colorado-led team, during a press conference Monday. “And in fact I’ve never been more hopeful that a cure for blindness is within reach.” The CU team was one of four in the United States that received funding awards from the federal Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health , or ARPA-H. The CU-based group will focus on achieving the first-ever vision-restoring eye transplant by using “novel stem cell and bioelectronic technologies,” according to a news release announcing the funding. The work will be interdisciplinary, Washington and others said, and will link together researchers at institutions across the country. The four teams that received the funding will work alongside each other on distinct approaches, though officials said the teams would likely collaborate and eventually may merge depending on which research avenues show the most promise toward achieving the ultimate goal of transplanting an eye and curing blindness. Dr. Calvin Roberts, who will oversee the broader project for ARPA-H, said the agency wanted to take multiple “shots on goal” to ensure progress. “In the broader picture, achieving this would be probably the most monumental task in medicine within the last several decades,” said Dr. Daniel Pelaez of the University of Miami’s Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, which also received ARPA-H funding. Pelaez is the lead investigator for that team, which has pursued new procedures to successfully remove and preserve eyes from donors, amid other research. He told The Denver Post that only four organ systems have not been successfully transplanted: the inner ear, the brain, the spinal cord and the eye. All four are part of the central nervous system, which does not repair itself when damaged. If researchers can successfully transplant the human eye and restore vision to the patient, it might help unlock deeper discoveries about repairing damage to the brain and spine, Pelaez said, as well as addressing hearing loss. To succeed, researchers must successfully remove and preserve eyes from donors and then successfully connect and repair the optical nerve, which takes information from the eye and tells the brain what the eye sees. A team at New York University performed a full eye transplant on a human patient in November 2023, though the procedure — while a “remarkable achievement,” Pelaez said — did not restore the patient’s vision. It was also part of a partial face transplant; other approaches pursued via the ARPA-H funding will involve eye-specific transplants. Washington, the lead CU researcher, said she and her colleagues have already completed the eye transplant procedure — albeit without vision restoration — in rats. The CU team will next work on large animals to advance “optic nerve regenerative strategies,” the school said, as well as to study immunosuppression, which is critical to ensuring that patients’ immune systems don’t reject a donated organ. The goal is to eventually advance to human trials. Pelaez and his colleagues have completed their eye-removal procedure in cadavers, he said, and they’ve also studied regeneration in several animals that are capable of regenerating parts of their eyes, like salamanders or zebra fish. His team’s funding will focus in part on a life-support machine for the eye to keep it healthy and viable during the removal process. InGel Therapeutics, a Massachusetts-based Harvard spinoff and the lead of a third team, will pursue research on 3-D printed technology and “micro-tunneled scaffolds” that carry certain types of stem cells as part of a focus on optical nerve regeneration and repair, ARPA-H said. ARPH-A, created two years ago, will oversee the teams’ work. Researchers at 52 institutions nationwide will also contribute to the teams. The CU-led group will include researchers from the University of Southern California, the University of Wisconsin, Indiana University and Johns Hopkins University, as well as from the National Eye Institute . The teams will simultaneously compete and collaborate: Pelaez said his team has communicated with researchers at CU and at Stanford, another award recipient, about their eye-removal research. The total funding available for the teams is $125 million, ARPA-H officials said Monday, and it will be distributed in phases, in part dependent on teams’ success. U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, a Democrat who represents Denver in Congress, acknowledged the recent election results at the press conference Monday and pledged to continue fighting to preserve ARPA-H’s funding under President-elect Donald Trump’s administration. The effort to cure blindness, Washington joked, was “biblical” in its enormity — a reference to the Bible story in which Jesus cures a blind man. She and others also likened it to a moonshot, meaning the effort to successfully put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon nearly 50 years ago. If curing blindness is similar to landing on the moon, then the space shuttle has already left the launchpad, Washington said. “We have launched,” she said, “and we are on our trajectory.”
Overhauls of 'heritage brands' raise the question: How important are our products to our identities?The United States is actively seeking the assistance of Syria's Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebel group to locate and secure the release of missing American journalist Austin Tice, who was abducted in 2012. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller confirmed on Tuesday that the U.S. has prioritized Tice's safety in its communications. Efforts to recover Tice have intensified as Washington conveys its message via intermediaries to HTS, despite its designation as a terror organization. This request comes in the wake of Bashar al-Assad's overthrow, with a focus on liberating Syrian prisons. President Joe Biden firmly believes Tice is alive and has deployed envoy Roger Carstens to reinforce these efforts. HTS's public statements emphasize cooperation, though the U.S. is reserving judgment until actions reflect these declarations. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has engaged with Middle Eastern counterparts to support Syria's political transition, aiming for an inclusive governance structure aligning with international standards. The U.S. remains resolute in observing HTS's next moves. (With inputs from agencies.)
By KEVIN FREKING WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans teed up a vote this week on bipartisan legislation to gradually expand by 66 the number of federal judgeships across the country. Democrats, though, are having second thoughts now that President-elect Donald Trump has won a second term. The White House said Tuesday that if President Joe Biden were presented with the bill, he would veto it. A Congress closely divided along party lines would be unlikely to overturn a veto, likely dooming the bill’s chances this year. It’s an abrupt reversal for legislation that the Senate passed unanimously in August. But the GOP-led House waited until after the election to act on the measure, which spreads out the establishment of the new district judgeships over about a decade to give three presidential administrations the chance to appoint the new judges. Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said the bill was negotiated with the understanding that three unknown, future presidents would have the chance to expand and shape the judiciary. No party would be knowingly given an advantage. He said he begged GOP leadership to take up the measure before the presidential election. But they did not do so. “It was a fair fight and they wanted no part of it,” Nadler said. Rep. Jim Jordan, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, explained the timing this way: “We just didn’t get to the legislation.” The change of heart about the bill from some Democrats and the new urgency from House Republicans for considering it underscores the contentious politics that surrounded federal judicial vacancies. Senate roll-call votes are required for almost every judicial nominee these days, and most votes for the Supreme Court and appellate courts are now decided largely along party lines. Lawmakers are generally hesitant to hand presidents from the opposing party new opportunities to shape the judiciary. Related Articles National Politics | Trump lawyers and aide hit with 10 additional felony charges in Wisconsin over 2020 fake electors National Politics | After withdrawing as attorney general nominee, Matt Gaetz lands a talk show on OANN television National Politics | What will happen to Social Security under Trump’s tax plan? National Politics | Republican-led states are rolling out plans that could aid Trump’s mass deportation effort National Politics | Elon Musk warns Republicans against standing in Trump’s way — or his Nadler said that the bill would give Trump 25 judicial nominations on top of the 100-plus spots that are expected to open up over the next four years. “Donald Trump has made clear that he intends to expand the power of the presidency and giving him 25 new judges to appoint gives him one more tool at his disposal to do that,” Nadler said. Nadler said he’s willing to take up comparable legislation in the years ahead and give the additional judicial appointments to “unknown presidents yet to come,” but until then, he was urging colleagues to vote against the bill. Still, few are arguing against the merits. Congress last authorized a new district judgeship more than 20 years ago, while the number of cases being filed continues to increase with litigants often waiting years for a resolution. “I used to be a federal court litigator, and I can tell you it’s desperately needed,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said of the bill. Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., first introduced the bill to establish new judgeships in 2020. Last year, the policy-making body for the federal court system, the Judicial Conference of the United States, recommended the creation of several new district and court of appeals judgeships to meet increased workload demands in certain courts. “Judges work tirelessly every day to meet growing demands and resolve cases as quickly as possible, but with the volume we have and the shortage of judges we have, it just makes it a very difficult proposition,” Judge Timothy Corrigan, of the Middle District of Florida, said in a recent blog post on the website of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. The blog post states that caseloads are creating delays that will erode public confidence in the judicial process, but the bill would meet many of the federal judiciary’s needs for more judges. Jordan said that as of June 30th, there were nearly 750,000 pending cases in federal district courts nationwide, with each judge handling an average of 554 filings. When asked if House Republicans would have brought the bill up if Vice President Kamala Harris had won the election, Jordan said the bill is “the right thing to do” and that almost half of the first batch of judges will come from states where both senators are Democrats, giving them a chance to provide input on those nominations before Trump makes them. But in its veto threat, the White House Office of Management and Budget said the bill would create new judgeships in states where senators have sought to hold open existing judicial vacancies. “These efforts to hold open vacancies suggest that concerns about judicial economy and caseload are not the true motivating force behind passage of the law,” the White House said. Shortly before the White House issued the veto threat, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he would be curious to hear Biden’s rationale for such action. “It’s almost inconceivable that a lame-duck president could consider vetoing such an obviously prudential step for any reason other than selfish spite,” McConnell said.
Ross Barkley’s 85th-minute goal gave them victory in Germany after goals from John McGinn and Jhon Duran early in each half were cancelled out by Lois Openda and Christoph Baumgartner. That sent them up to third in the new league phase of the competition ahead of Wednesday’s games and with matches against Monaco and Celtic to come, Villa have an excellent chance of finishing in the top eight. Job done... in the end 😅 #RBLAVL #UCL pic.twitter.com/PRD1Hi1Q3A — Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) December 10, 2024 That would mean they would avoid a play-off round to make it through to the last 16 and Emery says that is the target. “Today was key. Juventus at home, we were thinking more to win but in the end we accepted the draw because it was important for a point to be more or less in the top 24,” he told Amazon Prime. “Today was a match we were thinking at the beginning was key to be a contender to be in the top eight with the last two matches to be played. “It is going to be difficult and we have to get some more points but we now have the possibility to achieve this option. “We are going to enjoy and try to get top eight but we have to be happy because we are in the top 24 and maybe even the top 16. “We weren’t contenders in the beginning to get there but now we have to accept it.” Leipzig, who are flying high near the top of the Bundesliga, are out after losing all six matches. They did pose a threat to Villa, who inflicted some of their own problems on themselves, notably a rare gaffe from goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez for Openda’s equaliser. But Emery was happy with his side’s performance. “I try to enjoy and always we want to improve and sometimes it is hard but today the team were performing well, playing seriously and I was enjoying it,” he added. “We tried to overcome the mistakes we made and we did. More or less we were playing consistently. One mistake and they score but then we played very well. “Champions League is very difficult and we have to expect that every team playing at home are feeling strong. We played with consistency and domination.”
Political chasms, wars, oppression ... it’s easy to feel hopeless and helpless watching these dark forces play out. Could any of us ever really make a meaningful difference in the face of so much devastation? Given the scale of the world’s problems, it might feel like the small acts of human connection and solidarity that you do have control over are like putting Band-Aids on bullet wounds. It can feel naive to imagine that small acts could make any global difference. As a psychologist, human connection researcher and audience member, I was inspired to hear musician Hozier offer a counterpoint at a performance this year. “The little acts of love and solidarity that we offer each other can have powerful impact ... ” he told the crowd. “I believe the core of people on the whole is good – I genuinely do. I’ll die on that hill.” I’m happy to report that the science agrees with him. Research shows that individual acts of kindness and connection can have a real impact on global change when these acts are collective. This is true at multiple levels: between individuals, between people and institutions, and between cultures. This relational micro-activism is a powerful force for change – and serves as an antidote to hopelessness because unlike global-scale issues, these small acts are within individuals’ control. Abstract becomes real through relationships Theoretically, the idea that small, interpersonal acts have large-scale impact is explained by what psychologists call cognitive dissonance: the discomfort you feel when your actions and beliefs don’t line up. For example, imagine two people who like each other. One believes that fighting climate change is crucial, and the other believes that climate change is a political ruse. Cognitive dissonance occurs: They like each other, but they disagree. People crave cognitive balance, so the more these two like each other, the more motivated they will be to hear each other out. According to this model, then, the more you strengthen your relationships through acts of connection, the more likely you’ll be to empathize with those other individual perspectives. When these efforts are collective, they can increase understanding, compassion and community in society at large. Issues like war and oppression can feel overwhelming and abstract, but the abstract becomes real when you connect to someone you care about. So, does this theory hold up when it comes to real-world data? Small acts of connection shift attitudes Numerous studies support the power of individual acts of connection to drive larger-scale change. For instance, researchers studying the political divide in the U.S. found that participants self-identifying as Democrats or Republicans “didn’t like” people in the other group largely due to negative assumptions about the other person’s morals. People also said they valued morals like fairness, respect, loyalty and a desire to prevent harm to others. I’m intentionally leaving out which political group preferred which traits – they all sound like positive attributes, don’t they? Even though participants thought they didn’t like each other based on politics, they also all valued traits that benefit relationships. One interpretation of these findings is that the more people demonstrate to each other, act by act, that they are loyal friends and community members who want to prevent harm to others, the more they might soften large-scale social and political disagreements. Even more convincingly, another study found that Hungarian and Romanian students – people from ethnic groups with a history of social tensions – who said they had strong friendships with each other also reported improved attitudes toward the other group. Having a rocky friendship with someone from the other group actually damaged attitudes toward the other ethnic group as a whole. Again, nurturing the quality of relationships, even on an objectively small scale, had powerful implications for reducing large-scale tensions. In another study, researchers examined prejudice toward what psychologists call an out-group: a group that you don’t belong to, whether based on ethnicity, political affiliation or just preference for dogs versus cats. They asked participants to reflect on the positive qualities of someone they knew, or on their own positive characteristics. When participants wrote about the positive qualities of someone else, rather than themselves, they later reported lower levels of prejudice toward an out-group – even if the person they wrote about had no connection to that out-group. Here, moving toward appreciation of the other, rather than away from prejudice, was an effective way to transform preconceived beliefs. So, small acts of connection can shift personal attitudes. But can they really affect societies? From one-on-one to society-wide Every human being is embedded in their own network with the people and world around them, what psychologists call their social ecology. Compassionate change at any level of someone’s social ecology – internally, interpersonally or structurally – can affect all the other levels, in a kind of positive feedback loop, or upward spiral. For instance, both system-level anti-discrimination programming in schools and interpersonal support between students act reciprocally to shape school environments for students from historically marginalized groups. Again, individual acts play a key role in these positive domino effects. Even as a human connection researcher, I’ve been surprised by how much I and others have progressed toward mutual understanding by simply caring about each other. But what are small acts of connection, after all, but acts of strengthening relationships, which strengthen communities, which influence societies? In much of my clinical work, I use a model called social practice — or “intentional community-building” – as a form of therapy for people recovering from serious mental illnesses, like schizophrenia. And if intentional community-building can address some of the most debilitating states of the human psyche, I believe it follows that, writ large, it could help address the most debilitating states of human societies as well. Simply put, science supports the idea that moving toward each other in small ways can be transformational. I’ll die on that hill too. Liza M Hinchey is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Psychology, Wayne State University. The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.
King and Northeastern knock off Florida International 60-58
