ARTICLES FROM DIFFERENT FIELDS

SCIENCE
‘Zombie’ Wildfires Can Reemerge After Wintering Underground
By Jonathan Lambert
July 22, 2021 at 6:30 am
Winter usually kills most wildfires. But in the far North, some forest fires just don’t die. Think of
them as zombies: Scientists do.
After warmer-than-normal summers, some fires can lurk, hidden, through the winter. The next
spring, flames can emerge, seemingly from the dead. These “zombie fires” tend to be rare,
concludes a new study in the May 20 Nature. But sometimes they can have an oversized impact.
And zombie fires may become more common as the world warms, the study warns.
Zombie fires hibernate underground. Blanketed by snow, they smolder through the cold. Fueled
by carbon-rich peat and Northwoods soils, most of these hidden fires creep less than 500 meters
(1,640 feet) during the winter. Come spring, the fires reemerge near sites they had charred the
season before. Now they turn to burning fresh fuel. And this may happen well before the traditional
fire season would have begun.
Zombie fires had been known mostly from firefighters’ stories. Few scientists studied them. Until,
that is, details in some satellite images tipped off one research team.
Source: https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/zombie-forest-fires-climate-change

PSYCHOLOGY
Psychology In English Literature
The literature on bilingual cognition historically points to potential cognitive differences that arise
from bilingual or multilingual language use, coming to momentum with Keysar et al. (2012)
proposition of the foreign language effect. The authors performed three experiments and a control
version of a framing risk paradigm on a college population: 121 English-Japanese Bilinguals, 144
Korean-English bilinguals, 103 English-French bilinguals, and 84 English-Spanish Bilinguals,
respectively. All participants acquired their foreign language in a classroom setting and underwent
several assessments (e.g., writing, comprehension) to determine qualifying proficiency. In each
experiment, participants completed vetted translations of a modified “Asian disease” problem
entirely in their foreign (FL) or native language (NL). A comprehension task preceded both

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conditions (NL and FL) but finished with an NL translation of materials for the latter. The Asian
disease problem reveals asymmetrical human tendencies in the framing of risk despite similar
expected values. Individuals tend to be risk-averse in the domain of gains (i.e., lives saved) and
risk-seeking in the domain of losses (i.e., lives lost) and thus point to biases that deter rational
analyses. The results of the first portion of experiments demonstrate that FL use unravels framing
biases, leading to more rational, description independent choices. Furthermore, Korean-English
bilinguals and English-Spanish bilinguals completed experiments gauging loss aversion; the
former participated in a betting task with an equal proportion of low and high stakes while the
latter dealt with money in a bet/investment task. Coupled together, the experiments illustrate FL
use may reduce loss aversion even when involving tangible resources.
Source: http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1854/the-foreign-language-effect-and-
disembodied-cognition-the-complexity-of-emotional-boundaries-and-linguistic-factors

BUSINESS
What Makes a Leader?
When asked to define the ideal leader, many would emphasize traits such as intelligence,
toughness, determination, and vision—the qualities traditionally associated with leadership. Such
skills and smarts are necessary but insufficient qualities for the leader. Often left off the list are
softer, more personal qualities—but they are also essential. Although a certain degree of analytical
and technical skill is a minimum requirement for success, studies indicate that emotional
intelligence may be the key attribute that distinguishes outstanding performers from those who are
merely adequate.
Source: https://hbr.org/2004/01/what-makes-a-leader

EDUCATION
Providing The Best Environment For Children To Learn
A large-scale assessment of students in Southeast Asia has highlighted the positive impact of
access to resources both at school and in the home on their learning outcomes. Availability of
water and electricity at home, and the distance that students have to travel to school were also
found to be important factors.
The South East Asia Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM) program 2019 assessed the reading
literacy, mathematical literacy and writing literacy of Grade 5 students in Cambodia, LAO PDR,
Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines and Vietnam. It found resources in the home have a significant
effect on student success in reading, writing and mathematics.

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The assessment gathered information about children, their parents and communities, schools,
teachers and school leaders, and the classroom environment through questionnaires (UNICEF &
SEAMEO, 2020).
Source: https://www.teachermagazine.com/sea_en/articles/providing-the-best-environment-for-
children-to-learn

MATHEMATICS
The Prehistoric Origins of Mathematics
How far back in time can we trace mathematical practice? Finding an answer will take us on a
journey across multiple disciplines, including discoveries made within the last 30 years in
archaeology, Assyriology, artifact analysis (close reading theory), anthropology, linguistics,
genomics, neurobiology, and animal cognition.
We start with the birth of written mathematics in Sumeria and Khuzistan (Iraq and W. Iran) around
3200 BCE, and work backwards through the geometry of the Ubaid temples and pottery designs
(c.6000 BCE), the dearth of archaeological evidence before this (why the tally sticks and notched
bones are suspect, c.70,000-18,000 BCE). Beyond this, we look at anthropological, linguistic, and
other indirect evidence to establish the capability of symbolic thought in hominids (c.200,000
BCE), including recent evidence from a study of the Piraha tribe in Brazil, a tribe with language
but no numeracy. Following a semiotic arc of conceptual development, we look at the tool-making
capabilities of early hominids (c.2.5 million years ago) and what this establishes about their
capability for conceptual thought. Finally, we consider the neurological support for number sense
in animals and its earliest appearance c.300 million years ago.
Source: https://mathscitech.org/articles/mathematics-prehistory

MEDICINE
Plant-Derived Vaccines
Vaccines hold a key place in reducing the global burden of infectious diseases. Global vaccination
campaigns have been instrumental in eradicating diseases such as smallpox, measles, and
poliomyelitis from major parts of the world and have ultimately saved the lives of millions.
The conventional method of vaccine preparation involves the use of an attenuated or
killed/inactivated pathogen or part of the pathogen. Such vaccines, when administered in humans,
induce an immune response and offer protection from the disease.
However, these vaccines have the risk of being contaminated with adventitious agents. To this
end, the World Health Organization (WHO) defines adventitious agents as “microorganisms that

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may have been unintentionally introduced into the manufacturing process of a biological medicinal
product.”
The challenges associated with traditional vaccines have led to the development of new methods
of vaccine development, such as plant-derived vaccines. Through this approach,
vaccine antigens are produced in genetically modified plants that are subsequently extracted and
purified by various chemical methods.
Source: https://www.news-medical.net/health/Plant-Derived-Vaccines.aspx

RELIGION
Religion Rich Filipino
The Philippines is unique among its neighbours in the South East Asian region in that the majority
of Filipinos identify as Christian (92.5%). More specifically, 82.9% of the population identify as
Catholic, 2.8% identify as Evangelical Christian, 2.3% identify as Iglesia ni Kristo and 4.5%
identify with some other Christian denomination. Of the remaining population, 5.0% identify as
Muslim, 1.8% identify with some other religion, 0.6% were unspecified and 0.1% identify with no
religion. The Catholic Church and state were officially separated in the 1990s, yet Catholicism still
plays an prominent role in political and societal affairs.
Source: https://culturalatlas.sbs.com.au/filipino-culture/filipino-culture-religion

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