Buffeted by harsh economic winds,medical schools turn a wary eye to the future

All parts of Canada''s health care system are facing fiscal pressures these days, but they are particularly great at Canada''s medical schools. However, Dr. David Hawkins of the Association of Canadian Medical Colleges is optimistic that all 16 of Canada''s medical schools will remain open, mainly because of the huge impact they have on health care in their local communities. “We don''t just turn out students — we raise the standard of health care in a whole community,” he says.     

“HIDDEN” ALCOHOLICS—Medical Implications of Undiscovered Addiction

“Hidden alcoholics”—those who drink surreptitiously to keep their addiction secret—far out-number the overt habitues of skid rows. The former rather than the latter should be considered “typical” alcoholics. Even though they have severe problems, they maintain fairly good employment stability and stability in marriage. Yet they steadily deteriorate.Often “hidden” alcoholics go to physicians because of symptoms referable to alcoholism but contrive to conceal their addiction and so make diagnosis difficult. Hence, physicians observing certain kinds of symptoms that cannot be attributed to a readily observable or demonstrable pathologic change should make searching inquiry as to the patient''s drinking habits. For not until the proper diagnosis is made in such cases can there be hope of effective treatment.     

Nitrous Oxide Inhalation as a Fad—Dangers in Uncontrolled Sniffing for Psychedelic Effect

“LAUGHING GAS is the newest thing for kids seeking kicks,” the Stanford Daily reports. “They sniff it.”So begins a news story in the Los Angeles Times of 26 January 1967. The story continues:“It''s the latest way to travel, or so say a growing group of devotees on the campus,” the university student paper said. “It can produce much the same effects as psychedelic drugs, they claim, and it''s cheaper to obtain.”“One student said he buys the gas, nitrous oxide, from a medical supply house. `They think I am anesthetizing rats,'' he explained.“Campus medical authorities said the gas, sniffed `in sufficient amounts... could produce all the states of anesthesia, including the final stage—death.''”     

Public versus private care: philosophy,not economics,is shaping the debate

A debate is brewing on the future of private health care within Canada''s medicare system, and even though the federal government professes its intention to defend the existing public system, the growing rightward trend of Canadian voters may mean they are willing to consider more private care. Citizens may continue to express undying support for medicare as an “untouchable” public good, says Charlotte Gray, but they are less and less willing to pay for it through taxes.     

Future of health care system tops agenda as CMA Board of Directors meets

The first part of the CMA''s efforts to spark a public debate on the future of Canada''s health care system is a “visioning exercise” in which the Board of Directors will attempt to spell out the association''s views on how the system should develop. The board also discussed CMA initiatives concerning two major public-health issues — smoking and blood transfusions.     

Physicians' Own Health—Some Advice for the Advisors

Information about physicians'' health and health practices is sparse and scattered. With a few exceptions, however—notably suicide and substance abuse—it appears that physicians'' health and health-promotion activities are at least similar to those of the general public. In some areas, such as smoking cessation, physicians have far outstripped the general public. As physicians gain more insight into their own health and health habits, advice to patients can be realistic and effective. Indeed, several personal health activities, including immunization, have direct, salutary impacts on patient care. Physicians should analyze and change their own health practices as indicated and pay special attention to “high yield” health habits, such as seat-belt use.     

CANCER DETECTION CENTERS—The Experience to Date in California

Cancer “detection centers” (that is, centers for the examination of presumably well or asymptomatic persons) have been tried out in four different California communities during the last three years. In all instances—as in most other such centers throughout the United States—they have not been successful in restricting examination to well persons.The detection centers in California may therefore be described more accurately as “cancer examination and detection clinics.”Three of the four centers have been closed owing to the small yield of cancer cases discovered, plus the fact that the cost of operation exceeded the total available funds of the local branch of the Cancer Society. In addition, it was extremely difficult to obtain and maintain competence on the part of the professional staff in such centers.A more practical approach to the problem of earlier tumor detection would appear to be emphasis on making “every physician''s office a detection center,” and stressing the annual examination of persons over 40 years of age for tumors in the five common accessible sites. These are the tumors most readily curable today.     

The Effect of Framing and Normative Messages in Building Support for Climate Policies

Deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions are required to mitigate climate change. However, there is low willingness amongst the public to prioritise climate policies for reducing emissions. Here we show that the extent to which Australians are prepared to reduce their country''s CO₂ emissions is greater when the costs to future national income are framed as a “foregone-gain”—incomes rise in the future but not by as much as in the absence of emission cuts—rather than as a “loss”—incomes decrease relative to the baseline expected future levels (Studies 1 & 2). The provision of a normative message identifying Australia as one of the world''s largest CO₂ emitters did not increase the amount by which individuals were prepared to reduce emissions (Study 1), whereas a normative message revealing the emission policy preferences of other Australians did (Study 2). The results suggest that framing the costs of reducing emissions as a smaller increase in future income and communicating normative information about others'' emission policy preferences are effective methods for leveraging public support for emission cuts.     

Let's make Golgi

Does the Golgi self-organize or does it form around an instructive template? Evidence on both sides is piling up, but a definitive conclusion is proving elusive.In the battle to define the Golgi, discussions easily spiral into what can appear like nitpicking. In a contentious poster session, an entire worldview rests on whether you think a particular mutant is arrested with vesicles that are close to but distinct from the ER or almost budded from but still attached to the ER.Sometimes obscured by these details are the larger issues. This debate “gets to the fundamental issue of how you think of the Golgi,” says Ben Glick of the University of Chicago (Chicago, IL). “The dogma has been that you need a template to build an organelle. But in the secretory system it''s possible in principle that you could get de novo organization of structure. That''s the issue that stirs people emotionally and intellectually.”Then there are the collateral issues. There is an ongoing controversy about the nature of forward transport through the Golgi—it may occur via forward movement of small vesicles, or by gradual maturation of one cisterna to form the next. The cisternal maturation model “argues for a Golgi that can be made and consumed,” says Graham Warren (Yale University, New Haven, CT)—a situation that is more difficult to reconcile with Warren''s template-determined universe.Even more confusing is the situation in mitosis. Accounts vary wildly on how much of the Golgi disappears into the ER during mitosis. The answer would determine to what extent the cell has to rebuild the Golgi after mitosis, and what method it might use to do so.Several laboratories have made major contributions to address these issues. But none define them so clearly as those of Warren and Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz (National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD). At almost every turn, on almost every issue, it seems that Warren and Lippincott-Schwartz reach opposite conclusions, sometimes based on similar or identical data.And yet, at least in public, there is a remarkable lack of rancor. “These are not easy experiments for us to do,” says Warren. “It''s all cutting-edge research and we are pushing the technology to the limit. Part of that is that you push your own interpretation.” For her part, Lippincott-Schwartz approaches a lengthy poster-session debate with Warren with something approaching glee. This is not triumphal glee, however. Rather, Lippincott-Schwartz seems to relish the opportunity to exchange ideas, and on this point Warren agrees. “Complacency is the worst thing to have in a field,” he says. The debate “has made all of us think a lot harder.”     

Social cognition and psychopathology: a critical overview

The philosophical and interdisciplinary debate about the nature of social cognition, and the processes involved, has important implications for psychiatry. On one account, mindreading depends on making theoretical inferences about another person''s mental states based on knowledge of folk psychology, the so-called “theory theory” (TT). On a different account, “simulation theory” (ST), mindreading depends on simulating the other''s mental states within one''s own mental or motor system. A third approach, “interaction theory” (IT), looks to embodied processes (involving movement, gesture, facial expression, vocal intonation, etc.) and the dynamics of intersubjective interactions (joint attention, joint action, and processes not confined to an individual system) in highly contextualized situations to explain social cognition, and disruptions of these processes in some psychopathological conditions. In this paper, we present a brief summary of these three theoretical frameworks (TT, ST, IT). We then focus on impaired social abilities in autism and schizophrenia from the perspective of the three approaches. We discuss the limitations of such approaches in the scientific studies of these and other pathologies, and we close with a short reflection on the future of the field. In this regard we argue that, to the extent that TT, ST and IT offer explanations that capture different (limited) aspects of social cognition, a pluralist approach might be best.     

The Past and Future of Tuberculosis Research

Renewed efforts in tuberculosis (TB) research have led to important new insights into the biology and epidemiology of this devastating disease. Yet, in the face of the modern epidemics of HIV/AIDS, diabetes, and multidrug resistance—all of which contribute to susceptibility to TB—global control of the disease will remain a formidable challenge for years to come. New high-throughput genomics technologies are already contributing to studies of TB''s epidemiology, comparative genomics, evolution, and host–pathogen interaction. We argue here, however, that new multidisciplinary approaches—especially the integration of epidemiology with systems biology in what we call “systems epidemiology”—will be required to eliminate TB.     

PARENT DEVELOPMENT

Today''s parents tend to be overwhelmed with advice from many sources. In his role as family counselor, the pediatrician must understand and consider the emotional development of parents in relation to their child''s development; otherwise, his advice and counsel do not “take” and he becomes tired and frustrated and angry.Parents progress through definite stages of development: Stage 1: Learning the cues—the struggle of the parents to interpret the infant''s needs. Stage 2: Learning to accept growth and development—the parent learning to accept some loss of control of the toddler. Stage 3: Learning to separate—the parent learning to allow the child to develop independently. Stage 4: Learning to accept rejection, without deserting—the struggle of the parents not to intrude and yet to be there when needed. Stage 5: Learning to build a new life having been thoroughly discredited by one''s teenager—the parent learning to live independently while the teenager struggles to develop his own identity.The pediatrician who is accepting, sensitive and a good listener and who keeps in mind that parents as well as children have capacities for growth and development, will be a potent factor in promoting good parent-child relationships and many times more effective in dealing with the child in health and disease.     

ATTITUDES TOWARD THE DUBIOUS COMPENSATION CLAIM

Laws providing for compensation of workmen for occupational injury are a powerful socio-economic force.In settlement of compensation claims the goal, difficult to achieve, is fairness to employee, employer and insurance carrier. Often, medical, legal, economic and social considerations conflict with one another. A “fact” in one field may not be considered so in another.Since medical data and testimony often guide the ultimate decision of a compensation claim, the physician''s attitude is a large factor not only immediately and directly in determination of the case at hand but, perhaps more important, in the ultimate direction of the socio-economic forces which spring from the sum of all such determinations.To perpetuate the good in workmen''s compensation laws, the next generation of physicians—and of lawyers and business administrators as well, for they, too, are involved—ought to have basic training in the social sciences in order that they may have a broad rather than a segmental view of the problems with which they deal.     

Plant intelligence: Why,why not or where?

The concept of plant intelligence, as proposed by Anthony Trewavas, has raised considerable discussion. However, plant intelligence remains loosely defined; often it is either perceived as practically synonymous to Darwinian fitness, or reduced to a mere decorative metaphor. A more strict view can be taken, emphasizing necessary prerequisites such as memory and learning, which requires clarifying the definition of memory itself. To qualify as memories, traces of past events have to be not only stored, but also actively accessed. We propose a criterion for eliminating false candidates of possible plant intelligence phenomena in this stricter sense: an “intelligent” behavior must involve a component that can be approximated by a plausible algorithmic model involving recourse to stored information about past states of the individual or its environment. Re-evaluation of previously presented examples of plant intelligence shows that only some of them pass our test.

“You were hurt?” Kumiko said, looking at the scar.Sally looked down. “Yeah.”“Why didn''t you have it removed?”“Sometimes it''s good to remember.”“Being hurt?”“Being stupid.”—(W. Gibson: Mona Lisa Overdrive)

Key words: intelligence, memory, learning, plant development, mathematical models, plant neurobiology, definition of terms     

Computer-Assisted Diagnosis of Abdominal Pain using “Estimates” Provided by Clinicians

This paper reports a comparison between two modes of computer-aided diagnosis in a real-time prospective trial involving 472 patients with acute abdominal pain. In the first mode the computer-aided system analysed each of the 472 patients by referring to data previously collated from a large series of 600 real-life patients. In the second mode the system used as a basis for its analysis “estimates” of probability provided by a group of six clinicians. The accuracy and reliability of both modes were compared with the performance of unaided clinicians.Using “real-life” data the computer system was significantly more effective than the unaided clinician. By contrast, when using the clinicians'' own estimates the computer-aided system was often less effective than the unaided clinician—especially when diagnosing less common disorders. It seems, firstly, that future systems for computer-aided diagnosis should employ data from real-life and not clinicians'' estimates, and, secondly, that clinicians themselves cannot analyse cases in a probabilistic fashion, since often they have little idea of what the “true” probabilities are.     

How Could Language Have Evolved?

The evolution of the faculty of language largely remains an enigma. In this essay, we ask why. Language''s evolutionary analysis is complicated because it has no equivalent in any nonhuman species. There is also no consensus regarding the essential nature of the language “phenotype.” According to the “Strong Minimalist Thesis,” the key distinguishing feature of language (and what evolutionary theory must explain) is hierarchical syntactic structure. The faculty of language is likely to have emerged quite recently in evolutionary terms, some 70,000–100,000 years ago, and does not seem to have undergone modification since then, though individual languages do of course change over time, operating within this basic framework. The recent emergence of language and its stability are both consistent with the Strong Minimalist Thesis, which has at its core a single repeatable operation that takes exactly two syntactic elements a and b and assembles them to form the set {a, b}.It is uncontroversial that language has evolved, just like any other trait of living organisms. That is, once—not so long ago in evolutionary terms—there was no language at all, and now there is, at least in Homo sapiens. There is considerably less agreement as to how language evolved. There are a number of reasons for this lack of agreement. First, “language” is not always clearly defined, and this lack of clarity regarding the language phenotype leads to a corresponding lack of clarity regarding its evolutionary origins. Second, there is often confusion as to the nature of the evolutionary process and what it can tell us about the mechanisms of language. Here we argue that the basic principle that underlies language''s hierarchical syntactic structure is consistent with a relatively recent evolutionary emergence.     

Traditional Health Beliefs and Practices Among Lower Class Black Americans

The medical belief system of lower class black Americans reflects their social, political and economic marginality in the larger society. A moderate life-style is regarded as the basis for good health with special emphasis on protecting one''s body from cold, keeping it clean inside and out and maintaining a proper diet. Illnesses and other life events are classified as “natural” or “unnatural.” Natural illnesses result from the effects of cold, dirt and improper diet on the body causing changes in the blood. A number of beliefs about blood and its functions have important clinical implications for the treatment of hypertension and venereal disease and for family planning. Natural illnesses also result from divine punishment and serve as an instrument of social control. Unnatural illnesses are the result of witchcraft and reflect conflict in the social network. It is believed that physicians do not understand and cannot effectively treat such illnesses, but a variety of traditional healers offer help to the victims. Physicians must elicit such beliefs if they are to interact effectively and sensitively with black patients. Social change is required, however, to eliminate the feelings of powerlessness at the root of many of the health problems of poor black Americans.     

Creativity as an antidote to research becoming too predictable

In this commentary, Sonne‐Hansen and colleagues argue that research leaders and organizations should encourage more “theory‐guessing” by budding young scientists, rather than incentivizing safe mainstream research. Subject Categories: History & Philosophy of Science, Science Policy & Publishing

Most living things do not like extreme heat. Case in point—in 2021, French winemakers recorded the smallest harvest since 1957 due to rising temperatures. Unlike the grapes that give birth to dry whites and luscious reds, some organisms flourish in extremely hot environments, however. In the late 1960s, Thomas Brock, a microbiologist from Cleveland, and his undergraduate student Hudson Freeze conducted research in Yellowstone National Park. What drew their interest was that some organisms seem to thrive in the hot springs sprinkled throughout the park. From a sample of pink bacteria collected from Mushroom Spring, Brock and his student isolated a prokaryotic organism thriving at 70°C, which they named Thermus aquaticus—after the Greek word for “hot” and the Latin for “water.” The ability of an enzyme (DNA polymerase) from Thermus aquaticus to tolerate high temperatures would later spur the invention of the polymerase chain reaction or PCR, which won biochemist Kary Mullis a share of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and revolutionized biomedicine.When it was published in the Journal of Bacteriology, the work by Brock and Freeze went largely undetected. It generated a few citations but did not manage to attract the attention of the wider community of biologists (Bhattacharya & Packalen, 2020). Of course, this is not uncommon for novel findings—their true value may remain unknown for a while, even if the work later spurs new ideas and scientific breakthroughs. Precisely, because it constitutes a venture into the unknown, pursuing novel ideas requires a special set of circumstances. Without the National Science Foundation''s financial support and without Brock being able to spend a decade exploring the hot springs of Yellowstone National Park, satisfying his curiosity about things that thrive in extreme heat (but undoubtedly offending his nose in the process—those thermal pools can be quite pungent), the world likely would have had to wait longer for the advent of PCR.Our core argument is that the conditions that allow and encourage scientists to engage in the relentless, creative exploration of the unknown are becoming harder and harder to find. There are several reasons for this. For one, finding new ideas appears increasingly difficult. Data from the United States, for instance, suggest that research productivity (defined as ratio of the output of ideas to the inputs used to make them) in a number of fields, including medical research, is declining over time. To offset the difficulty in finding new ideas, the United States would have to double its research effort every 13 years (Bloom et al, 2020).One of the consequences of this increase in research activity is that the number of papers published each year has increased over time (Chu & Evans, 2021). This growth has some undesirable side effects. Scientists focus their attention on work that is already well‐cited rather than on new ideas or on ideas on the fringes of the scientific mainstream (Chu & Evans, 2021). Sifting through a deluge of ideas—published in an actual Mount Kilimanjaro of papers (Van Noorden et al, 2014)—to find a nugget of wisdom is hard. This leads to a calcification of the intellectual structure of a field, slowing down progress over time.Funding agencies further exacerbate this trend. There is a tendency to minimize risk—it has become the norm that grant proposals have to already provide substantial amounts of data supporting the proposed theories/hypotheses (incidentally, something that Thomas Brock would not have been able to do)—and to reward work on topics that are more established. As recently as the 1990s, however, research that explored more current ideas was not at a disadvantage when it came to funding (Packalen & Bhattacharya, 2020). Going back to these “old ways” of maintaining a balance between funding work that builds on more established ideas and work that builds on more recent advances may be something that the biomedical sciences could aspire to. Small steps are being undertaken. For instance, some foundations in Denmark are now providing opportunities for (modest) funding of applicants whose ideas would likely get shunned by the traditional funding schemes.As obtaining external funding is the lifeblood for many research programs, investigators are responding to these pressures by “playing it safe,” pursuing ideas that, from the outset, are likely to be publishable to ensure a constant stream of papers. Long gone are the days that biologists could explore the hot springs of Yellowstone National Park without knowing what all that exploring would amount to (other than a nice tan). A journey into the exploration of the unknown has been replaced with a ticket on the Shinkansen “bullet train”—“destination: known” and always on time.Contemporary academic training practices have not been able to fight back these developments. Quite the contrary—one of the consequences of the “pressure to produce” is that budding researchers are often recruited onto preexisting projects with already defined milestones and deliverables, all the while having to develop a range of other skills. Naturally, this leaves little room and time for engaging in more exploratory aspects of the scientific process. The result is that we are turning the next generation of scientists into excellent experimentalists and “research managers,” rather than into bold scientific thinkers.We are at a point at which a systematic focus on training and injecting creativity into the research process in the life sciences is imperative. When hearing the word “creativity,” many people think of the tortured artist, toiling away in isolation in a village in the south of France (but who would not want a sip of a French Cabernet Sauvignon at the end of a hard day''s work—before it runs out). As enticing as this image of radiant colors and crystalline light might be, it is by no means the sole context in which creativity can flourish. Creativity is defined as the generation of ideas that are new and have potential value by addressing a problem or capitalizing on an opportunity. There is no mention of artistic endeavors in this definition! In fact, creativity is fundamental to the human condition and, as such, can be found anywhere, anytime, given the right circumstances.Creativity may be most pressingly needed during the early stages of the knowledge production process—when we have to make what physicist Richard Feynman has called “educated guesses” as to how the world may work. This is the opaquer part of the scientific process; the part that benefits from the use of intuition and of a language that is permissible of it—what Itai Yanai and Martin Lercher refer to as night science language (Yanai & Lercher, 2020; check out also their podcast series entitled, “Night Science”). While the part of the process that deals with testing existing ideas is highly visible and more easily describable, the guessing, theory‐generating part often gets far less systematic attention. Yet, it is the part of the scientific process that is becoming ever more important. We are not so much in need of more data, but of educated guesses (i.e., a theory) about what to look for in the first place. This call for ideas is echoed by Paul Nurse, quoting the famous words of the late biologist Sydney Brenner, “we are drowning in a sea of data and starving for knowledge” (Nurse, 2021).To understand the value of creativity for making educated guesses, it is helpful to dissect it into its components. According to Teresa Amabile, one of the pioneers of the study of creativity, there are three components to creativity—domain expertise, intrinsic motivation, and creativity‐relevant skills (Amabile, 1996). To put it simply: creativity flourishes when people have the wit (knowledge of the domain), the will (intrinsic motivation), and the necessary creative tools to tackle interesting and challenging problems (Fig 1).Open in a separate windowFigure 1Three components of creativityDomain expertise refers to a high level of domain‐specific knowledge acquired though experience. Without expertise, it is impossible to know where on the scientific frontier to look for new and interesting problems. However, there is a downside to becoming an expert. The more we know about a domain and the longer we have studied it, the more we lose flexibility in seeing new problems and devising novel solutions to them (Dane, 2010). Edward Tufte, for instance, describes how experts are likely to glance past unexpected findings in their datasets, whereas outsiders are more likely to pay attention to these surprises, as they see the world through what he calls “vacation eyes” (Tufte, 2020). While the loss of flexibility may not be of immediate concern to budding scientists, the benefits of learning ever more about the very same domain start to evaporate rather quickly over one''s career. Luckily, there is an antidote—investing in becoming well‐versed in new and different domains, that is, developing knowledge breadth rather than (further) depth. Research suggests that there are immediate benefits from knowledge breadth for creativity—even scientists just at the beginning of their academic journey should benefit from developing expertise in additional domains (Mannucci & Yong, 2018).How can we accomplish this? One strategy is to allow and encourage early‐stage scientists to immerse themselves in analogous problems domains and the solutions they may inspire. An example might serve to illustrate this principle: Some years ago, the already mentioned Shinkansen “bullet train” needed redesign. The train''s speed created a sonic boom that was heard for hundreds of meters when exiting tunnels. So, a group of engineers was charged with making the train quieter. One of the lead engineers, Eiji Nakatsu, was a bird watcher. He realized that birds diving into water to catch pray face the same challenge as the train trying to cut through air while going through a tunnel. The new design of the train''s front was based on the shape of the Kingfisher''s beak—a bird diving at high speed from one medium (air) into another (water) with barely a splash. To emulate Eiji Nakatsu, it will be necessary to allow scientists to not only spend time studying topics other than the ones they are actively investigating, but also to allow them to join research collaborations with scientists from other domains and even disciplines investigating analogous problems.Creativity requires a certain type of motivation—intrinsic motivation. People are intrinsically motivated to the extent that they derive pleasure from the work itself and from the opportunity to acquire new skills. Extrinsic motivation is just the opposite—it is the drive that comes from incentives, such as financial compensation and recognition. The reason why intrinsic motivation is so important to the creative process is that it provides perseverance—in the face of setbacks, obstacles, and naysayers. Intrinsic motivation is largely a function of the nature of the work—how challenging it is and how much autonomy it affords. Whenever we have the freedom to explore new lines of inquiry, to satisfy our curiosity, and, perhaps most importantly, to make mistakes, intrinsic motivation ensues. However, the knowledge production process that has become dominant in the life sciences is antithetical to budding scientists experiencing autonomy. Predefined (externally funded) research projects that are too rigidly managed (be it by funders or by principal investigators) with their milestones and deliverables offer little room to exercise autonomy.If we want research to flourish, it will be imperative for us to take responsibility and rethink the knowledge production process in our laboratories to allow for the occasional detours, setbacks, and dead ends. Case in point—Richard Feynman, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to quantum electrodynamics, developed his ideas based on an observation that many would consider a major intellectual detour—a cafeteria worker throwing a plate into the air. Feynman observed that the “Cornell” logo on the plate was going around much faster than the plate''s wobble. Armed with this observation and allowed the freedom to explore the dynamics of the motion of the plate, he developed the basis for the Feynman diagrams (Feynman et al, 1985). Naturally, this more autonomous and playful approach may decrease the efficiency of the knowledge production process. However, efficiency is not the primary criterion by which to evaluate research quality. The novelty and utility of our ideas should be the primary criteria. Research leaders may thus want to embrace the values of autonomy and novelty more courageously and embolden early‐stage researchers to do just the same. Similarly, academic institutions need to take a good, hard look at themselves, increasing the “breathing space and time” for scientist to engage in exploration of new ideas and research avenues.The final component contributing to our creativity is a set of creative skills that allow people to take greater advantage of their drive and of what they know. One skill that is imperative here is the ability to tolerate uncertainty. The uncertainty of not knowing, of taking guesses in the absence of a firmly established knowledge base, and of trying out things without knowing exactly what the outcome will be. The systems biologist Uri Alon refers to this as staying in the “research cloud,” highlighting the value of transitioning from the “known” to the “unknown” (i.e., the research cloud) and temporarily residing in this state of uncertainty despite the discomfort and frustration that are bound to arise (Alon, 2013). The notion of the “research cloud” may seem to conflict with the prevailing scientific culture, in which there is little room for speculations or intuitions. To combat this, we need to re‐imagine the ways in which research leaders interact with their teams, so as to encourage budding scientists to become more comfortable stepping outside the scientific path they learned as students. Case in point—critical thinking is highly priced in the training of university students. However, the inquisitive and evaluative processes that critical analysis relies upon can be antithetical to the generative processes required for creativity—it is difficult to develop new insights while at the same time having to defend them from others'' critical examination. This calls for supervisors and mentors to create what we call “creative oases”—spaces in which critical analysis is dispensed with and risk‐taking and speculation are encouraged.Another lesson from creativity research is that it is impacted heavily by the work environment in which people operate. Creative teams thrive in high‐trust environments, and whenever their members practice a “yes and” rather than a “no because” approach that encourages young researchers to engage and contribute toward new solutions to long‐standing scientific questions. Thus, it is crucial that administrative and research leaders are engaged in building a supportive and inclusive culture. To illustrate—at four biomedical research centers at the University of Copenhagen, we held in autumn 2021 a four‐session workshop for research group leaders on how to nurture a culture that fosters creativity. The sessions focused on how to guide teams through the different phases of the creative process, and introduced tools for divergent and convergent thinking. The underlying principle was that creativity thrives when leaders build an environment that allows the team to capitalize on the collective knowledge of individual members—an environment built on the principles of diversity of thought, autonomy, and a high degree of psychological safety (e.g., deferring judgment in order to promote idea sharing and interpersonal risk‐taking).In conclusion, we believe that research organizations should not dwell too much on the structural barriers to creativity (funding agencies and politicians need to dismantle these barriers) but rather take action to encourage more “theory‐guessing” and nurture the ability for budding scientist to find delight in staying in the “research cloud”—at least for some time. Also, research communities and academic institutions should take greater responsibility for embracing a truly team‐based approach to creativity (rather than the “lone genius” model), in which scientists are granted the freedom to take the occasional intellectual detour or flight of fancy—without repercussions or fear of failure. These efforts will be needed if we are to make lasting changes to the way in which we engage the scientific process and venture into the unknown in the pursuit of transformational research.     

Intention Understanding in Autism

When we observe a motor act (e.g. grasping a cup) done by another individual, we extract, according to how the motor act is performed and its context, two types of information: the goal (grasping) and the intention underlying it (e.g. grasping for drinking). Here we examined whether children with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) are able to understand these two aspects of motor acts. Two experiments were carried out. In the first, one group of high-functioning children with ASD and one of typically developing (TD) children were presented with pictures showing hand-object interactions and asked what the individual was doing and why. In half of the “why” trials the observed grip was congruent with the function of the object (“why-use” trials), in the other half it corresponded to the grip typically used to move that object (“why-place” trials). The results showed that children with ASD have no difficulties in reporting the goals of individual motor acts. In contrast they made several errors in the why task with all errors occurring in the “why-place” trials. In the second experiment the same two groups of children saw pictures showing a hand-grip congruent with the object use, but within a context suggesting either the use of the object or its placement into a container. Here children with ASD performed as TD children, correctly indicating the agent''s intention. In conclusion, our data show that understanding others'' intentions can occur in two ways: by relying on motor information derived from the hand-object interaction, and by using functional information derived from the object''s standard use. Children with ASD have no deficit in the second type of understanding, while they have difficulties in understanding others'' intentions when they have to rely exclusively on motor cues.