Scientists from the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Granada have demonstrated that the waters and aerosols from the wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in Granada Province, in which the genetic material of the SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus has been detected, do not generate a notable incidence of the virus among WWTP workers

Researchers analyzing 134 workers from 76 WWTPs in Granada Province have identified the same level of antibodies (IgG and IgM) against Coronavirus as that generally observed in the general population

Researchers from the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Granada (UGR) have demonstrated that the SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus is not transmitted via wastewater, suggesting that there is no faecal–oral transmission of the disease (the process whereby a disease is transmitted through the faeces of an infected person).

In a study published in the International Journal of Water Resources Development, the scientists show that the waters and aerosols from the wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in Granada Province, in which the genetic material of the SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus has been detected, do not generate a notable incidence of the virus among WWTPworkers.

“This indicates that both WWTP workers and the populations living close to the plants do not carry any additional risk of catching the virus, because the sample registered an incidence of antibodies (both IgG and IgM) no higher than the level observed in the general population,” explains Maximino Manzanera Ruiz of the UGR’s Department of Microbiology, the main author of this work.

During the treatment of wastewater, the nucleic acids of SARS-CoV-2 have been detected. Together with the aerosols that are generated, these represented, in theory, a high risk for WWTPworkers and for residents of the areas surrounding the plants.

Through a comparative seroprevalence study during the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain, the UGR researchers identified the same level of Coronavirus antibodies (IgG and IgM) among 134 workers from 76 WWTPs in Granada Province as in the rest of the population.

This analysis included all the WWTPs in the province (except those of the City of Granada), where the greatest incidence of the virus was associated with those areas with the highest population density (such as the Costa Tropical and the Baza-Guadix area). This phenomenon is in line with the results observed in the Spanish national seroprevalence study.

Useful information for vaccination

“These results indicate that the risk of infection through the faecal–oral route is almost nil, under the conditions we studied” observes Manzanera. “These types of studies make it possible to prioritize which professional sectors should be vaccinated before others, because of the greater risk of contagion they face. On the other hand, our research enables the pandemic to be monitored via wastewater without the need to use high bio-safety facilities (such as level 3 or 4 laboratories), which means we can work at a greater number of laboratories and thus achieve better monitoring of incidence levels.” The study also suggests that the virus detected in the wastewater is inactive, perhaps due to the presence of certain other particles.

This study has benefited from the collaboration of: the Junta de Andalucía regional government (and its aid programme in the fight against COVID under project CV20-01559, via the Department for Economy, Knowledge, Business and University); the UGR; the Granada Provincial Council; and private companies Aqualia, Aguas y Servicios de la Costa Tropical de Granada, and VitaNtech Biotechnology.

This research team, together with lecturers from the UGR’s School of Civil Engineering and the company Gis4Tech, is currently designing a more effective method of identifying infected persons through the water sanitation network.

Bibliography:

Muñoz-Palazon, P.R., Bouzas, J., González-López, & M. Manzanera (2021) “Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 associated with wastewater treatment: A seroprevalence study”, International Journal of Water Resources Development, DOI: 10.1080/07900627.2021.1910935

For direct access to the article, click here.

Media enquiries:

Maximino Manzanera Ruiz
Department of Microbiology, University of Granada
Tel.: +34 958 248 324
Email: manzanera@ugr.es

An international team of scientists, led by the University of Granada (UGR), has identified for the first time a series of 267 genes linked to creativity that differentiate Homo sapiens from Homo neanderthalensis (Neanderthals) and the chimpanzee. Their study indicates that these genes acted as a “secret weapon” that enabled Homo sapiens to avoid extinction
This major finding, published today in the prestigious journal Molecular Psychiatry(Nature), suggests that these genes played a fundamental role in the evolution of creativity, self-awareness, and cooperative behaviour—all of which gave modern humans a significant advantage over now-extinct hominids by fostering greater resilience to ageing, injury, and disease

Creativity—the “secret weapon” of Homo sapiens—constituted a major advantage over Neanderthals and played an important role in the survival of the human species. This is the finding of an international team of scientists, led by the University of Granada (UGR), which has identified for the first time a series of 267 genes linked to creativity that differentiateHomo sapiens from Neanderthals.

This important scientific finding, published this week in the prestigious journal Molecular Psychiatry (Nature), suggests that it was these genetic differences linked to creativity that enabled Homo sapiens to eventually replace Neanderthals. It was creativity that gave Homo sapiens the edge, above and beyond the purely cognitive level, by facilitating superior adaptation to the environment compared to that of now-extinct hominids and providing greater resilience to ageing, injury, and disease.

The research team comprises Igor Zwir, Coral del Val, Rocío Romero, Javier Arnedo,and Alberto Mesa from the UGR’s Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, the Andalusian Research Institute in Data Science and Computational Intelligence (DaSCI), and the Biohealth Research Institute in Granada (ibs.GRANADA), together with Robert Cloningerof Washington University in St. Louis and colleagues from the Young Finns Study (Finland), the American Museum of Natural History (New York), and the Menninger Clinic (Houston, Texas).

Their findings are the result of an interdisciplinary study that brings together Artificial Intelligence (AI), Molecular Genetics, Neurosciences, Psychology, and Anthropology. This is the fifth consecutive paper published by this research team in one of the most prestigious scientific journals in the area concerned with the human personality.

The 267 genes identified by these scientists as being unique to Homo sapiens are part of a larger group of 972 that are linked to personality in healthy adults and were also discovered by the same authors. In previous studies, they showed that these 972 genes are organized into three dissociable brain networks of personality traits that are responsible for learning and memory.

Evolution of genetic networks

“These networks evolved in stages. The most primitive network emerged among monkeys and apes about 40 million years ago, and is responsible for emotional reactivity—in other words, it regulates impulses, the learning of habits, social attachment, and conflict-resolution,” explain the UGR researchers. Less than 2 million years ago, the second network emerged. This regulates intentional self-control: self-direction and social cooperation for mutual benefit. Finally, about 100,000 years ago, the network relating to creative self-awareness emerged.

The new study that is published this week reveals that the genes of the oldest network, that of emotional reactivity, were almost identical in Homo sapiens, Neanderthals, and chimpanzees. By contrast, the genes linked to self-control and self-awareness among Neanderthals were “halfway between” those of chimpanzees and Homo sapiens.

Most of these 267 genes that distinguish modern humans from Neanderthals and chimpanzees are RNA regulatory genes and not protein-coding genes. Almost all of the latter are the same across all three species, and this research shows that what distinguishes them is the regulation of expression of their proteins by genes found exclusively in humans. Using genetic markers, gene-expression data, and integrated brain magnetic resonance imaging based on AI techniques, the scientists were able to identify the regions of the brain in which those genes (and those with which they interacted) were overexpressed. These regions are involved in human self-awareness and creativity, and include the regions that are strongly associated with human well-being and that appeared relatively recently, phylogenetically speaking.

Superior resilience

Furthermore, the authors continue, “thanks to these genes, Homo sapiens enjoyed greater physical fitness than now-extinct hominids, providing them with a superior level of resilience to ageing, injury, and disease.” Using genetic data, the researchers were able to estimate from these genes that the adaptability and well-being of Neanderthals were approximately 60%–70% those of Homo sapiens, meaning that the difference between them in terms of physical fitness was significant.

The findings have far-reaching implications in our understanding of the factors that ultimately enabled Homo sapiens to replace Neanderthals and other species in the geologically-recent past. The authors hypothesize that creativity may have given Homo sapiens selective advantages beyond the purely cognitive realm.

“Living longer and healthier lives may have prolonged the period of learning associated with youth and adolescence, which would facilitate the accumulation of knowledge. This is a remarkable characteristic of behaviourally-modern humans and an important factor in economic and social success,” explain the researchers. Creativity may have encouraged cooperation between individuals in a bid to encourage success among their descendants and their community. This would have set the stage for technological innovation, behavioural flexibility, and openness to exploration, all of which were necessary for Homo sapiens to spread across the world more successfully than other human lineages.

In the five studies published to date by these researchers in Nature, they have found—and verified using multiple data sources—that human behaviour is neither entirely fixed nor solely determined by our genes, but rather is influenced also by multiple interactions with the environment. “We have the capacity to learn and adapt in light of our experience, even to the extent of modifying the expression of our genes. Human creativity, prosociality, and healthy longevity emerged as a response to the need to adapt to the harsh and diverse conditions that reigned between 400,000 and 100,000 years ago,” note the UGR researchers.

This study is just one example of how the use of AI techniques and the entirely bias-free treatment of data can help to solve many puzzles about the evolution of human beings. The results obtained pave the way to the development of new lines of research that can ultimately promote human well-being and help us to adapt creatively in order to overcome critical situations.

Bibliography:

I. Zwir, C. del Val, M. Hintsanen, K.M. Cloninger, R. Romero-Zaliz, A. Mesa, J. Arnedo, R. Salas, G.F. Poblete, E. Raitoharju, O. Raitakari, L. Keltikangas-Järvinen, G. de Erausquin, I. Tattersall, T. Lehtimäki, C.R. Cloninger (2021), “Evolution of Genetic Networks for Human Creativity”, Mol Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-021-01097-y (in press).

Media enquiries:

Igor Zwir
Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, University of Granada
Tel.: +34 958 240468 / +34 618775783 (mobile)
Washington University in St. Louis (USA)
Tel: +1 (314) 368-9394
Email: zwir@decsai.ugr.es / zwir@wustl.edu

Coral del Val Muñoz
Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, University of Granada
Tel.: +34 958 240468 / +34 617532895 (mobile)
Email: C.DelVal@decsai.ugr.es

Comparison between Homo Sapiens and Homo Neanderthalensis

Photos of the researchers responsible for this study:

Photos of the presentation to the media:

Researchers from the Spanish universities of Granada and Cádiz have used artificial intelligence techniques to analyse the tropes—predictable clichés or motifs—that are used repeatedly in the storylines of films

The scientists analysed a database of more than 25,000 tropes associated with 10,766 films and concluded that it is possible to predict which elements of a film may or may not be well-received by the public

Could the next Hollywood blockbuster be written by a computer? Scientists from the University of Granada (UGR) and the University of Cádiz (UCA) have designed the world’s first computer system based on artificial intelligence techniques that can help film scriptwriters create storylines with the best chance of box-office success.

The researchers focused their analysis on the “tropes” of existing films—that is, the commonplace, predictable, and even necessary clichés that repeatedly feature in film plots, based on rhetorical figures. These storytelling devices and conventions enable directors to readily convey scenarios that viewers find easy to recognise.

As tropes are ideas that are employed repeatedly throughout different films or series, it is often said that virtually all storylines have already appeared in the television series “The Simpsons”. This reflection provided the inspiration for the title of the article about this new study, which has just been published in the prestigious journal PLOS ONE: “The Simpsons did it: Exploring the film trope space and its large scale structure”. Its authors are Pablo García-Sánchez and Juan Julián Melero, from the UGR’s Department of Computer Architecture and Technology, and Antonio Vélez and Manuel Jesús Cobo from the Department of Computer Engineering at the University of Cádiz.

Examples of tropes

García-Sánchez, the lead author of the original study, explains: “Some examples of tropes would be the inevitable villain that the heroes must take on in Marvel films; the detective who hands over his badge and gun; the protagonist’s arrival in hell (used in dramas and thrillers such as “Cell 211” or “Below Zero”); the hero’s journey (which dates back thousands of years, such as in Homer’s Odyssey, but also features in films such as “Star Wars”, “The Lord of the Rings”, and “Harry Potter”); or the well-kept secret that is suddenly revealed, disrupting the entire plot of a psychological thriller.”

The researchers devised a methodology to understand how tropes operate, to visually represent how they relate to one another and to different genres, and, above all, to infer which combinations might be the most successful in creative terms. In other words, using artificial intelligence, their study sought to predict which narrative devices or plot twists may or may not work well with audiences.

To achieve this objective, the researchers consulted an online database called TVTropes, which includes more than 25,000 tropes associated with 10,766 films. This platform is continually updated by fans, making it ideal the ideal source of data for the researchers to analyse. Using the free TropeScraper software, developed at the UGR, they scraped or extracted a list of tropes used in the films and then conducted a mapping exercise based on the user rating and popularity (number of votes) for each film, according to the IMDb website.

The network analysis of these tropes (in what the UGR and UCA researchers have dubbed the “troposphere”) was conducted using programmed algorithms to reveal the relationship between the films that share similar tropes and thus build a picture of the existing communities of tropes and communities of films. Using this method, they were able to measure the popularity of the tropes and determine whether they were transversal (general or basic) across all films or highly specific/specialised, and whether they were on the rise (emerging tropes) or, on the contrary, on the decline.

Assisting the creative process

“This research can help film scriptwriters and directors during the creative process. While our system is not yet equipped to write automatically (although that’s our next step), it does provide the resources with which to determine what combination of ideas (tropes) may work best,” notes García-Sánchez.

The inspiration for the study came when the researchers began to question the over-simplicity of the “same old” characters used repeatedly in video games that quickly become boring. García-Sánchez continues: “We began to wonder how we could model the characters in such a way that they would provide a more interesting experience.”

Thanks to the interrelationship between tropes, the films in which they appear, and the ratings given by users to each of these tropes, “depending on the combination and design of the actions based the tropes, we can now broadly ascertain the level of interest each kind of storyline is likely to generate,” explains García-Sánchez.

“For example, some tropes are thematic, so what if we mix tropes that, on the face of it, are very different? What if we were to mix those from science fiction with those that typically appear in musicals in the same film, would that work?” This is just one of the inquiries being conducted by the researchers, who also plan to analyse in more depth which areas of the troposphere receive more attention and are currently enjoying growing success or, conversely, are causing interest to decline.

Using this same procedure, it would also be interesting to study the evolution of tropes in a given genre, country, or decade, and to better understand audience consumption and the viewing public’s interaction with audio-visual productions.

Bibliography:

García-Sánchez, P., Velez-Estevez, A., Julián Merelo, J., & Cobo, M.J. (2021) ‘The Simpsons did it: Exploring the film trope space and its large scale structure’, PLOS ONE 16(3): e0248881. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0248881

Image captions:

Pablo García-Sánchez, a researcher at the UGR’s Department of Computer Architecture and Technology and lead author of this study

Tropes are ideas that are employed repeatedly throughout different films or series, hence it is often said that virtually all storylines have already appeared in the television series “The Simpsons”

A “tree” graph showing the relationships between the tropes used in different films

Media enquiries:

Pablo García Sánchez
Department of Computer Architecture and Technology, University of Granada
Email: pablogarcia@ugr.es

Researchers from the University of Granada warn that an accumulation of fatty tissue in the neck (both the double chin and the deeper deposits, located between muscles and around the cervical vertebrae) is a predictor of central and overall adiposity, cardiometabolic risk, and a pro-inflammatory profile in sedentary young adults

A study conducted by researchers from the University of Granada (UGR) has revealed that an accumulation of fatty tissue in the neck is a predictor of central and overall adiposity, cardiometabolic risk (heart problems), and a pro-inflammatory profile in sedentary young adults.

Traditionally, the accumulation of visceral adipose tissue has been considered one of the factors most strongly related to cardiometabolic risk and chronic (low-grade) inflammation in humans. However, this well-established association has led researchers to neglect, to some degree, the study of other fatty deposits and their clinical/biological relevance.

“Curiously, several studies have demonstrated that the accumulation of fat in the neck (both superficial deposits such as the double chin or jowls and the deeper deposits, located between the muscles and around the cervical vertebrae) increases in direct proportion to the weight or adiposity of the individual and that it follows specific accumulation patterns, according to gender,” explains María José Arias Téllez, a researcher at the UGR and one of the main authors of this work. In fact, a greater accumulation of fat in certain neck tissue compartments, particularly the deeper ones, is linked to a greater likelihood of cardiometabolic risk. Arias Téllez continues: “However, the evidence accumulated to date has been based on experiments performed on patients with benign/malignant tumours or other chronic conditions, and it remains to be seen whether it can be generalised to relatively healthy adults.”

The ACTIBATE project

The study carried out at the UGR is part of the ACTIBATE project (Activating Brown Adipose Tissue through Exercise—see http://profith.ugr.es/actibate). The project is financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and the Health Research Fund of the Carlos III Health Institute (PI13/01393). The research was led by Jonatan Ruiz Ruiz and its results have been published in the International Journal of Obesity.

The study shows that the accumulation of fat in the neck—measured with computed tomography scanning—as well as its distribution in different compartments, is associated with greater overall and central adiposity, greater cardiometabolic risk, and a greater inflammatory status among healthy young adults, regardless of the amount of total and visceral fat. In addition, among the most relevant findings, it was observed that this accumulation of fat in the neck was as powerful a factor (in terms of direction and magnitude) as the accumulation of visceral fat in the prediction of cardiometabolic risk and inflammatory status, especially in men.

“Therefore, these results underline the need for further research in this new direction, to better understand the effect of fat accumulation in the upper part of the trunk (including the neck) and its clinical repercussions, especially in cardiometabolic risk and inflammation,” explains Francisco Miguel Acosta Manzano, also among the main authors of the research.

“We still have much work to do. We need to investigate the adipose tissue of the neck in greater depth, to understand its pathogenic role in obesity and associated comorbidities, as well as its biological importance. Furthermore, we only have scant knowledge about the morphological or molecular characteristics of the adipocytes in these deposits, and here basic studies are required. As we increase our knowledge of this deposit, we can also determine whether specific interventions (for example, physical exercise and/or restricted calorie intake) could help reduce the accumulation of fat in the neck (as well as total fat) and implement them clinically,” explain Arias Téllez and Francisco Miguel Acosta Manzano, both PhDs students on the Biomedicine programme of the UGR’s International School for Postgraduate Studies and members of the PROFITH-CTS977 Research group (http://profith.ugr.es).

Bibliography:

Arias-Tellez MJ, Acosta FM, Garcia-Rivero Y, Pascual-Gamarra JM, Merchan-Ramirez E, Martinez-Tellez B, Silva AM, Lopez JA, Llamas-Elvira JM, & Ruiz JR (2020) ‘Neck adipose tissue accumulation is associated with higher overall and central adiposity, a higher cardiometabolic risk, and a pro-inflammatory profile in young adults’, Int J Ob Nov 2. doi: 10.1038/s41366-020-00701-5. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 33139886.

Image captions:

Figure 1: This figure shows the accumulation of fat in different neck deposits (subcutaneous, intermuscular, and paravertebral) in a person of healthy weight, an overweight person, and an obese person. It can be observed that accumulation of fat in the different deposits of the neck increases as overall adiposity increases in the participants.

Figure 2 (original neck image): This simplified illustration demonstrates the researchers’ hypothesis about the morphological and cellular characteristics of the fat deposits in the neck, in a person of a normal weight who is relatively healthy vs. a person with obesity and associated comorbidities. This image is reproduced from the doctoral thesis published by Maria Jose Arias-Tellez on the Biomedicine programme of the University of Granada, entitled ‘Neck adipose tissue and neck circumference as predictors of cardiometabolic risk in sedentary adults’.

The UGR researchers María José Arias Téllez and Francisco Miguel Acosta Manzano, authors of this work

Image of neck adipose tissue

Media enquiries:

Maria Jose Arias Téllez
PhD student, Biomedicine programme, International School for Postgraduate Studies, University of Granada
Department of Nutrition, University of Chile
Email: mariajosearias@uchile.cln

Francisco Miguel Acosta Manzano
PhD student, Biomedicine programme, International School for Postgraduate Studies, University of Granada
Faculty of Sport Sciences, Department of Physical Education and Sports, University of Granada
Email: acostaf@ugr.es

[Spanish version]

Scientists from the University of Granada have applied Artificial Intelligence techniques to the analysis of huge volumes of data from Twitter, during the previous US election campaign to create a political forecasting system

Researchers from the Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Granada (UGR) have modelled a system based on artificial intelligence techniques that enable election results to be forecast by analysing opinions on Twitter.

In a study published in the international journal IEEE Access, the UGR scientists explain their descriptive Big Data system capable of handling huge volumes of unstructured information (in the form of a ‘data lake’) derived from Twitter. Using this approach, they were able to create a political forecasting system and validate it with the real-life 2016 US elections, in which Donald Trump won against Hillary Clinton.

Political talk is perhaps more prevalent than ever before—one need only look to social networks for evidence of this, and the sheer amount of posts and threads devoted to political topics each day. One of the most widely used social networks for these purposes is Twitter, where the opinions of parties, leaders, and activists combine with those of people simply interested in politics. The ability to effectively process this data and convert it into knowledge is a laborious task that delivers benefits for innumerable fields, from academia to business or journalism.

The UGR study is the result of an endeavour to ‘summarize’ a large volume of data and reduce it to clear, concise information that can contribute value to a research query. The system in question was developed by José Ángel Díaz García, María Dolores Ruiz and María José Martín-Bautista from the UGR’s Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence. It was tested on a real-life comparative problem concerned with two politicians and their respective policies: that of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, in their head-to-head clash in the November 2016 US general elections.

Analysis of sentiments and emotions

The system devised by the UGR scientists provides a series of associations between concepts and discussions on Twitter about the two politicians—in a format that is easy to interpret and explain—together with the sentiments and emotions generated by these debates.

“At the heart of our system are what we call unsupervised artificial intelligence techniques—that is, techniques that do not rely on databases having been pre-labelled in order to be trained and used,” the authors explain.

Among these techniques, of particular importance are ‘association rules’, as these enable sentiment analysis to be conducted by means of sentiment lexicons and dictionaries. “Today, these techniques are of enormous value because they provide readily interpretable and easily understandable solutions. They enable straightforward data traceability and provide easily-explained results that may be used by people with no technical knowledge, thus democratizing access to artificial intelligence,” the authors continue.

This new descriptive approach differs from the traditional ‘machine learning’ models geared to predictive sentiment analysis. Those require large pre-labelled databases (very hard to achieve in relation to social networks, due to the volatility of the topics concerned), and typically offer solutions that are extremely difficult to interpret due to the highly complex mathematical adaptations.

Analysis of the results achieved by the new system endorses its capacity to obtain association rules and sentiment patterns with significant descriptive value in the case of its application to the US elections. Thus, parallels between these patterns and real-life events can be drawn.

Some of the parallels discovered by the system may be those, for instance, that establish a very strong link between the words prohibition/service/transgender and Donald Trump. This shows that the current US president was linked to transgender people being banned from Military Service—a move that was already being considered in 2016 and was confirmed in 2017.

Regarding sentiments, the system reveals that there was a higher level of anger in US society directed toward Hillary Clinton than toward Trump. The latter, by contrast, stood out for his association with the emotion of ‘trust’—in other words, the Tweets posted about Trump were from people with a high degree of confidence in him as President.

If we take into account that the data were processed during the electoral campaign, a parallel could therefore even be drawn in the subsequent results that led Donald Trump to victory.

Bibliography:

J. A. Diaz-Garcia, M. D. Ruiz and M. J. Martin-Bautista (2020), ‘Non-Query-Based Pattern Mining and Sentiment Analysis for Massive Microblogging Online Texts’, IEEE Access 8: 78166-78182. DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2020.2990461.

Image captions:

1. Words associated with emotions

2. Generalization of words (by sentiment)

3. The authors of this research. From left to right: Maria Jose Martin-Bautista, J. Angel Díaz-García and María Dolores Ruiz

Media enquiries:

José Ángel Díaz García
Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, University of Granada
Email: joseangeldiazg@ugr.es

[Spanish version]

José Luis Gómez Urquiza, who has been nominated Best Teacher in Spain in the IV Educa Abanca Awards, uses this popular social network to enable the Spanish nurses of the future to confront health-related hoaxes on social networks

A Nursing lecturer at the University of Granada is using the popular social network TikTok as part of his ‘Nursing Adults (1)’ course to teach the nurses of the future how to combat the arguments of deniers with scientific fact.

José Luis Gómez Urquiza, who has just been nominated Best Teacher in Spain in the IV Educa Abanca Awards, was keen to make a personal contribution to addressing this issue at a particularly critical time—in the Coronavirus crisis. This pandemic has brought with it entire social networking movements led by deniers and hoaxers in health-related matters, particularly aimed at the different measures to control the spread of the disease (use of facemasks, PCR tests, future vaccines, and so on).

“In making their arguments, deniers regularly use false information or information based on erroneous knowledge and data, so that is precisely what I do [for teaching purposes] with my students, using social networks such as TikTok or Instagram, with which they are very familiar,” explains the UGR nursing lecturer.

Gómez Urquiza is highly active on various social networks and uses different accounts for professional means. In recent months, he has noticed a growing trend toward accounts that spread false information regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and the health-and-hygiene measures recommended for its control. “I have also seen how other colleagues in the healthcare field have attempted to deal with this issue by sharing verified information based on scientific evidence,” he explains.

As a result of this experience, at the start of the 2020/2021 academic year, Gómez Urquiza came up with a new approach to evaluating the practical sessions he had taught on the Nursing Adults (1) course, which covers topics such as blood gas analysis and sterile clothing in the operating theatre. He realised that, by playing the role of a denier or a proponent of conspiracy theories on health-related issues on social media, with his nursing students in the role of healthcare workers, they could learn how to challenge such deniers online and refute their arguments and false information by using the same methods—that is, striking and appealing social media content.

The vaccine–5G hoax

To do this, Gómez Urquiza created an Instagram account linked to his course (https://instagram.com/adulto1byc?igshid=a1pldeukcm3q), where he uploads a TikTok video and an Instagram post about each area of practice the students undertake. Based on that content, and on what they have learned in class, the students have to use their knowledge (and their creativity!) to challenge the fake information he communicates online.

“This is about the students demonstrating, in addition to having learned the technique in question and its theoretical principles, skills in the professional use of social networks, not just for fun. To do this, they must be able to deconstruct unfounded arguments and hoaxes using a medium in which, in principle, they should have a significant advantage over me: social networks. Because, to be honest, figuring out how to use TikTok has been an uphill climb for me—and some!”, Gómez Urquiza acknowledges.

Deniers of COVID-19, he notes, insist that this is a planned pandemic, that vaccines are linked to 5G technology, or that many healthcare professionals are, in fact, actors being paid to propagate fear of the coronavirus. “I use those same absurd arguments in class to recommend that people do not undergo planned surgery (because the professionals protect themselves with masks, gowns, and gloves due to the radiation given off by the microchips that they implant in the operating theatre), or that patients do not allow blood gas analyses to be conducted on them (because it is a test that does not actually diagnose anything), just like the deniers of the coronavirus PCR test do.”

The UGR lecturer points out that his goal is for Nursing students to become competent in the dissemination of high-quality content on social networks, to enable them to effectively refute deniers of other health problems that may arise in the future—deniers whose most active defenders will always be found online.

Along with Gómez Urquiza, also nominated for Best Teacher in Spain in the IV Educa Abanca Awards are Fernando Gómez and Antonio Cárdenas of the UGR.

Image captions:

Two students on the ‘Nursing Adults (1)’ course at the University of Granada.

Lecturer José Luis Gómez Urquiza, on his TikTok account.

Media enquiries:

José Luis Gómez Urquiza
Department of Nursing, University of Granada
Tel.: +34 958 241000 ext. 26195
Email: jlgurquiza@ugr.es

La Universidad de Granada (UGR) dedicará este año su agenda institucional del curso académico 2020/2021 a las investigaciones que en las diferentes facultades, escuelas, departamentos y laboratorios se están llevando a cabo sobre el coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 y la enfermedad COVID-19 desde que se iniciara la pandemia.

Por ello, desde la Oficina de Gestión de la Comunicación (OGC) de la Universidad de Granada hacemos un llamamiento a todos los grupos de la UGR que estén investigando para participar en una sesión fotográfica (foto de familia) que se realizará este viernes, 11 de septiembre, a las 10 horas en la explanada del Paraninfo del Campus del PTS.

Para evitar aglomeraciones, se ruega que asista únicamente una persona por grupo (el director del mismo u otra persona en la que este delegue), y que confirmen su asistencia previamente mediante un correo electrónico a José Ángel Ibáñez (director de la OGC: comunica@ugr.es) y a Carlos Centeno (responsable del área de Divulgación Científica en la OGC: centeno@ugr.es).

Asimismo, en días posteriores también se realizarán fotografías individualizadas de cada grupo de investigación en sus respectivos laboratorios o facultades.

Gracias por su colaboración, un cordial saludo