Generate an explanation for the given claim using the provided supporting material from the paragraph. Please consider the following points while generating an output. 1) The claim will always have supporting proof in the paragraph, and the paragraph will have a clear point of view supporting the claim. 2) There can be instances where direct correlation to the claim is not available. Make use of the sentences in the paragraph to provide a corresponding output supporting the claim. 3) The explanation should be at least one and at most twelve sentences long.
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Question: Paragraph: Older adults who underwent a brief course of brain exercises saw improvements in reasoning skills and processing speed that could be detected as long as 10 years after the course ended, according to results from the largest study ever on cognitive training. The findings, published on Monday in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, offer welcome news in the search for ways to keep the mind sharp as 76 million baby boomers in the United States advance into old age. The federally sponsored trial of almost 3,000 older adults, called the Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly study, or ACTIVE, looked at how three brain training programs - focusing on processing speed, memory and reasoning ability - affected cognitively normal adults as they aged. People in the study had an average age of 74 when they started the training, which involved 10 to 12 sessions lasting 60 to 75 minutes each. After five years, researchers found, those with the training performed better than their untrained counterparts in all three measures. Although gains in memory seen at the study’s five-year mark appeared to drop off over the next five years, gains in reasoning ability and processing speed persisted 10 years after the training. “What we found was pretty astounding. Ten years after the training, there was evidence the effects were durable for the reasoning and the speed training,” said George Rebok, an expert on aging and a professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, who led the study. Participants in all three training groups also reported that they had an easier time with daily activities such as managing their medications, cooking meals or handling their finances than did participants who did not get the training. But standard tests of these activities showed no differences between the groups. “The speed-of-processing results are very encouraging,” said study co-author Jonathan King, program director for cognitive aging in the Division of Behavioral and Social Research at the National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes of Health, which helped fund the research. King said the self-reported improvements in daily function were interesting, but added, “We do not yet know whether they would truly allow older people to live independently longer.”  However, researchers said even a small gain would be likely to ease the burden on caregivers and healthcare providers. “If we delay the onset of difficulties in daily activities even by a small amount, that can have major public health implications in terms of helping to curb healthcare costs, delaying entry into institutions and hospitals,” Rebok said. The training course was designed to bolster specific cognitive abilities that begin to slip as people age. It does not aim to prevent dementia caused by underlying disease such as Alzheimer’s. At the start of the study, all 2,832 participants were cognitively normal. The study included four groups: three training groups plus a control group of volunteers who came in for regular testing to see how they were faring with age. People were trained in small groups over a period of several weeks and then were tested immediately after the training and again one, two, three, five and 10 years later. About 60 percent of the volunteers who underwent training also got booster training sessions, which enhanced the initial benefits. At the end of the trial, all groups showed declines compared with their initial baseline tests in memory, reasoning and processing speed, but those who got training in reasoning and processing speed experienced less decline. Among those given training in reasoning strategies, 73.6 percent were still performing above their pre-trial baseline level, compared with 61.7 percent of those who received no training and were only benefiting from practice on the test. The effect was even greater in processing speed. Among the training group, 70.7 percent of participants were performing at or above their baseline level, compared with 48.8 percent of those in the control group. There was no difference in memory performance between the memory group and the control group after 10 years. Two of the three training programs - the memory and the reasoning strategies - were done with paper and pencil, while the processing speed training was done on a computer. The programs, developed by the researchers, were focused largely on teaching strategies to improve cognitive performance. For example, the memory training taught people how to remember word lists, sequences and main ideas, while the reasoning training focused on things like recognizing number patterns. In the processing speed training, people were asked to focus on the main object in a computer screen while also trying to quickly recognize and identify objects on the periphery of the screen. Such training can help older drivers with things like recognizing road signs while driving. A version of the speed training program developed for this trial is now commercially available through the brain fitness company Posit Science, but the researchers are working on making other types of training available as well. Rebok’s team just got a grant from the National Institute on Aging to make a computerized version of the memory test, with the hope that repeated training can improve the results. The study was not designed to explain why cognitive training can have such a lasting effect. Rebok said it may be that people take the strategies they learn and practice them over time. As they age, trained individuals can rely on these strategies to compensate for their declines. Whether this training actually strengthened the brain in the way that exercising builds muscle is not clear, but the government intends to study this, too. Last week, NIA put out a request for proposals that would study whether cognitive training causes physical changes in the brain. Claim: Brain training helped older adults stay sharp for years: study.

Answer: A brief course of brain exercises helped older adults hold on to improvements in reasoning skills and processing speed for 10 years after the course ended, according to results from the largest study ever done on cognitive training.


Question: Paragraph: In April 2019, several news articles from around the world reported that the Australian government had a plan to cull millions of feral cats using poisoned sausages dropped by air. CBS News published an article with the headline “Australia is Trying to Kill Millions of Stray Cats by Airdropping Poisoned Sausages,” which went on to report that: “The Australian government wants to kill two million feral cats by next year — and it wants to do it by airdropping poisonous sausages. There are currently an estimated 2 to 6 million free-roaming cats across the country, and officials say they are threatening native wildlife populations.”  On 29 April, the UK Independent published an article with the headline “Australia Plans to Kill Millions of Feral Cats by Airdropping Sausages Laced With Poison” and on 26 April CNN reported that: “Australia is at war — with feral cats. By 2020, the government wants to kill two million free roaming cats, a large chunk of the total feral cat population, which is estimated to be between 2 and 6 million.” We received multiple inquiries from readers about the accuracy of these reports, and in particular about the claim that the primary or exclusive culling method was to be sausages laced with poison. The Australian government has indeed begun an initiative aimed at culling millions of feral cats, which they have described as “one of the greatest threats to Australia’s land-based mammals” and blamed for driving some species into extinction. However, the culling project was first announced in 2015 and was already well underway when reports happened to emerge about it in April 2019. In 2015, Australia’s government launched the Threatened Species Strategy. One of its four key strategies related to feral cats, and the policy outlined a target of culling 2 million such cats by the year 2020 and eradicating feral cats entirely from five of Australia’s islands, among other goals. A government report launching the initiative stated that: “The scientific evidence is unequivocal that feral cats are one of the greatest threats to Australia’s land-based mammals. They have been a major contributor to the extinction of at least 27 mammals since they were first introduced to Australia. Today, they imperil at least 142 species or more than one third of our threatened mammals, reptiles, frogs and birds. As an extinction driver for so many of our native animals, and a threat that has been relatively neglected in the past, tackling the threat of feral cats is the highest priority of this Action Plan.” By the end of 2016, researchers from RMIT University in Melbourne reported that an estimated 211,000 feral cats had been culled as part of the initiative, but also estimated that 83 percent of those animals had been shot, rather than poisoned. More up-to-date figures were not included in the progress report relating to the period ending in December 2017. In order to achieve the goal of eradicating 2 million feral cats, the first action listed by the government was the “development and deployment of Curiosity, the new humane feral cat bait.” Australia’s Department of Environment and Energy had spent years developing and testing Curiosity, a new form of sausage bait that, according to the government, is less likely than existing baits to be consumed by other animals: The Curiosity bait for feral cats has been a long-term $5.1 million project to develop a humane, broad-scale toxic bait to control feral cats in conservation areas. The Curiosity bait for feral cats comprises a small meat-based sausage containing a small hard plastic pellet encapsulating a humane toxin. Cats do not have molar teeth and tend to chew their food less so they may swallow portions of the sausage including the pellet. Most Australian native animals nibble and chew their food and are likely to reject the pellet. The pellet is designed to dissolve in the cat’s stomach and deliver a rapid dose of the toxin. The Curiosity bait for feral cats uses a new humane toxin called para-aminopropiophenone, or PAPP, which is considered best-practice world-wide. In brief, the toxicant, PAPP, converts the animal’s red blood cells to a form that cannot carry oxygen, causing death through oxygen starvation to the brain and other vital organs. It is considered to be humane and death takes minutes to hours. The RSPCA [Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals] have indicated that PAPP is a clear improvement in humaneness over previous toxins. The mode of action means that secondary poisoning of any other animals from consuming a carcass of a cat that ate a Curiosity bait containing PAPP is much less likely than when using previously employed toxins. (Although the excerpt serves to explain the Australian government’s reasoning in favoring the Curiosity bait, it does contain a factual error: cats do have molar teeth, albeit only two, and they are used for tearing flesh rather than grinding, so the overall claim that cats tend to chew less and swallow more readily than other animals, appears to stand). In government-commissioned field trials of Curiosity, the bait has been distributed on the ground in target areas using both aircraft and ground vehicles. As of April 2019, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority was still assessing the PAPP variant of Curiosity. But the national government appeared confident it would be registered as a pest-control product, because in November 2018 the Department of the Environment and Energy solicited applications for a commercial partner to manufacture and sell the bait. Although no significant developments in relation to the culling program took place in the spring of 2019, interest in the initiative was revived by a 25 April article published by The New York Times, which bore the headline “Australia is Deadly Serious About Killing Millions of Cats,” and mentioned the existing use of another kind of sausage-borne cat bait containing the active ingredient sodium fluoroacetate, known as “1080.”  In February 2019, a group of Australian scientists questioned the basis of the government’s target of culling 2 million feral cats by 2020, in part saying the government had not given a clear metric or scientific rationale for that number; had failed to indicate how or whether the cull would lower the overall population of feral cats (given the rapid rates at which they reproduce) and also increase the populations of endangered species; and because estimates vary widely over how many feral cats actually live in Australia. In a paper published in the journal Conservation Letters, the researchers wrote: Claim: The Australian government's Threatened Species Strategy has as one of its aims the culling of 2 million feral cats by 2020, largely using a sausage bait carrying a lethal toxin. 

Answer: “The focus on killing cats runs the risk of distracting attention away from other threats to biodiversity, most prominent of which is widespread, ongoing habitat loss, which has been largely overlooked in the Threatened Species Strategy. The culling target is a highly visible symbol of a broader campaign around feral cat research and management in Australia, rather than a direct indicator of conservation action and success. We are concerned that progress toward the 2 million target could be misinterpreted as progress toward conserving threatened species, when the link between the two is not clear.”


Question: Paragraph: "New airport security measures are coming under fire from pilots and passengers, who fear the latest post-9/11 protocols are too invasive and potentially harmful. You've probably seen the stories. The Transportation Security Administration's new full-body scanners, which are in use at 68 airports nationwide, transfer a potentially harmful amount of radiation and produce what amounts to a naked image, critics say. And the alternative to the scan, an embarrassing pat down, may be even worse. Pilots' unions oppose the measures, as do an increasing number of passengers -- who feel the federal government has taken things too far. PolitiFact can't weigh in on that. But we can explore the safety concerns about the full-body scan. Particularly, we found worth analyzing the defense mounted by John Pistole, head of the TSA. During a Nov. 16, 2010, interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper, Pistole said the ""radiation coming from those machines are equivalent to about three minutes' worth of air travel by anybody, say, at 30,000 feet."" The TSA, on its website, says the radiation emitted from the body scan is equivalent to just two minutes of a plane flight. Are those claims credible? Yes. Though there is some disagreement. Let us explain. In preparing to deploy the scanners to airports across the country, the TSA studied the amount of radiation a person would be exposed to per scan to determine if the machines were safe. Scientists at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory found that the effective dose per screening was 1.58 microrems of radiation, while a researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, said an adult would be exposed to 2.4 microrems of radiation per scan. We understand those figures mean nothing to most people. So let's put it into perspective. A single chest X-ray exposes a person to between 8,000 and 10,000 microrems (or 8 to 10 millirems), according to experts at Princeton University and the Department of Energy. A pack-a-day smoker exposes himself to 15,000 to 20,000 microrems of radiation a year (tobacco leaves used in making cigarettes contain radioactive lead and polonium). Put simply, it would take at least 3,300 body scans to reach the equivalent of one chest X-ray. What's also important to note -- and a bit scary -- is that you're being exposed to radiation right now. Radiation is naturally occurring in our environment no matter where you are. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission estimates that each year, the average adult is exposed to 300 millirems of naturally occurring radiation (300,000 microrems) and 60 millirems (60,000 microrems) of man-made radiation. Pistole, in his claim, is talking about naturally occurring cosmic radiation you're exposed to during airplane travel. The amount of cosmic radiation a person is exposed to varies based on a number of factors, but to oversimplify, a key component is how high you are above sea level. People living in Denver, which is 1 mile above sea level, are exposed to more cosmic radiation than someone living in Florida. And people flying 30,000 feet in the air are exposed to more radiation than people on the ground. The amount of radiation varies depending upon the specific flight plan, but the Environmental Protection Agency, the World Health Organization and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission all say that a person on a six- to eight-hour flight will be exposed to somewhere around 2,000 to 5,000 microrems of radiation. For our analysis, however, we are relying on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which calculates the radiation exposure per hour based on the altitude of the flight. According to NOAA, a person flying at 30,000 feet will be exposed to between 285 and 406 microrems of radiation an hour, or between 4.75 and 6.77 microrems per minute of flight. All the numbers and science back up Pistole's claim -- as little as three minutes of air travel produces the equivalent amount of radiation as one TSA body scan. By most estimates, Pistole's claim actually is conservative. However, all scientists aren't sold on the comparison. Nor are they sold on the safety of the scanners. We think it's important for you hear their side, too. Four faculty members at the University of California, San Francisco, authored a letter in April expressing their concerns about the body scanning devices. Primarily, the professors worried that the radiation was being concentrated in the skin and underlying tissue, and that it was not being dispersed throughout the entire body. That concentration of radiation to the skin could be ""dangerously high,"" wrote the faculty members -- John Sedat, Marc Shuman, Robert Stroud and David Agard, who said a comparison to cosmic radiation spread over the entire body is misleading. The FDA, in a detailed response, said the concerns were unfounded, and health risks associated with the full body scanners were ""minuscule."" To be clear, this fact check isn't declaring TSA's new full-body scanners safe. We're simply looking at the comparative exposure to radiation as suggested by Pistole, who said that the radiation coming from the new TSA body scanners ""are equivalent to about three minutes' worth of air travel by anybody, say, at 30,000 feet."" It may sound strange, but it's right." Claim: "The radiation coming from the new TSA body scanners is ""equivalent to about three minutes' worth of air travel by anybody, say, at 30,000 feet."

Answer:
TSA administrator claims new body scanners emit as much radiation as three minutes of air travel