text
stringlengths 513
125k
| id
stringlengths 47
47
| metadata
dict | input_text
stringlengths 292
832
| target_text
stringlengths 1
20.9k
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
A report has recommended that units charged with reducing the deer population be established in “hot spot” areas where large numbers of the animals are posing an increasing “threat” to native woodlands.
A report from the Irish Deer Management Strategy Group has been published by Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue and Minister of State for Nature Malcolm Noonan.
The group, chaired by dairy farmer Teddy Cashman, was set up 14 months ago to look at issues around the expanding wild deer population and developing a sustainable approach to managing it.
As well as recommending the creation of local deer-management units in hot-spot areas, it calls for a review of the current deer Open Seasons Order, which governs the times of year when deer can be hunted, and for research to be carried out on the viability of creating an independent deer management agency.
Deer have protected status in Ireland under the Wildlife Acts. However, the Department of Agriculture believes deer densities in Wicklow in particular – but also in parts of Tipperary, Waterford, Donegal and Galway – are above a sustainable level and are impacting farming, forestry, nature conservation and biodiversity.
The overall size of the deer population in Ireland is unknown because no census has ever been conducted. There are three types of deer in Ireland: the native red deer (found in Co Kerry); fallow deer; and Sika deer (which originated in Japan). The population of all three types has grown greatly in the past few decades given they have no natural predators on the island.
A record 55,000 deer were shot dead last year during open season, including an estimated 15,000 in Co Wicklow alone, where the population is estimated to stand at some 150,000.
The report said a subcommittee examining legislative changes, made up of officials and stakeholders, suggested that culls in areas with particularly problematic numbers of deer be “incentivised by payments”.
The subcommittee said “deer management groups need adequate resources in order to help achieve sustainable deer numbers”.
The final report’s recommendations included a proposal that officials “investigate support incentives necessary for national deer management programme”.
In a statement, Mr McConalogue said the growing deer population was a “considerable problem” and he would put the report’s recommendations into action at the start of next year.
“For agriculture, our natural ecosystems and in particular our forestry ambitions, it is important that we have sustainable management of our national wild deer population. However, the impact of deer proliferation extends far beyond this to road safety, animal health, public health and not least the health and welfare of the deer themselves,” he added.
Mr Noonan said an “overabundance of any species can be highly damaging to biodiversity”.
“In the case of wild deer, the most significant and obvious impact is on native woodlands. Deer browsing can prevent the natural regeneration of these habitats and inhibit their expansion, which is a particularly serious issue in ancient and long-established woodlands and can also devastate newly planted woodlands.”
|
<urn:uuid:51633f6a-c635-4a9a-8b97-92d74178547e>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2024-10",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707948234904.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20240305092259-20240305122259-00838.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9533998370170593,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.625,
"token_count": 643,
"url": "https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2023/12/07/deer-culling-to-go-ahead-as-population-in-five-counties-deemed-unsustainable/"
}
|
A report has recommended that units charged with reducing the deer population be established in “hot spot” areas where large numbers of the animals are posing an increasing “threat” to native woodlands.
A report from the Irish Deer Management Strategy Group has been published by Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue and Minister of State for Nature Malcolm Noonan.
The group, chaired by dairy farmer Teddy Cashman, was set up 14 months ago to look at issues around the expanding wild deer population and developing a sustainable approach to managing it.
As well as recommending the creation of local deer-management units in hot-spot areas, it
|
calls for a review of the current deer Open Seasons Order, which governs the times of year when deer can be hunted, and for research to be carried out on the viability of creating an independent deer management agency.
Deer have protected status in Ireland under the Wildlife Acts. However, the Department of Agriculture believes deer densities in Wicklow in particular – but also in parts of Tipperary, Waterford, Donegal and Galway – are above a sustainable level and are impacting farming, forestry, nature conservation and biodiversity.
The overall size of the deer population in Ireland is unknown because no census has ever been conducted. There are three types of deer in Ireland: the native red deer (found in Co Kerry); fallow deer; and Sika deer (which originated in Japan). The population of all three types has grown greatly in the past few decades given they have no natural predators on the island.
A record 55,000 deer were shot dead last year during open season, including an estimated 15,000 in Co Wicklow alone, where the population is estimated to stand at some 150,000.
The report said a subcommittee examining legislative changes, made up of officials and stakeholders, suggested that culls in areas with particularly problematic numbers of deer be “incentivised by payments”.
The subcommittee said “deer management groups need adequate resources in order to help achieve sustainable deer numbers”.
The final report’s recommendations included a proposal that officials “investigate support incentives necessary for national deer management programme”.
In a statement, Mr McConalogue said the growing deer population was a “considerable problem” and he would put the report’s recommendations into action at the start of next year.
“For agriculture, our natural ecosystems and in particular our forestry ambitions, it is important that we have sustainable management of our national wild deer population. However, the impact of deer proliferation extends far beyond this to road safety, animal health, public health and not least the health and welfare of the deer themselves,” he added.
Mr Noonan said an “overabundance of any species can be highly damaging to biodiversity”.
“In the case of wild deer, the most significant and obvious impact is on native woodlands. Deer browsing can prevent the natural regeneration of these habitats and inhibit their expansion, which is a particularly serious issue in ancient and long-established woodlands and can also devastate newly planted woodlands.”
|
The Environmental Protection Agency announced on Friday more aggressive air quality standards for particulate matter, pollutants small enough to be inhaled and cause respiratory illness and other disease.
The agency’s new rules would help clean the nation’s air and bring it more in line with the past decade of research on the harmful effects of particulate matter. “Neither an individual’s skin color nor the wealth of their ZIP code should determine whether they have clean air to breathe, safe water to drink, or healthy environments in which their children can play,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in May, the Washington Informer reported.
But health advocates say the agency’s proposed change isn’t strong enough to protect the public.
“It seems to me pretty clear that this probably doesn’t go far enough,” said Matt Altman, an asthma specialist at the University of Washington who has studied the effects of air pollution on children with the asthma.
The EPA’s rule comes as asthma and other chronic diseases, particularly respiratory ones, are steadily rising. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is a leading cause of death in the U.S., and asthma is one of the most common chronic conditions in children.
“Particulate matter is widespread and we know that it’s deadly. The science is very clear,” said Laura Kate Bender, national assistant vice president of Healthy Air at American Lung Association.
This is the first time in a decade that the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for particulate matter will be changed, since in 2020 federal regulators under the Trump administration opted to keep rules from 2013 (a decision that drew criticism and lawsuits). By law, the EPA’s air quality standards must be reviewed every five years. Many are touting this latest development as a win for the public.
And yet, even under a new administration that has said it will center environmental justice, critics say the EPA is proposing maximum levels of pollution above what years of research deems safe.
Particulate matter refers to tiny particles that float through the air and can be breathed in, residue from dusty manufacturing sites and burns, as well as other sources. Two types of particulate matter are of significant concern to the EPA: particles with a diameter of 10 microns or less, called PM10, and those 2.5 microns or less in diameter (PM2.5).
Both have been shown to cause short-term and long-term harm, and are especially risky for pregnant people, babies and children, older adults, and people with lung or heart disease. Fine particles, those 2.5 microns or less, are especially dangerous, and can increase chances of premature death, heart attacks, and strokes.
People who live in low-income communities and people of color are disproportionately affected by particulate-matter-laden air, a result of neighborhoods located near major polluters, like factories, ports, and highways.
Much of the debate around these air quality rules comes down to two numbers that dictate how many bits of pollution can be in a cubic meter of air. One number sets an annual average for how much particulate pollution can be in the air, and another sets a higher, 24-hour average, which accounts for spikes and lulls. Both of these numbers are used by federal authorities to monitor air quality, send out alerts, and crack down on major polluters. Because the air quality standards are governed by the Clean Air Act, the EPA is legally required to act based narrowly on up-to-date scientific evidence — whatever is in the best interest of public health.
The current standard, from 2013, says there can be up to 12 micrograms of fine particulate matter (the smaller particles) per cubic meter on an average day, annually. Both the EPA and its independent panel of scientific advisers, the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, as well as many health and environmental groups, agreed that number must drop to protect people’s health. The EPA suggests 9 to 10 micrograms per cubic meter in its proposal.
But the consensus ends there. The American Lung Association and other groups are pushing for a maximum of 8 micrograms of fine particles as the annual standard.
Further, the EPA’s proposed policy suggests keeping the same standards otherwise. That means, in a 24-hour span, there could be up to 35 micrograms per cubic meter of air for fine particles, and 150 micrograms per cubic meter for larger particles.
Critics argue that is much too high, noting that 25 to 30 micrograms of PM2.5 per cubic meter in a day was the range recommended by the independent advisory group in a report last year.
Things could still change. In a fact sheet released Friday, the EPA suggested it is considering the lower levels pushed by interest groups, and is soliciting feedback.
Altman’s research into children’s asthma attacks in urban areas suggests even a few days at 25 micrograms of fine particles could have deleterious effects on some vulnerable groups. “Potentially levels even below 25 could be harmful,” he said. “Lower is needed. Exactly how low, I guess to be determined.”
His study on children with nonviral asthma pointed to PM2.5 as a major driver of inflammation in children’s airways — meaning the particles could be driving cellular changes that would make many asthma therapies ineffective.
“In a perfect world, we just decrease the exposure, but as we see in the EPA guidelines, you can’t just do that,” he said.
The EPA will receive public comments for 60 days before finalizing its new rules, so the standards could still change. Pushback from industry groups that find the standards heavy-handed is expected. The EPA’s own report estimated it would cost upward of $65 billion each year in the 2020s to meet Clean Air Act amendment rules, but it also said that economic benefits would far outweigh those costs.
Standard changes could “result in as many as 4,200 avoided premature deaths and 270,000 avoided lost workdays in 2032,” according to EPA estimates.
The draft policy also includes a new proposal, which would amend air quality monitoring data and criteria to account for how close at-risk populations are to the sources of fine particulate matter pollution. Research has shown great disparities in air quality across the nation, even during the pandemic lockdowns, when fewer cars were on the roads.
The new standards, while a step in the right direction, won’t apply evenly to all places because they are regional averages, said Gaige Kerr, a research scientist who studies air quality at George Washington University. “Unfortunately, many of the areas where concentrations fall above this average of 9-10 ug/m3 are marginalized, racialized, and minoritized communities,” he said. “The fact that these communities still are disproportionately exposed, despite decades of macro-level progress across the U.S. thanks to the Clean Air Act and its amendments, suggests that more targeted interventions are needed to specifically ratchet down concentrations in the most overburdened communities.”
In its annual “State of the Air” report, the American Lung Association found Americans experienced more days of “very unhealthy” and “hazardous” air quality between 2019 and 2021 than at any other time in the past two decades.
“We keep seeing with emerging science that this pollutant is dangerous in more ways and at lower levels than previously thought,” Bender said.
STAT’s coverage of chronic health issues is supported by a grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies. Our financial supporters are not involved in any decisions about our journalism.
Get your daily dose of health and medicine every weekday with STAT’s free newsletter Morning Rounds. Sign up here.
Create a display name to comment
This name will appear with your comment
|
<urn:uuid:2dae01ea-1392-46d1-82a6-cbac6fe0c484>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-23",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224655244.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20230609000217-20230609030217-00480.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9513134360313416,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.3125,
"token_count": 1646,
"url": "https://www.statnews.com/2023/01/06/epa-tightens-air-quality-standards-respiratory-diseases/"
}
|
The Environmental Protection Agency announced on Friday more aggressive air quality standards for particulate matter, pollutants small enough to be inhaled and cause respiratory illness and other disease.
The agency’s new rules would help clean the nation’s air and bring it more in line with the past decade of research on the harmful effects of particulate matter. “Neither an individual’s skin color nor the wealth of their ZIP code should determine whether they have clean air to breathe, safe water to drink, or healthy environments in which their children can play,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in May, the Washington Informer reported.
But health advocates say the agency’s proposed change isn’t
|
strong enough to protect the public.
“It seems to me pretty clear that this probably doesn’t go far enough,” said Matt Altman, an asthma specialist at the University of Washington who has studied the effects of air pollution on children with the asthma.
The EPA’s rule comes as asthma and other chronic diseases, particularly respiratory ones, are steadily rising. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is a leading cause of death in the U.S., and asthma is one of the most common chronic conditions in children.
“Particulate matter is widespread and we know that it’s deadly. The science is very clear,” said Laura Kate Bender, national assistant vice president of Healthy Air at American Lung Association.
This is the first time in a decade that the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for particulate matter will be changed, since in 2020 federal regulators under the Trump administration opted to keep rules from 2013 (a decision that drew criticism and lawsuits). By law, the EPA’s air quality standards must be reviewed every five years. Many are touting this latest development as a win for the public.
And yet, even under a new administration that has said it will center environmental justice, critics say the EPA is proposing maximum levels of pollution above what years of research deems safe.
Particulate matter refers to tiny particles that float through the air and can be breathed in, residue from dusty manufacturing sites and burns, as well as other sources. Two types of particulate matter are of significant concern to the EPA: particles with a diameter of 10 microns or less, called PM10, and those 2.5 microns or less in diameter (PM2.5).
Both have been shown to cause short-term and long-term harm, and are especially risky for pregnant people, babies and children, older adults, and people with lung or heart disease. Fine particles, those 2.5 microns or less, are especially dangerous, and can increase chances of premature death, heart attacks, and strokes.
People who live in low-income communities and people of color are disproportionately affected by particulate-matter-laden air, a result of neighborhoods located near major polluters, like factories, ports, and highways.
Much of the debate around these air quality rules comes down to two numbers that dictate how many bits of pollution can be in a cubic meter of air. One number sets an annual average for how much particulate pollution can be in the air, and another sets a higher, 24-hour average, which accounts for spikes and lulls. Both of these numbers are used by federal authorities to monitor air quality, send out alerts, and crack down on major polluters. Because the air quality standards are governed by the Clean Air Act, the EPA is legally required to act based narrowly on up-to-date scientific evidence — whatever is in the best interest of public health.
The current standard, from 2013, says there can be up to 12 micrograms of fine particulate matter (the smaller particles) per cubic meter on an average day, annually. Both the EPA and its independent panel of scientific advisers, the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, as well as many health and environmental groups, agreed that number must drop to protect people’s health. The EPA suggests 9 to 10 micrograms per cubic meter in its proposal.
But the consensus ends there. The American Lung Association and other groups are pushing for a maximum of 8 micrograms of fine particles as the annual standard.
Further, the EPA’s proposed policy suggests keeping the same standards otherwise. That means, in a 24-hour span, there could be up to 35 micrograms per cubic meter of air for fine particles, and 150 micrograms per cubic meter for larger particles.
Critics argue that is much too high, noting that 25 to 30 micrograms of PM2.5 per cubic meter in a day was the range recommended by the independent advisory group in a report last year.
Things could still change. In a fact sheet released Friday, the EPA suggested it is considering the lower levels pushed by interest groups, and is soliciting feedback.
Altman’s research into children’s asthma attacks in urban areas suggests even a few days at 25 micrograms of fine particles could have deleterious effects on some vulnerable groups. “Potentially levels even below 25 could be harmful,” he said. “Lower is needed. Exactly how low, I guess to be determined.”
His study on children with nonviral asthma pointed to PM2.5 as a major driver of inflammation in children’s airways — meaning the particles could be driving cellular changes that would make many asthma therapies ineffective.
“In a perfect world, we just decrease the exposure, but as we see in the EPA guidelines, you can’t just do that,” he said.
The EPA will receive public comments for 60 days before finalizing its new rules, so the standards could still change. Pushback from industry groups that find the standards heavy-handed is expected. The EPA’s own report estimated it would cost upward of $65 billion each year in the 2020s to meet Clean Air Act amendment rules, but it also said that economic benefits would far outweigh those costs.
Standard changes could “result in as many as 4,200 avoided premature deaths and 270,000 avoided lost workdays in 2032,” according to EPA estimates.
The draft policy also includes a new proposal, which would amend air quality monitoring data and criteria to account for how close at-risk populations are to the sources of fine particulate matter pollution. Research has shown great disparities in air quality across the nation, even during the pandemic lockdowns, when fewer cars were on the roads.
The new standards, while a step in the right direction, won’t apply evenly to all places because they are regional averages, said Gaige Kerr, a research scientist who studies air quality at George Washington University. “Unfortunately, many of the areas where concentrations fall above this average of 9-10 ug/m3 are marginalized, racialized, and minoritized communities,” he said. “The fact that these communities still are disproportionately exposed, despite decades of macro-level progress across the U.S. thanks to the Clean Air Act and its amendments, suggests that more targeted interventions are needed to specifically ratchet down concentrations in the most overburdened communities.”
In its annual “State of the Air” report, the American Lung Association found Americans experienced more days of “very unhealthy” and “hazardous” air quality between 2019 and 2021 than at any other time in the past two decades.
“We keep seeing with emerging science that this pollutant is dangerous in more ways and at lower levels than previously thought,” Bender said.
STAT’s coverage of chronic health issues is supported by a grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies. Our financial supporters are not involved in any decisions about our journalism.
Get your daily dose of health and medicine every weekday with STAT’s free newsletter Morning Rounds. Sign up here.
Create a display name to comment
This name will appear with your comment
|
What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. (Ralph Waldo Emerson: Self-Reliance)1
We hear the phrase often “Don’t worry about what other people think”. That’s great advice, but unfortunately it’s not a simple “on-off switch” for some of us. I was reading Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay on Self-Reliance this week. He describes overcoming a preoccupation with what other people think as “arduous” . The word “arduous” means difficult and the has the idea of a steep climb. In other words, it can be an uphill battle to quit worrying about what people think. It requires dedication, hard work, insight, and time.
The Core Problem
We typically associate worrying about what other people think with stress, worry, and self-consciousness. That’s true and while these things are troubling enough, that’s not Emerson’s main point. He says, not worrying about what people think is the “whole distinction between greatness and meanness”. By “meanness” he means a life lacking quality and excellence. Constantly worrying about what others think diminishes the life we could have.
Emerson continues by noting this “Self-Reliance” is difficult because “you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it.” Well – they don’t. But they will pressure you into complying with their way of thinking. While good advice and discovering multiple perspectives can be helpful, beware of those who are mostly interested in shaping your opinions to align with their thinking (and then “punish” you for not complying).
Two Easy Things:
- “It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion”. That’s because you get no opposition. You’re just thinking like everyone else thinks – even if it’s not right for you.
- “It is easy in solitude to live after our own” [opinion]. You also get no opposition because you keep your thoughts and ideas to yourself.
The Better Way:
The “great” person, according to Emerson, is the one “who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” When we speak, we speak independently, candidly, and kindly. Some may not like our thoughts, but don’t let that diminish your life.
1Ralph Waldo Emerson. Self-Reliance (pp. 13-14). Sanage Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Leave a Reply
|
<urn:uuid:8424b191-a860-4a5b-a3a5-956c729ba957>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-23",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224652207.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20230606013819-20230606043819-00520.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9554100632667542,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.546875,
"token_count": 678,
"url": "https://teresaofavilaturns500.wordpress.com/2023/01/28/emerson-self-reliance/"
}
|
What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. (Ralph Waldo Emerson: Self-Reliance)
|
1
We hear the phrase often “Don’t worry about what other people think”. That’s great advice, but unfortunately it’s not a simple “on-off switch” for some of us. I was reading Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay on Self-Reliance this week. He describes overcoming a preoccupation with what other people think as “arduous” . The word “arduous” means difficult and the has the idea of a steep climb. In other words, it can be an uphill battle to quit worrying about what people think. It requires dedication, hard work, insight, and time.
The Core Problem
We typically associate worrying about what other people think with stress, worry, and self-consciousness. That’s true and while these things are troubling enough, that’s not Emerson’s main point. He says, not worrying about what people think is the “whole distinction between greatness and meanness”. By “meanness” he means a life lacking quality and excellence. Constantly worrying about what others think diminishes the life we could have.
Emerson continues by noting this “Self-Reliance” is difficult because “you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it.” Well – they don’t. But they will pressure you into complying with their way of thinking. While good advice and discovering multiple perspectives can be helpful, beware of those who are mostly interested in shaping your opinions to align with their thinking (and then “punish” you for not complying).
Two Easy Things:
- “It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion”. That’s because you get no opposition. You’re just thinking like everyone else thinks – even if it’s not right for you.
- “It is easy in solitude to live after our own” [opinion]. You also get no opposition because you keep your thoughts and ideas to yourself.
The Better Way:
The “great” person, according to Emerson, is the one “who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” When we speak, we speak independently, candidly, and kindly. Some may not like our thoughts, but don’t let that diminish your life.
1Ralph Waldo Emerson. Self-Reliance (pp. 13-14). Sanage Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Leave a Reply
|
Roman sewer repair reveals statue of emperor posing as Hercules
A life-sized statue of a Roman emperor posing as the classical hero Hercules has been discovered during sewer repair works in Rome.
- The statue emerged as a bulldozer was tearing through old pipes that needed replacing
- The sculpture resembles Emperor Decius, who ruled Rome from 249 to 251 AD
- Once repaired, the statue is expected to be placed on public display
The statue was unearthed near the Appia Antica or Appian Way, ancient Rome's first highway. It emerged face first as a bulldozer was tearing through old pipes that needed replacing.
The marble sculpture, showing a Hercules-like figure with the hero's trademark lion skin and club, was discovered on January 25 at Scott Park, part of the Appia Antica green area.
"This face appeared, and it was then immediately identified as a character dressed as Hercules," Francesca Romana Paolillo, archaeologist at the Appia Antica park said.
The sculpture bears a "fair resemblance" to Emperor Decius, who ruled Rome from 249 to 251 AD, Ms Paolillo said, adding it was "quite rare" to find Herculean depictions of Roman leaders.
It shows frown lines on the forehead that are typical of depictions of emperors from the 3rd century, a time of deep crisis for the Roman Empire.
The statue, which consists of several broken pieces and which suffered some accidental damage during its chance discovery, is currently being cleaned and restored.
Reuters saw it while stored in an ancient Roman water reservoir now repurposed as a warehouse. Once repaired, the statue is expected to be placed on public display.
Decius was the first Roman emperor to be killed in battle — fighting against the Goths in modern day Bulgaria — and was behind the first organised persecution of Christians.
With Rome's ancient history, chance discoveries of archaeological treasures are not unusual when the city's streets or parks are excavated.
In January, archaeologists said they had abandoned a quest to find the remains of the opening stretch of the Appian Way, because underground water made it impossible to dig deep enough.
|
<urn:uuid:9fda69f9-789e-42f0-8d5b-52f3d577fd8b>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-14",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296949093.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20230330004340-20230330034340-00794.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9696627259254456,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.671875,
"token_count": 444,
"url": "https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-03/roman-sewer-repair-reveals-statue-of-emperor-posing-as-hercules/101930192"
}
|
Roman sewer repair reveals statue of emperor posing as Hercules
A life-sized statue of a Roman emperor posing as the classical hero Hercules has been discovered during sewer repair works in Rome.
- The statue emerged as a bulldozer was tearing through old pipes that needed replacing
- The sculpture resembles Emperor Decius, who ruled Rome from 249 to 251 AD
- Once repaired, the statue is expected to be placed on public display
The statue was unearthed near the Appia Antica or Appian Way, ancient Rome's first highway. It emerged face first as a bulldozer was
|
tearing through old pipes that needed replacing.
The marble sculpture, showing a Hercules-like figure with the hero's trademark lion skin and club, was discovered on January 25 at Scott Park, part of the Appia Antica green area.
"This face appeared, and it was then immediately identified as a character dressed as Hercules," Francesca Romana Paolillo, archaeologist at the Appia Antica park said.
The sculpture bears a "fair resemblance" to Emperor Decius, who ruled Rome from 249 to 251 AD, Ms Paolillo said, adding it was "quite rare" to find Herculean depictions of Roman leaders.
It shows frown lines on the forehead that are typical of depictions of emperors from the 3rd century, a time of deep crisis for the Roman Empire.
The statue, which consists of several broken pieces and which suffered some accidental damage during its chance discovery, is currently being cleaned and restored.
Reuters saw it while stored in an ancient Roman water reservoir now repurposed as a warehouse. Once repaired, the statue is expected to be placed on public display.
Decius was the first Roman emperor to be killed in battle — fighting against the Goths in modern day Bulgaria — and was behind the first organised persecution of Christians.
With Rome's ancient history, chance discoveries of archaeological treasures are not unusual when the city's streets or parks are excavated.
In January, archaeologists said they had abandoned a quest to find the remains of the opening stretch of the Appian Way, because underground water made it impossible to dig deep enough.
|
CEID members Dr. Ashutosh K. Pathak and Justine C. Shiau led a team of researchers investigating the impact of additional blood meal(s) on the development of vector-borne parasites and pathogens in mosquitoes, particularly the spread of malaria and possible control strategies to be employed in the face of rising insecticide resistance.
The team began by propagating Plasmodium berghei (P. berghei), a strain of the malaria parasite, in mice. In order to test transmission rates, they collected blood from human, bovine, and canine sources, preparing it for mosquito feeds by separating the red blood cells and plasma through centrifugation. The team then maintained a colony of Anopheles stephensi mosquitoes fed on a diet of 5% dextrose and 0.05 para-aminobenzoic acid. In order to infect the mosquitoes with the malaria parasite, they were fed on a blood meal of P. berghei-infected mice or P. falciparum-infected human blood. They were then fed on a second blood meal from human, bovine, canine, and marine donors1. The infection status of the mosquitoes was monitored through quantification of the density of parasites in the mosquito’s salivary glands.
The study determined that mosquitoes that feed on both human and non-human animals are more likely to transmit malaria to humans. This suggests that vector ecology has a clear influence on malaria transmission, shedding further light on the complex interplay of vector-borne diseases like malaria and mosquitoes’ feeding behavior. Understanding this relationship is of paramount importance, as it can help policymakers and health authorities develop more effective strategies to combat malaria and other vector-borne diseases.
The authors make a number of suggestions toward combating this public health concern . One method would be to standardize the use of endectocides, such as ivermectin, in order to reduce infection rates in non-human animals commonly fed upon by mosquitoes. The use of anticoagulants, such as Citrate-Dextrose or ACD, also show promise. Ultimately, the authors suggest that their results further emphasize the need to adopt a One Health approach that considers the interactions between human, animal, and environmental health in the design of control programs.
For more information find the article here.
Raymond Gabriel Schneider
All experiments were approved by the University of Georgia’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee GA under Animal Use Protocol number A2020 01-013-Y2-A3.
|
<urn:uuid:25e9bc45-0c3a-45ca-a808-16c68fd661da>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-50",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100912.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20231209134916-20231209164916-00601.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.91437166929245,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.1875,
"token_count": 526,
"url": "https://www.ceid.uga.edu/2023/10/03/targeting-mosquitoes-feeding-behavior-strategies-to-combat-malaria-spread/"
}
|
CEID members Dr. Ashutosh K. Pathak and Justine C. Shiau led a team of researchers investigating the impact of additional blood meal(s) on the development of vector-borne parasites and pathogens in mosquitoes, particularly the spread of malaria and possible control strategies to be employed in the face of rising insecticide resistance.
The team began by propagating Plasmodium berghei (P. berghei), a strain of the malaria parasite, in mice. In order to test transmission rates, they collected blood from human, bovine, and canine sources, preparing it for mosquito feeds by separating the red blood cells and plasma through centrifugation. The
|
team then maintained a colony of Anopheles stephensi mosquitoes fed on a diet of 5% dextrose and 0.05 para-aminobenzoic acid. In order to infect the mosquitoes with the malaria parasite, they were fed on a blood meal of P. berghei-infected mice or P. falciparum-infected human blood. They were then fed on a second blood meal from human, bovine, canine, and marine donors1. The infection status of the mosquitoes was monitored through quantification of the density of parasites in the mosquito’s salivary glands.
The study determined that mosquitoes that feed on both human and non-human animals are more likely to transmit malaria to humans. This suggests that vector ecology has a clear influence on malaria transmission, shedding further light on the complex interplay of vector-borne diseases like malaria and mosquitoes’ feeding behavior. Understanding this relationship is of paramount importance, as it can help policymakers and health authorities develop more effective strategies to combat malaria and other vector-borne diseases.
The authors make a number of suggestions toward combating this public health concern . One method would be to standardize the use of endectocides, such as ivermectin, in order to reduce infection rates in non-human animals commonly fed upon by mosquitoes. The use of anticoagulants, such as Citrate-Dextrose or ACD, also show promise. Ultimately, the authors suggest that their results further emphasize the need to adopt a One Health approach that considers the interactions between human, animal, and environmental health in the design of control programs.
For more information find the article here.
Raymond Gabriel Schneider
All experiments were approved by the University of Georgia’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee GA under Animal Use Protocol number A2020 01-013-Y2-A3.
|
The world is blasting through climate records as scientists sound the alarm: The likelihood is growing that 2023 could be the hottest year on record, and the climate crisis could be altering our weather in ways they don’t yet understand.
And they are not holding back – “extraordinary,” “terrifying” and “uncharted territory” are just a few of the ways they have described the recent spike in global temperature.
This week, the planet’s average daily temperature soared to highs unseen in modern records kept by two climate agencies in the US and Europe.
While the records are based on data that only goes back to the mid-20th century, they are “almost certainly” the warmest the planet has seen over a much longer time period – “probably going back at least 100,000 years,” according to Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist at Woodwell Climate Research Center.
And they were far from the only climate superlatives scientists have reported this year.
Last month, the world experienced its warmest June on record by a “substantial margin,” according to a report by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Ocean heat has been off the charts, with surface temperatures last month reaching record levels for June. Parts of the North Atlantic have seen an “unprecedented” marine heat wave, with temperatures up to 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter than usual.
And in Antarctica, where temperatures are running well-above average for this time of year, sea ice plunged to record low levels, which scientists have linked to the warm waters off the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
The world is “walking into an uncharted territory,” Carlo Buontempo, the director of Copernicus, told CNN. “We have never seen anything like this in our life.”
This is what global warming looks like
While scientists say the records are alarming, most are unsurprised – though frustrated their warnings have been mostly ignored for decades.
“This is exactly what we’ve been expecting to see for a long time,” Francis told CNN.
What the world is experiencing are the impacts of global warming combined with the El Niño climate phenomenon – the arrival of which the World Meteorological Organization officially confirmed on Wednesday.
It works like this: As the world burns fossil fuels and pumps out planet-heating pollution, global temperatures are steadily warming. That leads to more intense heat waves along with a host of other impacts, such as more extreme weather, melting glaciers and rising sea levels.
“So we have a naturally warm world plus the increasingly hot climate change signal,” said Friederike Otto, senior lecturer in climate science at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment in the UK.
While the record temperatures may have been expected, the magnitude by which some have been broken has surprised some scientists.
That this June was half a degree warmer than a typical June “is just extraordinary” for a global temperature record, said Buontempo. Usually these records – which are averages of temperatures all over the world for the entire month – are broken by a tenth or even hundredth of a degree.
Still others have been caught off guard by the nature of extreme weather events.
“We were expecting to see more and more frequent heat waves and floods and droughts around the world. But it’s the intensity of some of those events that is a bit surprising,” said Peter Stott, a science fellow in climate attribution at the UK’s Met Office.
There’s “an increasing worry that climate change is not quite as linear as we might have thought,” he told CNN. Scientists are trying to work out if weather patterns themselves might be changing, making heat waves much more intense than climate models predict.
Shaping up for the hottest year on record
While scientists cannot yet be definitive, some say this year is at least on pace to become the warmest on record.
The stars are aligning for the record to fall. Historically, global heat records tend to topple in El Niño years, and the current record-holder, 2016, coincided with a strong El Niño.
In May, a Berkeley Earth analysis put the chances of 2023 being the hottest on record at 54%. As last month turned out to be the hottest June on record, that percentage is going to increase, said Robert Rohde, a lead scientist at Berkeley Earth.
By how much remains uncertain, he told CNN, “but it’s looking more likely than not that 2023 will be a record year.”
Records are how the world keeps tabs on the climate crisis. Yet some scientists caution the attention given to these big numbers can overshadow the real-world hazards they amplify: Heat waves, floods and droughts becoming much more frequent, severe and long-lasting as the Earth heats up.
“It’s quite frustrating,” Otto said. The world gets hung up on blockbuster records but “these heat records are not exciting numbers,” she told CNN. “They mean that people and ecosystems are dying, that people are losing their livelihoods, that agricultural land will be unusable.”
The human impact of extreme weather this year has already been stark.
At the end of June, Texas and the South sweltered in a triple digit heat wave with extreme humidity that made temperatures feel even hotter and made it harder for bodies to cool themselves. The heat extended to Mexico, where extreme temperatures killed at least 112 people between March and the end of June.
China has been grappling with blistering temperatures for weeks. Beijing, which is facing one of its most brutal heat waves on record, saw temperatures soar past 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) this week.
In India, parts of the north have been struggling with unrelenting heat, while nearly half a million in the country’s northeast have been affected by severe flooding that has triggered devastating landslides which have taken lives.
“All of these kinds of extreme events are absolutely consistent with what we expect to see happening more often as we just continue to warm the globe,” Francis said.
And as El Niño strengthens, we’re likely to see more extreme weather, she added, not just in the summer but also in the winter, when El Niños have the biggest influence on Northern Hemisphere weather.
“I’d say buckle up.”
For climate scientists, this is the “I told you so” moment they never wanted.
“This needn’t have been happening,” Stott said.
For decades, scientists have been warning about what would happen to global temperatures if the world failed to kick its fossil fuel habit and rein in planet-heating pollution. But they went unheeded, he said.
To see climate change unfold in front of us “is terrifying,” he added, because “this will just carry on getting worse and worse, and more and more extreme. So what we’re seeing now is only a foretaste of what could happen if efforts to reduce emissions aren’t successful.”
The only silver lining may be the records help raise alarm bells and persuade people to pressure political leaders to act, Otto said. “I hope that maybe more people will realize that this is really happening, and it’s really dangerous.”
|
<urn:uuid:0a631b81-e3a4-4b5e-b5a2-adcfb631cfc5>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2024-10",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947473690.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20240222030017-20240222060017-00366.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9496433734893799,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.265625,
"token_count": 1572,
"url": "https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/08/world/extreme-global-temperature-heat-records-climate/index.html"
}
|
The world is blasting through climate records as scientists sound the alarm: The likelihood is growing that 2023 could be the hottest year on record, and the climate crisis could be altering our weather in ways they don’t yet understand.
And they are not holding back – “extraordinary,” “terrifying” and “uncharted territory” are just a few of the ways they have described the recent spike in global temperature.
This week, the planet’s average daily temperature soared to highs unseen in modern records kept by two climate agencies in the US and Europe.
While the records are based on data
|
that only goes back to the mid-20th century, they are “almost certainly” the warmest the planet has seen over a much longer time period – “probably going back at least 100,000 years,” according to Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist at Woodwell Climate Research Center.
And they were far from the only climate superlatives scientists have reported this year.
Last month, the world experienced its warmest June on record by a “substantial margin,” according to a report by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Ocean heat has been off the charts, with surface temperatures last month reaching record levels for June. Parts of the North Atlantic have seen an “unprecedented” marine heat wave, with temperatures up to 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter than usual.
And in Antarctica, where temperatures are running well-above average for this time of year, sea ice plunged to record low levels, which scientists have linked to the warm waters off the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
The world is “walking into an uncharted territory,” Carlo Buontempo, the director of Copernicus, told CNN. “We have never seen anything like this in our life.”
This is what global warming looks like
While scientists say the records are alarming, most are unsurprised – though frustrated their warnings have been mostly ignored for decades.
“This is exactly what we’ve been expecting to see for a long time,” Francis told CNN.
What the world is experiencing are the impacts of global warming combined with the El Niño climate phenomenon – the arrival of which the World Meteorological Organization officially confirmed on Wednesday.
It works like this: As the world burns fossil fuels and pumps out planet-heating pollution, global temperatures are steadily warming. That leads to more intense heat waves along with a host of other impacts, such as more extreme weather, melting glaciers and rising sea levels.
“So we have a naturally warm world plus the increasingly hot climate change signal,” said Friederike Otto, senior lecturer in climate science at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment in the UK.
While the record temperatures may have been expected, the magnitude by which some have been broken has surprised some scientists.
That this June was half a degree warmer than a typical June “is just extraordinary” for a global temperature record, said Buontempo. Usually these records – which are averages of temperatures all over the world for the entire month – are broken by a tenth or even hundredth of a degree.
Still others have been caught off guard by the nature of extreme weather events.
“We were expecting to see more and more frequent heat waves and floods and droughts around the world. But it’s the intensity of some of those events that is a bit surprising,” said Peter Stott, a science fellow in climate attribution at the UK’s Met Office.
There’s “an increasing worry that climate change is not quite as linear as we might have thought,” he told CNN. Scientists are trying to work out if weather patterns themselves might be changing, making heat waves much more intense than climate models predict.
Shaping up for the hottest year on record
While scientists cannot yet be definitive, some say this year is at least on pace to become the warmest on record.
The stars are aligning for the record to fall. Historically, global heat records tend to topple in El Niño years, and the current record-holder, 2016, coincided with a strong El Niño.
In May, a Berkeley Earth analysis put the chances of 2023 being the hottest on record at 54%. As last month turned out to be the hottest June on record, that percentage is going to increase, said Robert Rohde, a lead scientist at Berkeley Earth.
By how much remains uncertain, he told CNN, “but it’s looking more likely than not that 2023 will be a record year.”
Records are how the world keeps tabs on the climate crisis. Yet some scientists caution the attention given to these big numbers can overshadow the real-world hazards they amplify: Heat waves, floods and droughts becoming much more frequent, severe and long-lasting as the Earth heats up.
“It’s quite frustrating,” Otto said. The world gets hung up on blockbuster records but “these heat records are not exciting numbers,” she told CNN. “They mean that people and ecosystems are dying, that people are losing their livelihoods, that agricultural land will be unusable.”
The human impact of extreme weather this year has already been stark.
At the end of June, Texas and the South sweltered in a triple digit heat wave with extreme humidity that made temperatures feel even hotter and made it harder for bodies to cool themselves. The heat extended to Mexico, where extreme temperatures killed at least 112 people between March and the end of June.
China has been grappling with blistering temperatures for weeks. Beijing, which is facing one of its most brutal heat waves on record, saw temperatures soar past 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) this week.
In India, parts of the north have been struggling with unrelenting heat, while nearly half a million in the country’s northeast have been affected by severe flooding that has triggered devastating landslides which have taken lives.
“All of these kinds of extreme events are absolutely consistent with what we expect to see happening more often as we just continue to warm the globe,” Francis said.
And as El Niño strengthens, we’re likely to see more extreme weather, she added, not just in the summer but also in the winter, when El Niños have the biggest influence on Northern Hemisphere weather.
“I’d say buckle up.”
For climate scientists, this is the “I told you so” moment they never wanted.
“This needn’t have been happening,” Stott said.
For decades, scientists have been warning about what would happen to global temperatures if the world failed to kick its fossil fuel habit and rein in planet-heating pollution. But they went unheeded, he said.
To see climate change unfold in front of us “is terrifying,” he added, because “this will just carry on getting worse and worse, and more and more extreme. So what we’re seeing now is only a foretaste of what could happen if efforts to reduce emissions aren’t successful.”
The only silver lining may be the records help raise alarm bells and persuade people to pressure political leaders to act, Otto said. “I hope that maybe more people will realize that this is really happening, and it’s really dangerous.”
|
The Soviet Navy’s greatest tactical victory of the war occurred on the final day of the Third World War with the destruction of USS Kitty Hawk in the far northern reaches of the Norwegian Sea. Its effect on the outcome of the war, though, was minimal. The Red Banner Northern Fleet was unable to capitalize on the sinking of the American supercarrier since the Backfire and Badger force had met their final demise only a few short hours earlier. There were no cruise missile-armed attack submarines in close enough proximity to Strike Fleet Atlantic to launch a further strike against the surviving collection of American and allied sea power on the doorstep of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, Minskiy Komsomolets succeeded where Long Range Aviation and the rest of the Northern Fleet’s vaunted attack submarine force had failed. A US Navy super carrier had fallen victim to the SSGNs anti-ship cruise missiles and although Minskiy Komsomolets did not survive to celebrate its victory, naval history has preserved the event in detail for future generations of sailors and historians to study.
The cruise missile attack had come at a busy moment. Earlier in the day tactical nuclear weapons were exchanged between NATO and Warsaw Pact forces in Europe. At sea, Strike Fleet Atlantic was preparing for possible escalation in the coming hours. On Kitty Hawk, Coral Sea, Eisenhower and Forrestal, quartets of A-6E Intruders were armed with B61 nuclear bombs and spotted on the flight decks for immediate launch. The carriers rotated keeping a flight of four airborne along with tanker support around the clock through most of D+24. At the time of the attack on Kitty Hawk, it just so happened that the flight of Intruders airborne was from her own air wing. They were recovered aboard Forrestal.
Just ninety minutes or so previous to the launch of SS-N-19 Shipwrecks the final Backfire/Badger attack of the war ended. Although no carriers were damaged or sunk and the Soviet bomber formations took murderous losses, a number of escort ships were either damaged or destroyed. Of Kitty Hawk’s group, the Knox class frigate USS Barbey had been lost and a Spruance class destroyer put temporarily out of action due to a near miss by an AS-4. With these two ships out of action, the ASW capabilities of the group were reduced considerably. This was fated to play a critical role in Minskiy Komsomolets penetrating the outer screen and remaining undetected until it launched the first missile.
Of the eight Shipwrecks fired, six were destroyed by SAMs or decoyed by countermeasures. The surviving two struck Kitty Hawk, one between the #3 and #4 catapults and the other just aft of elevator #4. The amount of damage inflicted ended up being fatal. Despite immediate and courageous damage control efforts, the carrier’s fate had been sealed upon first impact. In the second and third parts of this post we will examine the attack and its aftermath.
Author’s Note: Part II will be posted in the near future, probably in between the next two tournament rounds. I will try and get Part III up by the end of it, but this will depend on free time and some other factors. Round Two of WWIII March Madness starts tomorrow night.
4 Replies to “Death Of USS Kitty Hawk D+24 (2 August, 1987) Part I”
ITS HERE !!! Three minor questions !
Numero Uno ! How long did Kitty Hawk take to sink in the end, considering how massive she is, we know the order to abandon ship was given after about two hours of firefighting, but how long did she linger ?
Numero Dos ! Was the cruiser and the other frigate lost in the attack part of the Eisenhower/Forrestal Group ?
Numero Tres ! How bad did Kitty Hawk’s crew suffer in the hits ? She’s a big girl, but with six thousand men aboard, I don’t imagine the losses were very pretty…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Finally! It took forever 🙂
These questions will be answered in the second and third parts of this entry. Sorry, not going to divulge them early. 🙂
Wooo! Been waiting on this.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve finally gotten around to it 🙂
|
<urn:uuid:8e3e0b95-67be-4641-a97d-f1ef8e00bdde>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-23",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224656737.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20230609132648-20230609162648-00317.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.964389979839325,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.8125,
"token_count": 910,
"url": "https://ww31987.wordpress.com/2023/03/22/death-of-uss-kitty-hawk-d24-2-august-1987-part-i/"
}
|
The Soviet Navy’s greatest tactical victory of the war occurred on the final day of the Third World War with the destruction of USS Kitty Hawk in the far northern reaches of the Norwegian Sea. Its effect on the outcome of the war, though, was minimal. The Red Banner Northern Fleet was unable to capitalize on the sinking of the American supercarrier since the Backfire and Badger force had met their final demise only a few short hours earlier. There were no cruise missile-armed attack submarines in close enough proximity to Strike Fleet Atlantic to launch a further strike against the surviving collection of American and allied sea power on the doorstep of the Soviet
|
Union. Nevertheless, Minskiy Komsomolets succeeded where Long Range Aviation and the rest of the Northern Fleet’s vaunted attack submarine force had failed. A US Navy super carrier had fallen victim to the SSGNs anti-ship cruise missiles and although Minskiy Komsomolets did not survive to celebrate its victory, naval history has preserved the event in detail for future generations of sailors and historians to study.
The cruise missile attack had come at a busy moment. Earlier in the day tactical nuclear weapons were exchanged between NATO and Warsaw Pact forces in Europe. At sea, Strike Fleet Atlantic was preparing for possible escalation in the coming hours. On Kitty Hawk, Coral Sea, Eisenhower and Forrestal, quartets of A-6E Intruders were armed with B61 nuclear bombs and spotted on the flight decks for immediate launch. The carriers rotated keeping a flight of four airborne along with tanker support around the clock through most of D+24. At the time of the attack on Kitty Hawk, it just so happened that the flight of Intruders airborne was from her own air wing. They were recovered aboard Forrestal.
Just ninety minutes or so previous to the launch of SS-N-19 Shipwrecks the final Backfire/Badger attack of the war ended. Although no carriers were damaged or sunk and the Soviet bomber formations took murderous losses, a number of escort ships were either damaged or destroyed. Of Kitty Hawk’s group, the Knox class frigate USS Barbey had been lost and a Spruance class destroyer put temporarily out of action due to a near miss by an AS-4. With these two ships out of action, the ASW capabilities of the group were reduced considerably. This was fated to play a critical role in Minskiy Komsomolets penetrating the outer screen and remaining undetected until it launched the first missile.
Of the eight Shipwrecks fired, six were destroyed by SAMs or decoyed by countermeasures. The surviving two struck Kitty Hawk, one between the #3 and #4 catapults and the other just aft of elevator #4. The amount of damage inflicted ended up being fatal. Despite immediate and courageous damage control efforts, the carrier’s fate had been sealed upon first impact. In the second and third parts of this post we will examine the attack and its aftermath.
Author’s Note: Part II will be posted in the near future, probably in between the next two tournament rounds. I will try and get Part III up by the end of it, but this will depend on free time and some other factors. Round Two of WWIII March Madness starts tomorrow night.
4 Replies to “Death Of USS Kitty Hawk D+24 (2 August, 1987) Part I”
ITS HERE !!! Three minor questions !
Numero Uno ! How long did Kitty Hawk take to sink in the end, considering how massive she is, we know the order to abandon ship was given after about two hours of firefighting, but how long did she linger ?
Numero Dos ! Was the cruiser and the other frigate lost in the attack part of the Eisenhower/Forrestal Group ?
Numero Tres ! How bad did Kitty Hawk’s crew suffer in the hits ? She’s a big girl, but with six thousand men aboard, I don’t imagine the losses were very pretty…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Finally! It took forever 🙂
These questions will be answered in the second and third parts of this entry. Sorry, not going to divulge them early. 🙂
Wooo! Been waiting on this.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve finally gotten around to it 🙂
|
The closest black holes to Earth ever detected have been found in the Hyades open cluster just 150 light-years distant.
An open cluster is a loosely bound group of hundreds of similarly aged stars, all of which share chemical characteristics.
The Hyades, which is found in the constellation of Taurus (the Bull) near Orion’s Belt, is the closest open cluster of stars to the solar system and a naked-eye sight throughout winter. Its around 500 stars are often called the “Face of the Bull” by stargazers, according to EarthSky.
Closest Black Holes Detected
A paper published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society this week revealed several small black holes in the Hyades, instantly making them the closest black holes detected so far.
Black holes, of course, are impossible to observe directly since they give off no light. So a team of astrophysicists simulated the motion and evolution of the stars in the Hyades and compared them to their actual positions and velocities.
The latter is new data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia satellite, which is measuring the exact motions of a billions of stars to create a 3D map of the Milky Way.
Two or Three Black Holes
The results suggest that there are two or three small black holes within or very close to the Hyades. “Our simulations can only simultaneously match the mass and size of the Hyades if some black holes are present at the center of the cluster today (or until recently),” said Stefano Torniamenti, first author of the paper and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Padua, Italy.
The closest black hole to the solar system was until now was thought to be Gaia BH1, which is 1,560 light-years distant in the constellation Ophiuchus, the serpent-bearer, which is visible throughout the northern hemisphere’s summer/southern henisphere’s winter.
The study is a collaboration between the University of Padua, ICUBB-IEEC, the U.K’s University of Cambridge, the European Southern Observatory and China’s National Sun Yat-sen University.
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
|
<urn:uuid:a2e9e061-e334-45e0-b601-ca7a70681a9f>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-50",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679102612.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20231210155147-20231210185147-00632.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9318561553955078,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 4,
"token_count": 471,
"url": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2023/09/13/closest-black-holes-are-right-in-front-of-our-eyes-say-scientists/"
}
|
The closest black holes to Earth ever detected have been found in the Hyades open cluster just 150 light-years distant.
An open cluster is a loosely bound group of hundreds of similarly aged stars, all of which share chemical characteristics.
The Hyades, which is found in the constellation of Taurus (the Bull) near Orion’s Belt, is the closest open cluster of stars to the solar system and a naked-eye sight throughout winter. Its around 500 stars are often called the “Face of the Bull” by stargazers, according to EarthSky.
Closest Black Holes Detected
A paper published
|
in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society this week revealed several small black holes in the Hyades, instantly making them the closest black holes detected so far.
Black holes, of course, are impossible to observe directly since they give off no light. So a team of astrophysicists simulated the motion and evolution of the stars in the Hyades and compared them to their actual positions and velocities.
The latter is new data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia satellite, which is measuring the exact motions of a billions of stars to create a 3D map of the Milky Way.
Two or Three Black Holes
The results suggest that there are two or three small black holes within or very close to the Hyades. “Our simulations can only simultaneously match the mass and size of the Hyades if some black holes are present at the center of the cluster today (or until recently),” said Stefano Torniamenti, first author of the paper and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Padua, Italy.
The closest black hole to the solar system was until now was thought to be Gaia BH1, which is 1,560 light-years distant in the constellation Ophiuchus, the serpent-bearer, which is visible throughout the northern hemisphere’s summer/southern henisphere’s winter.
The study is a collaboration between the University of Padua, ICUBB-IEEC, the U.K’s University of Cambridge, the European Southern Observatory and China’s National Sun Yat-sen University.
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
|
The York Fire is threatening the rare plants, which live only at specific elevations in the Mojave Desert.
(Bloomberg) — California’s biggest fire this year is torching a place that, until recently, rarely burned: the high desert, where plant coverage is sparse. And the flames this week are tearing through one of the planet’s only habitats for the Joshua Tree, an icon of the American West.
The plant, known for its thin, twisting limbs and spiky leaves, lives only at specific elevations in the Mojave Desert, its range limited to a handful of southwestern states. The York Fire erupted Friday in the Mojave National Preserve and has now scorched 82,400 acres straddling the Nevada border, burning an unknown number of Joshua trees in the process.
The trees — a type of yucca — aren’t adapted to withstand wildfires, which used to be rare in the desert. But invasive grasses have been spreading across the Mojave in recent years, providing fuel — especially after wet winters like California experienced this year. And Joshua trees already face a perilous future, as climate change is expected to shrink their range, making the Mojave hotter than they can stand. Urban development and solar power plants proliferating across the desert also nibble away at their habitat.
“Things are really bad, and fire isn’t the only thing,” said Christopher Smith, a biology professor at Willamette University in Oregon, who is studying the tree’s genome. “They’re seeing threats from all sides.”
It’s not the only emblematic California tree endangered by fire and a warming world. The last decade of high-intensity fires in the state’s Sierra Nevada Mountains have devastated giant sequoias, immense trees found nowhere else. One fire alone — 2020’s Castle Fire — killed an estimated 10 to 14% of all large sequoias in existence, according to the National Park Service.
Fire sparked by a lightning strike tore through another portion of the Mojave National Preserve just three years ago, killing an estimated 1.3 million Joshua trees. The cause of the York Fire remains under investigation, and the blaze was 30% contained Wednesday morning.
California has, until now, enjoyed a relatively quiet fire season, following last winter’s intense rain, snow and flooding. So far, wildfires have burned almost 96,000 acres (38,850 hectares) compared to the five-year average of 351,000 acres by this date, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. But the abundance of grasses that grew in the wake of the rains could lead to larger fires this fall, as the state’s annual dry season reaches its peak.
(Corrects to remove photo of a misidentified Mojave yucca from the web version.)
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.
|
<urn:uuid:0b6c21f1-63c1-4945-9b1f-d8e99b5ce70c>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510730.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20230930213821-20231001003821-00090.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9227635264396667,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.390625,
"token_count": 613,
"url": "https://ec2-15-188-152-128.eu-west-3.compute.amazonaws.com/2023/08/03/californias-biggest-fire-is-burning-a-desert-and-joshua-trees/"
}
|
The York Fire is threatening the rare plants, which live only at specific elevations in the Mojave Desert.
(Bloomberg) — California’s biggest fire this year is torching a place that, until recently, rarely burned: the high desert, where plant coverage is sparse. And the flames this week are tearing through one of the planet’s only habitats for the Joshua Tree, an icon of the American West.
The plant, known for its thin, twisting limbs and spiky leaves, lives only at specific elevations in the Mojave Desert, its range limited to a handful of southwestern states. The York Fire erupted Friday in the Mojave
|
National Preserve and has now scorched 82,400 acres straddling the Nevada border, burning an unknown number of Joshua trees in the process.
The trees — a type of yucca — aren’t adapted to withstand wildfires, which used to be rare in the desert. But invasive grasses have been spreading across the Mojave in recent years, providing fuel — especially after wet winters like California experienced this year. And Joshua trees already face a perilous future, as climate change is expected to shrink their range, making the Mojave hotter than they can stand. Urban development and solar power plants proliferating across the desert also nibble away at their habitat.
“Things are really bad, and fire isn’t the only thing,” said Christopher Smith, a biology professor at Willamette University in Oregon, who is studying the tree’s genome. “They’re seeing threats from all sides.”
It’s not the only emblematic California tree endangered by fire and a warming world. The last decade of high-intensity fires in the state’s Sierra Nevada Mountains have devastated giant sequoias, immense trees found nowhere else. One fire alone — 2020’s Castle Fire — killed an estimated 10 to 14% of all large sequoias in existence, according to the National Park Service.
Fire sparked by a lightning strike tore through another portion of the Mojave National Preserve just three years ago, killing an estimated 1.3 million Joshua trees. The cause of the York Fire remains under investigation, and the blaze was 30% contained Wednesday morning.
California has, until now, enjoyed a relatively quiet fire season, following last winter’s intense rain, snow and flooding. So far, wildfires have burned almost 96,000 acres (38,850 hectares) compared to the five-year average of 351,000 acres by this date, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. But the abundance of grasses that grew in the wake of the rains could lead to larger fires this fall, as the state’s annual dry season reaches its peak.
(Corrects to remove photo of a misidentified Mojave yucca from the web version.)
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.
|
ANALYSIS: The legacy of affirmative action
Data from a National Bureau of Economic Research paper confirm theories that maintaining legacy preference in admissions processes hurts racial diversity, while both legacy preference and race-conscious admissions significantly benefit wealthy applicants over their lower-class peers.
Madelyn Kumar, Senior Photographer
When colleges across the United States began considering race as a factor in the admissions process during the late 1960s, scores of students of color arrived at the country’s most elite campuses. With these race-conscious admissions policies, universities aimed to accept more students from groups that had historically been excluded from institutions of higher education — particularly selective ones.
Now, many of their children are applying for acceptance to the same universities.
With the Supreme Court slated to rule on the future of affirmative action this spring, what role does preference for legacy students — that is, applicants with one or more parents who graduated from a certain university — play in the diversity debate?
Affirmative action and legacy admissions
Parents of students entering universities today likely graduated between the years of 1980 and 2000. The average percentage of students of color at Ivy League universities increased from 15.8 percent to 34.2 percent during that time. During this time at Yale, the proportion of students of color increased from 16.9 to 31.3 percent.
The uptick in students from racially diverse backgrounds at selective universities has largely been attributed to affirmative action, which has long been controversial. Recently, such policies have again come under intensified public scrutiny, with the Supreme Court hearing two cases challenging the practice this past October.
The suits, both brought forth by the nonprofit group Students for Fair Admissions, accuse University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill of discriminating against white and Asian applicants and Harvard University of discriminating against Asian applicants. Should the Court decide to strike down affirmative action, it could become illegal for universities across the United States to consider race in the admissions process, or even to ask about racial identity at all.
The threat of eliminating race-conscious admissions has sparked protests and debate about its value in preserving and fostering diversity on college campuses across the nation. Concurrently, legacy admissions –– or, as New York Times columnist John McWhorter called it, “affirmative action for white kids” –– have come under fire, with more and more people, including the Yale College Council, calling for its removal. The main criticism has centered on how legacy admissions advantage wealthy, white students. Meanwhile, universities like Yale and Harvard remain steadfast in upholding and defending it.
Legacy admissions give preference to the children of alumni in the admissions process. Despite attempts to eliminate the policy in Connecticut and some universities — such as Texas A&M, Purdue, the California Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins, and Amherst — eliminating it altogether, other elite universities continue to accept a high number of legacy admits. In the Yale College class of 2023, 12 percent of students were legacy affiliated, as were 8 percent in the class of 2024, 14 percent in the class of 2025 and 12 percent in the class of 2026.
Many of the same activists fighting for the preservation of affirmative action have advocated for the removal of the legacy policy, viewing the two policies as contradictory. SFFA, the group currently suing the schools in an effort to take down affirmative action, has also publicly come out in opposition of legacy admissions — reflecting strong anti-legacy preference sentiment from both sides of the affirmative action debate.
The Supreme Court of the United States currently has a conservative majority of justices who are skeptical of affirmative action. At the October hearings, the Court debated whether admissions boards have truly exhausted all other options to increase diversity without considering race, raising the question of whether schools can constitutionally consider racial identity while still employing legacy admissions.
A 2021 article in the Princeton Legal Journal explains that race-conscious policies must satisfy what is known in the law as the standard of “strict scrutiny.” Strict scrutiny demands that policies of any organization receiving government funding must meet two conditions: they must be used to further a “necessary” state interest and must also minimize “differential treatment on the basis of race.” For Harvard and UNC-Chapel Hill to win their cases, they have to prove that their admissions policies meet this standard.
Richard Sander, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, told the Harvard Crimson in October that racial preferences can only be deemed acceptable by the court if all other alternatives to achieve racial diversity have been exhausted. Sander said that affirmative action fails to reach strict scrutiny because every option to diversify the set of accepted students — such as eliminating legacy admissions — has not been exhausted.
“Suppose a university — a wealthy university — could eliminate those preferences which tend to favor the children of wealthy, white parents and achieve diversity without race consciousness: Would strict scrutiny require it to do so?” Justice Neil Gorsuch asked at one of the hearings.
In essence, Gorsuch questioned whether affirmative action fulfills the strict scrutiny standard at universities that employ legacy admissions, arguing that race-conscious admissions policies do not minimize the impact of race if a school could support diversity efforts through other means — such as eliminating legacy preferences entirely. And admissions data suggests he is correct.
Admissions data at Harvard and MIT
Both Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology boasted similarly selective undergraduate acceptance rates of about 3 percent for the class of 2026. MIT, which does not use legacy admissions, admitted a more racially diverse class than Harvard, where legacy preference continues to factor significantly into admissions decisions. Both schools practice affirmative action.
While Harvard does not ordinarily release comprehensive demographics data, more information has emerged through the ongoing affirmative action lawsuits. A National Bureau of Economic Research paper, released in 2019, draws from Harvard admissions data covering the classes of 2014 to 2019, who applied to Harvard between 2009 and 2015.
Specifically, Harvard considers students with at least one parent who attended the school to be legacy applicants. In its admissions records, the university groups athletes, legacies, students on the “Dean’s interest list” and children of faculty into one category — known as ALDCs — for much of their data. Recognizing that athletics constitute its own unique section in admissions, the report specifies which students are LDCs — meaning either legacy, Dean’s interest list or children of faculty — or as non-ALDC, meaning they are in none of the four special categories.
Between 2014 and 2019, the acceptance rate for legacy applicants was 33.6 percent, dwarfing the school’s overall acceptance rate of just six percent, according to data from the NBER.
Their research also separates the acceptance rate for legacy applicants across racial identities. 34 percent of white legacy applicants were admitted. The acceptance rate for Black legacies was the lowest at 28.5 percent, while Hispanics — 35.6 percent — and Asian Americans — 35.1 percent — stayed within two percentage points of the acceptance rate for white applicants.
These numbers reflect the large role legacy preference plays in admissions across all racial categories. But within the pool of all legacy applicants, the vast majority are white.
Between 2014 and 2019, 69.3 percent of Harvard’s legacy applicants were white. Despite the similar acceptance rates across racial groups of legacy students, the sheer number of white legacy applicants skews the diversity of the actual admit pool. White LDC admits in Harvard’s admissions numbered 1,362, whereas Black LDC admits numbered just 81.
Because MIT practices affirmative action but, unlike Harvard, does not employ legacy preference in admissions, admissions data from MIT offers insight into the impact of removing legacy admissions.
For the class of 2026, MIT’s overall admissions rate was 3.96 percent. Harvard’s was 3.24 percent. The schools are similarly selective. A comparison of MIT and Harvard admissions data by race shows a greater percentage of students of color in the classes of 2025 and 2026 at MIT, where there is no legacy preference.
Percentages of class composition by race differ from acceptance rates, so while these figures do not confirm whether acceptance rates themselves are more favorable for students of color without legacy admissions, they do corroborate that the removal of legacy admissions helps form more racially diverse classes overall.
A matter of time?
Several alumni of color from prestigious universities — including sitting Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor LAW ’79, who earned her bachelor’s degree from Princeton and her J.D. from Yale Law School — have publicly defended legacy admissions. Sotomayor, who is Puerto Rican, questions the fairness of abolishing legacy preference now that people of color have begun benefitting from it.
In a 2013 Supreme Court hearing about affirmative action, Michigan Solicitor General Bill Schuette raised a similar opinion as Gorsuch. He testified that removing legacy preference would constitute a race-neutral step that universities could take to benefit racial minorities.
“They finally have children and you’re going [to] do away [with] that preference for them? It seems the goal posts keep changing every few years for minorities,” Sotomayor said.
Even though presently, legacy applicant pools are largely white, legacy pools could grow more diverse in 10 to 20 years due to the increasing racial diversity within current college classes — a diversity that can be partially attributed to affirmative action.
Sanford and Anastasia Williams, both of whom are Black alumni of the University of Virginia, told the New York Times that they support legacy preference playing a small role in the admissions process.
“We have tons of friends whose kids are starting school,” Sanford Williams, who is a lecturer at the University of California’s Los Angeles School of Law, told the Times. “They think, ‘Why is it every time we get a chance to do something, the rug is pulled out from under us?’”
Legacies make up 14 percent of UVA’s class of 2025. All three of the Williams kids received undergraduate degrees from the University of Virginia.
Checking the legacy box on a Yale application today means that the parents of an applicant likely graduated between 1980 and 2000, as the proportion of admitted students of color almost doubled.
By 2000, there were 3,373 “White and Unknown” students enrolled in the graduating class, which still far surpassed the 1,538 students of color.
If every student from the Yale class of 2000 had a child that applied to the University, they would likely be seeking entry to the classes of 2027-2034, based on current predicted ages of parenthood. That means, looking just at the class of 2000 as an example, there would still be over 1,800 more white students than students of color that could check the legacy box in their application over the course of about the next eight application cycles.
Race is not the whole story
Whether applicants are white or not, admissions data reveals that legacy status follows higher socioeconomic status. At Harvard, per the NBER study, over half of non-ALDC admitted students within each racially marginalized category — Asian American, Black and Hispanic — received financial aid. However, over half of admitted students of color who were LDCs did not need financial aid, showing that the legacy pool trended wealthier even among non-white admits.
This means that legacy admissions support a minority of minorities, providing financially-privileged racially diverse legacies a leg up in admissions.
The situation has not changed significantly since the 2019 NBER study. In a survey of the Harvard College class of 2025, which polled 78 percent of the undergraduate class, The Harvard Crimson found that legacies reported higher incomes than other students, with 30.9 percent reporting a combined family income of more than $500,000.
“The college admissions process [at present] doesn’t fully allow for the nuances within racial categories and instead generalizes the different experiences of students of color,” said Alvaro Perpuly ’23. “These continue to affect multiple underrepresented racial and ethnic categories, especially when discussing different levels of wealth and challenges each community may face within each defined category.”
Like Sotomayor, Clarence Thomas LAW ’74 — another sitting Supreme Court justice of color — graduated from Yale Law School. While Sotomayor is a vocal defender of race-conscious admissions, Thomas takes the opposite view. He considers affirmative action a form of “benign discrimination.”
Meanwhile, students like Isaac Yu ’24 — who was formerly a managing editor for the News — see affirmative action as an important tool for promoting racial diversity in higher education, but they also do not necessarily think race-conscious admissions are enough. A student’s racial identity may shape part of their story, but it does not necessarily determine all of it.
Yu, who is low-income and Asian American, is the first in his family to go to college. He does not believe affirmative action alone accomplishes its goal of diversifying classrooms.
Yu said that considering race alone cannot promote true diversity of experience. As an example, he noted that a person of color could be a legacy student that had gone to the same schools with the same resources and opportunities as other wealthy — albeit often white — admits.
“I’m bringing my experience growing up in suburban Dallas, going to a Title I high school,” Yu said. “And that is the ‘diverse experience’ that I bring that most people in the room [at Yale] have not encountered.”
The Supreme Court is expected to decide on the fate of affirmative action in two separate rulings this spring.
|
<urn:uuid:2c5d37be-bbe9-4efe-aa63-533adff086eb>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-14",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296944452.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20230322180852-20230322210852-00307.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9462023973464966,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.890625,
"token_count": 2823,
"url": "https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2023/02/02/analysis-the-legacy-of-affirmative-action/"
}
|
ANALYSIS: The legacy of affirmative action
Data from a National Bureau of Economic Research paper confirm theories that maintaining legacy preference in admissions processes hurts racial diversity, while both legacy preference and race-conscious admissions significantly benefit wealthy applicants over their lower-class peers.
Madelyn Kumar, Senior Photographer
When colleges across the United States began considering race as a factor in the admissions process during the late 1960s, scores of students of color arrived at the country’s most elite campuses. With these race-conscious admissions policies, universities aimed to accept more students from groups that had historically been excluded from institutions of higher education — particularly selective
|
ones.
Now, many of their children are applying for acceptance to the same universities.
With the Supreme Court slated to rule on the future of affirmative action this spring, what role does preference for legacy students — that is, applicants with one or more parents who graduated from a certain university — play in the diversity debate?
Affirmative action and legacy admissions
Parents of students entering universities today likely graduated between the years of 1980 and 2000. The average percentage of students of color at Ivy League universities increased from 15.8 percent to 34.2 percent during that time. During this time at Yale, the proportion of students of color increased from 16.9 to 31.3 percent.
The uptick in students from racially diverse backgrounds at selective universities has largely been attributed to affirmative action, which has long been controversial. Recently, such policies have again come under intensified public scrutiny, with the Supreme Court hearing two cases challenging the practice this past October.
The suits, both brought forth by the nonprofit group Students for Fair Admissions, accuse University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill of discriminating against white and Asian applicants and Harvard University of discriminating against Asian applicants. Should the Court decide to strike down affirmative action, it could become illegal for universities across the United States to consider race in the admissions process, or even to ask about racial identity at all.
The threat of eliminating race-conscious admissions has sparked protests and debate about its value in preserving and fostering diversity on college campuses across the nation. Concurrently, legacy admissions –– or, as New York Times columnist John McWhorter called it, “affirmative action for white kids” –– have come under fire, with more and more people, including the Yale College Council, calling for its removal. The main criticism has centered on how legacy admissions advantage wealthy, white students. Meanwhile, universities like Yale and Harvard remain steadfast in upholding and defending it.
Legacy admissions give preference to the children of alumni in the admissions process. Despite attempts to eliminate the policy in Connecticut and some universities — such as Texas A&M, Purdue, the California Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins, and Amherst — eliminating it altogether, other elite universities continue to accept a high number of legacy admits. In the Yale College class of 2023, 12 percent of students were legacy affiliated, as were 8 percent in the class of 2024, 14 percent in the class of 2025 and 12 percent in the class of 2026.
Many of the same activists fighting for the preservation of affirmative action have advocated for the removal of the legacy policy, viewing the two policies as contradictory. SFFA, the group currently suing the schools in an effort to take down affirmative action, has also publicly come out in opposition of legacy admissions — reflecting strong anti-legacy preference sentiment from both sides of the affirmative action debate.
The Supreme Court of the United States currently has a conservative majority of justices who are skeptical of affirmative action. At the October hearings, the Court debated whether admissions boards have truly exhausted all other options to increase diversity without considering race, raising the question of whether schools can constitutionally consider racial identity while still employing legacy admissions.
A 2021 article in the Princeton Legal Journal explains that race-conscious policies must satisfy what is known in the law as the standard of “strict scrutiny.” Strict scrutiny demands that policies of any organization receiving government funding must meet two conditions: they must be used to further a “necessary” state interest and must also minimize “differential treatment on the basis of race.” For Harvard and UNC-Chapel Hill to win their cases, they have to prove that their admissions policies meet this standard.
Richard Sander, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, told the Harvard Crimson in October that racial preferences can only be deemed acceptable by the court if all other alternatives to achieve racial diversity have been exhausted. Sander said that affirmative action fails to reach strict scrutiny because every option to diversify the set of accepted students — such as eliminating legacy admissions — has not been exhausted.
“Suppose a university — a wealthy university — could eliminate those preferences which tend to favor the children of wealthy, white parents and achieve diversity without race consciousness: Would strict scrutiny require it to do so?” Justice Neil Gorsuch asked at one of the hearings.
In essence, Gorsuch questioned whether affirmative action fulfills the strict scrutiny standard at universities that employ legacy admissions, arguing that race-conscious admissions policies do not minimize the impact of race if a school could support diversity efforts through other means — such as eliminating legacy preferences entirely. And admissions data suggests he is correct.
Admissions data at Harvard and MIT
Both Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology boasted similarly selective undergraduate acceptance rates of about 3 percent for the class of 2026. MIT, which does not use legacy admissions, admitted a more racially diverse class than Harvard, where legacy preference continues to factor significantly into admissions decisions. Both schools practice affirmative action.
While Harvard does not ordinarily release comprehensive demographics data, more information has emerged through the ongoing affirmative action lawsuits. A National Bureau of Economic Research paper, released in 2019, draws from Harvard admissions data covering the classes of 2014 to 2019, who applied to Harvard between 2009 and 2015.
Specifically, Harvard considers students with at least one parent who attended the school to be legacy applicants. In its admissions records, the university groups athletes, legacies, students on the “Dean’s interest list” and children of faculty into one category — known as ALDCs — for much of their data. Recognizing that athletics constitute its own unique section in admissions, the report specifies which students are LDCs — meaning either legacy, Dean’s interest list or children of faculty — or as non-ALDC, meaning they are in none of the four special categories.
Between 2014 and 2019, the acceptance rate for legacy applicants was 33.6 percent, dwarfing the school’s overall acceptance rate of just six percent, according to data from the NBER.
Their research also separates the acceptance rate for legacy applicants across racial identities. 34 percent of white legacy applicants were admitted. The acceptance rate for Black legacies was the lowest at 28.5 percent, while Hispanics — 35.6 percent — and Asian Americans — 35.1 percent — stayed within two percentage points of the acceptance rate for white applicants.
These numbers reflect the large role legacy preference plays in admissions across all racial categories. But within the pool of all legacy applicants, the vast majority are white.
Between 2014 and 2019, 69.3 percent of Harvard’s legacy applicants were white. Despite the similar acceptance rates across racial groups of legacy students, the sheer number of white legacy applicants skews the diversity of the actual admit pool. White LDC admits in Harvard’s admissions numbered 1,362, whereas Black LDC admits numbered just 81.
Because MIT practices affirmative action but, unlike Harvard, does not employ legacy preference in admissions, admissions data from MIT offers insight into the impact of removing legacy admissions.
For the class of 2026, MIT’s overall admissions rate was 3.96 percent. Harvard’s was 3.24 percent. The schools are similarly selective. A comparison of MIT and Harvard admissions data by race shows a greater percentage of students of color in the classes of 2025 and 2026 at MIT, where there is no legacy preference.
Percentages of class composition by race differ from acceptance rates, so while these figures do not confirm whether acceptance rates themselves are more favorable for students of color without legacy admissions, they do corroborate that the removal of legacy admissions helps form more racially diverse classes overall.
A matter of time?
Several alumni of color from prestigious universities — including sitting Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor LAW ’79, who earned her bachelor’s degree from Princeton and her J.D. from Yale Law School — have publicly defended legacy admissions. Sotomayor, who is Puerto Rican, questions the fairness of abolishing legacy preference now that people of color have begun benefitting from it.
In a 2013 Supreme Court hearing about affirmative action, Michigan Solicitor General Bill Schuette raised a similar opinion as Gorsuch. He testified that removing legacy preference would constitute a race-neutral step that universities could take to benefit racial minorities.
“They finally have children and you’re going [to] do away [with] that preference for them? It seems the goal posts keep changing every few years for minorities,” Sotomayor said.
Even though presently, legacy applicant pools are largely white, legacy pools could grow more diverse in 10 to 20 years due to the increasing racial diversity within current college classes — a diversity that can be partially attributed to affirmative action.
Sanford and Anastasia Williams, both of whom are Black alumni of the University of Virginia, told the New York Times that they support legacy preference playing a small role in the admissions process.
“We have tons of friends whose kids are starting school,” Sanford Williams, who is a lecturer at the University of California’s Los Angeles School of Law, told the Times. “They think, ‘Why is it every time we get a chance to do something, the rug is pulled out from under us?’”
Legacies make up 14 percent of UVA’s class of 2025. All three of the Williams kids received undergraduate degrees from the University of Virginia.
Checking the legacy box on a Yale application today means that the parents of an applicant likely graduated between 1980 and 2000, as the proportion of admitted students of color almost doubled.
By 2000, there were 3,373 “White and Unknown” students enrolled in the graduating class, which still far surpassed the 1,538 students of color.
If every student from the Yale class of 2000 had a child that applied to the University, they would likely be seeking entry to the classes of 2027-2034, based on current predicted ages of parenthood. That means, looking just at the class of 2000 as an example, there would still be over 1,800 more white students than students of color that could check the legacy box in their application over the course of about the next eight application cycles.
Race is not the whole story
Whether applicants are white or not, admissions data reveals that legacy status follows higher socioeconomic status. At Harvard, per the NBER study, over half of non-ALDC admitted students within each racially marginalized category — Asian American, Black and Hispanic — received financial aid. However, over half of admitted students of color who were LDCs did not need financial aid, showing that the legacy pool trended wealthier even among non-white admits.
This means that legacy admissions support a minority of minorities, providing financially-privileged racially diverse legacies a leg up in admissions.
The situation has not changed significantly since the 2019 NBER study. In a survey of the Harvard College class of 2025, which polled 78 percent of the undergraduate class, The Harvard Crimson found that legacies reported higher incomes than other students, with 30.9 percent reporting a combined family income of more than $500,000.
“The college admissions process [at present] doesn’t fully allow for the nuances within racial categories and instead generalizes the different experiences of students of color,” said Alvaro Perpuly ’23. “These continue to affect multiple underrepresented racial and ethnic categories, especially when discussing different levels of wealth and challenges each community may face within each defined category.”
Like Sotomayor, Clarence Thomas LAW ’74 — another sitting Supreme Court justice of color — graduated from Yale Law School. While Sotomayor is a vocal defender of race-conscious admissions, Thomas takes the opposite view. He considers affirmative action a form of “benign discrimination.”
Meanwhile, students like Isaac Yu ’24 — who was formerly a managing editor for the News — see affirmative action as an important tool for promoting racial diversity in higher education, but they also do not necessarily think race-conscious admissions are enough. A student’s racial identity may shape part of their story, but it does not necessarily determine all of it.
Yu, who is low-income and Asian American, is the first in his family to go to college. He does not believe affirmative action alone accomplishes its goal of diversifying classrooms.
Yu said that considering race alone cannot promote true diversity of experience. As an example, he noted that a person of color could be a legacy student that had gone to the same schools with the same resources and opportunities as other wealthy — albeit often white — admits.
“I’m bringing my experience growing up in suburban Dallas, going to a Title I high school,” Yu said. “And that is the ‘diverse experience’ that I bring that most people in the room [at Yale] have not encountered.”
The Supreme Court is expected to decide on the fate of affirmative action in two separate rulings this spring.
|
This article is part of a series on the youth-led constitutional climate change lawsuit Held v. Montana, which goes to trial in Helena on June 12. The rest of the series can be read at mtclimatecase.flatheadbeacon.com. This project is produced by the Flathead Beacon newsroom, in collaboration with Montana Free Press, and is supported by the MIT Environmental Solutions Journalism Fellowship.
Montana has a long history of supplying the United States — and other countries — with heaps of raw material to generate and transmit electricity. Those natural resources include the Powder River Basin’s coal seams, the Bakken Formation’s oil and gas reservoirs, and Butte’s vast copper deposits. On the one hand, the Treasure State’s extraction of heavy metals and hydrocarbons has resulted in a grim environmental legacy, which includes the Berkeley Pit, a textbook remediation failure so toxic that in 2016 it killed thousands of migrating snow geese in a matter of days. On the other hand, that legacy has also helped engender some of the strongest constitutional protections for the environment in the country.
In 1972, 100 delegates rewrote Montana’s Constitution to include the preservation of a “clean and healthful environment” for “present and future generations.” The delegates, everyday people, not politicians, also directed the state’s citizen Legislature to adopt laws to protect the state’s “environmental life support system” and guard against the “unreasonable depletion and degradation” of its natural resources.
When 150 lawmakers converged on the Capitol this January for the Legislature’s biennial session, the uneasy interplay between all of that subsurface wealth and Montana’s constitutional directives came into focus as the Republican-controlled Legislature passed industry-friendly measures intended to keep coal — and other fossil fuels — king in the Treasure State.
Additionally, two measures passed by the Legislature’s first dual-house supermajority in a century have profound implications for Held v. Montana, the first youth climate lawsuit in the country to go to trial. On June 12, 16 Montana youth and a collection of expert witnesses will argue that the state’s approach to energy permitting has deprived the youth of their right to “a clean and healthful environment” and other constitutionally enshrined rights. They’ll also argue that by being so permissive with the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels, Montana agencies have violated the public trust doctrine, which holds that governments must manage shared natural resources for the benefit of present and future generations.
One of the 2023 bills referenced in recent Held filings explicitly bars state agencies from including analysis of greenhouse gas emissions or climate-related impacts in environmental reviews. Its passage made national news in May. The other bill repeals the entirety of the Montana Energy Policy, a fossil-fuel-heavy energy vision for Montana that forms a central component of the plaintiffs’ claims.
During the 90-day session, the Legislature also passed bills that loosen coal-mining regulations, prohibit local governments from adopting regulations to steer their communities toward cleaner energy sources, and make it harder and more expensive for environmental groups to delay or stop projects with litigation.
HOW THE MONTANA ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY ACT AND THE MONTANA ENERGY POLICY FACTOR INTO LITIGATION
Relatively early in the 2023 session, lawmakers made a party-line vote to repeal the Montana Energy Policy, a 30-year-old piece of (heavily amended) law plaintiffs referenced in filings for its pro-fossil fuel language.
The Montana Energy Policy is a somewhat clunky, even contradictory, piece of code. It established a broad vision for energy in the state and includes more than 30 sub-clauses. Parts of it call for the state to increase oil and gas exploration and development in order to create high-paying jobs and reduce reliance on foreign oil — amendments added to the policy in 2011; other parts direct policymakers to use new and innovative technologies such as batteries and green hydrogen to complement wind and other renewable energy sources. The policy also calls for distributed generation and a focus on energy conservation and efficiency, which renewable energy advocates have championed for years.
For his part, House Bill 170 sponsor Rep. Steve Gunderson, R-Libby, argued that the policy amounts to an “advisory-only” piece of code that “has no teeth.” The real nuts and bolts of energy policy, he said, involves more specific regulations implicating tax codes, permitting processes and land use. He also said Gov. Greg Gianforte should have an opportunity to start fresh with his own energy priorities.
The energy policy is “nothing but a political football,” according to Montana Petroleum Association Executive Director and former state lawmaker Alan Olson. “I guess I’d refer to it as a letter to Santa Claus. [Its repeal] will not have any effect on energy policy moving forward.”
Although lawmakers made few, if any, references to the climate trial when debating HB 170, it appeared in lawsuit filings shortly after Gianforte signed it into law. Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, a Republican who’s been vocal in his support of the Keystone XL pipeline and free with his criticism of President Joe Biden’s oil and gas leasing approach, moved to dismiss parts of the suit centering the energy policy. He argued that the removal of that piece of law had invalidated plaintiffs’ claims.
Despite arguments made by the plaintiffs’ attorneys that the statutory appeal of the state’s energy policy did not change Montana’s de facto energy-permitting approach, Lewis and Clark County District Court Judge Kathy Seeley agreed to dismiss the claims based on the energy policy. The order she issued May 23 affirmed the lawsuit will proceed, with a narrowed scope, based on the remaining claims regarding the state’s environmental review processes.
Gunderson, a former mining contractor who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, also garnered attention when he submitted a request for a bill titled “Revise Montana constitutional language regarding clean and healthful environment” — the protections that are a foundational piece of the youth plaintiffs’ claims.
In late December, Gunderson put the draft request on hold and left it there, but not before it made national waves. Gunderson’s proposal was never officially introduced or debated — GOP leadership said the party would rally behind about a dozen constitutional amendments they had identified as having the best chance of passing.
A prominent GOP-backed measure that did make it across the finish line involves the Montana Environmental Policy Act, or MEPA, which directs the state to take a comprehensive look at the environmental impacts of large projects and highlight potentially impacted historical and cultural sites. In the last several years, groups such as the Sierra Club, Montana Environmental Information Center and the Park County Environmental Council have made MEPA claims to challenge a Paradise Valley gold mine, NorthWestern Energy’s Yellowstone County gas plant, and an expansion of the Rosebud coal mine, the sole supplier of the Colstrip coal-fired power plant.
Senate Bill 557 sponsored by Sen. Mark Noland, R-Bigfork, puts stricter parameters around nonprofit groups’ ability to sue under MEPA by requiring groups challenging state permitting actions to post a bond before filing a lawsuit and to seek a preliminary injunction, a tough-to-reach legal standard that would immediately halt a project.
SB 557 underscores that MEPA is supposed to provide a procedural rather than regulatory framework for permitting decisions, Noland told his colleagues. It’s intended to prevent “good people, good companies” from losing revenue due to “frivolous lawsuits,” he said, adding that it will ensure that individuals or groups challenging a state-issued permit establish “legitimacy” first.
Opponents of that measure, including a grassroots group that used MEPA to oppose a Paradise Valley gold mine, questioned whose interests the bill furthers and argued that it would prevent local organizations from effectively representing the concerns of individuals and businesses living with a large project’s impacts.
“Most Montanans are not billionaires — if this bill had been in place, our community could not have afforded to go to court,” Michelle Uberuaga with Park County Environmental Council told the House Natural Resources Committee.
SB 557 was signed into law May 19. Both the sponsor and some of its opponents said legal challenges to it are likely.
CLIMATE IMPACT ANALYSIS AND LOCAL CONTROL
House Bill 971, which directs state agencies to exclude greenhouse gas emissions and climate impacts from environmental reviews, was the most commented-upon environmental proposal of the 2023 session, and is at the heart of the remaining Held claims. Despite its late introduction, it garnered more than 1,000 public comments, 95% of which were in opposition.
Bill sponsor Josh Kassmier, R-Fort Benton, said HB 971 will put a legislative check on judicial overreach — more specifically, he criticized an April ruling by Yellowstone County District Court Judge Michael Moses that revoked the permit for a gas plant under construction on the banks of the Yellowstone River.
In that ruling, Moses directed the state to analyze greenhouse gas and lighting-related impacts for the 175-megawatt gas plant, which is located in an agricultural area west of Billings. The plant merits greater scrutiny, Moses wrote, particularly for “most Montanans who clearly understand their fundamental constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment.” He also wrote that the Montana Department of Environmental Quality “misinterprets” a statute directing the state not to consider environmental impacts beyond Montana’s borders, a reference to a MEPA amendment legislators passed in 2011 with a prohibition on greenhouse gas reviews in mind.
Although the monopoly utility building the gas plant pledged to appeal the ruling shortly after Moses issued it, Republican lawmakers voted to suspend their rules late in the session to introduce legislation aimed specifically at Moses’ decision. Enter HB 971, which bars state agencies like DEQ from evaluating greenhouse gas emissions and “corresponding impacts to the climate” both within and beyond Montana’s borders.
“If we’re going to start letting judges make policy decisions from the bench, as a state, we need to make our policy decisions — put them into law,” Kassmier told his colleagues during an April bill hearing.
Just one of the Legislature’s 102 Republicans voted against the bill and Republican Gov. Gianforte signed it into law on May 10, drawing a national spotlight onto Montana’s climate policies. In a May 16 piece, Inside Climate News described HB 971 as an attempt to “squelch modern climate science” that “could set a new precedent for anti-climate policy.”
Retired Montana Supreme Court Justice Jim Nelson didn’t mince words in his assessment of the Legislature’s environmental track record with bills like HB 971, which he described as an “idiotic” bill. Like other bills passed this session, it will likely result in the state racking up taxpayer-funded legal fees to “defend what’s really indefensible,” he said.
“Maybe the Legislature lives in an alternate universe I’m not familiar with, but explain to me how that sort of legislation fulfills the Legislature’s statutory obligations to adopt statutes to maintain and improve the environment,” Nelson said. “It boggles the mind. It absolutely boggles the mind.”
Kassmier and a colleague in the Montana Senate, Jason Small, R-Busby, also went to bat for fossil fuel interests this session by successfully introducing legislation restricting local governments’ ability to require climate-friendly building codes and prohibit fossil fuel use.
House Bill 241, for example, prohibits a city or county from requiring solar panels, solar panel-ready wiring or electric vehicle charger-ready wiring in new construction. Kassmier said such regulations could make the already spendy prospect of building a new home even more expensive and that homeowners shouldn’t be burdened with paying for electrical infrastructure they may not need or want.
Opponents of the measure, including representatives from the cities of Bozeman and Missoula, countered that it’s a local control issue — HB 241 subverts citizens’ ability to influence government decisions at the most immediate, accessible level. They also made economic appeals, arguing that green energy and access to EV chargers attract economy-boosting employers and that it’s significantly more expensive to retrofit buildings to accommodate EV chargers and solar panels than to include compatible wiring in new construction.
Shortly after gas stoves caused a stir in national political debate, Montana legislators also passed Senate Bill 228 and Senate Bill 208. They prevent a local government from prohibiting the use, transport, connection or reconnection of petroleum-based fuel sources. Proponents of those measures, including regulated utility NorthWestern Energy and the Montana Petroleum Association, said they preserve Montanans’ access to a diversity of energy sources to fuel cooking stoves, furnaces, lawnmowers, chainsaws and more.
Small said the bill will help Montana stay ahead of an “ill-advised” trend taking root in places such as Seattle, Washington, and Eugene, Oregon. Two years ago, Seattle banned natural gas in multi-family, multi-story residential construction. This February, Eugene voted to prohibit “fossil fuel infrastructure” in new low-rise residential buildings. There are currently no such regulations on the books in Montana.
Gov. Gianforte, who has acknowledged human-caused climate change and has said he subscribes to an “all of the above” energy policy, signed the bills into law in May.
With the largest recoverable coal reserves in the United States and multiple proposals to expand existing mines (several of which have been challenged in court), state lawmakers’ conversations around coal mining also colored energy policy at the Capitol in 2023.
In mid-April lawmakers passed Senate Bill 392, a proposal by Great Falls attorney and Senate Majority Leader Steve Fitzpatrick that changes how litigants in a coal-mining proceeding are classified by state courts. It would prohibit a judge from considering the “identity” of a party, which opponents describe as an attempt to turn coal-related litigation into a prohibitively expensive prospect, potentially forcing individuals and nonprofits to cover millions of dollars of expert costs incurred by large corporations and government agencies.
Although Gianforte signed SB 392 into law in early May, MEIC Deputy Director Derf Johnson said it could still run into issues with federal law. The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement don’t allow such “loser-pays” regulations, Johnson said, because “they recognize it would dissuade enforcement of the law.”
On the House side, Rep. Rhonda Knudsen, R-Culbertson, sponsored House Bill 576, which deals with water quality regulations and “material damage” classifications. HB 576 strikes a piece of state law declaring that “violation of a water quality standard, whether or not an existing water use is affected,” constitutes material damages, which are expressly prohibited in state coal-mining regulations. In place of the old material damage language, HB 576 puts parameters around the kinds of impacts that constitute such damages, namely “long-term or permanent exceedance of a water quality standard outside of a permit area.”
Landowners living near large coal mines say changing these regulations could threaten their access to high-quality water, which many use for both domestic and agricultural purposes. Steve Charter, a Shepherd resident who ranches near a coal mine operated by Signal Peak, argued that coal companies and DEQ have little understanding of what constitutes long-term damage to ranching operations, but he has intimate knowledge of the “serious damage” coal mining does to both water and land.
Another industry-backed, regulation-loosening proposal that passed largely along party lines was sponsored by Gary Parry, a Republican representative from Colstrip who formerly worked at the Rosebud Coal Mine. House Bill 656 reclassifies coal mine expansions smaller than 320 acres as “minor amendments,” which are subject to limited DEQ review and don’t require public notice or comment.
“This is a simple bill that provides more clarity without changing any environmental protections already in place,” Parry told lawmakers on Feb. 22, before turning the microphone over to Darryl James, the lobbyist for his former employer.
James said the bill will help Westmoreland, which operates the Rosebud Mine, one of the largest strip mines in the United States, get to accessible, as-yet unmined coal, and to do that more efficiently.
Another supporter of HB 656 was NorthWestern Energy, which has a partial and soon-to-increase ownership stake in the Colstrip plant supplied by the Rosebud Mine. Lobbyist Christopher Puyear said keeping the Colstrip plant operational into “2030 and beyond” requires ready access to available coal reserves. The Colstrip plant is the largest single source of carbon dioxide emissions in the state.
Charter also argued against the bill, asserting that what might constitute a “minor impact” to a coal company could be a major one to him, resulting in subsidences — cracks up to 40 feet wide and 25 deep that open in the earth due to mining activities. It can take years to complete the remediation, Charter said, adding that he doesn’t receive reimbursement for that damage.
Gianforte signed HB 576 and HB 656 into law the third week of May. On June 1, a coalition of environmental groups filed a lawsuit in federal court to block the state’s enforcement of HB 576 and SB 392, arguing that they don’t comply with federal mining and water-quality laws.
Of all the energy- and environment-related bills Gianforte has signed in recent weeks, however, the one prohibiting the state from analyzing greenhouse gas emissions and climate impacts will directly play into Held proceedings.
In her May 23 order, Seeley wrote extensively about the proposal and how it squares with the environmental protections in the Montana Constitution. The court may be unable to force the state to conduct greenhouse gas analyses, she wrote, “but it can strike down a statute prohibiting it.”
The conversation around energy permitting in Montana has thrown into sharp relief the tug-of-war between the legislative and judicial branches of government.
Asked to take a 30,000-foot view of lawmakers’ energy and environmental priorities, Anne Hedges, who has lobbied state lawmakers on behalf of MEIC for 30 years, said lawmakers have demonstrated little allegiance to Montana’s Constitution and weakened the foundations of democracy in Montana. Honoring America’s co-equal branches of government and the checks and balances that support it has not been a priority for the Legislature, she said.
“They don’t seem to understand that, or they don’t care,” said Hedges, who is expected to testify during the trial. “I don’t know which one it is, but both are dangerous.”
A lack of access to navigators in rural locales to help Medicaid enrollees keep their coverage or find other insurance if they’re no longer eligible could exacerbate the difficulties rural residents face.
Three intervenors joined the ongoing litigation over House Bill 562 this week, arguing that the currently blocked law is critical to their plans to open specialized choice schools in their communities.
Nearly three months after a Montana Rail Link train derailed near Reed Point, releasing 419,000 pounds of asphalt into the Yellowstone River, state agencies began advising anglers this week not to eat any fish caught on a nearly 50-mile stretch of the river.
|
<urn:uuid:eb4aafef-3f99-4bfd-bebc-be96b085f408>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233506686.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20230925051501-20230925081501-00077.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9464190006256104,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.921875,
"token_count": 4183,
"url": "https://montanafreepress.org/2023/06/05/montana-lawmakers-double-down-on-fossil-fuels-in-2023-legislative-session/"
}
|
This article is part of a series on the youth-led constitutional climate change lawsuit Held v. Montana, which goes to trial in Helena on June 12. The rest of the series can be read at mtclimatecase.flatheadbeacon.com. This project is produced by the Flathead Beacon newsroom, in collaboration with Montana Free Press, and is supported by the MIT Environmental Solutions Journalism Fellowship.
Montana has a long history of supplying the United States — and other countries — with heaps of raw material to generate and transmit electricity. Those natural resources include the Powder River Basin’s coal seams, the Bakken
|
Formation’s oil and gas reservoirs, and Butte’s vast copper deposits. On the one hand, the Treasure State’s extraction of heavy metals and hydrocarbons has resulted in a grim environmental legacy, which includes the Berkeley Pit, a textbook remediation failure so toxic that in 2016 it killed thousands of migrating snow geese in a matter of days. On the other hand, that legacy has also helped engender some of the strongest constitutional protections for the environment in the country.
In 1972, 100 delegates rewrote Montana’s Constitution to include the preservation of a “clean and healthful environment” for “present and future generations.” The delegates, everyday people, not politicians, also directed the state’s citizen Legislature to adopt laws to protect the state’s “environmental life support system” and guard against the “unreasonable depletion and degradation” of its natural resources.
When 150 lawmakers converged on the Capitol this January for the Legislature’s biennial session, the uneasy interplay between all of that subsurface wealth and Montana’s constitutional directives came into focus as the Republican-controlled Legislature passed industry-friendly measures intended to keep coal — and other fossil fuels — king in the Treasure State.
Additionally, two measures passed by the Legislature’s first dual-house supermajority in a century have profound implications for Held v. Montana, the first youth climate lawsuit in the country to go to trial. On June 12, 16 Montana youth and a collection of expert witnesses will argue that the state’s approach to energy permitting has deprived the youth of their right to “a clean and healthful environment” and other constitutionally enshrined rights. They’ll also argue that by being so permissive with the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels, Montana agencies have violated the public trust doctrine, which holds that governments must manage shared natural resources for the benefit of present and future generations.
One of the 2023 bills referenced in recent Held filings explicitly bars state agencies from including analysis of greenhouse gas emissions or climate-related impacts in environmental reviews. Its passage made national news in May. The other bill repeals the entirety of the Montana Energy Policy, a fossil-fuel-heavy energy vision for Montana that forms a central component of the plaintiffs’ claims.
During the 90-day session, the Legislature also passed bills that loosen coal-mining regulations, prohibit local governments from adopting regulations to steer their communities toward cleaner energy sources, and make it harder and more expensive for environmental groups to delay or stop projects with litigation.
HOW THE MONTANA ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY ACT AND THE MONTANA ENERGY POLICY FACTOR INTO LITIGATION
Relatively early in the 2023 session, lawmakers made a party-line vote to repeal the Montana Energy Policy, a 30-year-old piece of (heavily amended) law plaintiffs referenced in filings for its pro-fossil fuel language.
The Montana Energy Policy is a somewhat clunky, even contradictory, piece of code. It established a broad vision for energy in the state and includes more than 30 sub-clauses. Parts of it call for the state to increase oil and gas exploration and development in order to create high-paying jobs and reduce reliance on foreign oil — amendments added to the policy in 2011; other parts direct policymakers to use new and innovative technologies such as batteries and green hydrogen to complement wind and other renewable energy sources. The policy also calls for distributed generation and a focus on energy conservation and efficiency, which renewable energy advocates have championed for years.
For his part, House Bill 170 sponsor Rep. Steve Gunderson, R-Libby, argued that the policy amounts to an “advisory-only” piece of code that “has no teeth.” The real nuts and bolts of energy policy, he said, involves more specific regulations implicating tax codes, permitting processes and land use. He also said Gov. Greg Gianforte should have an opportunity to start fresh with his own energy priorities.
The energy policy is “nothing but a political football,” according to Montana Petroleum Association Executive Director and former state lawmaker Alan Olson. “I guess I’d refer to it as a letter to Santa Claus. [Its repeal] will not have any effect on energy policy moving forward.”
Although lawmakers made few, if any, references to the climate trial when debating HB 170, it appeared in lawsuit filings shortly after Gianforte signed it into law. Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, a Republican who’s been vocal in his support of the Keystone XL pipeline and free with his criticism of President Joe Biden’s oil and gas leasing approach, moved to dismiss parts of the suit centering the energy policy. He argued that the removal of that piece of law had invalidated plaintiffs’ claims.
Despite arguments made by the plaintiffs’ attorneys that the statutory appeal of the state’s energy policy did not change Montana’s de facto energy-permitting approach, Lewis and Clark County District Court Judge Kathy Seeley agreed to dismiss the claims based on the energy policy. The order she issued May 23 affirmed the lawsuit will proceed, with a narrowed scope, based on the remaining claims regarding the state’s environmental review processes.
Gunderson, a former mining contractor who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, also garnered attention when he submitted a request for a bill titled “Revise Montana constitutional language regarding clean and healthful environment” — the protections that are a foundational piece of the youth plaintiffs’ claims.
In late December, Gunderson put the draft request on hold and left it there, but not before it made national waves. Gunderson’s proposal was never officially introduced or debated — GOP leadership said the party would rally behind about a dozen constitutional amendments they had identified as having the best chance of passing.
A prominent GOP-backed measure that did make it across the finish line involves the Montana Environmental Policy Act, or MEPA, which directs the state to take a comprehensive look at the environmental impacts of large projects and highlight potentially impacted historical and cultural sites. In the last several years, groups such as the Sierra Club, Montana Environmental Information Center and the Park County Environmental Council have made MEPA claims to challenge a Paradise Valley gold mine, NorthWestern Energy’s Yellowstone County gas plant, and an expansion of the Rosebud coal mine, the sole supplier of the Colstrip coal-fired power plant.
Senate Bill 557 sponsored by Sen. Mark Noland, R-Bigfork, puts stricter parameters around nonprofit groups’ ability to sue under MEPA by requiring groups challenging state permitting actions to post a bond before filing a lawsuit and to seek a preliminary injunction, a tough-to-reach legal standard that would immediately halt a project.
SB 557 underscores that MEPA is supposed to provide a procedural rather than regulatory framework for permitting decisions, Noland told his colleagues. It’s intended to prevent “good people, good companies” from losing revenue due to “frivolous lawsuits,” he said, adding that it will ensure that individuals or groups challenging a state-issued permit establish “legitimacy” first.
Opponents of that measure, including a grassroots group that used MEPA to oppose a Paradise Valley gold mine, questioned whose interests the bill furthers and argued that it would prevent local organizations from effectively representing the concerns of individuals and businesses living with a large project’s impacts.
“Most Montanans are not billionaires — if this bill had been in place, our community could not have afforded to go to court,” Michelle Uberuaga with Park County Environmental Council told the House Natural Resources Committee.
SB 557 was signed into law May 19. Both the sponsor and some of its opponents said legal challenges to it are likely.
CLIMATE IMPACT ANALYSIS AND LOCAL CONTROL
House Bill 971, which directs state agencies to exclude greenhouse gas emissions and climate impacts from environmental reviews, was the most commented-upon environmental proposal of the 2023 session, and is at the heart of the remaining Held claims. Despite its late introduction, it garnered more than 1,000 public comments, 95% of which were in opposition.
Bill sponsor Josh Kassmier, R-Fort Benton, said HB 971 will put a legislative check on judicial overreach — more specifically, he criticized an April ruling by Yellowstone County District Court Judge Michael Moses that revoked the permit for a gas plant under construction on the banks of the Yellowstone River.
In that ruling, Moses directed the state to analyze greenhouse gas and lighting-related impacts for the 175-megawatt gas plant, which is located in an agricultural area west of Billings. The plant merits greater scrutiny, Moses wrote, particularly for “most Montanans who clearly understand their fundamental constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment.” He also wrote that the Montana Department of Environmental Quality “misinterprets” a statute directing the state not to consider environmental impacts beyond Montana’s borders, a reference to a MEPA amendment legislators passed in 2011 with a prohibition on greenhouse gas reviews in mind.
Although the monopoly utility building the gas plant pledged to appeal the ruling shortly after Moses issued it, Republican lawmakers voted to suspend their rules late in the session to introduce legislation aimed specifically at Moses’ decision. Enter HB 971, which bars state agencies like DEQ from evaluating greenhouse gas emissions and “corresponding impacts to the climate” both within and beyond Montana’s borders.
“If we’re going to start letting judges make policy decisions from the bench, as a state, we need to make our policy decisions — put them into law,” Kassmier told his colleagues during an April bill hearing.
Just one of the Legislature’s 102 Republicans voted against the bill and Republican Gov. Gianforte signed it into law on May 10, drawing a national spotlight onto Montana’s climate policies. In a May 16 piece, Inside Climate News described HB 971 as an attempt to “squelch modern climate science” that “could set a new precedent for anti-climate policy.”
Retired Montana Supreme Court Justice Jim Nelson didn’t mince words in his assessment of the Legislature’s environmental track record with bills like HB 971, which he described as an “idiotic” bill. Like other bills passed this session, it will likely result in the state racking up taxpayer-funded legal fees to “defend what’s really indefensible,” he said.
“Maybe the Legislature lives in an alternate universe I’m not familiar with, but explain to me how that sort of legislation fulfills the Legislature’s statutory obligations to adopt statutes to maintain and improve the environment,” Nelson said. “It boggles the mind. It absolutely boggles the mind.”
Kassmier and a colleague in the Montana Senate, Jason Small, R-Busby, also went to bat for fossil fuel interests this session by successfully introducing legislation restricting local governments’ ability to require climate-friendly building codes and prohibit fossil fuel use.
House Bill 241, for example, prohibits a city or county from requiring solar panels, solar panel-ready wiring or electric vehicle charger-ready wiring in new construction. Kassmier said such regulations could make the already spendy prospect of building a new home even more expensive and that homeowners shouldn’t be burdened with paying for electrical infrastructure they may not need or want.
Opponents of the measure, including representatives from the cities of Bozeman and Missoula, countered that it’s a local control issue — HB 241 subverts citizens’ ability to influence government decisions at the most immediate, accessible level. They also made economic appeals, arguing that green energy and access to EV chargers attract economy-boosting employers and that it’s significantly more expensive to retrofit buildings to accommodate EV chargers and solar panels than to include compatible wiring in new construction.
Shortly after gas stoves caused a stir in national political debate, Montana legislators also passed Senate Bill 228 and Senate Bill 208. They prevent a local government from prohibiting the use, transport, connection or reconnection of petroleum-based fuel sources. Proponents of those measures, including regulated utility NorthWestern Energy and the Montana Petroleum Association, said they preserve Montanans’ access to a diversity of energy sources to fuel cooking stoves, furnaces, lawnmowers, chainsaws and more.
Small said the bill will help Montana stay ahead of an “ill-advised” trend taking root in places such as Seattle, Washington, and Eugene, Oregon. Two years ago, Seattle banned natural gas in multi-family, multi-story residential construction. This February, Eugene voted to prohibit “fossil fuel infrastructure” in new low-rise residential buildings. There are currently no such regulations on the books in Montana.
Gov. Gianforte, who has acknowledged human-caused climate change and has said he subscribes to an “all of the above” energy policy, signed the bills into law in May.
With the largest recoverable coal reserves in the United States and multiple proposals to expand existing mines (several of which have been challenged in court), state lawmakers’ conversations around coal mining also colored energy policy at the Capitol in 2023.
In mid-April lawmakers passed Senate Bill 392, a proposal by Great Falls attorney and Senate Majority Leader Steve Fitzpatrick that changes how litigants in a coal-mining proceeding are classified by state courts. It would prohibit a judge from considering the “identity” of a party, which opponents describe as an attempt to turn coal-related litigation into a prohibitively expensive prospect, potentially forcing individuals and nonprofits to cover millions of dollars of expert costs incurred by large corporations and government agencies.
Although Gianforte signed SB 392 into law in early May, MEIC Deputy Director Derf Johnson said it could still run into issues with federal law. The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement don’t allow such “loser-pays” regulations, Johnson said, because “they recognize it would dissuade enforcement of the law.”
On the House side, Rep. Rhonda Knudsen, R-Culbertson, sponsored House Bill 576, which deals with water quality regulations and “material damage” classifications. HB 576 strikes a piece of state law declaring that “violation of a water quality standard, whether or not an existing water use is affected,” constitutes material damages, which are expressly prohibited in state coal-mining regulations. In place of the old material damage language, HB 576 puts parameters around the kinds of impacts that constitute such damages, namely “long-term or permanent exceedance of a water quality standard outside of a permit area.”
Landowners living near large coal mines say changing these regulations could threaten their access to high-quality water, which many use for both domestic and agricultural purposes. Steve Charter, a Shepherd resident who ranches near a coal mine operated by Signal Peak, argued that coal companies and DEQ have little understanding of what constitutes long-term damage to ranching operations, but he has intimate knowledge of the “serious damage” coal mining does to both water and land.
Another industry-backed, regulation-loosening proposal that passed largely along party lines was sponsored by Gary Parry, a Republican representative from Colstrip who formerly worked at the Rosebud Coal Mine. House Bill 656 reclassifies coal mine expansions smaller than 320 acres as “minor amendments,” which are subject to limited DEQ review and don’t require public notice or comment.
“This is a simple bill that provides more clarity without changing any environmental protections already in place,” Parry told lawmakers on Feb. 22, before turning the microphone over to Darryl James, the lobbyist for his former employer.
James said the bill will help Westmoreland, which operates the Rosebud Mine, one of the largest strip mines in the United States, get to accessible, as-yet unmined coal, and to do that more efficiently.
Another supporter of HB 656 was NorthWestern Energy, which has a partial and soon-to-increase ownership stake in the Colstrip plant supplied by the Rosebud Mine. Lobbyist Christopher Puyear said keeping the Colstrip plant operational into “2030 and beyond” requires ready access to available coal reserves. The Colstrip plant is the largest single source of carbon dioxide emissions in the state.
Charter also argued against the bill, asserting that what might constitute a “minor impact” to a coal company could be a major one to him, resulting in subsidences — cracks up to 40 feet wide and 25 deep that open in the earth due to mining activities. It can take years to complete the remediation, Charter said, adding that he doesn’t receive reimbursement for that damage.
Gianforte signed HB 576 and HB 656 into law the third week of May. On June 1, a coalition of environmental groups filed a lawsuit in federal court to block the state’s enforcement of HB 576 and SB 392, arguing that they don’t comply with federal mining and water-quality laws.
Of all the energy- and environment-related bills Gianforte has signed in recent weeks, however, the one prohibiting the state from analyzing greenhouse gas emissions and climate impacts will directly play into Held proceedings.
In her May 23 order, Seeley wrote extensively about the proposal and how it squares with the environmental protections in the Montana Constitution. The court may be unable to force the state to conduct greenhouse gas analyses, she wrote, “but it can strike down a statute prohibiting it.”
The conversation around energy permitting in Montana has thrown into sharp relief the tug-of-war between the legislative and judicial branches of government.
Asked to take a 30,000-foot view of lawmakers’ energy and environmental priorities, Anne Hedges, who has lobbied state lawmakers on behalf of MEIC for 30 years, said lawmakers have demonstrated little allegiance to Montana’s Constitution and weakened the foundations of democracy in Montana. Honoring America’s co-equal branches of government and the checks and balances that support it has not been a priority for the Legislature, she said.
“They don’t seem to understand that, or they don’t care,” said Hedges, who is expected to testify during the trial. “I don’t know which one it is, but both are dangerous.”
A lack of access to navigators in rural locales to help Medicaid enrollees keep their coverage or find other insurance if they’re no longer eligible could exacerbate the difficulties rural residents face.
Three intervenors joined the ongoing litigation over House Bill 562 this week, arguing that the currently blocked law is critical to their plans to open specialized choice schools in their communities.
Nearly three months after a Montana Rail Link train derailed near Reed Point, releasing 419,000 pounds of asphalt into the Yellowstone River, state agencies began advising anglers this week not to eat any fish caught on a nearly 50-mile stretch of the river.
|
A beluga whale famously suspected of being a Russian-trained spy has migrated to the Swedish coast because he is lonely, according to a marine biologist.
- Hvaldimir was first spotted in 2019, and has been swimming along the Norway coast since
- His Russian-made harness led to a theory he was used for spying
- The whale has recently been spotted in Swedish waters
Nicknamed Hvaldimir, the male beluga was first spotted in 2019 off the coast of northern Norway wearing a tight harness with the words "property of St Petersburg" printed on it.
This week he was spotted off the coast of Sweden, raising concerns among scientists monitoring his movements and safety.
"The situation has changed and he has gone from Norway into Sweden, which has more populated areas, more boats and the warmer water," marine biologist Sebastian Strand told ABC Radio National.
"Fish stocks are probably lower so we are concerned about his ability to feed."
Dr Strand said the reason for his movements could be loneliness.
"His solitude has likely made him seek out human companionship more than he would had he the option of a pod of his kinsman," he said.
"Hvaldimir belongs to a very social species but he has very, very likely not met another beluga on his travels."
Hvaldimir has been swimming up and down the north coast of Norway for the past three years.
"The closet population of belugas is Svalbard off the coast of Norway, and it was hard to communicate to him he would have to turn right," Dr Strand said.
"But I'm confident he would really like to."
Is Hvaldimir really a spy?
Hvaldimir's harness quickly led to the theory that he was trained in a Russian military program and the harness could have been used to hold a camera to film strategic targets.
"Beluga whales can dive to incredible depths so that's what sparked that he was a spy and came with a camera harness to film Norway and all of its secrets," Dr Strand said.
But Dr Strand said he doesn't believe it.
"I think the likelihood of him being a Russian spy is near zero," he said.
"I think he's a very pleasant and wonderful whale that has escaped captivity."
If he was a spy, Hvaldimir wouldn't be the only animal used for, or suspected of, espionage.
In the 1960s, the US government used ravens, pigeons and cats to spy during the cold war.
The cat operation was supposedly called Acoustic Kitty and was run by the CIA.
In 2007, Iran captured 12 squirrels, accusing them of being equipped with espionage gear.
Last year, the US Naval Institute wrote that Russia had deployed trained dolphins during its invasion of Ukraine to protect a Black seas naval base.
As for the beluga, Dr Strand is hopeful a solution can be found soon.
Dr Strand's team at the OneWhale organisation has spent the past three years making sure the beluga stays away from the country's lucrative salmon farms and out of harm's way.
When he first appeared in 2019, unregulated tourism tours emerged, with people looking to catch a glimpse.
"The general sentiment is he would likely be very happy to be close to other beluga whales instead of humans as a substitute," he said.
"I've heard rumours people want to put him in zoo. We don't want him in captivity.
"He deserves a life of freedom and happiness."
|
<urn:uuid:b62437dc-b22f-4d27-a16d-cebb04a2cfe0>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510412.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20230928130936-20230928160936-00891.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9890609979629517,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.671875,
"token_count": 740,
"url": "https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-31/spy-whale-moves-to-sweden-because-hes-lonely/102414374"
}
|
A beluga whale famously suspected of being a Russian-trained spy has migrated to the Swedish coast because he is lonely, according to a marine biologist.
- Hvaldimir was first spotted in 2019, and has been swimming along the Norway coast since
- His Russian-made harness led to a theory he was used for spying
- The whale has recently been spotted in Swedish waters
Nicknamed Hvaldimir, the male beluga was first spotted in 2019 off the coast of northern Norway wearing a tight harness with the words "property of St Petersburg" printed on it.
This week he was spotted
|
off the coast of Sweden, raising concerns among scientists monitoring his movements and safety.
"The situation has changed and he has gone from Norway into Sweden, which has more populated areas, more boats and the warmer water," marine biologist Sebastian Strand told ABC Radio National.
"Fish stocks are probably lower so we are concerned about his ability to feed."
Dr Strand said the reason for his movements could be loneliness.
"His solitude has likely made him seek out human companionship more than he would had he the option of a pod of his kinsman," he said.
"Hvaldimir belongs to a very social species but he has very, very likely not met another beluga on his travels."
Hvaldimir has been swimming up and down the north coast of Norway for the past three years.
"The closet population of belugas is Svalbard off the coast of Norway, and it was hard to communicate to him he would have to turn right," Dr Strand said.
"But I'm confident he would really like to."
Is Hvaldimir really a spy?
Hvaldimir's harness quickly led to the theory that he was trained in a Russian military program and the harness could have been used to hold a camera to film strategic targets.
"Beluga whales can dive to incredible depths so that's what sparked that he was a spy and came with a camera harness to film Norway and all of its secrets," Dr Strand said.
But Dr Strand said he doesn't believe it.
"I think the likelihood of him being a Russian spy is near zero," he said.
"I think he's a very pleasant and wonderful whale that has escaped captivity."
If he was a spy, Hvaldimir wouldn't be the only animal used for, or suspected of, espionage.
In the 1960s, the US government used ravens, pigeons and cats to spy during the cold war.
The cat operation was supposedly called Acoustic Kitty and was run by the CIA.
In 2007, Iran captured 12 squirrels, accusing them of being equipped with espionage gear.
Last year, the US Naval Institute wrote that Russia had deployed trained dolphins during its invasion of Ukraine to protect a Black seas naval base.
As for the beluga, Dr Strand is hopeful a solution can be found soon.
Dr Strand's team at the OneWhale organisation has spent the past three years making sure the beluga stays away from the country's lucrative salmon farms and out of harm's way.
When he first appeared in 2019, unregulated tourism tours emerged, with people looking to catch a glimpse.
"The general sentiment is he would likely be very happy to be close to other beluga whales instead of humans as a substitute," he said.
"I've heard rumours people want to put him in zoo. We don't want him in captivity.
"He deserves a life of freedom and happiness."
|
Sign up for CNN’s Life, But Greener newsletter. Our limited newsletter series guides you on how to minimize your personal role in the climate crisis — and reduce your eco-anxiety.
A tough, bell-shaped fungus that grows on the rotting bark of trees has been used as a fire starter for centuries, earning it the nickname “tinder fungus.”
Now, researchers are taking a closer look at the molecular structure of this oddly powerful organism — and they’ve found that it could hold the secrets to replacing some types of plastics.
Parts of the fungus, formally called Fomes fomentarius, were found to have similar structural strength to plywood or leather but at a lower weight, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.
“F. fomentarius fruiting bodies are ingeniously lightweight biological designs, simple in composition but efficient in performance,” the study noted. “Growing the material using simple ingredients is an alternative solution to overcome the cost, time, mass production, and sustainability of how we make and consume materials in the future.”
What makes F. fomentarius so strong
Humans have long used F. fomentarius — also sometimes called “hoof fungus” because of its visual resemblance to a horse’s hoof — harvested in the wild to feed fires. It’s also been used to create some clothing items, including hats. But the fungus has only recently piqued the interest of the scientific community, according to the study.
Researchers at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland sought to analyze the internal structure of F. fomentarius more in depth, getting a glimpse of the microstructures that give the fungus its uniquely strong yet lightweight consistency. What they found was extremely promising, said study coauthor Dr. Pezhman Mohammadi, a senior scientist at VTT.
The fungus has structural integrity similar to certain grades of plastic and could be used to replace shock-absorbing materials used in things like football helmets and other sporting equipment; heat and sound insulators; and even consumer product parts, such as headset parts, Mohammadi said via email.
F. fomentarius “has a very stiff and hard protective outer layer, has softer spongy mid-layer, and a strong and tough inner layer each (of which) could outperform a different class of man-made and natural materials,” Mohammadi added.
Potential use of F. fomentarius
The researchers are not suggesting that tinder fungus should be harvested from the wild and funneled into the industrial process. That wouldn’t be economically viable, Mohammadi noted, and F. fomentarius takes seven to 10 years to grow to a significant size. The fungus, which is very common across the Northern Hemisphere, also plays a crucial role in its ecosystem, blooming on the bark of rotting beech and birch trees to aid the decomposition process.
But researchers have made promising steps toward growing the fungus or a similar species in a lab environment, Mohammadi said.
“With the advances in industrial biotechnology, we forecast the production of Metric Tons in a matter of weeks in contrast to wild-type mushrooms that take years to grow,” Mohammadi wrote in an email. “For example in our research institute, we have 1000-liter pilot scale bioreactors where this could be carried out.
“However, like any starting technology, it would take some years of R&D to be realized fully.”
|
<urn:uuid:09c27a0d-dcb6-4513-b563-d4ea9b40e4c3>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233506632.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20230924091344-20230924121344-00036.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9357775449752808,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3,
"token_count": 753,
"url": "https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/22/world/fungus-replace-plastics-study-scn/index.html"
}
|
Sign up for CNN’s Life, But Greener newsletter. Our limited newsletter series guides you on how to minimize your personal role in the climate crisis — and reduce your eco-anxiety.
A tough, bell-shaped fungus that grows on the rotting bark of trees has been used as a fire starter for centuries, earning it the nickname “tinder fungus.”
Now, researchers are taking a closer look at the molecular structure of this oddly powerful organism — and they’ve found that it could hold the secrets to replacing some types of plastics.
Parts of the fungus, formally called Fomes fomentarius, were found to have similar structural strength to ply
|
wood or leather but at a lower weight, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.
“F. fomentarius fruiting bodies are ingeniously lightweight biological designs, simple in composition but efficient in performance,” the study noted. “Growing the material using simple ingredients is an alternative solution to overcome the cost, time, mass production, and sustainability of how we make and consume materials in the future.”
What makes F. fomentarius so strong
Humans have long used F. fomentarius — also sometimes called “hoof fungus” because of its visual resemblance to a horse’s hoof — harvested in the wild to feed fires. It’s also been used to create some clothing items, including hats. But the fungus has only recently piqued the interest of the scientific community, according to the study.
Researchers at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland sought to analyze the internal structure of F. fomentarius more in depth, getting a glimpse of the microstructures that give the fungus its uniquely strong yet lightweight consistency. What they found was extremely promising, said study coauthor Dr. Pezhman Mohammadi, a senior scientist at VTT.
The fungus has structural integrity similar to certain grades of plastic and could be used to replace shock-absorbing materials used in things like football helmets and other sporting equipment; heat and sound insulators; and even consumer product parts, such as headset parts, Mohammadi said via email.
F. fomentarius “has a very stiff and hard protective outer layer, has softer spongy mid-layer, and a strong and tough inner layer each (of which) could outperform a different class of man-made and natural materials,” Mohammadi added.
Potential use of F. fomentarius
The researchers are not suggesting that tinder fungus should be harvested from the wild and funneled into the industrial process. That wouldn’t be economically viable, Mohammadi noted, and F. fomentarius takes seven to 10 years to grow to a significant size. The fungus, which is very common across the Northern Hemisphere, also plays a crucial role in its ecosystem, blooming on the bark of rotting beech and birch trees to aid the decomposition process.
But researchers have made promising steps toward growing the fungus or a similar species in a lab environment, Mohammadi said.
“With the advances in industrial biotechnology, we forecast the production of Metric Tons in a matter of weeks in contrast to wild-type mushrooms that take years to grow,” Mohammadi wrote in an email. “For example in our research institute, we have 1000-liter pilot scale bioreactors where this could be carried out.
“However, like any starting technology, it would take some years of R&D to be realized fully.”
|
How pickup trucks became so imposing
Sales of huge pickups are sustaining carmakers, bringing in record profits — yet pedestrian and road safety advocates say today's massive trucks are a hazard, given their size, weight, and driver blind spots.
- In a new Axios Visuals special project, we looked back over the past 50 years to examine the societal and lifestyle changes behind pickups' ever-increasing size.
Driving the news: America has a unique love affair with pickup trucks — the Ford F-150 has been the best-selling vehicle in the U.S. for more than 40 years. But during that time, pickups have become bigger, bulkier, and more high-tech.
- In the 1980s, about half of pickup trucks were categorized as small or midsize. But by the 2010s, small pickups had nearly vanished as Americans increasingly bought into the big truck lifestyle.
- As pickups transitioned from workhorses to lifestyle vehicles, their design shifted accordingly: Cabs expanded to accommodate more passengers, while beds shrank.
- The first generation of F-150s was 36% cab and 64% bed by length. By 2021, the ratio flipped, with 63% cab and 37% bed.
Between the lines: Survey data from vehicle research firm Strategic Vision shows a third of today’s pickup owners rarely or never use their truck for hauling, while two-thirds rarely or never use it for towing.
- Instead, experts say, much of the big pickup mania is being driven by consumers' self-image.
- "Today, personality and imagery are playing an even more important role in how consumers choose which truck is right for them," Strategic Vision researcher Alexander Edwards told Axios.
- The firm surveys owners each year about the character traits they associate with their vehicle. Two words set F-150 owners apart: “powerful” and “rugged.”
Yes, but: One result of supersized trucks: greater risks to pedestrians and other drivers.
- Drivers of today’s trucks sit much higher, creating a blind spot where small children or wheelchair users are hidden from view.
- Moreover, pickups’ weight increased by 32% between 1990 and 2021, meaning they strike pedestrians with more force.
- Plus, the tall front of a truck strikes pedestrians in the torso or head — home to vital organs — whereas the lower hoods of cars typically strike pedestrians in the legs.
- Pickups also tend to be more dangerous in collisions between differently sized vehicles — car drivers are 2.5 times more likely to die when colliding with a pickup as compared to another car, per a 2019 study.
The other side: Ford says "safety is a top priority," and points to safety-related technologies such as pedestrian detection sensors, automatic emergency braking, 360-degree cameras, and more, some of which now come standard.
- Other pickup manufacturers have added similar features.
- The 2022 F-150 earned a "top safety pick" rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, and earned "good" or "superior" ratings in various crash tests, including those with other vehicles, and with child and adult pedestrians.
What's next: While they’ve probably maxed out in terms of size, pickup trucks are still evolving to keep up with Americans’ changing lifestyles.
- And now that they're going electric, many offer capabilities and bonus features that aren’t available from gasoline or diesel trucks, like better torque and faster acceleration, and the ability to power a worksite, campsite, or tailgate party without burning gasoline.
Methodology: Data on U.S. truck sales comes from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. All survey data, including truck usage and imagery data, is from the Strategic Vision New Vehicle Experience Study. Data on collision death rates and curb weights are from Monfort and Nolan (2019). Trends in aggressivity and driver risk for cars, SUVs, and pickups: Vehicle incompatibility from 1989 to 2016. Traffic Injury Prevention. 3D models were licensed from Ford through TurboSquid.
|
<urn:uuid:c87234d0-e8e1-44a0-96d5-15cac5a68b3c>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2024-10",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947475825.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20240302120344-20240302150344-00859.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9570945501327515,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.640625,
"token_count": 844,
"url": "https://www.axios.com/2023/01/23/pickup-trucks-f150-size-weight-safety"
}
|
How pickup trucks became so imposing
Sales of huge pickups are sustaining carmakers, bringing in record profits — yet pedestrian and road safety advocates say today's massive trucks are a hazard, given their size, weight, and driver blind spots.
- In a new Axios Visuals special project, we looked back over the past 50 years to examine the societal and lifestyle changes behind pickups' ever-increasing size.
Driving the news: America has a unique love affair with pickup trucks — the Ford F-150 has been the best-selling vehicle in the U.S. for more than 40 years. But during
|
that time, pickups have become bigger, bulkier, and more high-tech.
- In the 1980s, about half of pickup trucks were categorized as small or midsize. But by the 2010s, small pickups had nearly vanished as Americans increasingly bought into the big truck lifestyle.
- As pickups transitioned from workhorses to lifestyle vehicles, their design shifted accordingly: Cabs expanded to accommodate more passengers, while beds shrank.
- The first generation of F-150s was 36% cab and 64% bed by length. By 2021, the ratio flipped, with 63% cab and 37% bed.
Between the lines: Survey data from vehicle research firm Strategic Vision shows a third of today’s pickup owners rarely or never use their truck for hauling, while two-thirds rarely or never use it for towing.
- Instead, experts say, much of the big pickup mania is being driven by consumers' self-image.
- "Today, personality and imagery are playing an even more important role in how consumers choose which truck is right for them," Strategic Vision researcher Alexander Edwards told Axios.
- The firm surveys owners each year about the character traits they associate with their vehicle. Two words set F-150 owners apart: “powerful” and “rugged.”
Yes, but: One result of supersized trucks: greater risks to pedestrians and other drivers.
- Drivers of today’s trucks sit much higher, creating a blind spot where small children or wheelchair users are hidden from view.
- Moreover, pickups’ weight increased by 32% between 1990 and 2021, meaning they strike pedestrians with more force.
- Plus, the tall front of a truck strikes pedestrians in the torso or head — home to vital organs — whereas the lower hoods of cars typically strike pedestrians in the legs.
- Pickups also tend to be more dangerous in collisions between differently sized vehicles — car drivers are 2.5 times more likely to die when colliding with a pickup as compared to another car, per a 2019 study.
The other side: Ford says "safety is a top priority," and points to safety-related technologies such as pedestrian detection sensors, automatic emergency braking, 360-degree cameras, and more, some of which now come standard.
- Other pickup manufacturers have added similar features.
- The 2022 F-150 earned a "top safety pick" rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, and earned "good" or "superior" ratings in various crash tests, including those with other vehicles, and with child and adult pedestrians.
What's next: While they’ve probably maxed out in terms of size, pickup trucks are still evolving to keep up with Americans’ changing lifestyles.
- And now that they're going electric, many offer capabilities and bonus features that aren’t available from gasoline or diesel trucks, like better torque and faster acceleration, and the ability to power a worksite, campsite, or tailgate party without burning gasoline.
Methodology: Data on U.S. truck sales comes from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. All survey data, including truck usage and imagery data, is from the Strategic Vision New Vehicle Experience Study. Data on collision death rates and curb weights are from Monfort and Nolan (2019). Trends in aggressivity and driver risk for cars, SUVs, and pickups: Vehicle incompatibility from 1989 to 2016. Traffic Injury Prevention. 3D models were licensed from Ford through TurboSquid.
|
Barely six months after the invasive spotted lanternfly had been found in Loudoun County, it’s now made its way into neighboring Fairfax County and been found at 11 spots, including on private property and at public parks.
For humans, the lanternfly isn’t dangerous. It doesn’t bite and it’s not poisonous. It’s just messy, excreting a sugary liquid called honeydew that leaves a sticky residue when it lands on trees, plants, cars and patios.
“They’re mostly a gross mess,” said Rachel Habig-Myers, an urban forester for Fairfax County’s Department of Public Works and Environmental Services.
The honeydew is harmful to grapevines, bees and fruit crops because it triggers the growth of a black mold that stops sunlight from getting to plant leaves, hindering photosynthesis, scientists said. Grapes polluted by honeydew typically can’t be used for making wine. And bees that feed on honeydew make a dark honey that has a smoky, earthy flavor that doesn’t taste good.
The effort to tackle the lanternfly in Fairfax is funded by the county, the local park authority and a $20,000 grant from the Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation.
Experts are focusing on getting rid of the insect’s favored host, the tree of heaven, by cutting it down and using herbicide to kill it.
Because the lanternfly can travel three to four miles, an infestation can spread far, experts said.
Habig-Myers said that while there’s not a large lanternfly infestation in Fairfax yet, “it starts with one and then the population builds … it can become a very large population of insects at once.”
Native to Asia, the spotted lanternfly was found in Berks County in Pennsylvania in 2014, probably having hopped aboard a shipment of stone to reach its new home. It has since spread along the Northeast, Midwest and Mid-Atlantic region, including Delaware and Maryland.
While the lanternfly prefers the tree of heaven, it’s also known to feed on more than 70 types of trees and plants, including willows and maples.
They reproduce fast. A female typically lays eggs from September through December on tree bark, rocks or lawn furniture. She lays up to two egg masses at a time, which look like patches of dried mud, and each mass can hold about 30 to 50 eggs.
When they hatch, the tiny lanternflies are black and white. By midsummer, they typically develop the spotted wings on their backs, and they tend to die off by Thanksgiving or when the first hard freeze hits.
There are few lanternfly predators other than praying mantises, which can’t keep the invasive insects in check if the population gets too big.
Fairfax park officials said they want to keep the lanternfly population from growing because too many insects could dissuade the public from coming to recreation areas, playgrounds, pools and picnic shelters. The loss of park entry fees would be an economic blow, according to John Burke, the natural resources branch manager for the Fairfax County Park Authority.
“For the last half of the summer, it could be rainy sticky honeydew in isolated situations,” Habig-Myers said.
County park officials said they chose Laurel Hill and Blake Lane because they have a high density of trees of heaven, so they hope that by eliminating the insects’ favored host it will decrease the insects presence, too. Some of the trees they’re taking down will be replaced with oaks, dogwoods and other trees, park officials said.
Still, experts warn that the public should get used to seeing spotted lanternflies.
“There’s promising work being done on a fungus that may kill them all,” Habig-Myers said, “but we anticipate the mess of them being here for a few years and don’t expect to them to go away forever.”
If someone sees a lanternfly in Fairfax, they can report it by sending an email to <email-pii> or calling 703-324-5304. Visit the county’s website for more details.
|
<urn:uuid:6ca01c1a-178a-4892-893c-180d4f2f0c0a>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-14",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296945472.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20230326111045-20230326141045-00205.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.942290186882019,
"pii_count": 1,
"score": 2.828125,
"token_count": 895,
"url": "https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/02/01/spotted-lanternfly-fairfax-invasive-insect/"
}
|
Barely six months after the invasive spotted lanternfly had been found in Loudoun County, it’s now made its way into neighboring Fairfax County and been found at 11 spots, including on private property and at public parks.
For humans, the lanternfly isn’t dangerous. It doesn’t bite and it’s not poisonous. It’s just messy, excreting a sugary liquid called honeydew that leaves a sticky residue when it lands on trees, plants, cars and patios.
“They’re mostly a gross mess,” said Rachel Habig-Myers, an urban forester for Fairfax County’s Department
|
of Public Works and Environmental Services.
The honeydew is harmful to grapevines, bees and fruit crops because it triggers the growth of a black mold that stops sunlight from getting to plant leaves, hindering photosynthesis, scientists said. Grapes polluted by honeydew typically can’t be used for making wine. And bees that feed on honeydew make a dark honey that has a smoky, earthy flavor that doesn’t taste good.
The effort to tackle the lanternfly in Fairfax is funded by the county, the local park authority and a $20,000 grant from the Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation.
Experts are focusing on getting rid of the insect’s favored host, the tree of heaven, by cutting it down and using herbicide to kill it.
Because the lanternfly can travel three to four miles, an infestation can spread far, experts said.
Habig-Myers said that while there’s not a large lanternfly infestation in Fairfax yet, “it starts with one and then the population builds … it can become a very large population of insects at once.”
Native to Asia, the spotted lanternfly was found in Berks County in Pennsylvania in 2014, probably having hopped aboard a shipment of stone to reach its new home. It has since spread along the Northeast, Midwest and Mid-Atlantic region, including Delaware and Maryland.
While the lanternfly prefers the tree of heaven, it’s also known to feed on more than 70 types of trees and plants, including willows and maples.
They reproduce fast. A female typically lays eggs from September through December on tree bark, rocks or lawn furniture. She lays up to two egg masses at a time, which look like patches of dried mud, and each mass can hold about 30 to 50 eggs.
When they hatch, the tiny lanternflies are black and white. By midsummer, they typically develop the spotted wings on their backs, and they tend to die off by Thanksgiving or when the first hard freeze hits.
There are few lanternfly predators other than praying mantises, which can’t keep the invasive insects in check if the population gets too big.
Fairfax park officials said they want to keep the lanternfly population from growing because too many insects could dissuade the public from coming to recreation areas, playgrounds, pools and picnic shelters. The loss of park entry fees would be an economic blow, according to John Burke, the natural resources branch manager for the Fairfax County Park Authority.
“For the last half of the summer, it could be rainy sticky honeydew in isolated situations,” Habig-Myers said.
County park officials said they chose Laurel Hill and Blake Lane because they have a high density of trees of heaven, so they hope that by eliminating the insects’ favored host it will decrease the insects presence, too. Some of the trees they’re taking down will be replaced with oaks, dogwoods and other trees, park officials said.
Still, experts warn that the public should get used to seeing spotted lanternflies.
“There’s promising work being done on a fungus that may kill them all,” Habig-Myers said, “but we anticipate the mess of them being here for a few years and don’t expect to them to go away forever.”
If someone sees a lanternfly in Fairfax, they can report it by sending an email to <email-pii> or calling 703-324-5304. Visit the county’s website for more details.
|
Capturing wildlife in its natural habitat is all about being stealth.
“While the main wolfpack was out hunting, we were able to install remote cameras at locations that were far enough away from them that they didn’t disrupt their behavior at the den,” explains Anwar Mamon.
Mamon is the executive producer of the second season of America’s National Parks.
While season one of the series took viewers to iconic parks, including the Grand Canyon and Yosemite, the new episodes highlight several lesser-known parks, including Biscayne National Park, the Channel Islands, Lake Clark, Voyageurs, and Grand Teton, moving through areas including Wyoming, Miami, Alaska, Minnesota, and California.
Explaining the selection of which parks to feature this season, Mamon says, “We saw this as an opportunity to select the parks very carefully, and we were very keen to shine a light on the parks that people don’t often mention because America has huge amounts of biodiversity within each park.”
He points to an example of this, explaining, “Often there are unique species within a park, such as the Channel Islands, where there’s a fox that is only found on within that park.”
In that episode, to capture the fox, the production team employed a silent drone, just one of the types of technology used to get viewers close to the animals without invading their habitat.
“We used whatever technology is needed to elevate the storytelling. So, there are lots of different techniques that we’ve revolutionized to do this. Drones and remote cameras are obviously equipment that we use, but then there are some unique situations that we had to really figure out how to capture.”
One such occasion, says Mamon, was used when, “we really wanted to film this stress response from coral, which produces this kind of sunscreen in response to warming temperatures, and at night it glows in a florescent way. So the challenge became, ‘how do we do that?’ What we did was to create an ultraviolet rig with some special camera lighting to show this incredible thing that comes alive at night that you’d never normally be able to see.”
He says that the team had to come up with another technological innovation while shooting at Lake Clark National Park. “We used was robotic arm motion control time lapse to take us into the undergrowth.”
The purpose of this, explains Mamon, is to “make those natural worlds that we wouldn't be able to experience because they work on a different timeline or something else, come alive so that they can be seen. That’s the main reason that we use technology in this series.”
However, Mamon and his team are extremely careful not to interfere with the wildfire subjects that they’re filming.
“We have a code of ethics and the most important thing is that animal welfare comes first,” he says. “Crucially, we want to show the audience the natural world, but we never want to disrupt animal behavior.”
To that end, the production team worked not only with the parks service but with scientists, park rangers, and those with indigenous knowledge, all in an effort to ensure that the locations and animals were treated with respect.
But, even with all of the care taken, it can still be tricky to not alert the animals, like those aforementioned wolves.
As Mamon explains, “Wolves have incredible senses of smell, they'll know something's been around.”
So how did the crew get those cameras in there without the wolves knowing, even with the pack off on a hunt? “These filmmakers are unique in their skillset,” says Mamon. “They know how to calculate that direction of the wind and leave no marks. It’s really all about making sure that you're not bringing too many artificial scents into their world.”
But even with these measures, Mamon says that wolves are still keenly aware that the cameras are there. “The thing is the remote cameras are non-threatening because they’re not big and they don’t make loud noises — they’re very discreet — so the wolves accept those things in their territory.”
Mamon says that one guiding principle in making the series is that, “we wanted all of this to feel like a love letter to the parks. We wanted people to know what's potentially on their doorstep. “
He adds that, personally, “I’d like people to recognize how special the parks are but also to recognize how vulnerable they are. We've got a few stories within the series about animals that migrate from national parks all over America and those stories are important because what I hope the audience takes away is that it's all about how you look after your backyard, because if that's in good shape, that will help migrating animals and also will help these massive national park ecosystems.”
Each installment shows, that each of those parks has their own unique story to tell, says Mamon. “I think we're very lucky to be at a point in history where I think the pandemic taught us how important the natural world is; how important it is to get out there in nature, and I believe that this comes across in this series.”
‘America’s National Parks’ airs on Nat Geo and is available for streaming on Disney+.
|
<urn:uuid:8a8bbc89-0938-4671-9a67-0ed8e67728fd>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510368.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20230928063033-20230928093033-00391.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9743809700012207,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.71875,
"token_count": 1148,
"url": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/anneeaston/2023/06/10/nat-geos-americas-national-parks-highlights-creatures-inhabiting-lesser-known-areas-of-the-us/"
}
|
Capturing wildlife in its natural habitat is all about being stealth.
“While the main wolfpack was out hunting, we were able to install remote cameras at locations that were far enough away from them that they didn’t disrupt their behavior at the den,” explains Anwar Mamon.
Mamon is the executive producer of the second season of America’s National Parks.
While season one of the series took viewers to iconic parks, including the Grand Canyon and Yosemite, the new episodes highlight several lesser-known parks, including Biscayne National Park, the Channel Islands, Lake Clark, Voyageurs, and Grand Teton,
|
moving through areas including Wyoming, Miami, Alaska, Minnesota, and California.
Explaining the selection of which parks to feature this season, Mamon says, “We saw this as an opportunity to select the parks very carefully, and we were very keen to shine a light on the parks that people don’t often mention because America has huge amounts of biodiversity within each park.”
He points to an example of this, explaining, “Often there are unique species within a park, such as the Channel Islands, where there’s a fox that is only found on within that park.”
In that episode, to capture the fox, the production team employed a silent drone, just one of the types of technology used to get viewers close to the animals without invading their habitat.
“We used whatever technology is needed to elevate the storytelling. So, there are lots of different techniques that we’ve revolutionized to do this. Drones and remote cameras are obviously equipment that we use, but then there are some unique situations that we had to really figure out how to capture.”
One such occasion, says Mamon, was used when, “we really wanted to film this stress response from coral, which produces this kind of sunscreen in response to warming temperatures, and at night it glows in a florescent way. So the challenge became, ‘how do we do that?’ What we did was to create an ultraviolet rig with some special camera lighting to show this incredible thing that comes alive at night that you’d never normally be able to see.”
He says that the team had to come up with another technological innovation while shooting at Lake Clark National Park. “We used was robotic arm motion control time lapse to take us into the undergrowth.”
The purpose of this, explains Mamon, is to “make those natural worlds that we wouldn't be able to experience because they work on a different timeline or something else, come alive so that they can be seen. That’s the main reason that we use technology in this series.”
However, Mamon and his team are extremely careful not to interfere with the wildfire subjects that they’re filming.
“We have a code of ethics and the most important thing is that animal welfare comes first,” he says. “Crucially, we want to show the audience the natural world, but we never want to disrupt animal behavior.”
To that end, the production team worked not only with the parks service but with scientists, park rangers, and those with indigenous knowledge, all in an effort to ensure that the locations and animals were treated with respect.
But, even with all of the care taken, it can still be tricky to not alert the animals, like those aforementioned wolves.
As Mamon explains, “Wolves have incredible senses of smell, they'll know something's been around.”
So how did the crew get those cameras in there without the wolves knowing, even with the pack off on a hunt? “These filmmakers are unique in their skillset,” says Mamon. “They know how to calculate that direction of the wind and leave no marks. It’s really all about making sure that you're not bringing too many artificial scents into their world.”
But even with these measures, Mamon says that wolves are still keenly aware that the cameras are there. “The thing is the remote cameras are non-threatening because they’re not big and they don’t make loud noises — they’re very discreet — so the wolves accept those things in their territory.”
Mamon says that one guiding principle in making the series is that, “we wanted all of this to feel like a love letter to the parks. We wanted people to know what's potentially on their doorstep. “
He adds that, personally, “I’d like people to recognize how special the parks are but also to recognize how vulnerable they are. We've got a few stories within the series about animals that migrate from national parks all over America and those stories are important because what I hope the audience takes away is that it's all about how you look after your backyard, because if that's in good shape, that will help migrating animals and also will help these massive national park ecosystems.”
Each installment shows, that each of those parks has their own unique story to tell, says Mamon. “I think we're very lucky to be at a point in history where I think the pandemic taught us how important the natural world is; how important it is to get out there in nature, and I believe that this comes across in this series.”
‘America’s National Parks’ airs on Nat Geo and is available for streaming on Disney+.
|
By Jesse Bedayn, The Associated Press/Report for America
From Colorado’s high desert to the wooded hills of Pennsylvania, millions of oil and gas wells sit deserted, plunging thousands of feet into the earth. Many haven’t been plugged, some leak greenhouse gases.
In Colorado, lawmakers are considering a solution that would give these wells a new, redemptive purpose: deep receptacles to trap carbon for millennia.
The idea is to keep carbon locked away in a special type of charcoal known as biochar, which is made by burning organic matter at high heat and low oxygen. The substance could be used to fill defunct oil and gas wells. Proponents say biochar would not only filter dangerous gas leaks but also stop that carbon from forming carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.
Colorado lawmakers gave initial approval Thursday for a study to assess whether biochar would work to plug defunct wells.
If successful, experts say that sinking biochar into a portion of the over 3 million abandoned oil wells nationwide could help tackle climate change — estimates range from keeping millions to billions of tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
Still, the idea is relatively new and a number of feasibility questions remain. The study would direct Colorado State University to review research and run new tests to determine, in part, the efficacy of biochar in filtering gases and sequestering carbon as well as the technical feasibility of using it to plug oil and gas wells.
Carbon naturally cycles through Earth’s ecosystems, floating in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide before being snatched up by little bluestem grasses, ingested by grazing bison on the prairie, and when the animal keels over and begins decomposing, returning to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.
But extracting fossil fuels has unearthed carbon — formed out of ancient plant matter over eons — that’s been stored underground largely since the Mesozoic Era, the age of dinosaurs over 65 million years ago.
“Where we need to focus is: How do we not only stop putting excess carbon into the cycle but can we take measures to take carbon out of the cycle permanently?” said Rep. Karen McCormick, a Longmont Democrat and one of the bill’s sponsors. “That’s where I see biochar having a great benefit.”
North of Denver in the small town of Berthoud, one company already makes biochar. On a recent day at Biochar Now’s facility, a tractor drove across the muddy yard, its bucket holding shards of wood bound for a new life as biochar.
Nearby, dead logs were stacked in neat piles. They were likely either killed by invasive beetles in Rocky Mountain forests or were casualties of a 2021 wildfire near Boulder, the most destructive in state history.
What they have in common, said James Gaspard, the company’s co-founder, is that they’d otherwise be doomed to rot or burn, releasing carbon dioxide. Instead, the wood debris is loaded into large kilns, where the heat burns at three times the temperature of fire and the oxygen is sucked from the chamber in a process called pyrolysis. What’s left is biochar.
The substance has a carbon structure closer to a diamond, said Jim Ippolito, a professor at Colorado State University. While diamonds might last forever, biochar isn’t far behind and can keep the carbon inert — unable to form carbon dioxide — for centuries if not millennia. Unlike a decomposing bison, biochar pulls carbon out of the earth’s carbon cycle.
Biochar is lightweight — like popcorn — and porous like a sponge, which is why it already has an international market. From Colorado, Biochar Now ships bags of the substance internationally for deployment as a filter at wastewater treatment plants, in soil to retain nutrients and in streams to pull out pollutants.
That’s partly why it’s being proposed to plug oil and gas wells. It could help absorb dangerous gases such as methane that seep from abandoned shafts. The plugging process includes pouring concrete at certain points in the well and can include stuffing the remaining space with a combination of fillers like sand, gravel or clay.
The Colorado study will determine if biochar could make up a portion of the slurry pumped into wells, and if it could be used as an ingredient in the concrete that’s poured as the plug.
Colorado’s oil and gas industry association said it “looks forward” to working with McCormick in finding the best use for biochar.
If passed, the measure would let scientists take a key step forward in assessing whether biochar in wells is a viable form of carbon sequestration.
“That’s what we need to prove, back this up with hard data, so that we can say: ‘Hey Louisiana, hey Mississippi, hey Texas, you can see what we are doing here,’” McCormick said.
|
<urn:uuid:7981578e-5f54-4ee1-80d6-16b010a654e1>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510924.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20231001173415-20231001203415-00678.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9424231648445129,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.0625,
"token_count": 1033,
"url": "https://coloradosun.com/2023/02/20/biochar-colorado-abandonded-oil-gas-wells/"
}
|
By Jesse Bedayn, The Associated Press/Report for America
From Colorado’s high desert to the wooded hills of Pennsylvania, millions of oil and gas wells sit deserted, plunging thousands of feet into the earth. Many haven’t been plugged, some leak greenhouse gases.
In Colorado, lawmakers are considering a solution that would give these wells a new, redemptive purpose: deep receptacles to trap carbon for millennia.
The idea is to keep carbon locked away in a special type of charcoal known as biochar, which is made by burning organic matter at high heat and low oxygen. The substance could be used to fill
|
defunct oil and gas wells. Proponents say biochar would not only filter dangerous gas leaks but also stop that carbon from forming carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.
Colorado lawmakers gave initial approval Thursday for a study to assess whether biochar would work to plug defunct wells.
If successful, experts say that sinking biochar into a portion of the over 3 million abandoned oil wells nationwide could help tackle climate change — estimates range from keeping millions to billions of tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
Still, the idea is relatively new and a number of feasibility questions remain. The study would direct Colorado State University to review research and run new tests to determine, in part, the efficacy of biochar in filtering gases and sequestering carbon as well as the technical feasibility of using it to plug oil and gas wells.
Carbon naturally cycles through Earth’s ecosystems, floating in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide before being snatched up by little bluestem grasses, ingested by grazing bison on the prairie, and when the animal keels over and begins decomposing, returning to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.
But extracting fossil fuels has unearthed carbon — formed out of ancient plant matter over eons — that’s been stored underground largely since the Mesozoic Era, the age of dinosaurs over 65 million years ago.
“Where we need to focus is: How do we not only stop putting excess carbon into the cycle but can we take measures to take carbon out of the cycle permanently?” said Rep. Karen McCormick, a Longmont Democrat and one of the bill’s sponsors. “That’s where I see biochar having a great benefit.”
North of Denver in the small town of Berthoud, one company already makes biochar. On a recent day at Biochar Now’s facility, a tractor drove across the muddy yard, its bucket holding shards of wood bound for a new life as biochar.
Nearby, dead logs were stacked in neat piles. They were likely either killed by invasive beetles in Rocky Mountain forests or were casualties of a 2021 wildfire near Boulder, the most destructive in state history.
What they have in common, said James Gaspard, the company’s co-founder, is that they’d otherwise be doomed to rot or burn, releasing carbon dioxide. Instead, the wood debris is loaded into large kilns, where the heat burns at three times the temperature of fire and the oxygen is sucked from the chamber in a process called pyrolysis. What’s left is biochar.
The substance has a carbon structure closer to a diamond, said Jim Ippolito, a professor at Colorado State University. While diamonds might last forever, biochar isn’t far behind and can keep the carbon inert — unable to form carbon dioxide — for centuries if not millennia. Unlike a decomposing bison, biochar pulls carbon out of the earth’s carbon cycle.
Biochar is lightweight — like popcorn — and porous like a sponge, which is why it already has an international market. From Colorado, Biochar Now ships bags of the substance internationally for deployment as a filter at wastewater treatment plants, in soil to retain nutrients and in streams to pull out pollutants.
That’s partly why it’s being proposed to plug oil and gas wells. It could help absorb dangerous gases such as methane that seep from abandoned shafts. The plugging process includes pouring concrete at certain points in the well and can include stuffing the remaining space with a combination of fillers like sand, gravel or clay.
The Colorado study will determine if biochar could make up a portion of the slurry pumped into wells, and if it could be used as an ingredient in the concrete that’s poured as the plug.
Colorado’s oil and gas industry association said it “looks forward” to working with McCormick in finding the best use for biochar.
If passed, the measure would let scientists take a key step forward in assessing whether biochar in wells is a viable form of carbon sequestration.
“That’s what we need to prove, back this up with hard data, so that we can say: ‘Hey Louisiana, hey Mississippi, hey Texas, you can see what we are doing here,’” McCormick said.
|
(Reuters) – North Korea has said that detained U.S. soldier Travis King, who is Black, complained about mistreatment and racial discrimination in his country and the military.
The United States has acknowledged challenges of racism and a lack of diversity in its armed forces over the course of history. The following are answers to some questions about diversity in the military:
WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF RACIAL MINORITIES IN THE U.S. MILITARY?
The military has long argued the need for a well trained, cohesive and racially diverse force that reflects the make up of the United States.
During the U.S. Civil War, the military created the “United States Colored Troops” that mostly consisted of African- American troops.
During World War Two, more than one-and-a-half million African-Americans served in the military, from the Pacific to Europe.
But there was still widespread discrimination and Black troops were only accepted if there were openings at training bases designated for their “racial category”.
Predominantly African-American units distinguished themselves in combat in both World Wars, among them the Harlem Hellfighters, a New York-based infantry regiment that was one of the most decorated American units in World War One and the Tuskeegee Airmen, African-American fighter pilots who flew dangerous missions over Europe during World War Two. Another highly decorated infantry unit was comprised of second-generation Japanese American volunteers.
In 1948, President Harry Truman signed an executive order banning the segregation in the military. While there was significant resistance to the order from the military, it was largely integrated after the end of the 1950-53 Korean war, according to the National Archives.
WHAT IS THE MAKE-UP OF THE MILITARY NOW?
About 20% of the U.S. military is African-American and overall 40 percent are people of color.
Although the military is diverse in lower ranks, it is largely white and male at the top. As of 2021, only two of 41 four star generals and admirals were Black. And some parts of the military, including specialized jobs, such as pilots, have a stark lack of diversity.
A Reuters investigation in 2020 found deep skepticism about whether coming forward with credible allegations of discrimination in the military will be beneficial.
Nearly a third of Black U.S. military servicemembers reported experiencing racial discrimination, harassment or both during a 12-month period, according to 2017 results of a long-withheld Defense Department survey that underscore concerns about racism in the ranks.
WHAT IS THE MILITARY DOING ABOUT IT?
Despite the lack of diversity in the military’s leadership, the Pentagon will soon have a Black defense secretary and top general for the first time.
General Charles Q. Brown, the chief of the U.S. Air Force, is expected to be confirmed by the Senate to be the next chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff. Lloyd Austin, a retired Army general, became the first Black defense secretary in January 2021 when President Joe Biden picked him.
Last year, a commission created by Congress recommended new names for nine bases that honored Confederate officers. It was part of the military’s decision to re-examine its history through the lens of race following nationwide protests over the 2020 police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black civilian.
But officials acknowledge more needs to be done.
A 2023 Government Accountability Office report said that the representation of women and employees from historically disadvantaged racial or ethnic groups in the Pentagon’s civilian workforce remained unchanged over the past decade.
White extremism in the military has also started to receive more attention after current and former military servicemembers were found to have participated in the siege of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 2021, which was aimed at stopping the certification of Biden’s election victory over then-President Donald Trump.
“One of the key strengths of the American military is our diversity and fighting for a common cause and we must get better,” General Mark Milley, the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in 2021.
(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Grant McCool)
|
<urn:uuid:602a02de-0491-4ca8-afc7-7ddb0c87f731>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510529.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20230929222230-20230930012230-00597.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9641442894935608,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.53125,
"token_count": 868,
"url": "https://ec2-15-188-152-128.eu-west-3.compute.amazonaws.com/2023/08/16/factbox-north-korea-cites-race/"
}
|
(Reuters) – North Korea has said that detained U.S. soldier Travis King, who is Black, complained about mistreatment and racial discrimination in his country and the military.
The United States has acknowledged challenges of racism and a lack of diversity in its armed forces over the course of history. The following are answers to some questions about diversity in the military:
WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF RACIAL MINORITIES IN THE U.S. MILITARY?
The military has long argued the need for a well trained, cohesive and racially diverse force that reflects the make up of the United States.
During the U
|
.S. Civil War, the military created the “United States Colored Troops” that mostly consisted of African- American troops.
During World War Two, more than one-and-a-half million African-Americans served in the military, from the Pacific to Europe.
But there was still widespread discrimination and Black troops were only accepted if there were openings at training bases designated for their “racial category”.
Predominantly African-American units distinguished themselves in combat in both World Wars, among them the Harlem Hellfighters, a New York-based infantry regiment that was one of the most decorated American units in World War One and the Tuskeegee Airmen, African-American fighter pilots who flew dangerous missions over Europe during World War Two. Another highly decorated infantry unit was comprised of second-generation Japanese American volunteers.
In 1948, President Harry Truman signed an executive order banning the segregation in the military. While there was significant resistance to the order from the military, it was largely integrated after the end of the 1950-53 Korean war, according to the National Archives.
WHAT IS THE MAKE-UP OF THE MILITARY NOW?
About 20% of the U.S. military is African-American and overall 40 percent are people of color.
Although the military is diverse in lower ranks, it is largely white and male at the top. As of 2021, only two of 41 four star generals and admirals were Black. And some parts of the military, including specialized jobs, such as pilots, have a stark lack of diversity.
A Reuters investigation in 2020 found deep skepticism about whether coming forward with credible allegations of discrimination in the military will be beneficial.
Nearly a third of Black U.S. military servicemembers reported experiencing racial discrimination, harassment or both during a 12-month period, according to 2017 results of a long-withheld Defense Department survey that underscore concerns about racism in the ranks.
WHAT IS THE MILITARY DOING ABOUT IT?
Despite the lack of diversity in the military’s leadership, the Pentagon will soon have a Black defense secretary and top general for the first time.
General Charles Q. Brown, the chief of the U.S. Air Force, is expected to be confirmed by the Senate to be the next chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff. Lloyd Austin, a retired Army general, became the first Black defense secretary in January 2021 when President Joe Biden picked him.
Last year, a commission created by Congress recommended new names for nine bases that honored Confederate officers. It was part of the military’s decision to re-examine its history through the lens of race following nationwide protests over the 2020 police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black civilian.
But officials acknowledge more needs to be done.
A 2023 Government Accountability Office report said that the representation of women and employees from historically disadvantaged racial or ethnic groups in the Pentagon’s civilian workforce remained unchanged over the past decade.
White extremism in the military has also started to receive more attention after current and former military servicemembers were found to have participated in the siege of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 2021, which was aimed at stopping the certification of Biden’s election victory over then-President Donald Trump.
“One of the key strengths of the American military is our diversity and fighting for a common cause and we must get better,” General Mark Milley, the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in 2021.
(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Grant McCool)
|
New study recommends breast cancer screening age should be lowered for Black women
SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - A new international study is recommending Black women get screened for breast cancer earlier than some other health organizations recommend.
While Black women are less likely to get breast cancer compared to White women, they have a 40% higher chance of dying from breast cancer. That’s according to doctors here at Candler Hospital who also say it’s very important to get screenings as early as you can.
The U.S. preventative services task force recommends women get screened at age 50. A study by JAMA Network on 400,000-plus women recommends that the age be dropped down to 42 for Black women because of the increased death rate.
A radiologist says Telfair Pavilion at Candler hospital offers 3D mammograms, whole breast ultrasounds and breast MRIs.
She believes every woman should start getting screenings as early as 40 and even earlier, depending on their family history.
“We take these images to hopefully find breast cancers small and early before women are feeling these and so it’s overall a great study, increasing people’s knowledge, getting the word out there to hopefully help these women catch these cancers small and early,” said radiologist Jordan Dixon.
Because different breast screenings are so important, she says the FDA is making it mandatory that after a woman gets a mammogram she’s made aware of her breast density report, which could be vital in catching cancer earlier.
This was a measure the state of Georgia and South Carolina have been taking for years.
Copyright 2023 WTOC. All rights reserved.
|
<urn:uuid:4d86eceb-8c69-42f8-9493-ddefe43e70c5>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-23",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224645089.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20230530032334-20230530062334-00627.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9515292048454285,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.546875,
"token_count": 347,
"url": "https://www.walb.com/2023/04/21/new-study-recommends-breast-cancer-screening-age-should-be-lowered-black-women/"
}
|
New study recommends breast cancer screening age should be lowered for Black women
SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - A new international study is recommending Black women get screened for breast cancer earlier than some other health organizations recommend.
While Black women are less likely to get breast cancer compared to White women, they have a 40% higher chance of dying from breast cancer. That’s according to doctors here at Candler Hospital who also say it’s very important to get screenings as early as you can.
The U.S. preventative services task force recommends women get screened at age 50. A study
|
by JAMA Network on 400,000-plus women recommends that the age be dropped down to 42 for Black women because of the increased death rate.
A radiologist says Telfair Pavilion at Candler hospital offers 3D mammograms, whole breast ultrasounds and breast MRIs.
She believes every woman should start getting screenings as early as 40 and even earlier, depending on their family history.
“We take these images to hopefully find breast cancers small and early before women are feeling these and so it’s overall a great study, increasing people’s knowledge, getting the word out there to hopefully help these women catch these cancers small and early,” said radiologist Jordan Dixon.
Because different breast screenings are so important, she says the FDA is making it mandatory that after a woman gets a mammogram she’s made aware of her breast density report, which could be vital in catching cancer earlier.
This was a measure the state of Georgia and South Carolina have been taking for years.
Copyright 2023 WTOC. All rights reserved.
|
Want a healthy gut? Exposures in first year of life have long-lasting effects
When a baby is born, their gut microbiome — the bacteria, viruses, fungi, protists and other single-celled organisms that live in the intestines and the stomach — is quite similar to the next infant’s.
It’s not until they hit three months of age that gut bacteria begin to differ from one child to the next. And those differences often run along racial and ethnic lines. That’s according to a new study by Liz Mallott, an assistant professor of biology at Washington University.
“Something happens, either at three months or shortly after, where you do start to see a slight divergence in the gut microbiome between Black, white, Asian Pacific Islander kids, Hispanic and non-Hispanic kids,” she said. “The taxa that diverge are taxa we know we acquire from the environment. They aren't bacteria species that are inherited from your mom … so it really is something in the external environment that must be driving the change.”
Differences in gut microbiomes early in life can have a lasting effect. Poor gut health leaves people at risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, severe asthma or other lung illnesses.
“[Microbes] are also involved in regulating our blood sugar and our blood pressure. They can increase or decrease inflammation. And they also protect us from pathogens,” Mallott said.
Pinpointing when young kids develop unique gut bacteria is important because it helps researchers determine what social and environmental factors might cause such differences.
“There are things like exposure to pollution, whether or not a kid is in day care or is cared for by family members or has a nanny, the introduction of different foods early in life — all of those could be driving these differences,” Mallott said.
Uncovering specific environmental factors is the next major research question. For now, Mallott advises that parents of newborns and young children expose their kids to as many different situations — and yes, germs — as possible.
“It sounds cliché, but [make] sure your child gets a lot of time outside, playing in the dirt so they're exposed to a lot of different microbes, as well as having a lot of different social contacts. Interacting with a lot of different friends and family seems to be really important,” she said. “There are some studies coming out that were done during the pandemic that showed that having fewer social contacts is really detrimental to the microbiome.”
To learn more about Mallott’s work and what you can do to promote a healthy gut microbiome, listen to St. Louis on the Air on Apple Podcast, Spotify or Google Podcast, or by clicking the play button below.
“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. Ulaa Kuziez is our production intern. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr. Send questions and comments about this story to <email-pii>.
|
<urn:uuid:1b9f8316-d18e-478a-ba19-16b837b96d61>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-50",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100779.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20231208212357-20231209002357-00850.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9517514705657959,
"pii_count": 1,
"score": 3.65625,
"token_count": 674,
"url": "https://www.stlpr.org/show/st-louis-on-the-air/2023-10-02/want-a-healthy-gut-exposures-in-first-year-of-life-have-long-lasting-effects"
}
|
Want a healthy gut? Exposures in first year of life have long-lasting effects
When a baby is born, their gut microbiome — the bacteria, viruses, fungi, protists and other single-celled organisms that live in the intestines and the stomach — is quite similar to the next infant’s.
It’s not until they hit three months of age that gut bacteria begin to differ from one child to the next. And those differences often run along racial and ethnic lines. That’s according to a new study by Liz Mallott, an assistant professor of biology at Washington University.
“Something happens, either at three months or shortly after,
|
where you do start to see a slight divergence in the gut microbiome between Black, white, Asian Pacific Islander kids, Hispanic and non-Hispanic kids,” she said. “The taxa that diverge are taxa we know we acquire from the environment. They aren't bacteria species that are inherited from your mom … so it really is something in the external environment that must be driving the change.”
Differences in gut microbiomes early in life can have a lasting effect. Poor gut health leaves people at risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, severe asthma or other lung illnesses.
“[Microbes] are also involved in regulating our blood sugar and our blood pressure. They can increase or decrease inflammation. And they also protect us from pathogens,” Mallott said.
Pinpointing when young kids develop unique gut bacteria is important because it helps researchers determine what social and environmental factors might cause such differences.
“There are things like exposure to pollution, whether or not a kid is in day care or is cared for by family members or has a nanny, the introduction of different foods early in life — all of those could be driving these differences,” Mallott said.
Uncovering specific environmental factors is the next major research question. For now, Mallott advises that parents of newborns and young children expose their kids to as many different situations — and yes, germs — as possible.
“It sounds cliché, but [make] sure your child gets a lot of time outside, playing in the dirt so they're exposed to a lot of different microbes, as well as having a lot of different social contacts. Interacting with a lot of different friends and family seems to be really important,” she said. “There are some studies coming out that were done during the pandemic that showed that having fewer social contacts is really detrimental to the microbiome.”
To learn more about Mallott’s work and what you can do to promote a healthy gut microbiome, listen to St. Louis on the Air on Apple Podcast, Spotify or Google Podcast, or by clicking the play button below.
“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. Ulaa Kuziez is our production intern. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr. Send questions and comments about this story to <email-pii>.
|
A Huge Decision In Sackett v. EPA
The Supreme Court ruled last week that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had overstepped its authority under the Clean Water Act in the case styled Sackett v. EPA. The case involved the agency’s interpretation of the law’s provision that defines what constitutes the “waters of the United States,” or WOTUS provision of the law.
The court’s nine justices ruled unanimously that the EPA had overstepped its authority by declaring seasonal ponds on the Sackett family’s property to be a “navigable water” under the traditional interpretation of the statute, and ruled more narrowly about the broader definition the agency has sought to enforce since 2006. Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito said, “Wetlands that are separate from traditional navigable waters cannot be considered part of those waters, even if they are located nearby.”
In response, critics of the decision, including President Joe Biden, characterized the decision as an “attack” on the EPA, even though it simply upheld the traditional interpretation of the law that had reigned at the agency for four decades before it decided to attempt to dramatically expand its regulatory reach. In a classic bit of political hyperbole, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer lashed out, saying, "This MAGA Supreme Court is continuing to erode our country's environmental laws. Make no mistake – this ruling will mean more polluted water, and more destruction of wetlands."
In his decision, Alito was more reasoned: "Understanding the CWA to apply to wetlands that are distinguishable from otherwise covered 'waters of the United States' would substantially broaden [existing statute]to define 'navigable waters' as 'waters of the United States and adjacent wetlands,’” Alito wrote.
There is no question the Sackett decision will have a real impact on the aggressive Biden regulatory expansion that has been underway for the past two years. The decision effectively overturns the new WOTUS regulation EPA had finalized in January after a back-and-forth wrangling on how to properly interpret the clause that has extended across the last four presidential administrations. Thus, it is easy to understand why those who favor Biden’s attempt to dramatically expand the federal government’s regulatory reach into every facet of our daily lives were upset.
Implications For The Chevron Deference
Even more concerning to government command-and-control advocates is a broader question that will now come into increasing focus: Whether this Sackett decision presages a coming reversal by the Court of the so-called Chevron deference, a legal doctrine that has served as a key enabler of expansion of the regulatory administrative state for the last four decades.
Originating from another unanimous decision in a 1984 case styled Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., the Chevron deference holds that the federal bureaucracies should be allowed to compile regulatory actions without interference from the courts. The practical and inevitable outcome from this doctrine has been the exponential expansion of federal regulations and the bureaucracies that promulgate and enforce them.
In a case that will be on the Supreme Court’s docket for its 2023/24 session beginning in October, the question of the legitimacy of this doctrine will be at hand. The case, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, involves a rulemaking by the National Marine Fisheries Service that requires commercial fishing boats to carry enforcement agents from the NMFS whose job is to police and prevent over-fishing, forcing the fishermen to pay the costs of the agents, including their travel expenses and salaries.
The plaintiff in the case is asking the Court to rule against the NMFS’s ability to regulate in such an apparently abusive manner, effectively rejecting the Chevron deference. This is a matter of great concern to advocates of the Green New Deal and the Biden regulatory agenda that seeks to incorporate many of its elements, given that so many aspects of that agenda require aggressive interpretations of environmental statutes like the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act and National Environmental Policy Act by the EPA and other federal regulatory agencies.
Of all the myriad factors that render the aggressive time lines being laid out for the ongoing “energy transition,” the complexities and requirements of the U.S. legal system and its inherent protections of the rights of all stakeholders are probably the most difficult to overcome. It took the Sackett case 17 years to wind its way through the litigation process to last week’s final decision.
Most observers agree that, even with the Chevron deference in place, the pace of the energy transition has already fallen well behind the pace required to reach the net-zero by 2050 goals advocated by the global community. A decision to abandon that doctrine that has been so crucial for the growth of the administrative state would inevitably set that calendar back even further.
|
<urn:uuid:2d540926-67a6-45b0-b2a4-a8e64e44be03>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510697.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20230930145921-20230930175921-00584.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9542126059532166,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.515625,
"token_count": 1004,
"url": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidblackmon/2023/05/28/bidens-green-new-regulatory-agenda-runs-afoul-of-the-supreme-court/"
}
|
A Huge Decision In Sackett v. EPA
The Supreme Court ruled last week that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had overstepped its authority under the Clean Water Act in the case styled Sackett v. EPA. The case involved the agency’s interpretation of the law’s provision that defines what constitutes the “waters of the United States,” or WOTUS provision of the law.
The court’s nine justices ruled unanimously that the EPA had overstepped its authority by declaring seasonal ponds on the Sackett family’s property to be a “navigable water” under the traditional interpretation of the statute, and ruled
|
more narrowly about the broader definition the agency has sought to enforce since 2006. Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito said, “Wetlands that are separate from traditional navigable waters cannot be considered part of those waters, even if they are located nearby.”
In response, critics of the decision, including President Joe Biden, characterized the decision as an “attack” on the EPA, even though it simply upheld the traditional interpretation of the law that had reigned at the agency for four decades before it decided to attempt to dramatically expand its regulatory reach. In a classic bit of political hyperbole, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer lashed out, saying, "This MAGA Supreme Court is continuing to erode our country's environmental laws. Make no mistake – this ruling will mean more polluted water, and more destruction of wetlands."
In his decision, Alito was more reasoned: "Understanding the CWA to apply to wetlands that are distinguishable from otherwise covered 'waters of the United States' would substantially broaden [existing statute]to define 'navigable waters' as 'waters of the United States and adjacent wetlands,’” Alito wrote.
There is no question the Sackett decision will have a real impact on the aggressive Biden regulatory expansion that has been underway for the past two years. The decision effectively overturns the new WOTUS regulation EPA had finalized in January after a back-and-forth wrangling on how to properly interpret the clause that has extended across the last four presidential administrations. Thus, it is easy to understand why those who favor Biden’s attempt to dramatically expand the federal government’s regulatory reach into every facet of our daily lives were upset.
Implications For The Chevron Deference
Even more concerning to government command-and-control advocates is a broader question that will now come into increasing focus: Whether this Sackett decision presages a coming reversal by the Court of the so-called Chevron deference, a legal doctrine that has served as a key enabler of expansion of the regulatory administrative state for the last four decades.
Originating from another unanimous decision in a 1984 case styled Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., the Chevron deference holds that the federal bureaucracies should be allowed to compile regulatory actions without interference from the courts. The practical and inevitable outcome from this doctrine has been the exponential expansion of federal regulations and the bureaucracies that promulgate and enforce them.
In a case that will be on the Supreme Court’s docket for its 2023/24 session beginning in October, the question of the legitimacy of this doctrine will be at hand. The case, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, involves a rulemaking by the National Marine Fisheries Service that requires commercial fishing boats to carry enforcement agents from the NMFS whose job is to police and prevent over-fishing, forcing the fishermen to pay the costs of the agents, including their travel expenses and salaries.
The plaintiff in the case is asking the Court to rule against the NMFS’s ability to regulate in such an apparently abusive manner, effectively rejecting the Chevron deference. This is a matter of great concern to advocates of the Green New Deal and the Biden regulatory agenda that seeks to incorporate many of its elements, given that so many aspects of that agenda require aggressive interpretations of environmental statutes like the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act and National Environmental Policy Act by the EPA and other federal regulatory agencies.
Of all the myriad factors that render the aggressive time lines being laid out for the ongoing “energy transition,” the complexities and requirements of the U.S. legal system and its inherent protections of the rights of all stakeholders are probably the most difficult to overcome. It took the Sackett case 17 years to wind its way through the litigation process to last week’s final decision.
Most observers agree that, even with the Chevron deference in place, the pace of the energy transition has already fallen well behind the pace required to reach the net-zero by 2050 goals advocated by the global community. A decision to abandon that doctrine that has been so crucial for the growth of the administrative state would inevitably set that calendar back even further.
|
Even as the world smashes through one all-time heat record after another and speeds towards critical warming thresholds, brutal waves of deadly cold can still arrive in bomb cyclones that bring icy weather and deep snow – and add fuel for those who deny the climate crisis is real or significant.
But some scientists say that climate change – and more specifically rapid warming in the Arctic – may actually be increasing the likelihood that frigid, polar air can dive south.
Look no further than the heavily populated US Northeast this weekend to see a real-time example of the long-term warming trend being interrupted by tremendous, record-setting cold.
Last month will be remembered for the winter-that-wasn’t in the region – ranking as the warmest January on record for nearly all Northeast cities. It was the first month in New York City that temperatures ranked above-average every single day, and first time the month ended without measurable snowfall in the city.
But the weather pendulum swings hard to the other extreme this weekend when record warmth will become record cold, with dozens of low temperature milestones predicted. The wind chill is expected to plunge to dangerous levels of minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 34 Celsius) for millions on Saturday.
So what’s going on?
While winters are becoming warmer overall and warm records outpace cold, this January brought a brutal cold snap deep into parts of Asia.
Temperatures in the city of Mohe in northern China plummeted to minus 53 degrees Celsius (minus 63.4 degrees Fahrenheit), the lowest temperature the country has ever recorded.
Fierce cold and record amounts of heavy snow in Japan killed at least four people in what the country’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno called a “once-in-a-decade cold snap.”
Low temperature records also fell in several places in South Korea.
“Cold air from the North Pole has reached South Korea directly,” after traveling through Russia and China, Korea Meteorological Administration spokesperson Woo Jin-kyu told CNN.
More than 150 people died in Afghanistan as temperatures reached lows of minus 28 degrees Celsius (minus 18 degrees Fahrenheit), in what has so far been one of the country’s harshest winters.
And the world’s coldest city, Yakutsk in eastern Siberia, saw temperatures reach minus 62.7 degrees Celsius (minus 80.9 degrees Fahrenheit) – the lowest in more than two decades according to meteorologists.
Extreme winter weather is now shifting to the US, with dangerously cold Arctic air pushing southwards, sweeping across many parts of the country and quickly dispensing with what had been a mild January.
What explains the cold?
Our weather is intimately connected with the jet stream, a wavy river of fast-moving air high in the atmosphere, around the level at which airplanes fly.
When the jet stream swings south, cold Arctic air can dive into the mid-latitudes along with it – the part of the Earth where the most people live in North America, Europe and Asia.
That’s what happened in Asia in January, Judah Cohen, a climatologist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and director of seasonal forecasting at Atmospheric and Environmental Research, told CNN.
When the jet stream retreats north, warm air will also push further north. A big high-pressure swing over Europe in January led to record warm winter temperatures and and left some mountains bare of snow.
There is also another factor to consider: The polar vortex.
This is a belt of strong winds encircling blisteringly cold Arctic air, which sits extremely high in the stratosphere – above the level of the jet stream – around the North Pole.
The polar vortex is like a spinning top, Cohen said. In its normal state, it rotates very fast, keeping the cold air close to the center, like an ice skater spinning quickly on the spot, arms neatly across their chest.
But every now and then it gets disrupted. It’s as if the ice skater hits a crack in the ice and flies off course, arms flailing. The polar vortex wobbles, becoming stretched and distorted, spilling out cold air and influencing the path of the jet stream.
The devastating cold spell that hit Texas in 2021, taking out power across much of the state and leading to more than 240 deaths, was caused by one of these stretching events, as was the historic cold that hit the US in late December.
Some scientists say minor disruptions in the polar vortex may help explain the recent extreme cold in Asia.
How does climate change fit in?
The theory centers on the Arctic, which is warming up to four times faster than the rest of the world as a result of heat-trapping pollution from burning fossil fuels.
Some scientists argue that this warming is triggering changes to the jet stream and polar vortex, causing more frequent winter extremes.
This idea gained traction following the publication of a 2012 study, co-authored by Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Massachusetts. It suggested that Arctic warming was reducing the difference between the cold temperatures in the north and warm temperatures in the south, leading to a weaker, wavier jet stream, which pushed very cold air southwards.
Francis’ paper kicked off a debate and, in the decade since, many more scientists have looked at the theory.
One of the most prominent papers, co-authored by Cohen in 2021, said it found clear links between Arctic warming and disruptions to the polar vortex.
Cohen’s argument is that particularly rapid heating in an area of the Arctic, north of western Russia, combined with increased snowfall in Siberia, amplifies the waviness of the jet stream and pushes energy upwards. This knocks the polar vortex off course, causing very cold air to spill out.
The paper linked Arctic warming to extreme winter weather across parts of Asia and North America, including the prolonged cold wave in Texas in 2021.
“We are not arguing that winters are getting colder overall,” Cohen said. The world is smashing through many more heat records than it is cold records.
But the idea that climate change will mean fewer swings between extreme temperatures is “an oversimplification,” he said.
“As we continue to dump greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, and thicken this blanket of greenhouse gasses around the Earth, we will see more extreme events of all sorts, including these cold spells,” Francis told CNN.
How settled is the science?
Not at all. This is a very complex area of research and other scientists are far more cautious.
There have been a number of cold winters in the US and Asia coinciding with warm winters in the Arctic, James Screen, professor in climate science at Exeter University, told CNN. “The challenge we face is determining cause from effect.”
Screen co-authored research which used climate models to predict what will happen when Arctic sea ice reduces even further. It found sea ice loss had only a very small effect on the jet stream and there was no real sign of an effect on the polar vortex.
While the research pointed to warmer Arctic winters and bursts of cold further south, Screen said this can be “explained by normal weather variability.”
In other words, even as winters warm, cold extremes will still occur – because that’s just how winters work.
One key criticism of the research linking Arctic changes to severe winter weather is that it’s based on historical data.
“If we look more at climate model data, we don’t see these types of links or they’re very weak,” Dim Coumou, a climate professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, told CNN.
What scientists do agree on is the need to keep studying these extremely cold spells.
“We don’t really have enough research yet,” Daniela Domeisen, a climate professor at ETH Zurich, in Switzerland, told CNN. “Eventually we’ll find a solution to this and actually understand the mechanism, but I just think we’re not there yet.”
CNN’s Brandon Miller, Heather Chen, Yoonjung Seo, Paula Hancocks, Jake Kwon and Junko Ogura contributed reporting.
|
<urn:uuid:c6202bb3-99ea-4ac3-a87e-946457498616>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510994.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20231002100910-20231002130910-00137.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.937202513217926,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.984375,
"token_count": 1726,
"url": "https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/03/world/extreme-cold-arctic-polar-vortex-climate-intl"
}
|
Even as the world smashes through one all-time heat record after another and speeds towards critical warming thresholds, brutal waves of deadly cold can still arrive in bomb cyclones that bring icy weather and deep snow – and add fuel for those who deny the climate crisis is real or significant.
But some scientists say that climate change – and more specifically rapid warming in the Arctic – may actually be increasing the likelihood that frigid, polar air can dive south.
Look no further than the heavily populated US Northeast this weekend to see a real-time example of the long-term warming trend being interrupted by tremendous, record-setting cold.
Last month will be remembered for
|
the winter-that-wasn’t in the region – ranking as the warmest January on record for nearly all Northeast cities. It was the first month in New York City that temperatures ranked above-average every single day, and first time the month ended without measurable snowfall in the city.
But the weather pendulum swings hard to the other extreme this weekend when record warmth will become record cold, with dozens of low temperature milestones predicted. The wind chill is expected to plunge to dangerous levels of minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 34 Celsius) for millions on Saturday.
So what’s going on?
While winters are becoming warmer overall and warm records outpace cold, this January brought a brutal cold snap deep into parts of Asia.
Temperatures in the city of Mohe in northern China plummeted to minus 53 degrees Celsius (minus 63.4 degrees Fahrenheit), the lowest temperature the country has ever recorded.
Fierce cold and record amounts of heavy snow in Japan killed at least four people in what the country’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno called a “once-in-a-decade cold snap.”
Low temperature records also fell in several places in South Korea.
“Cold air from the North Pole has reached South Korea directly,” after traveling through Russia and China, Korea Meteorological Administration spokesperson Woo Jin-kyu told CNN.
More than 150 people died in Afghanistan as temperatures reached lows of minus 28 degrees Celsius (minus 18 degrees Fahrenheit), in what has so far been one of the country’s harshest winters.
And the world’s coldest city, Yakutsk in eastern Siberia, saw temperatures reach minus 62.7 degrees Celsius (minus 80.9 degrees Fahrenheit) – the lowest in more than two decades according to meteorologists.
Extreme winter weather is now shifting to the US, with dangerously cold Arctic air pushing southwards, sweeping across many parts of the country and quickly dispensing with what had been a mild January.
What explains the cold?
Our weather is intimately connected with the jet stream, a wavy river of fast-moving air high in the atmosphere, around the level at which airplanes fly.
When the jet stream swings south, cold Arctic air can dive into the mid-latitudes along with it – the part of the Earth where the most people live in North America, Europe and Asia.
That’s what happened in Asia in January, Judah Cohen, a climatologist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and director of seasonal forecasting at Atmospheric and Environmental Research, told CNN.
When the jet stream retreats north, warm air will also push further north. A big high-pressure swing over Europe in January led to record warm winter temperatures and and left some mountains bare of snow.
There is also another factor to consider: The polar vortex.
This is a belt of strong winds encircling blisteringly cold Arctic air, which sits extremely high in the stratosphere – above the level of the jet stream – around the North Pole.
The polar vortex is like a spinning top, Cohen said. In its normal state, it rotates very fast, keeping the cold air close to the center, like an ice skater spinning quickly on the spot, arms neatly across their chest.
But every now and then it gets disrupted. It’s as if the ice skater hits a crack in the ice and flies off course, arms flailing. The polar vortex wobbles, becoming stretched and distorted, spilling out cold air and influencing the path of the jet stream.
The devastating cold spell that hit Texas in 2021, taking out power across much of the state and leading to more than 240 deaths, was caused by one of these stretching events, as was the historic cold that hit the US in late December.
Some scientists say minor disruptions in the polar vortex may help explain the recent extreme cold in Asia.
How does climate change fit in?
The theory centers on the Arctic, which is warming up to four times faster than the rest of the world as a result of heat-trapping pollution from burning fossil fuels.
Some scientists argue that this warming is triggering changes to the jet stream and polar vortex, causing more frequent winter extremes.
This idea gained traction following the publication of a 2012 study, co-authored by Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Massachusetts. It suggested that Arctic warming was reducing the difference between the cold temperatures in the north and warm temperatures in the south, leading to a weaker, wavier jet stream, which pushed very cold air southwards.
Francis’ paper kicked off a debate and, in the decade since, many more scientists have looked at the theory.
One of the most prominent papers, co-authored by Cohen in 2021, said it found clear links between Arctic warming and disruptions to the polar vortex.
Cohen’s argument is that particularly rapid heating in an area of the Arctic, north of western Russia, combined with increased snowfall in Siberia, amplifies the waviness of the jet stream and pushes energy upwards. This knocks the polar vortex off course, causing very cold air to spill out.
The paper linked Arctic warming to extreme winter weather across parts of Asia and North America, including the prolonged cold wave in Texas in 2021.
“We are not arguing that winters are getting colder overall,” Cohen said. The world is smashing through many more heat records than it is cold records.
But the idea that climate change will mean fewer swings between extreme temperatures is “an oversimplification,” he said.
“As we continue to dump greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, and thicken this blanket of greenhouse gasses around the Earth, we will see more extreme events of all sorts, including these cold spells,” Francis told CNN.
How settled is the science?
Not at all. This is a very complex area of research and other scientists are far more cautious.
There have been a number of cold winters in the US and Asia coinciding with warm winters in the Arctic, James Screen, professor in climate science at Exeter University, told CNN. “The challenge we face is determining cause from effect.”
Screen co-authored research which used climate models to predict what will happen when Arctic sea ice reduces even further. It found sea ice loss had only a very small effect on the jet stream and there was no real sign of an effect on the polar vortex.
While the research pointed to warmer Arctic winters and bursts of cold further south, Screen said this can be “explained by normal weather variability.”
In other words, even as winters warm, cold extremes will still occur – because that’s just how winters work.
One key criticism of the research linking Arctic changes to severe winter weather is that it’s based on historical data.
“If we look more at climate model data, we don’t see these types of links or they’re very weak,” Dim Coumou, a climate professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, told CNN.
What scientists do agree on is the need to keep studying these extremely cold spells.
“We don’t really have enough research yet,” Daniela Domeisen, a climate professor at ETH Zurich, in Switzerland, told CNN. “Eventually we’ll find a solution to this and actually understand the mechanism, but I just think we’re not there yet.”
CNN’s Brandon Miller, Heather Chen, Yoonjung Seo, Paula Hancocks, Jake Kwon and Junko Ogura contributed reporting.
|
The city will overhaul the way it teaches reading, requiring schools to use one of three specific curriculum options that focus on the science of reading, in an effort to boost literacy rates in a city where half of students are not proficient in reading.
It’s a dramatic shift for the city’s public school system, which had previously allowed each of its schools to choose their own curriculum.
For months, Mayor Eric Adams and Schools Chancellor David Banks have argued that the approach many schools had adopted, known as balanced literacy, which encourages guessing, using context and memorization, was failing students, particularly those with dyslexia or other language-based learning disabilities.
The new curriculum options are based in what's often called the science of reading, or structured literacy, with an emphasis on phonics, with students sounding out syllables and bridging them together to form words and build vocabulary.
The new initiative will be dubbed “New York City Reads,” and rolled out over the course of two years. The city will spend $35 million on training and coaching for teachers to help implement the curricula, and officials promised every educator who uses the curricula will receive “intensive, high-quality training prior to the start of the year.”
The plan will begin this fall in 15 of the city’s community school districts, where each superintendent will choose one of three curriculum options, which will then be implemented in every school in their district.
The city’s remaining 17 districts will implement the new curriculum beginning in September 2024.
|
<urn:uuid:023bffa0-e944-4176-94b4-8e7f2fa10281>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-50",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679103464.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20231211013452-20231211043452-00294.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9619755744934082,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.796875,
"token_count": 319,
"url": "https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2023/05/09/city-to-mandate-reading-curriculum-in-public-schools"
}
|
The city will overhaul the way it teaches reading, requiring schools to use one of three specific curriculum options that focus on the science of reading, in an effort to boost literacy rates in a city where half of students are not proficient in reading.
It’s a dramatic shift for the city’s public school system, which had previously allowed each of its schools to choose their own curriculum.
For months, Mayor Eric Adams and Schools Chancellor David Banks have argued that the approach many schools had adopted, known as balanced literacy, which encourages guessing, using context and memorization, was failing students, particularly those with dyslexia or other language-based learning
|
disabilities.
The new curriculum options are based in what's often called the science of reading, or structured literacy, with an emphasis on phonics, with students sounding out syllables and bridging them together to form words and build vocabulary.
The new initiative will be dubbed “New York City Reads,” and rolled out over the course of two years. The city will spend $35 million on training and coaching for teachers to help implement the curricula, and officials promised every educator who uses the curricula will receive “intensive, high-quality training prior to the start of the year.”
The plan will begin this fall in 15 of the city’s community school districts, where each superintendent will choose one of three curriculum options, which will then be implemented in every school in their district.
The city’s remaining 17 districts will implement the new curriculum beginning in September 2024.
|
Trams were last seen hurtling down the streets of Cork city and through its near suburbs over 90 years ago. Today, there is talk of bringing them back. The city had two tram schemes in the past. The first was horse-drawn and was relatively short-lived. The second was electric and ran for over 30 years.
The horse-drawn trams did not last long due to poor connectivity to the suburbs and hinterland. The scheme opened in September 1872 when the Cork Tramways Company laid over two miles of track which ran mostly through the city.
It cost £10,000 and was overseen by James Clifton Robinson. Robinson also introduced tramway schemes in London, Bristol, Edinburgh, New York, and Los Angeles, earning him the nickname of the “Tramway King”. When it closed in December 1875, its six horse-drawn trams were sold to Dublin United Tramways.
Things took off again in Cork toward the end of the 1890s when electric trams were introduced to the city. The Cork Electric Tramways and Lighting Company built and operated the scheme. The contractor was the Cork-born businessman and one-time Dublin MP William Martin Murphy, who subsequently became chairman of the company.
Poles carrying overhead electrical cables were erected all along the length of the route to power the trams. The power was produced at the generating station known as the Albert Road Power House. The red-brick tram depot next door could accommodate 25 trams. It now houses the National Sculpture Factory.
Passengers were first carried on the trams on December 22nd, 1898. The scheme proved a great success. In 1900, it carried over five million passengers. The bright green and cream liveried double-deck trams could carry between 43 and 48 passengers seated.
The top deck was open to the elements and they were probably not the most comfortable mode of transport in inclement weather, even if they were convenient for those living on one of the various routes that ran from the city to the suburbs.
The three routes ran from the Fr Mathew statue on St Patrick Street and covered a distance of almost 10 miles. One route ran from Blackpool in the north of the city to Douglas in the south. Another ran from Summerhill to Sunday’s Well and a third route ran from Tivoli to Blackrock. The fare was just one penny.
Over the years, accidents happened along the various routes. In May 1901, a 26-year-old man named Eugene Bastable from Commons Road and who worked at Douglas Mills, was walking home at around 10pm. He fell onto the rails and the tram driver was unable to stop in time. Bastable was struck and killed.
The English filmmakers Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon captured the trams in action while on a visit to Cork in 1902. They placed a cinematographic camera at the front of a tram and recorded its journey on MacCurtain Street (then King Street) as it made its way down Bridge Street and over St Patrick’s Bridge to the Statue. The film shows bustling streets busy with cyclists, pedestrians and horse-drawn carts.
A number of strikes were called by the tram workers during the years of its operation. The tram strike of 1909 lasted for over two weeks, while the 1921 strike lasted for almost seven weeks. During the 1921 strike, electric power to the city was also affected for a time.
By 1920, the fares were fixed at a halfpence or tuppence depending on the length of the journey. Dogs could also be brought on the trams at an additional cost of a penny, but an advertisement stressed that “small dogs” only were allowed on board. Passengers could carry luggage on the tram at a cost of a penny per parcel.
The first car left at different times depending on the route with the earliest leaving Tivoli and Sunday’s Well at 7.45am. The last car left each of the termini at 11pm.
During the 1920s, the trams faced competition from private bus companies and by around 1930, it was decided to close the now loss-making tram lines.
The trams were actually closed down twice. The first time was on March 1st, 1931, when the Irish Omnibus Company took over, providing replacement bus services. However, they did not have enough buses to meet the demand and the trams had to run again for a further few months. The tram service ended for that last time on September 30th, 1931.
There is not much evidence of the trams remaining in the city but there are a couple of reminders. The old red-brick depot that housed the trams still stands, and in the suburb of Blackrock, tram tracks were rediscovered under the roadway in recent years. They were restored and are now incorporated into the new road as a reminder of Cork’s transport history.
|
<urn:uuid:35e4a33d-5013-4762-b251-23dc7de3c623>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2024-10",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947475806.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20240302084508-20240302114508-00035.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9857687950134277,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.53125,
"token_count": 1018,
"url": "https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-irish-diary/2023/11/26/on-the-rails-the-past-present-and-future-of-corks-trams/"
}
|
Trams were last seen hurtling down the streets of Cork city and through its near suburbs over 90 years ago. Today, there is talk of bringing them back. The city had two tram schemes in the past. The first was horse-drawn and was relatively short-lived. The second was electric and ran for over 30 years.
The horse-drawn trams did not last long due to poor connectivity to the suburbs and hinterland. The scheme opened in September 1872 when the Cork Tramways Company laid over two miles of track which ran mostly through the city.
It cost £10,00
|
0 and was overseen by James Clifton Robinson. Robinson also introduced tramway schemes in London, Bristol, Edinburgh, New York, and Los Angeles, earning him the nickname of the “Tramway King”. When it closed in December 1875, its six horse-drawn trams were sold to Dublin United Tramways.
Things took off again in Cork toward the end of the 1890s when electric trams were introduced to the city. The Cork Electric Tramways and Lighting Company built and operated the scheme. The contractor was the Cork-born businessman and one-time Dublin MP William Martin Murphy, who subsequently became chairman of the company.
Poles carrying overhead electrical cables were erected all along the length of the route to power the trams. The power was produced at the generating station known as the Albert Road Power House. The red-brick tram depot next door could accommodate 25 trams. It now houses the National Sculpture Factory.
Passengers were first carried on the trams on December 22nd, 1898. The scheme proved a great success. In 1900, it carried over five million passengers. The bright green and cream liveried double-deck trams could carry between 43 and 48 passengers seated.
The top deck was open to the elements and they were probably not the most comfortable mode of transport in inclement weather, even if they were convenient for those living on one of the various routes that ran from the city to the suburbs.
The three routes ran from the Fr Mathew statue on St Patrick Street and covered a distance of almost 10 miles. One route ran from Blackpool in the north of the city to Douglas in the south. Another ran from Summerhill to Sunday’s Well and a third route ran from Tivoli to Blackrock. The fare was just one penny.
Over the years, accidents happened along the various routes. In May 1901, a 26-year-old man named Eugene Bastable from Commons Road and who worked at Douglas Mills, was walking home at around 10pm. He fell onto the rails and the tram driver was unable to stop in time. Bastable was struck and killed.
The English filmmakers Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon captured the trams in action while on a visit to Cork in 1902. They placed a cinematographic camera at the front of a tram and recorded its journey on MacCurtain Street (then King Street) as it made its way down Bridge Street and over St Patrick’s Bridge to the Statue. The film shows bustling streets busy with cyclists, pedestrians and horse-drawn carts.
A number of strikes were called by the tram workers during the years of its operation. The tram strike of 1909 lasted for over two weeks, while the 1921 strike lasted for almost seven weeks. During the 1921 strike, electric power to the city was also affected for a time.
By 1920, the fares were fixed at a halfpence or tuppence depending on the length of the journey. Dogs could also be brought on the trams at an additional cost of a penny, but an advertisement stressed that “small dogs” only were allowed on board. Passengers could carry luggage on the tram at a cost of a penny per parcel.
The first car left at different times depending on the route with the earliest leaving Tivoli and Sunday’s Well at 7.45am. The last car left each of the termini at 11pm.
During the 1920s, the trams faced competition from private bus companies and by around 1930, it was decided to close the now loss-making tram lines.
The trams were actually closed down twice. The first time was on March 1st, 1931, when the Irish Omnibus Company took over, providing replacement bus services. However, they did not have enough buses to meet the demand and the trams had to run again for a further few months. The tram service ended for that last time on September 30th, 1931.
There is not much evidence of the trams remaining in the city but there are a couple of reminders. The old red-brick depot that housed the trams still stands, and in the suburb of Blackrock, tram tracks were rediscovered under the roadway in recent years. They were restored and are now incorporated into the new road as a reminder of Cork’s transport history.
|
Erie must seize its place in the emerging green economy for health, equity and prosperity
If only Earth Day were like Groundhog Day, where we have a chance to repeat the day until we get it right.
Earth Day 2023, observed on April 22, is a repeat of the exact same theme as last year: "Invest in Our Planet." This is not an accident. The Earth Day theme emphasizes how "investing in a green economy is the only path to a healthy, prosperous, and equitable future." Erie has the vision. Now is the time for Erie to say, "Show me the money."
How does this translate to Erie County, Pennsylvania?
Erie County's historic industrial and shipping industries depended on Appalachian coal, which is gone. Today, our region's current focus on plastics manufacturing ties Erie to the oil and gas industry, which is dying. We need a long-term, sustainable strategy, and an emerging clean energy economy that not only brings a healthier environment to Erie but also gives Erities more choices for their energy and careers.
Climate change is local
Erie is one of the ten fastest-warming cities in the United States. From 1951 to 2019, Erie County experienced a 23.5% increase in annual precipitation. Severe weather events, like recent record-breaking blizzards, high winds, heavy rains, and extreme temperatures, are likely to become more intense and erratic.
These climate shifts significantly impact human health, local infrastructure, natural resources, and local tourism and agricultural industries. For example, scientific studies link warming lake waters to the growth of harmful algal blooms that threaten human health and water-based tourism. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, warmer temperatures prevent water from mixing, allowing algae to grow thicker and faster.
Think about your neighbors. Erie's children, older adults, communities of color, and those in misrepresented groups are at greater risk of negative impact by climate change and extreme weather. We must work together to prevent further harm from climate impacts, prioritizing Erie's at-risk populations.
Climate action must also be local
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's most recent report shared that the world is on track to surpass the dangerous tipping point of 1.5 degrees Celsius global warming within a decade. Though a warming climate has fundamentally changed our planet, we have the technology to avoid this tipping point if we act now.
Climate action requires effort and collaboration by everyone — government, businesses, academic institutions, nonprofits, and households. Though local governments often have limited funding and reach, their ability to bridge partisan divides, steward multi-sector relationships, craft place-based solutions, and control land-use regulations position them well for climate and environmental action.
PennFuture and its partners in the Our Water, Our Future Common Agenda recognized the power of local government to effect change. The largest share of the Agenda's recommendations to protect the Lake Erie watershed and its residents, including against climate impacts, focus on municipal and county levels.
In recent years, Erie area leaders have taken serious steps to reduce fossil fuel emissions and prepare for extreme weather. Examples include the installation of solar panels on Erie Central Fire Station, the passage of a City of Erie stormwater fee ordinance, the creation of the Millcreek Township Department of Community Relations and Sustainability, the closure of longtime unlawful polluter Erie Coke, formation of the Green Building Alliance Erie 2030 District, and a move by Erie's largest industrial employer (Wabtec) toward greener locomotive technology.
More:Wabtec picks up steam as focus moves to new lines of work
These are foundational steps for the Erie region, but the extent and pace of our action must increase.
Opportunities for Erie County climate action
Collaborating on climate action initiatives is not new for our region. Many neighboring communities have focused on collaborative climate action for over a decade. Specifically, the cities of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Evanston, Illinois, have had community-driven climate action plans since 2008.
Communities like these are now well-positioned to compete for the multitude of federal funds prioritizing clean energy and green economic development. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) invest billions of dollars in tackling the climate crisis, creating good-paying jobs for cities with clean energy economies.
Erie is leaving a lot of federal investment dollars on the table by not taking action. Erie needs to advocate for its fair share of funding.
What's next for Erie?
Erie has a framework — "turn-the-corner feel" and "reemergence" — to build off. Commitments to diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice by the Mayor Joe Schember Administration and investment downtown are big pieces to this goal; however, Erie needs long-term, community-driven climate goals to be successful.
Opportunities to do so are already in process: both the city of Erie and the Erie Metropolitan Transit Authority have committed to their first climate action planning initiatives. Bruce Katz and his firm, New Localism Associates, created the Investment Playbook for Infinite Erie and brought together support from public and private entities. County Executive Brenton Davis also contracted Katz to create a "blue economy" playbook for Erie's waterfront. These projects are ripe for an emphasis on climate action, especially given a central focus on federal funding. New Localism regularly provides technical assistance and recommendations for local climate action. What Erieites need now is for Erie to capitalize on this expertise.
We can chart a better environmental and economic future for Erie, but we have to start. The pieces are there; we need the community to put pressure on elected and institutional leaders to work collaboratively to put them together.
Pat Lupo, OSB, is a member of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie and a longtime Erie environmental leader, activist, and educator. Jenny Tompkins is the Erie-based campaign manager for clean water advocacy at PennFuture, a statewide environmental organization with five offices across Pennsylvania.
|
<urn:uuid:f4ec74df-ca97-4d08-85d1-35774cfb1f79>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-23",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224646144.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20230530194919-20230530224919-00419.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9403517842292786,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.921875,
"token_count": 1235,
"url": "https://www.goerie.com/story/opinion/columns/2023/04/20/erie-green-economy-health-equity-prosperity-climate-change-coal-oil-gas-earth-day-lake-millcreek/70111324007/"
}
|
Erie must seize its place in the emerging green economy for health, equity and prosperity
If only Earth Day were like Groundhog Day, where we have a chance to repeat the day until we get it right.
Earth Day 2023, observed on April 22, is a repeat of the exact same theme as last year: "Invest in Our Planet." This is not an accident. The Earth Day theme emphasizes how "investing in a green economy is the only path to a healthy, prosperous, and equitable future." Erie has the vision. Now is the time for Erie to say, "
|
Show me the money."
How does this translate to Erie County, Pennsylvania?
Erie County's historic industrial and shipping industries depended on Appalachian coal, which is gone. Today, our region's current focus on plastics manufacturing ties Erie to the oil and gas industry, which is dying. We need a long-term, sustainable strategy, and an emerging clean energy economy that not only brings a healthier environment to Erie but also gives Erities more choices for their energy and careers.
Climate change is local
Erie is one of the ten fastest-warming cities in the United States. From 1951 to 2019, Erie County experienced a 23.5% increase in annual precipitation. Severe weather events, like recent record-breaking blizzards, high winds, heavy rains, and extreme temperatures, are likely to become more intense and erratic.
These climate shifts significantly impact human health, local infrastructure, natural resources, and local tourism and agricultural industries. For example, scientific studies link warming lake waters to the growth of harmful algal blooms that threaten human health and water-based tourism. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, warmer temperatures prevent water from mixing, allowing algae to grow thicker and faster.
Think about your neighbors. Erie's children, older adults, communities of color, and those in misrepresented groups are at greater risk of negative impact by climate change and extreme weather. We must work together to prevent further harm from climate impacts, prioritizing Erie's at-risk populations.
Climate action must also be local
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's most recent report shared that the world is on track to surpass the dangerous tipping point of 1.5 degrees Celsius global warming within a decade. Though a warming climate has fundamentally changed our planet, we have the technology to avoid this tipping point if we act now.
Climate action requires effort and collaboration by everyone — government, businesses, academic institutions, nonprofits, and households. Though local governments often have limited funding and reach, their ability to bridge partisan divides, steward multi-sector relationships, craft place-based solutions, and control land-use regulations position them well for climate and environmental action.
PennFuture and its partners in the Our Water, Our Future Common Agenda recognized the power of local government to effect change. The largest share of the Agenda's recommendations to protect the Lake Erie watershed and its residents, including against climate impacts, focus on municipal and county levels.
In recent years, Erie area leaders have taken serious steps to reduce fossil fuel emissions and prepare for extreme weather. Examples include the installation of solar panels on Erie Central Fire Station, the passage of a City of Erie stormwater fee ordinance, the creation of the Millcreek Township Department of Community Relations and Sustainability, the closure of longtime unlawful polluter Erie Coke, formation of the Green Building Alliance Erie 2030 District, and a move by Erie's largest industrial employer (Wabtec) toward greener locomotive technology.
More:Wabtec picks up steam as focus moves to new lines of work
These are foundational steps for the Erie region, but the extent and pace of our action must increase.
Opportunities for Erie County climate action
Collaborating on climate action initiatives is not new for our region. Many neighboring communities have focused on collaborative climate action for over a decade. Specifically, the cities of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Evanston, Illinois, have had community-driven climate action plans since 2008.
Communities like these are now well-positioned to compete for the multitude of federal funds prioritizing clean energy and green economic development. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) invest billions of dollars in tackling the climate crisis, creating good-paying jobs for cities with clean energy economies.
Erie is leaving a lot of federal investment dollars on the table by not taking action. Erie needs to advocate for its fair share of funding.
What's next for Erie?
Erie has a framework — "turn-the-corner feel" and "reemergence" — to build off. Commitments to diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice by the Mayor Joe Schember Administration and investment downtown are big pieces to this goal; however, Erie needs long-term, community-driven climate goals to be successful.
Opportunities to do so are already in process: both the city of Erie and the Erie Metropolitan Transit Authority have committed to their first climate action planning initiatives. Bruce Katz and his firm, New Localism Associates, created the Investment Playbook for Infinite Erie and brought together support from public and private entities. County Executive Brenton Davis also contracted Katz to create a "blue economy" playbook for Erie's waterfront. These projects are ripe for an emphasis on climate action, especially given a central focus on federal funding. New Localism regularly provides technical assistance and recommendations for local climate action. What Erieites need now is for Erie to capitalize on this expertise.
We can chart a better environmental and economic future for Erie, but we have to start. The pieces are there; we need the community to put pressure on elected and institutional leaders to work collaboratively to put them together.
Pat Lupo, OSB, is a member of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie and a longtime Erie environmental leader, activist, and educator. Jenny Tompkins is the Erie-based campaign manager for clean water advocacy at PennFuture, a statewide environmental organization with five offices across Pennsylvania.
|
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.
Organic molecules have been detected in samples collected by Japan’s Hayabusa2 mission from the near-Earth asteroid Ryugu.
“When researchers analyzed the samples, collected from two different locations on the asteroid, they found uracil, one of the building blocks of RNA, as well as vitamin B3, or niacin (a key cofactor for metabolism in living organisms).
Uracil is a nucleobase, or a nitrogen-containing compound. It’s one of five nucleobases in DNA and RNA, the proteins and molecules that contain genetic information and instructions crucial for the cells of living organisms.
A study detailing the findings published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.
Ryugu is a carbon-rich, diamond-shaped asteroid that measures about 3,000 feet (1 kilometer) wide. Hayabusa2 was the first mission to return a subsurface sample from an asteroid to Earth.
The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency mission collected one sample from the asteroid’s surface in February 2019, then fired a copper “bullet” into the asteroid to create a 33-foot (10-meter) wide impact crater. A sample was collected from this crater in July 2019. Then, Hayabusa2 flew by Earth and dropped the sample off in Australia in December 2020.
In earlier analyses, researchers detected amino acids and other molecules in Ryugu’s samples, while uracil and niacin have also been found in meteorites that landed on Earth.
“Scientists have previously found nucleobases and vitamins in certain carbon-rich meteorites, but there was always the question of contamination by exposure to the Earth’s environment,” said lead study author Yasuhiro Oba, associate professor at Hokkaido University in Japan, in a statement. “Since the Hayabusa2 spacecraft collected two samples directly from asteroid Ryugu and delivered them to Earth in sealed capsules, contamination can be ruled out.”
Building blocks of life in space
The researchers discovered the molecules when they soaked particles collected from Ryugu in hot water and analyzed the results using different observational methods, such as liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry.
Then, the team detected the signatures of uracil, niacin and other organic compounds containing nitrogen.
“Other biological molecules were found in the sample as well, including a selection of amino acids, amines and carboxylic acids, which are found in proteins and metabolism, respectively,” Oba said.
Together, the findings from Ryugu’s samples so far add to the increasing evidence that the building blocks of life originated in space and were originally delivered to Earth billions of years ago by meteorites.
The molecules likely originally formed through photochemical reactions in ice in outer space before our solar system even existed, Oba said.
Further study of asteroid composition
The concentrations of the molecules in the two samples were different, but that’s likely due to exposure to the harsh environment of space. It’s possible that Ryugu was once part of a larger celestial body, like a comet, before it was broken apart into pieces by collisions with other space objects.
“It is no doubt that biologically important molecules such as amino acids and nucleobase(s) in asteroids/meteorites have been provided to the Earth,” Oba said. “In particular, we expect they might play a role for prebiotic evolution on the early Earth.”
It’s also possible that as space rocks smashed into other planets in our solar system, they might have been carrying some of the same building blocks of life.
“I cannot say the presence of such ingredients directly leads to the emergence/presence of extraterrestrial life, but at least their components such as amino acids and nucleobases may be present everywhere in space,” Oba said.
Now, the researchers want to know how common these molecules are in asteroids. Fortunately, a sample from another asteroid named Bennu will be delivered to Earth in September by NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer, or OSIRIS-REx spacecraft.
“The discovery of uracil in the samples from Ryugu lends strength to current theories regarding the source of nucleobases in the early Earth,” Oba said. “The OSIRIS-REx mission by NASA will be returning samples from asteroid Bennu this year, and a comparative study of the composition of these asteroids will provide further data to build on these theories.”
|
<urn:uuid:4363c137-5d68-4b9f-b888-799f0c2f5630>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510528.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20230929190403-20230929220403-00135.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9376184940338135,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.515625,
"token_count": 985,
"url": "https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/21/world/ryugu-asteroid-organic-molecules-scn/index.html"
}
|
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.
Organic molecules have been detected in samples collected by Japan’s Hayabusa2 mission from the near-Earth asteroid Ryugu.
“When researchers analyzed the samples, collected from two different locations on the asteroid, they found uracil, one of the building blocks of RNA, as well as vitamin B3, or niacin (a key cofactor for metabolism in living organisms).
Uracil is a nucleobase, or a nitrogen-containing compound. It’s one of five nucleobases in DNA
|
and RNA, the proteins and molecules that contain genetic information and instructions crucial for the cells of living organisms.
A study detailing the findings published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.
Ryugu is a carbon-rich, diamond-shaped asteroid that measures about 3,000 feet (1 kilometer) wide. Hayabusa2 was the first mission to return a subsurface sample from an asteroid to Earth.
The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency mission collected one sample from the asteroid’s surface in February 2019, then fired a copper “bullet” into the asteroid to create a 33-foot (10-meter) wide impact crater. A sample was collected from this crater in July 2019. Then, Hayabusa2 flew by Earth and dropped the sample off in Australia in December 2020.
In earlier analyses, researchers detected amino acids and other molecules in Ryugu’s samples, while uracil and niacin have also been found in meteorites that landed on Earth.
“Scientists have previously found nucleobases and vitamins in certain carbon-rich meteorites, but there was always the question of contamination by exposure to the Earth’s environment,” said lead study author Yasuhiro Oba, associate professor at Hokkaido University in Japan, in a statement. “Since the Hayabusa2 spacecraft collected two samples directly from asteroid Ryugu and delivered them to Earth in sealed capsules, contamination can be ruled out.”
Building blocks of life in space
The researchers discovered the molecules when they soaked particles collected from Ryugu in hot water and analyzed the results using different observational methods, such as liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry.
Then, the team detected the signatures of uracil, niacin and other organic compounds containing nitrogen.
“Other biological molecules were found in the sample as well, including a selection of amino acids, amines and carboxylic acids, which are found in proteins and metabolism, respectively,” Oba said.
Together, the findings from Ryugu’s samples so far add to the increasing evidence that the building blocks of life originated in space and were originally delivered to Earth billions of years ago by meteorites.
The molecules likely originally formed through photochemical reactions in ice in outer space before our solar system even existed, Oba said.
Further study of asteroid composition
The concentrations of the molecules in the two samples were different, but that’s likely due to exposure to the harsh environment of space. It’s possible that Ryugu was once part of a larger celestial body, like a comet, before it was broken apart into pieces by collisions with other space objects.
“It is no doubt that biologically important molecules such as amino acids and nucleobase(s) in asteroids/meteorites have been provided to the Earth,” Oba said. “In particular, we expect they might play a role for prebiotic evolution on the early Earth.”
It’s also possible that as space rocks smashed into other planets in our solar system, they might have been carrying some of the same building blocks of life.
“I cannot say the presence of such ingredients directly leads to the emergence/presence of extraterrestrial life, but at least their components such as amino acids and nucleobases may be present everywhere in space,” Oba said.
Now, the researchers want to know how common these molecules are in asteroids. Fortunately, a sample from another asteroid named Bennu will be delivered to Earth in September by NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer, or OSIRIS-REx spacecraft.
“The discovery of uracil in the samples from Ryugu lends strength to current theories regarding the source of nucleobases in the early Earth,” Oba said. “The OSIRIS-REx mission by NASA will be returning samples from asteroid Bennu this year, and a comparative study of the composition of these asteroids will provide further data to build on these theories.”
|
Antibiotic reduces mothers’ risk of death during childbirth: UVA scientist
- Infections among top five causes of maternal mortality worldwide.
CHARLOTTESVILLE — A single dose of the antibiotic azithromycin can help protect mothers from dangerous sepsis infections and death during vaginal childbirth, a sweeping new international study from a UVA Health scientist and his collaborators has found, according to a press release from University of Virginia Medical Center.
Azithromycin, also known as Z-Pak, has already been shown to benefit women delivering by cesarean section. But the new findings reveal that the common antibiotic reduces mortality for women delivering vaginally and cuts their risk of developing sepsis, a potentially fatal full-body infection, the study finds.
Infections, particularly sepsis, are responsible for 10% of maternal deaths shortly before, during and after childbirth, putting such infections in the top five causes of maternal mortality worldwide, the release said.
“A single dose of the antibiotic azithromycin decreased sepsis and death by half in women in labor,” said researcher Dr. William A. Petri Jr., of the University of Virginia School of Medicine’s Division of Infectious Diseases and International Health.
“The simplicity of this intervention should allow its institution around the globe to protect mothers during childbirth,” said Petri.
Petri is part of the Azithromycin Prophylaxis in Labor Use Study (A-PLUS) Trial Group, an international coalition of researchers that set out to determine if giving the antibiotic during childbirth would benefit either mothers or their children. More than 29,000 women in low- and middle-income countries volunteered to take part in the randomized trial; half were given azithromycin and half were given a harmless placebo, according to the study.
Among the 14,637 women who received the placebo, 2.4% developed sepsis or died within six weeks. That’s compared with only 1.6% of the 14,526 women who received azithromycin. The difference was clear enough that the researchers stopped the trial early, the release said.
The antibiotic did not provide similar benefits for the babies, the researchers found. However, they say that benefits for the mothers, combined with the lack of harmful side effects, makes azithromycin an important new tool for keeping moms safe before, during and after delivery. (The antibiotic is already recommended for caesarian births in the United States and elsewhere.)
UVA is one of seven universities participating in the Global Network for Women's and Children's Health. The network team at UVA includes Petri, Drs. Chris Chisholm (obstetrics/gynecology), Rob Sinkin (pediatrics), Chelsea Braun (medicine/infectious diseases) and Program Manager Lauren Swindell and, in Bangladesh, Drs. Rashidul Haque and Masum Billah of the icddr,b research center and Ruth Lennox of the LAMB Hospital.
Petri noted that the findings result from an important collaboration of scientists around the world working together to improve care for pregnant women and help them deliver their babies more safely.
“All of us engaged in the work of the network here in Charlottesville are enjoying the opportunity to collaborate across disciplines, each of us enriched by the perspectives of obstetricians, pediatricians and infectious-diseases specialists,” Petri said. “The network is open to all to propose new multi-site international studies in maternal and child health, and I hope that innovative ideas and ultimately clinical trials will originate here at UVA.”
More:Multiple Sclerosis discovery could end disease’s chronic inflammation
More:Avoli announces he won't seek reelection to House of Delegates
The researchers have published their findings in the New England Journal of Medicine and was supported by The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health through the Maternal, Newborn & Child Health Discovery & Tools initiative of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Reporter Monique Calello can be reached at <email-pii>. Subscribe to us at newsleader.com to keep reading the stories you care about the most.
|
<urn:uuid:55b4ded0-3e53-4a34-81e9-082666b9711a>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-14",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296944996.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20230323034459-20230323064459-00760.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9360189437866211,
"pii_count": 1,
"score": 2.9375,
"token_count": 906,
"url": "https://www.newsleader.com/story/news/2023/02/27/antibiotic-reduces-mothers-risk-of-deathduring-childbirth-uva-scientist/69948307007/"
}
|
Antibiotic reduces mothers’ risk of death during childbirth: UVA scientist
- Infections among top five causes of maternal mortality worldwide.
CHARLOTTESVILLE — A single dose of the antibiotic azithromycin can help protect mothers from dangerous sepsis infections and death during vaginal childbirth, a sweeping new international study from a UVA Health scientist and his collaborators has found, according to a press release from University of Virginia Medical Center.
Azithromycin, also known as Z-Pak, has already been shown to benefit women delivering by cesarean section. But the new findings reveal that the common antibiotic reduces mortality for women
|
delivering vaginally and cuts their risk of developing sepsis, a potentially fatal full-body infection, the study finds.
Infections, particularly sepsis, are responsible for 10% of maternal deaths shortly before, during and after childbirth, putting such infections in the top five causes of maternal mortality worldwide, the release said.
“A single dose of the antibiotic azithromycin decreased sepsis and death by half in women in labor,” said researcher Dr. William A. Petri Jr., of the University of Virginia School of Medicine’s Division of Infectious Diseases and International Health.
“The simplicity of this intervention should allow its institution around the globe to protect mothers during childbirth,” said Petri.
Petri is part of the Azithromycin Prophylaxis in Labor Use Study (A-PLUS) Trial Group, an international coalition of researchers that set out to determine if giving the antibiotic during childbirth would benefit either mothers or their children. More than 29,000 women in low- and middle-income countries volunteered to take part in the randomized trial; half were given azithromycin and half were given a harmless placebo, according to the study.
Among the 14,637 women who received the placebo, 2.4% developed sepsis or died within six weeks. That’s compared with only 1.6% of the 14,526 women who received azithromycin. The difference was clear enough that the researchers stopped the trial early, the release said.
The antibiotic did not provide similar benefits for the babies, the researchers found. However, they say that benefits for the mothers, combined with the lack of harmful side effects, makes azithromycin an important new tool for keeping moms safe before, during and after delivery. (The antibiotic is already recommended for caesarian births in the United States and elsewhere.)
UVA is one of seven universities participating in the Global Network for Women's and Children's Health. The network team at UVA includes Petri, Drs. Chris Chisholm (obstetrics/gynecology), Rob Sinkin (pediatrics), Chelsea Braun (medicine/infectious diseases) and Program Manager Lauren Swindell and, in Bangladesh, Drs. Rashidul Haque and Masum Billah of the icddr,b research center and Ruth Lennox of the LAMB Hospital.
Petri noted that the findings result from an important collaboration of scientists around the world working together to improve care for pregnant women and help them deliver their babies more safely.
“All of us engaged in the work of the network here in Charlottesville are enjoying the opportunity to collaborate across disciplines, each of us enriched by the perspectives of obstetricians, pediatricians and infectious-diseases specialists,” Petri said. “The network is open to all to propose new multi-site international studies in maternal and child health, and I hope that innovative ideas and ultimately clinical trials will originate here at UVA.”
More:Multiple Sclerosis discovery could end disease’s chronic inflammation
More:Avoli announces he won't seek reelection to House of Delegates
The researchers have published their findings in the New England Journal of Medicine and was supported by The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health through the Maternal, Newborn & Child Health Discovery & Tools initiative of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Reporter Monique Calello can be reached at <email-pii>. Subscribe to us at newsleader.com to keep reading the stories you care about the most.
|
By: Seval On
Many factors can contribute to a student dropping out of medical school, whether it’s stress, financial concerns, or a lack of support and academic success. Throughout the years, studies have suggested that medical students experience high rates of mental illness such as anxiety or depression. When studying pre-med, many people consider that becoming a doctor takes a lot of time and dedication. People often talk about the challenging aspects of being a doctor so they’re well prepared to face those obstacles.
Students are expected to maintain good grades and constantly study, but do these expectations reflect the reality of medical school? In fact, yes they do; incoming freshmen are aware of how difficult medical school is but sometimes they underestimate their abilities. Before their freshman year, their minds consist of many expectations. Jessica Young was a medical student who graduated in 2019 from UConn’s honor program, and she gave advice to incoming freshmen and said, “You want to go into school open-minded and explore different things. You technically don’t need to know what you want to specialize in until the end of your third year.” Being open-minded and fearless to try new things is important in the medical field because their future jobs will consist of treating all patients with no judgment. People often fear that when they don’t meet these expectations, they stress out and suddenly quit because they feel their career advancement isn’t going as planned.
Subsequently, medical school students are at risk of mental health problems due to personal pressures, financial concerns, or lack of support. Colleges and programs acknowledged the importance of engaging in their students’ mental well-being and working with students to share their challenges with stress, anxiety, and depression. According to the report, 6 Ways Campuses Are Helping Students De-Stress, Michelle Baik, director of the Mind Matters program states that among many campuses, resources are available to help students navigate their responsibilities in the school or at work. For example, at California State University, videos were produced by the counselors at the Student Health Center. Topics they highlight include how to manage stress and how to deal with the fear of failure or lack of success. My sister, Selin, who’s currently studying for the MCAT stated, “Studying from morning to night every day has strongly impacted my mental health, which is why I see a therapist.” According to the Council of Faculty and Academic Societies, there are also resources to help all college students seeking help. This program is seen across some universities and provides phone numbers and foundations which address the needs of those who are suffering. Selin also expresses, “When I notice I’m overwhelming myself, I like to surround myself around my family or friends to distract my thoughts.” Even though many students commit to medical school, the rate of dropping out is slowly increasing per year. As stated in, 45 Medical School Statistics Every Student Should Know, Maria Clark, Professor of the Health and Sciences department at the University of Nottingham says that the variation of people who fall out is between 7%-35% based on yearly graduation rates. Although the yearly rate isn’t as high as many expect it to be, many students worked extremely hard to be giving away their acceptance that quickly. Although many students decide to major in biology, it’s clear that some students conclude that they regret choosing a medical profession due to its addition of school years and work. Despite having the grades, giving all of your efforts and dedication to the school is one of the most difficult parts of becoming a doctor. Failure is part of the process of being in medical school, however many people quit there. Handling competition, time, and responsibility is a key factor in any medical career. Overcoming these obstacles demonstrates the path you wish to pursue in your life.
|
<urn:uuid:9c712e71-9be1-46d3-b1da-63a0486a448a>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-06",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764500041.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20230202232251-20230203022251-00191.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9783539175987244,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.75,
"token_count": 785,
"url": "https://academygazetteblog.wordpress.com/2023/01/12/medical-school-cause-of-depression/"
}
|
By: Seval On
Many factors can contribute to a student dropping out of medical school, whether it’s stress, financial concerns, or a lack of support and academic success. Throughout the years, studies have suggested that medical students experience high rates of mental illness such as anxiety or depression. When studying pre-med, many people consider that becoming a doctor takes a lot of time and dedication. People often talk about the challenging aspects of being a doctor so they’re well prepared to face those obstacles.
Students are expected to maintain good grades and constantly study, but do these expectations reflect the reality of medical school? In fact, yes they do;
|
incoming freshmen are aware of how difficult medical school is but sometimes they underestimate their abilities. Before their freshman year, their minds consist of many expectations. Jessica Young was a medical student who graduated in 2019 from UConn’s honor program, and she gave advice to incoming freshmen and said, “You want to go into school open-minded and explore different things. You technically don’t need to know what you want to specialize in until the end of your third year.” Being open-minded and fearless to try new things is important in the medical field because their future jobs will consist of treating all patients with no judgment. People often fear that when they don’t meet these expectations, they stress out and suddenly quit because they feel their career advancement isn’t going as planned.
Subsequently, medical school students are at risk of mental health problems due to personal pressures, financial concerns, or lack of support. Colleges and programs acknowledged the importance of engaging in their students’ mental well-being and working with students to share their challenges with stress, anxiety, and depression. According to the report, 6 Ways Campuses Are Helping Students De-Stress, Michelle Baik, director of the Mind Matters program states that among many campuses, resources are available to help students navigate their responsibilities in the school or at work. For example, at California State University, videos were produced by the counselors at the Student Health Center. Topics they highlight include how to manage stress and how to deal with the fear of failure or lack of success. My sister, Selin, who’s currently studying for the MCAT stated, “Studying from morning to night every day has strongly impacted my mental health, which is why I see a therapist.” According to the Council of Faculty and Academic Societies, there are also resources to help all college students seeking help. This program is seen across some universities and provides phone numbers and foundations which address the needs of those who are suffering. Selin also expresses, “When I notice I’m overwhelming myself, I like to surround myself around my family or friends to distract my thoughts.” Even though many students commit to medical school, the rate of dropping out is slowly increasing per year. As stated in, 45 Medical School Statistics Every Student Should Know, Maria Clark, Professor of the Health and Sciences department at the University of Nottingham says that the variation of people who fall out is between 7%-35% based on yearly graduation rates. Although the yearly rate isn’t as high as many expect it to be, many students worked extremely hard to be giving away their acceptance that quickly. Although many students decide to major in biology, it’s clear that some students conclude that they regret choosing a medical profession due to its addition of school years and work. Despite having the grades, giving all of your efforts and dedication to the school is one of the most difficult parts of becoming a doctor. Failure is part of the process of being in medical school, however many people quit there. Handling competition, time, and responsibility is a key factor in any medical career. Overcoming these obstacles demonstrates the path you wish to pursue in your life.
|
After a cloudy January, Vermonters soak up the sun
No, you aren’t mistaken. The sun was a rare sight during the month of January.
According to the National Weather Service in Burlington, this was the cloudiest January on record in the area since 1951. The average cloud cover was 88%, with zero days categorized as “fair.”
Why was it so cloudy?
Matthew Clay, a meteorologist at NWS in Burlington, says the warmer weather we’ve been experiencing this winter may have exacerbated the cloud cover. Because, he says, if you have colder air, you usually have less moisture, too.
“Back in January, we were pretty mild. Looking back at our data, we finished 6.1 degrees above normal for the month. … So, you know, without that real cold arctic air that we're used to seeing in the January month, we just didn't get those drier conditions to favor clear skies,” Clay says.
Clay says NWS also saw southern winds that brought more moisture northwards.
And, with extra moisture comes precipitation.
“Twenty-seven of the 31 days we did report precipitation here at the airport,” Clay says. “So, in order to get precipitation you have to have clouds. So, you know, an active and warmer period led to just more cloud cover than we’re used to for the month of January.”
But the chronic cloudiness isn’t too abnormal. Clay says that, typically, January is the cloudiest month for the area. The least cloudiest times? Late August and early September.
Luckily, February has started out with some clear, sunny days that have coaxed some people in the area out of doors.
But still, this gloomy January may have been a tough one for people struggling with their mental health.
How to cope
Kelly Rohan is a researcher at the University of Vermont who specializes in seasonal affective disorder. She says that most research points to day length as the factor that most correlates to mood in people who have winter depression.
There is some research showing that weather-related factors like cloud cover and rain may lower peoples’ moods in the general population. But those effects are very subtle, Rohan says. “It’s relatively small compared to the effects of day-to-day stressors.”
If you feel you’re experiencing symptoms of seasonal depression, Rohan says there are some ways to boost your mood.
Most importantly: don’t isolate. Keep up your normal routine and activities.
“Stay engaged, talk to people, do the things that you would normally do — if that's going to the gym, or engaging with clubs or groups — keep doing those things, rather than to go into, kind of, a passive hibernation mode, which breeds more depression and inevitably leads to feeling worse, not better,” Rohan says.
And, if you continue to feel symptoms of depression, reach out to a specialist who can help you find the right treatment.
Have questions, comments or tips? Send us a message.
|
<urn:uuid:668f089b-a531-4148-ad8c-cb43e7ca10c2>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2024-10",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947476464.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20240304165127-20240304195127-00300.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9663921594619751,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.828125,
"token_count": 658,
"url": "https://www.vermontpublic.org/local-news/2024-02-05/after-a-cloudy-january-vermonters-soak-up-the-sun"
}
|
After a cloudy January, Vermonters soak up the sun
No, you aren’t mistaken. The sun was a rare sight during the month of January.
According to the National Weather Service in Burlington, this was the cloudiest January on record in the area since 1951. The average cloud cover was 88%, with zero days categorized as “fair.”
Why was it so cloudy?
Matthew Clay, a meteorologist at NWS in Burlington, says the warmer weather we’ve been experiencing this winter may have exacerbated the cloud cover. Because, he says, if you have colder air, you usually
|
have less moisture, too.
“Back in January, we were pretty mild. Looking back at our data, we finished 6.1 degrees above normal for the month. … So, you know, without that real cold arctic air that we're used to seeing in the January month, we just didn't get those drier conditions to favor clear skies,” Clay says.
Clay says NWS also saw southern winds that brought more moisture northwards.
And, with extra moisture comes precipitation.
“Twenty-seven of the 31 days we did report precipitation here at the airport,” Clay says. “So, in order to get precipitation you have to have clouds. So, you know, an active and warmer period led to just more cloud cover than we’re used to for the month of January.”
But the chronic cloudiness isn’t too abnormal. Clay says that, typically, January is the cloudiest month for the area. The least cloudiest times? Late August and early September.
Luckily, February has started out with some clear, sunny days that have coaxed some people in the area out of doors.
But still, this gloomy January may have been a tough one for people struggling with their mental health.
How to cope
Kelly Rohan is a researcher at the University of Vermont who specializes in seasonal affective disorder. She says that most research points to day length as the factor that most correlates to mood in people who have winter depression.
There is some research showing that weather-related factors like cloud cover and rain may lower peoples’ moods in the general population. But those effects are very subtle, Rohan says. “It’s relatively small compared to the effects of day-to-day stressors.”
If you feel you’re experiencing symptoms of seasonal depression, Rohan says there are some ways to boost your mood.
Most importantly: don’t isolate. Keep up your normal routine and activities.
“Stay engaged, talk to people, do the things that you would normally do — if that's going to the gym, or engaging with clubs or groups — keep doing those things, rather than to go into, kind of, a passive hibernation mode, which breeds more depression and inevitably leads to feeling worse, not better,” Rohan says.
And, if you continue to feel symptoms of depression, reach out to a specialist who can help you find the right treatment.
Have questions, comments or tips? Send us a message.
|
OSU Extension: Have you checked the temp of your garden soil lately?
Warmer spring temperatures, will no doubt bring lots of gardeners out into the sunshine. The calendar tells us we could be planting early spring crops in the garden but what does the soil thermometer tell us. If you have never thought about the use of the soil thermometer you should! Have you ever had crops that you planted in your garden that just “set” there and did not take off? Perhaps you planted them in wet soils and perhaps you planted them when the soils were just too cold.
Soil temperature plays an important role in seed germination. Adequate soil temperatures for germination range widely for different crops. For example, spinach needs a soil temperature of at least 38 degrees to germinate while lettuces, onions and peas like a 42-43-degree soil temperature. Potatoes do best at 45 degrees, even though legend suggests St. Patrick’s Day is the perfect day for planting ‘taters. And those tomatoes, cucumbers and pumpkins prefer soil temperatures in the 58-60 degree soil temperature range.
So how can you learn about the soil temperature in your garden? You could purchase a soil thermometer or you could attend the Tomato Planting and Care Clinic slated from 2 to 3 p.m. Friday, March 31, at the Fairfield County Ag Center, 831 College Avenue . Dr. Tim McDermott of OSU Extension in Franklin County will be on hand to answer all of your tomato planting and care questions. Cost: $10*, includes an AM Leonard soil thermometer Registration: go.osu.edu/tomatoclinic. If you have questions please call OSU Extension in Fairfield County at 740-653-5419.
If want to learn more about growing conditions in our area, take a minute and check out the CFAES Weather System https://www.oardc.ohio-state.edu/weather1/
If you scroll down the left column of the page you will see precipitation and soil temperature total, click on the link and for most of us Columbus will be the site you will use.
This handy tool is just one click away. Start your growing season off right. Check soil temperatures before opening your first packet of seeds to plant in your garden. Happy Gardening!!!
Source: Connie Smith, Program Assistant, Master Gardener Coordinator-Fairfield County
Seed starting basics
Spring weather is finally here, and it’s time to start planting seeds. Starting seeds at home doesn’t need to be expensive, fancy or difficult. In general, now is a great time to start seeding your cool-season crops like lettuce and Brassicas, and it’s best to wait until early April to start seeding warm-season crops like tomatoes and peppers.
A pre-mixed seed starting soil specifically designed for seedlings is usually the best option for starting seeds. Seeds need to grow in soil that drains well to prevent damping off. These mixes have an optimal blend of sand, silt, clay and other materials such as peat, coconut coir and vermiculite. Pre-made mixes also have enough fertilizer to support seedlings until you’re ready to transplant them into the garden. However, these mixes do not have enough fertilizer to support plants to maturity.
There are five basic requirements for starting seeds successfully indoors. These requirements are light, warmth, containers, water and humidity.
All plants require light to grow. In the short term, a very sunny window is sufficient to start your seedlings. This can work well if you plan to transplant your seedlings within 3 to 4 weeks of germination. For most home gardeners, starting seeds in a window works well, and supplemental lighting is not required. If you plan to start your seedlings more than a month or so ahead of time, or you lack a sunny, south-facing window, grow lights may be necessary.
If your plants do not have enough light, they can get “leggy.” This happens when they stretch to reach towards a light source and can result in thin stems that are not strong enough to support the plant.
Most seedlings germinate best in warm soil. For cool-season crops like lettuce, broccoli, kale and pak choi, soil around 50 degrees F is optimal. For warm-season crops like peppers and tomatoes, soil around 65 degrees F is ideal. When the soil is cool, your newly sprouted seeds are more likely to experience damping off. Keeping your soil warm allows for quick growth and healthier plants.
If you have a south-facing window and an area near it that gets quite warm during the day, this is likely sufficient for your garden seeds. For gardeners who lack a warm window, or for serious gardeners who want to grow quite a few transplants, investing in a heating mat may be a good idea. Heating mats are electrically powered and sit underneath your germination trays to heat your soil from the bottom.
An efficient way to start seedlings is to buy plastic trays with numerous cells already molded into the tray. These trays come with various cell sizes, ranging from 128 cells per tray (very small cells for herbs, things you plan to transplant quickly, or things that will eventually be transplanted to larger pots) all the way to 50 cells per tray. Trays range in quality; some are disposable and use cheap, thin plastic, and others are re-usable with sturdier plastic. They tend to be space-efficient, allowing you to grow many plants at once without having to deal with so many pots. Or tink about reusing some of those pots you have stored in your garage from previous years plantings. Any time you reuse a pot from year to year, make sure to clean and sanitize it first to prevent the spread of pathogens.
One of the most common mistakes that new gardeners make is overwatering. It is important to maintain consistent moisture, so don’t wait until the soil is bone dry, but if it’s moist, wait until it’s just barely damp before watering again. Signs that you’re overwatering might include crusty algal growth on the top of your soil, yellow leaves, or rotting seedlings.
While plants need plenty of airflow after they’ve fully germinated, there’s a short period of time when they require ample humidity to sprout. You can achieve a mini-greenhouse effect by placing a plastic lid on your germination trays (you can often buy pre-made germination kits that include a lid). You can also take the DIY approach and use plastic wrap, a bowl, or another item to create a dome over your seeds. Once your seedlings have successfully germinated, you can move them out of this super humid environment and think about moving your seeds to cover porch to harden off before planting.
2023 Goat, Barrow and Lamb MQP Entry Information
Entries for the 2023 Fairfield County Jr. Fair Goat, Barrow, and Lamb MQP programs are now being accepted. Again this year all MQP entries will be accepted online.
To be considered for a spot in any of these programs, a completed application must be received on-line by the end of day on May 1, 2023. As in the past, the Barrow and Lamb MQP applications will also include submitting an essay. Returning this year to the scoring for Barrow MQP will be a performance component that requires the barrows be weighed at the beginning of the contest. Barrows will be harvested and processed at Bay Packing in Fairfield County at the conclusion. In order to accommodate such a large harvest and process the pork in a timely fashion, participants or those who have purchased the freezer pork from the participants, must agree to pick up their fresh/frozen pork prior to the Fair at a time to be announced. Cured product, such as bacon or ham, will be available for pick-up at a time yet to be determined after the fair.
Lambs will also be harvested at Bay Packing. Likewise with the freezer pork, in order to be able to accommodate such a large harvest and process the lamb in a timely fashion, participants or those who have purchased the freezer lamb from the participants must agree to pick up their fresh/frozen lamb prior to the Fair at a time yet to be announced.
The Goat MQP program will conclude with harvest at Bay Packing in late August. Similar to the barrow and lamp programs, the processed goats must be picked up at Bay Packing in a timely fashion after processing is complete. The application process being required that includes an essay for the Barrow and Lamb MQPprojects is intended to allow the Show Committees the opportunity to clearly communicate in a timely fashion to participants where they rank on the participant list. The subjective and age appropriate evaluation of the Barrow and Lamp MQP essays by several ‘judges’ will serve as the basis for that ranking that will be completed and announced by May 15 or as soon as possible. This year, Goat MQP participants are not asked for an essay. The Fairfield County’s Barrow, Lamb, and Goat MQP programs will operate under the following guidelines:
Applications for the 2023 Barrow, Lamb, Goat MQP program must be received through the on-line portal by the end of the day on May 1. The online application links are available on the Fairfield County OSU Extension website under livestock forms at go.osu.edu/mqp.
|
<urn:uuid:308e2d8d-439a-4919-9a64-72fd34e06158>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-23",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224651325.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20230605053432-20230605083432-00115.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9442769289016724,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.125,
"token_count": 2005,
"url": "https://www.lancastereaglegazette.com/story/news/local/2023/03/24/osu-extension-have-you-checked-the-temp-of-your-garden-soil-lately/70029365007/"
}
|
OSU Extension: Have you checked the temp of your garden soil lately?
Warmer spring temperatures, will no doubt bring lots of gardeners out into the sunshine. The calendar tells us we could be planting early spring crops in the garden but what does the soil thermometer tell us. If you have never thought about the use of the soil thermometer you should! Have you ever had crops that you planted in your garden that just “set” there and did not take off? Perhaps you planted them in wet soils and perhaps you planted them when the soils were just too cold.
Soil temperature plays an important role in seed germination. Ade
|
quate soil temperatures for germination range widely for different crops. For example, spinach needs a soil temperature of at least 38 degrees to germinate while lettuces, onions and peas like a 42-43-degree soil temperature. Potatoes do best at 45 degrees, even though legend suggests St. Patrick’s Day is the perfect day for planting ‘taters. And those tomatoes, cucumbers and pumpkins prefer soil temperatures in the 58-60 degree soil temperature range.
So how can you learn about the soil temperature in your garden? You could purchase a soil thermometer or you could attend the Tomato Planting and Care Clinic slated from 2 to 3 p.m. Friday, March 31, at the Fairfield County Ag Center, 831 College Avenue . Dr. Tim McDermott of OSU Extension in Franklin County will be on hand to answer all of your tomato planting and care questions. Cost: $10*, includes an AM Leonard soil thermometer Registration: go.osu.edu/tomatoclinic. If you have questions please call OSU Extension in Fairfield County at 740-653-5419.
If want to learn more about growing conditions in our area, take a minute and check out the CFAES Weather System https://www.oardc.ohio-state.edu/weather1/
If you scroll down the left column of the page you will see precipitation and soil temperature total, click on the link and for most of us Columbus will be the site you will use.
This handy tool is just one click away. Start your growing season off right. Check soil temperatures before opening your first packet of seeds to plant in your garden. Happy Gardening!!!
Source: Connie Smith, Program Assistant, Master Gardener Coordinator-Fairfield County
Seed starting basics
Spring weather is finally here, and it’s time to start planting seeds. Starting seeds at home doesn’t need to be expensive, fancy or difficult. In general, now is a great time to start seeding your cool-season crops like lettuce and Brassicas, and it’s best to wait until early April to start seeding warm-season crops like tomatoes and peppers.
A pre-mixed seed starting soil specifically designed for seedlings is usually the best option for starting seeds. Seeds need to grow in soil that drains well to prevent damping off. These mixes have an optimal blend of sand, silt, clay and other materials such as peat, coconut coir and vermiculite. Pre-made mixes also have enough fertilizer to support seedlings until you’re ready to transplant them into the garden. However, these mixes do not have enough fertilizer to support plants to maturity.
There are five basic requirements for starting seeds successfully indoors. These requirements are light, warmth, containers, water and humidity.
All plants require light to grow. In the short term, a very sunny window is sufficient to start your seedlings. This can work well if you plan to transplant your seedlings within 3 to 4 weeks of germination. For most home gardeners, starting seeds in a window works well, and supplemental lighting is not required. If you plan to start your seedlings more than a month or so ahead of time, or you lack a sunny, south-facing window, grow lights may be necessary.
If your plants do not have enough light, they can get “leggy.” This happens when they stretch to reach towards a light source and can result in thin stems that are not strong enough to support the plant.
Most seedlings germinate best in warm soil. For cool-season crops like lettuce, broccoli, kale and pak choi, soil around 50 degrees F is optimal. For warm-season crops like peppers and tomatoes, soil around 65 degrees F is ideal. When the soil is cool, your newly sprouted seeds are more likely to experience damping off. Keeping your soil warm allows for quick growth and healthier plants.
If you have a south-facing window and an area near it that gets quite warm during the day, this is likely sufficient for your garden seeds. For gardeners who lack a warm window, or for serious gardeners who want to grow quite a few transplants, investing in a heating mat may be a good idea. Heating mats are electrically powered and sit underneath your germination trays to heat your soil from the bottom.
An efficient way to start seedlings is to buy plastic trays with numerous cells already molded into the tray. These trays come with various cell sizes, ranging from 128 cells per tray (very small cells for herbs, things you plan to transplant quickly, or things that will eventually be transplanted to larger pots) all the way to 50 cells per tray. Trays range in quality; some are disposable and use cheap, thin plastic, and others are re-usable with sturdier plastic. They tend to be space-efficient, allowing you to grow many plants at once without having to deal with so many pots. Or tink about reusing some of those pots you have stored in your garage from previous years plantings. Any time you reuse a pot from year to year, make sure to clean and sanitize it first to prevent the spread of pathogens.
One of the most common mistakes that new gardeners make is overwatering. It is important to maintain consistent moisture, so don’t wait until the soil is bone dry, but if it’s moist, wait until it’s just barely damp before watering again. Signs that you’re overwatering might include crusty algal growth on the top of your soil, yellow leaves, or rotting seedlings.
While plants need plenty of airflow after they’ve fully germinated, there’s a short period of time when they require ample humidity to sprout. You can achieve a mini-greenhouse effect by placing a plastic lid on your germination trays (you can often buy pre-made germination kits that include a lid). You can also take the DIY approach and use plastic wrap, a bowl, or another item to create a dome over your seeds. Once your seedlings have successfully germinated, you can move them out of this super humid environment and think about moving your seeds to cover porch to harden off before planting.
2023 Goat, Barrow and Lamb MQP Entry Information
Entries for the 2023 Fairfield County Jr. Fair Goat, Barrow, and Lamb MQP programs are now being accepted. Again this year all MQP entries will be accepted online.
To be considered for a spot in any of these programs, a completed application must be received on-line by the end of day on May 1, 2023. As in the past, the Barrow and Lamb MQP applications will also include submitting an essay. Returning this year to the scoring for Barrow MQP will be a performance component that requires the barrows be weighed at the beginning of the contest. Barrows will be harvested and processed at Bay Packing in Fairfield County at the conclusion. In order to accommodate such a large harvest and process the pork in a timely fashion, participants or those who have purchased the freezer pork from the participants, must agree to pick up their fresh/frozen pork prior to the Fair at a time to be announced. Cured product, such as bacon or ham, will be available for pick-up at a time yet to be determined after the fair.
Lambs will also be harvested at Bay Packing. Likewise with the freezer pork, in order to be able to accommodate such a large harvest and process the lamb in a timely fashion, participants or those who have purchased the freezer lamb from the participants must agree to pick up their fresh/frozen lamb prior to the Fair at a time yet to be announced.
The Goat MQP program will conclude with harvest at Bay Packing in late August. Similar to the barrow and lamp programs, the processed goats must be picked up at Bay Packing in a timely fashion after processing is complete. The application process being required that includes an essay for the Barrow and Lamb MQPprojects is intended to allow the Show Committees the opportunity to clearly communicate in a timely fashion to participants where they rank on the participant list. The subjective and age appropriate evaluation of the Barrow and Lamp MQP essays by several ‘judges’ will serve as the basis for that ranking that will be completed and announced by May 15 or as soon as possible. This year, Goat MQP participants are not asked for an essay. The Fairfield County’s Barrow, Lamb, and Goat MQP programs will operate under the following guidelines:
Applications for the 2023 Barrow, Lamb, Goat MQP program must be received through the on-line portal by the end of the day on May 1. The online application links are available on the Fairfield County OSU Extension website under livestock forms at go.osu.edu/mqp.
|
Children who struggle to pay attention tend to do less well at school than their classmates and go into lower paying jobs as adults, according to a new study.
And children who find it difficult to manage their behavior at school are more likely to end up in jail.
“Our study found broad support for the notion that people’s early experiences and skills really matter when they reach adulthood, despite everything that happens in between,” said Andrew Koepp, of the University of Texas at Austin, lead author of the study.
It also means that helping children manage their attention and behavior will benefit them in later life, he added.
The study looked at data from both the U.S. and the U.K. following children into adulthood.
Researchers were aiming to test whether findings from a ground-breaking study carried out in New Zealand were replicated in other countries.
The 2011 Dunedin study was the first large-scale evidence that problems with self-control in childhood were linked to negative outcomes in adults.
For the latest study, researchers examined data on 1,168 children in the U.S., following them from birth to age 26, and 16,506 children from the U.K., who were followed to age 42.
Participants had been interviewed multiple times during their childhood, along with their parents and teachers, and including on their impulsivity, inattention and hyperactivity at both home and school.
They were interviewed again as adults, on their education, careers, finances and physical and mental health, with the results analyzed for the study, published in the journal Developmental Psychology.
Researchers were surprised at how closely the results matched those from the 2011 study, Koepp said.
“It means we are on more solid ground when we say that children’s abilities to control their attention and behavior are important life skills,” he said.
But while the earlier study looked at attention and impulsivity or hyperactivity more broadly, researchers in the latest study wanted to try to isolate the impact of each aspect of behavior.
They found that difficulty in paying attention was linked to lower educational outcomes, lower rates of employment and lower earnings.
In contrast, impulsivity and hyperactivity was linked to greater involvement in the criminal justice system and a greater chance of spending time in jail.
“Attention and behavior problems make it difficult to adjust to the academic and social demands of children’s environments and these difficulties likely carry forward in development,” researchers wrote.
“What we can conclude from the current study is that attention and behavior problems in childhood portend difficulties meeting the demands of one’s environment throughout development.”
The study found that there was no one period of childhood or adolescence that was more important than any other in driving the link between behavior and adult outcomes. In other words, it didn't matter at what age children struggled to pay attention, the result was broadly the same.
The study demonstrates the potential impact of helping children learn to regulate their behavior, said Koepp.
“Our findings make it clear that identifying ways to help children develop the skills to manage their attention and behavior at any age could pay real dividends and set them on a track for success,” he added.
|
<urn:uuid:f6299ce4-d40d-4360-b39a-4af8d471870b>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510501.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20230929090526-20230929120526-00743.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.978906512260437,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.078125,
"token_count": 670,
"url": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/nickmorrison/2023/06/05/children-who-struggle-to-pay-attention-earn-less-as-adults-study-finds/"
}
|
Children who struggle to pay attention tend to do less well at school than their classmates and go into lower paying jobs as adults, according to a new study.
And children who find it difficult to manage their behavior at school are more likely to end up in jail.
“Our study found broad support for the notion that people’s early experiences and skills really matter when they reach adulthood, despite everything that happens in between,” said Andrew Koepp, of the University of Texas at Austin, lead author of the study.
It also means that helping children manage their attention and behavior will benefit them in later life, he added.
The study looked at
|
data from both the U.S. and the U.K. following children into adulthood.
Researchers were aiming to test whether findings from a ground-breaking study carried out in New Zealand were replicated in other countries.
The 2011 Dunedin study was the first large-scale evidence that problems with self-control in childhood were linked to negative outcomes in adults.
For the latest study, researchers examined data on 1,168 children in the U.S., following them from birth to age 26, and 16,506 children from the U.K., who were followed to age 42.
Participants had been interviewed multiple times during their childhood, along with their parents and teachers, and including on their impulsivity, inattention and hyperactivity at both home and school.
They were interviewed again as adults, on their education, careers, finances and physical and mental health, with the results analyzed for the study, published in the journal Developmental Psychology.
Researchers were surprised at how closely the results matched those from the 2011 study, Koepp said.
“It means we are on more solid ground when we say that children’s abilities to control their attention and behavior are important life skills,” he said.
But while the earlier study looked at attention and impulsivity or hyperactivity more broadly, researchers in the latest study wanted to try to isolate the impact of each aspect of behavior.
They found that difficulty in paying attention was linked to lower educational outcomes, lower rates of employment and lower earnings.
In contrast, impulsivity and hyperactivity was linked to greater involvement in the criminal justice system and a greater chance of spending time in jail.
“Attention and behavior problems make it difficult to adjust to the academic and social demands of children’s environments and these difficulties likely carry forward in development,” researchers wrote.
“What we can conclude from the current study is that attention and behavior problems in childhood portend difficulties meeting the demands of one’s environment throughout development.”
The study found that there was no one period of childhood or adolescence that was more important than any other in driving the link between behavior and adult outcomes. In other words, it didn't matter at what age children struggled to pay attention, the result was broadly the same.
The study demonstrates the potential impact of helping children learn to regulate their behavior, said Koepp.
“Our findings make it clear that identifying ways to help children develop the skills to manage their attention and behavior at any age could pay real dividends and set them on a track for success,” he added.
|
Cape Cod researchers study removing PFAS from the waste stream
The Massachusetts Alternative Septic System Test Center, or MASSTC, is a premier site for wastewater research located on Cape Cod.
Some of their tests involve adding woodchips to septic systems to help remove nitrogen from the environment, but could those woodchips also be used to remove the “forever chemicals” PFAS from the waste stream?
The Center has been working with EPA scientists for the last two years to find out.
Brian Baumgaertel is MASSTC Director and Barnstable County’s Wastewater Director.
He said early results suggest the woodchip systems can remove PFAS.
“It’s a little bit of an exciting time to be working on this stuff because we’re seeing something that we designed for one purpose and may actually work well for another purpose and help to solve another problem in the process.”
Baumgaertel said they’re still studying how the PFAS are being removed by the woodchips.
Exposure to PFAS has been linked to health problems, including cancer.
PFAS is also present in sludge, the solid material that’s left over at the end of the wastewater treatment process.
Baumgaertel said this is one reason why there are fewer places to dispose of sludge.
As towns throughout Cape Cod invest millions of dollars expanding sewers, they may run out of sludge disposal locations.
Baumgaertel said most of the Cape’s sludge is currently shipped to an incinerator in Rhode Island.
“So, as we produce more sludge and as that facility, which is already over capacity, as we hit that point, we’re going to have to go further and further away for our sludge disposal purposes.”
Other tests at MASSTC involve urine diversion toilets that separate urine from the waste stream.
The system is an effort to reduce the nitrogen from waste that’s harming local waters.
Bryan Horsley is MASSTC Site Operator.
He said once the diverted urine gets pasteurized, it can then be used as fertilizer by farmers and landscapers.
“We can take a product that was a harmful waste that’s messing up our water quality and turn it around into something that has value.”
Horsley said 80% of the nitrogen in residential wastewater comes from urine.
“I’ve seen a lot of people who live in freshwater pond watersheds where they’re very concerned about the water quality and seeing harmful cyanobacteria blooms every summer. And I think a lot of those people feel helpless and see this [urine diversion] as something that they can engage to help that problem right away,” Horsley said.
In November, Falmouth leaders approved the use of $80,000 of federal funds for outreach and education for a urine diversion project that was approved at Town Meeting.
|
<urn:uuid:44ea890f-2335-4e24-9518-0de21b35801b>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2024-10",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947474853.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20240229202522-20240229232522-00641.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9548453092575073,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.71875,
"token_count": 629,
"url": "https://www.ctpublic.org/2023-12-04/cape-cod-researchers-study-removing-pfas-from-the-waste-stream"
}
|
Cape Cod researchers study removing PFAS from the waste stream
The Massachusetts Alternative Septic System Test Center, or MASSTC, is a premier site for wastewater research located on Cape Cod.
Some of their tests involve adding woodchips to septic systems to help remove nitrogen from the environment, but could those woodchips also be used to remove the “forever chemicals” PFAS from the waste stream?
The Center has been working with EPA scientists for the last two years to find out.
Brian Baumgaertel is MASSTC Director and Barnstable County’s Wastewater Director.
He said early results suggest the woodchip systems
|
can remove PFAS.
“It’s a little bit of an exciting time to be working on this stuff because we’re seeing something that we designed for one purpose and may actually work well for another purpose and help to solve another problem in the process.”
Baumgaertel said they’re still studying how the PFAS are being removed by the woodchips.
Exposure to PFAS has been linked to health problems, including cancer.
PFAS is also present in sludge, the solid material that’s left over at the end of the wastewater treatment process.
Baumgaertel said this is one reason why there are fewer places to dispose of sludge.
As towns throughout Cape Cod invest millions of dollars expanding sewers, they may run out of sludge disposal locations.
Baumgaertel said most of the Cape’s sludge is currently shipped to an incinerator in Rhode Island.
“So, as we produce more sludge and as that facility, which is already over capacity, as we hit that point, we’re going to have to go further and further away for our sludge disposal purposes.”
Other tests at MASSTC involve urine diversion toilets that separate urine from the waste stream.
The system is an effort to reduce the nitrogen from waste that’s harming local waters.
Bryan Horsley is MASSTC Site Operator.
He said once the diverted urine gets pasteurized, it can then be used as fertilizer by farmers and landscapers.
“We can take a product that was a harmful waste that’s messing up our water quality and turn it around into something that has value.”
Horsley said 80% of the nitrogen in residential wastewater comes from urine.
“I’ve seen a lot of people who live in freshwater pond watersheds where they’re very concerned about the water quality and seeing harmful cyanobacteria blooms every summer. And I think a lot of those people feel helpless and see this [urine diversion] as something that they can engage to help that problem right away,” Horsley said.
In November, Falmouth leaders approved the use of $80,000 of federal funds for outreach and education for a urine diversion project that was approved at Town Meeting.
|
The number of babies born each year in the United States has been steadily dropping since the Great Recession of 2008. When the Covid-19 pandemic hit and brought another burst of uncertainty, many expected an even steeper dropoff.
But a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that about 50,000 more babies were born in the US in 2021 than in 2020, marking the first major reversal of the downward trend.
This small uptick still leaves the US birth rate far below pre-pandemic levels. Registered births have dropped 1% or 2% nearly every year over the past decade and a half, according to the CDC data. They fell 4% in 2020 alone.
An earlier report from the National Bureau of Economic Research suggested that the 2020 drop may not have captured the pandemic’s effect on conception as much as it reflected trends in travel. Those researchers found that “childbearing in the US among foreign-born mothers declined immediately after lockdowns began.”
They instead found a small “baby bump” among US-born mothers.
Tracking birth trends gives a population-level perspective that can help plan things such as building schools and managing Social Security payments, said Sarah Hayford, director of The Ohio State University’s Institute for Population Research.
The total US fertility rate – about 1.7 births for every woman – was below “replacement” in 2021, as it generally has been for decades, according to the CDC report. That means there aren’t enough births for a generation to replace itself as people die.
But there’s also an important personal perspective to each birth, says Hayford, who was not involved in the CDC research but has published research on fertility goals and behaviors.
“Being a parent or not being a parent is a really important part of a lot of people’s identities. It’s a really important part of people’s social relationships and social networks,” she said. “So understanding who’s becoming a parent and when and in what family contexts helps us understand the kinds of lives people are living and if they’re reaching the goals they have for themselves.”
Nearly 3.7 million births were registered in the US in 2021, according to the report. The analysis of birth certificates doesn’t directly address intentions for each birth, but it did find notable differences in demographic trends.
Births increased among White and Hispanic women, but they fell among Black, Asian and American Indian women, according to the CDC report.
And experts agree that the pandemic probably played a major role – in more ways than one.
“People’s experience of the pandemic was really bifurcated, and that can affect people’s decisions around having children,” Hayford said.
“People who lost jobs, people who had to keep working even though they didn’t want to, people in high-risk professions may have experienced that as a very stressful and unstable time,” she said. “For people who were able to work from home and experience the pandemic as a time of more financial stability, that might have been a good time to have children without sort of the challenges of commuting or being in the office.”
But there’s been an undercurrent at play long before the pandemic, too.
“Part of the reason that birth rates have been going down is, people have been putting off childbirth,” Hayford said. “We’ve been sort of waiting to see if people are going to stop putting if off and have those kids or they’re going to stop putting it off and say, ‘No, I’m never going to have those kids.’ “
The new report found that the average age of a first-time mother reached a record high of 27.3 years in 2021. Birth rates increased among women ages 25 to 44, while the teen birth rate reached a record low.
Still, research throughout the pandemic has raised concerns about the risks Covid-19 poses to pregnant women and their developing babies at any age.
Get CNN Health's weekly newsletter
Sign up here to get The Results Are In with Dr. Sanjay Gupta every Tuesday from the CNN Health team.
Compared with pregnant individuals who weren’t infected, those who got Covid-19 were nearly four times more likely to be admitted to an intensive care unit, according to the review. They were 15 times more likely to be ventilated and were seven times more likely to die. They also had higher risks of pre-eclampsia, blood clots and problems caused by high blood pressure.
A larger international review found that babies born to women who had Covid-19 were at higher risk for preterm birth and low birth weights.
The preterm birth rate in the US reached a record high in 2021, up to 10.5% of all births, according to the CDC report.
The share of babies born with low birth weight and who were delivered by C-section also increased in 2021.
CNN’s Brenda Goodman contributed to this report.
|
<urn:uuid:255a7203-e3de-454f-9069-5370bc254755>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-23",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224644817.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20230529074001-20230529104001-00149.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.975730836391449,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.96875,
"token_count": 1083,
"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/31/health/us-birth-rate-fertility-trends-2021/index.html"
}
|
The number of babies born each year in the United States has been steadily dropping since the Great Recession of 2008. When the Covid-19 pandemic hit and brought another burst of uncertainty, many expected an even steeper dropoff.
But a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that about 50,000 more babies were born in the US in 2021 than in 2020, marking the first major reversal of the downward trend.
This small uptick still leaves the US birth rate far below pre-pandemic levels. Registered births have dropped
|
1% or 2% nearly every year over the past decade and a half, according to the CDC data. They fell 4% in 2020 alone.
An earlier report from the National Bureau of Economic Research suggested that the 2020 drop may not have captured the pandemic’s effect on conception as much as it reflected trends in travel. Those researchers found that “childbearing in the US among foreign-born mothers declined immediately after lockdowns began.”
They instead found a small “baby bump” among US-born mothers.
Tracking birth trends gives a population-level perspective that can help plan things such as building schools and managing Social Security payments, said Sarah Hayford, director of The Ohio State University’s Institute for Population Research.
The total US fertility rate – about 1.7 births for every woman – was below “replacement” in 2021, as it generally has been for decades, according to the CDC report. That means there aren’t enough births for a generation to replace itself as people die.
But there’s also an important personal perspective to each birth, says Hayford, who was not involved in the CDC research but has published research on fertility goals and behaviors.
“Being a parent or not being a parent is a really important part of a lot of people’s identities. It’s a really important part of people’s social relationships and social networks,” she said. “So understanding who’s becoming a parent and when and in what family contexts helps us understand the kinds of lives people are living and if they’re reaching the goals they have for themselves.”
Nearly 3.7 million births were registered in the US in 2021, according to the report. The analysis of birth certificates doesn’t directly address intentions for each birth, but it did find notable differences in demographic trends.
Births increased among White and Hispanic women, but they fell among Black, Asian and American Indian women, according to the CDC report.
And experts agree that the pandemic probably played a major role – in more ways than one.
“People’s experience of the pandemic was really bifurcated, and that can affect people’s decisions around having children,” Hayford said.
“People who lost jobs, people who had to keep working even though they didn’t want to, people in high-risk professions may have experienced that as a very stressful and unstable time,” she said. “For people who were able to work from home and experience the pandemic as a time of more financial stability, that might have been a good time to have children without sort of the challenges of commuting or being in the office.”
But there’s been an undercurrent at play long before the pandemic, too.
“Part of the reason that birth rates have been going down is, people have been putting off childbirth,” Hayford said. “We’ve been sort of waiting to see if people are going to stop putting if off and have those kids or they’re going to stop putting it off and say, ‘No, I’m never going to have those kids.’ “
The new report found that the average age of a first-time mother reached a record high of 27.3 years in 2021. Birth rates increased among women ages 25 to 44, while the teen birth rate reached a record low.
Still, research throughout the pandemic has raised concerns about the risks Covid-19 poses to pregnant women and their developing babies at any age.
Get CNN Health's weekly newsletter
Sign up here to get The Results Are In with Dr. Sanjay Gupta every Tuesday from the CNN Health team.
Compared with pregnant individuals who weren’t infected, those who got Covid-19 were nearly four times more likely to be admitted to an intensive care unit, according to the review. They were 15 times more likely to be ventilated and were seven times more likely to die. They also had higher risks of pre-eclampsia, blood clots and problems caused by high blood pressure.
A larger international review found that babies born to women who had Covid-19 were at higher risk for preterm birth and low birth weights.
The preterm birth rate in the US reached a record high in 2021, up to 10.5% of all births, according to the CDC report.
The share of babies born with low birth weight and who were delivered by C-section also increased in 2021.
CNN’s Brenda Goodman contributed to this report.
|
The Arctic is seeing a rapid decline in sea ice even during the cold winter months when it should be recovering from the summer melt. Scientists say that one often-overlooked factor is playing a bigger role than previously thought: Atmospheric rivers.
These long, narrow bands of moisture in the atmosphere transport warm air and water vapor from the tropics. They can extend for thousands of miles and dump rain and snow when they make landfall.
In January, atmospheric rivers brought a parade of deadly storms that unleashed heavy rain, flooding and mudslides in California.
Now they are increasingly reaching the Arctic, according to a study by a team led by Penn State University scientists and published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Using satellite observations and climate models, the scientists found that atmospheric rivers are reaching the Arctic more frequently during the winter season, especially over the Barents-Kara Seas, off the north coasts of Norway and Russia.
The authors used satellite images to analyze sea ice immediately following the atmospheric river storms and discovered sea ice retreated for up to 10 days.
In winter, temperatures in the Arctic are below freezing and the ice should be recovering. Instead these powerful storms are slowing down seasonal ice recovery. The storms can be blamed for a third of the Arctic’s wintertime sea ice loss, the scientists reported.
“Arctic sea ice decline is among the most obvious evidence of global warming from the past several decades,” Pengfei Zhang, the study’s lead author and assistant research professor of atmospheric science at Penn State University, said in a statement. “Despite temperatures in the Arctic being well below freezing, sea ice decline in winter is still very significant. And our research shows atmospheric rivers are one factor in understanding why.”
Atmospheric rivers are inherently warmer than the surrounding Arctic environment and can act like a blanket, trapping heat near the Earth’s surface and preventing it from escaping out to space. Their heavy rainfall also has a melting effect, especially on fragile, re-growing ice.
Climate change is amplifying the intensity of atmospheric rivers, scientists say, as a warmer atmosphere is able to hold more moisture, leading to heavier rainfall when they make landfall.
Using climate modeling, the study also found evidence that global warming is one factor in the increased rate of atmospheric river storms in the Arctic.
The Arctic, which is warming up to four times faster than the rest of the planet, has undergone dramatic changes in recent decades. Last year, in its annual Arctic health checkup, scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found it has become hotter, rainier and wetter, with a rapid decline in snow cover and unprecedented late season melting.
This latest report on atmospheric rivers adds another layer of complexity to those findings.
Marty Ralph, the director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, who was not involved in the research, said the study underscores the larger impact of atmospheric rivers.
“It is clear that the future of Arctic sea ice hinges to a significant degree on the strength and frequency of occurrence of [atmospheric rivers],” Ralph told CNN.
The loss of Arctic sea ice has significant consequences for the rest of the planet. The absence of reflective ice opens up the dark waters beneath, causing the ocean to absorb more heat, feeding into a cycle of melting and heating. The melting of freshwater into the ocean can also disrupt ocean circulation patterns, exacerbating global warming.
“Sea ice melting has a big impact for the climate system and for society, and our study finds the Arctic is an open system and that climate change is way more complicated than temperature change alone can explain,” Laifang Li, co-author of the study and assistant professor of meteorology and atmospheric science at Penn State, said in a statement.
|
<urn:uuid:c6552c02-a089-4ccc-9d87-f79a5cf1c297>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-50",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100527.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20231204083733-20231204113733-00565.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.935305655002594,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.859375,
"token_count": 793,
"url": "https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/06/world/atmospheric-river-arctic-sea-ice-climate"
}
|
The Arctic is seeing a rapid decline in sea ice even during the cold winter months when it should be recovering from the summer melt. Scientists say that one often-overlooked factor is playing a bigger role than previously thought: Atmospheric rivers.
These long, narrow bands of moisture in the atmosphere transport warm air and water vapor from the tropics. They can extend for thousands of miles and dump rain and snow when they make landfall.
In January, atmospheric rivers brought a parade of deadly storms that unleashed heavy rain, flooding and mudslides in California.
Now they are increasingly reaching the Arctic, according to a study by a team
|
led by Penn State University scientists and published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Using satellite observations and climate models, the scientists found that atmospheric rivers are reaching the Arctic more frequently during the winter season, especially over the Barents-Kara Seas, off the north coasts of Norway and Russia.
The authors used satellite images to analyze sea ice immediately following the atmospheric river storms and discovered sea ice retreated for up to 10 days.
In winter, temperatures in the Arctic are below freezing and the ice should be recovering. Instead these powerful storms are slowing down seasonal ice recovery. The storms can be blamed for a third of the Arctic’s wintertime sea ice loss, the scientists reported.
“Arctic sea ice decline is among the most obvious evidence of global warming from the past several decades,” Pengfei Zhang, the study’s lead author and assistant research professor of atmospheric science at Penn State University, said in a statement. “Despite temperatures in the Arctic being well below freezing, sea ice decline in winter is still very significant. And our research shows atmospheric rivers are one factor in understanding why.”
Atmospheric rivers are inherently warmer than the surrounding Arctic environment and can act like a blanket, trapping heat near the Earth’s surface and preventing it from escaping out to space. Their heavy rainfall also has a melting effect, especially on fragile, re-growing ice.
Climate change is amplifying the intensity of atmospheric rivers, scientists say, as a warmer atmosphere is able to hold more moisture, leading to heavier rainfall when they make landfall.
Using climate modeling, the study also found evidence that global warming is one factor in the increased rate of atmospheric river storms in the Arctic.
The Arctic, which is warming up to four times faster than the rest of the planet, has undergone dramatic changes in recent decades. Last year, in its annual Arctic health checkup, scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found it has become hotter, rainier and wetter, with a rapid decline in snow cover and unprecedented late season melting.
This latest report on atmospheric rivers adds another layer of complexity to those findings.
Marty Ralph, the director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, who was not involved in the research, said the study underscores the larger impact of atmospheric rivers.
“It is clear that the future of Arctic sea ice hinges to a significant degree on the strength and frequency of occurrence of [atmospheric rivers],” Ralph told CNN.
The loss of Arctic sea ice has significant consequences for the rest of the planet. The absence of reflective ice opens up the dark waters beneath, causing the ocean to absorb more heat, feeding into a cycle of melting and heating. The melting of freshwater into the ocean can also disrupt ocean circulation patterns, exacerbating global warming.
“Sea ice melting has a big impact for the climate system and for society, and our study finds the Arctic is an open system and that climate change is way more complicated than temperature change alone can explain,” Laifang Li, co-author of the study and assistant professor of meteorology and atmospheric science at Penn State, said in a statement.
|
Queens of the Court: Black women tennis pioneers paved way for modern superstars
In February for Black History Month, USA TODAY Sports is publishing the series “28 Black Stories in 28 Days.” We examine the issues, challenges and opportunities Black athletes and sports officials continue to face after the nation’s reckoning on race following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. This is the third installment of the series.
Traci Green, women’s tennis coach at Harvard University, remembers when her father took her to see Zina Garrison play at the U.S. Open.
Garrison was the first Black woman to reach the finals of a Grand Slam tournament in tennis’ modern era. “I was about 10, and I had never seen a pro match or Black woman professional before up close. A couple of years later, I met Zina and Katrina Adams and hit some balls with them,” Green said. “Had I not seen Zina, Lori (McNeil), Katrina and Chanda (Rubin) frequently and up close, I don’t think I would have fully believed there was space for me in tennis and that I truly belonged. Representation matters.”
Green’s journey from starry-eyed Philly kid to one of the winningest coaches in Harvard women’s tennis history reflects the kind of inspiration that has catapulted many Black women into competitive tennis. Today’s tennis superstars Cori “Coco” Gauff and Naomi Osaka saw themselves in Serena Williams. Madison Keys was 4 years old when she spotted Venus Williams’ dress on television and decided she wanted to play tennis, too.
In fact, Black women in tennis have been nurturing and encouraging each other for more than 100 years. The lineage of Black women in the sport extends from pioneers in the early 1900s to world-renowned 21st-century players such as Gauff, Osaka, Keys and Sloane Stephens.
“Black tennis in America has always been strong and has always been competitive at a high level,” said Adams, a former pro player and the first African American president of the United States Tennis Association, the sport’s national governing body. “We just didn’t have the opportunity to play against everybody else who didn’t look like us.”
Less than 50 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, Blacks who had accumulated any semblance of wealth sought to flaunt their brand of high society. Tennis provided quite the flex.
During the Great Migration, millions of Black people moved from the South. Many came to Chicago, bolstering its African American middle class and creating an upper class. Among the most notable was Mary Ann “Mother” Seames, a savvy businesswoman considered the mother of Black tennis in Chicago.
Seames reportedly started playing tennis in 1906. She hosted tournaments and soirees on grass tennis courts on her property. In 1912, she headed a small group that formed the Chicago Prairie Tennis Club.
In 1916, trailblazer Lucy Diggs Slowe was one of the founding members of the American Tennis Association, the oldest Black sports organization in America.
Slowe was as fearless in the classroom as she was on a tennis court. In 1904, she became the first female graduate from the Baltimore Colored School and the first from the school to get a scholarship to Howard University in Washington, D.C. In 1917, Slowe won the first ATA National Championship.
She was also a founding member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority and the first dean of women at Howard University. She would later help organize the National Council of Negro Women and become its secretary.
Slowe and others formed the ATA to counter the United States National Lawn Tennis Association, now the USTA, which barred Black and brown players.
Regarding the ATA, “It was started by doctors, lawyers and businessmen, the upper crust of the Black community,” said Roxanne Aaron, president of the ATA. A 1939 Time magazine article emphasized that same point, noting that the ATA governed more than “150 Negro clubs and 25,000 players but also gives upper-crust Negro doctors, lawyers, teachers, preachers a chance to shine socially.”
Tennis great Arthur Ashe once told The New York Times that Ora Washington may have been the best female athlete ever. Washington dominated in both tennis and basketball, earning her the title “Queen of Two Courts.”
“Queen Ora” once scored 38 points in a game at a time when many women’s basketball teams would finish a game with 35 total points.
Washington stood 5-foot-7 but lacked proper tennis technique, holding the racquet halfway up its shaft. Yet she was strong, agile and quick. Her footwork, honed on the basketball court, was unmatched and allowed her to chase balls and win points.
Washington was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009 and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2018.
She won eight ATA national women’s singles titles between 1929 and 1937. She wanted to compete against Helen Wills Moody, winner of 19 Grand Slam singles titles and the woman the white tennis world considered the best. However, Moody refused to play her.
While Washington ruled in singles, two sisters from Washington, D.C., Roumania and Margaret Peters, swept through doubles. Nicknamed “Pete and Repeat,” the Peters sisters won 14 ATA doubles titles in 15 years, beginning in the late 1930s.
They were bona fide sports celebrities. Blacks and whites traveled to see them play. During World War II, the famed actor, dancer and tennis fan Gene Kelly was stationed at a naval base in Washington and stopped by to watch the sisters play, even joining them in a game. Younger sister, Roumania, also won ATA singles titles in 1944 and 1946, defeating the legendary Althea Gibson for the 1946 championship.
Washington and the Peters sisters never had a chance to test their talent against their white counterparts.
More:Pro women's tennis players, golfers top Forbes' list of highest-paid female athletes
More:'Succession' spoilers? New careers? Serena Williams, Brian Cox talk new Super Bowl ad
Gibson, though, got that opportunity.
Board members of the ATA approached the National Lawn Tennis Association about getting a wild card tournament slot for Gibson.
“There were always other great players, even in football, baseball or basketball. But they’re not the person for the time,” Aaron said. “When you look at Jackie Robinson, there were a lot of Black players better, but he had the personality to withstand all the adversity.”
White fans booed Gibson, sometimes even throwing things at her. “She came out with her head held high,” Aaron said.
Gibson won five Grand Slam singles titles from 1956 to 1958 while in her 30s. “Who knows how many titles she’d have if she were allowed to compete (earlier),” Adams says.
Tennis’ “Open era” began in 1968, when professionals were allowed to compete in Grand Slams. Despite Gibson’s earlier successes, though, the Open era seemed closed to Black women until 1981, when Cleveland native Leslie Allen won the Avon Championships. That tournament was the precursor to today’s WTA Finals, for the top-ranked players in the Women’s Tennis Association.
“As a WTA rookie, I was part of a training cohort with Althea at the Sportsmen’s Tennis Club in Boston,” Allen told WTA’s news site WTXtennis.com in 2021. “Althea asked each of us – Zina Garrison, Andrea Buchanan, Kim Sands and me – about our individual tennis goals, and I said: ‘To be in the main draw of WTA Tour events.’”
She recalled Gibson looked at her and said, “With your wingspan, you need to think about winning WTA tournaments.”
Allen described her 1981 victory as “akin to going viral today.”
“My victory was just what the WTA needed to increase visibility,” Allen told WTXtennis.com.
Joining Allen on tour were childhood friends Garrison and McNeil, who learned to play tennis at a public park in Houston.
In 1987, McNeil reached the Australian Open quarterfinals and the Wimbledon semifinals. A few years later, Rubin and Adams joined them on tour. “As soon as I came on tour, Zina Garrison took me under her wing,” Adams says.
Camaraderie came naturally. “That’s just the commonality you have, that you gravitate to those that you’re comfortable with,” Adams said. Among current players, “Sloane (Stephens) and Madison (Keys) are besties. In this sport, you’re coming up in juniors together. You know each other from an early age. ... That friendship is already there.”
In 1990, Garrison reached the finals at Wimbledon, the first Black woman to reach a Grand Slam final since Gibson.
McNeil reached the semifinals at Wimbledon in 1994.
Five years later, Serena Williams won the U.S. Open, the first of her record 23 Grand Slam titles. Venus Williams won the tournament the next two years on the way to seven career Grand Slam singles titles, and the complexion of the sport was forever changed.
|
<urn:uuid:f9a81706-b7ca-464e-a805-9563c8a08393>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-14",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296945287.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20230324144746-20230324174746-00025.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9676563739776611,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.59375,
"token_count": 2027,
"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/tennis/2023/02/13/black-womens-tennis-pioneers-paved-way-for-modern-superstars/11156436002/"
}
|
Queens of the Court: Black women tennis pioneers paved way for modern superstars
In February for Black History Month, USA TODAY Sports is publishing the series “28 Black Stories in 28 Days.” We examine the issues, challenges and opportunities Black athletes and sports officials continue to face after the nation’s reckoning on race following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. This is the third installment of the series.
Traci Green, women’s tennis coach at Harvard University, remembers when her father took her to see Zina Garrison play at the U.S. Open.
Garrison was the
|
first Black woman to reach the finals of a Grand Slam tournament in tennis’ modern era. “I was about 10, and I had never seen a pro match or Black woman professional before up close. A couple of years later, I met Zina and Katrina Adams and hit some balls with them,” Green said. “Had I not seen Zina, Lori (McNeil), Katrina and Chanda (Rubin) frequently and up close, I don’t think I would have fully believed there was space for me in tennis and that I truly belonged. Representation matters.”
Green’s journey from starry-eyed Philly kid to one of the winningest coaches in Harvard women’s tennis history reflects the kind of inspiration that has catapulted many Black women into competitive tennis. Today’s tennis superstars Cori “Coco” Gauff and Naomi Osaka saw themselves in Serena Williams. Madison Keys was 4 years old when she spotted Venus Williams’ dress on television and decided she wanted to play tennis, too.
In fact, Black women in tennis have been nurturing and encouraging each other for more than 100 years. The lineage of Black women in the sport extends from pioneers in the early 1900s to world-renowned 21st-century players such as Gauff, Osaka, Keys and Sloane Stephens.
“Black tennis in America has always been strong and has always been competitive at a high level,” said Adams, a former pro player and the first African American president of the United States Tennis Association, the sport’s national governing body. “We just didn’t have the opportunity to play against everybody else who didn’t look like us.”
Less than 50 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, Blacks who had accumulated any semblance of wealth sought to flaunt their brand of high society. Tennis provided quite the flex.
During the Great Migration, millions of Black people moved from the South. Many came to Chicago, bolstering its African American middle class and creating an upper class. Among the most notable was Mary Ann “Mother” Seames, a savvy businesswoman considered the mother of Black tennis in Chicago.
Seames reportedly started playing tennis in 1906. She hosted tournaments and soirees on grass tennis courts on her property. In 1912, she headed a small group that formed the Chicago Prairie Tennis Club.
In 1916, trailblazer Lucy Diggs Slowe was one of the founding members of the American Tennis Association, the oldest Black sports organization in America.
Slowe was as fearless in the classroom as she was on a tennis court. In 1904, she became the first female graduate from the Baltimore Colored School and the first from the school to get a scholarship to Howard University in Washington, D.C. In 1917, Slowe won the first ATA National Championship.
She was also a founding member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority and the first dean of women at Howard University. She would later help organize the National Council of Negro Women and become its secretary.
Slowe and others formed the ATA to counter the United States National Lawn Tennis Association, now the USTA, which barred Black and brown players.
Regarding the ATA, “It was started by doctors, lawyers and businessmen, the upper crust of the Black community,” said Roxanne Aaron, president of the ATA. A 1939 Time magazine article emphasized that same point, noting that the ATA governed more than “150 Negro clubs and 25,000 players but also gives upper-crust Negro doctors, lawyers, teachers, preachers a chance to shine socially.”
Tennis great Arthur Ashe once told The New York Times that Ora Washington may have been the best female athlete ever. Washington dominated in both tennis and basketball, earning her the title “Queen of Two Courts.”
“Queen Ora” once scored 38 points in a game at a time when many women’s basketball teams would finish a game with 35 total points.
Washington stood 5-foot-7 but lacked proper tennis technique, holding the racquet halfway up its shaft. Yet she was strong, agile and quick. Her footwork, honed on the basketball court, was unmatched and allowed her to chase balls and win points.
Washington was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009 and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2018.
She won eight ATA national women’s singles titles between 1929 and 1937. She wanted to compete against Helen Wills Moody, winner of 19 Grand Slam singles titles and the woman the white tennis world considered the best. However, Moody refused to play her.
While Washington ruled in singles, two sisters from Washington, D.C., Roumania and Margaret Peters, swept through doubles. Nicknamed “Pete and Repeat,” the Peters sisters won 14 ATA doubles titles in 15 years, beginning in the late 1930s.
They were bona fide sports celebrities. Blacks and whites traveled to see them play. During World War II, the famed actor, dancer and tennis fan Gene Kelly was stationed at a naval base in Washington and stopped by to watch the sisters play, even joining them in a game. Younger sister, Roumania, also won ATA singles titles in 1944 and 1946, defeating the legendary Althea Gibson for the 1946 championship.
Washington and the Peters sisters never had a chance to test their talent against their white counterparts.
More:Pro women's tennis players, golfers top Forbes' list of highest-paid female athletes
More:'Succession' spoilers? New careers? Serena Williams, Brian Cox talk new Super Bowl ad
Gibson, though, got that opportunity.
Board members of the ATA approached the National Lawn Tennis Association about getting a wild card tournament slot for Gibson.
“There were always other great players, even in football, baseball or basketball. But they’re not the person for the time,” Aaron said. “When you look at Jackie Robinson, there were a lot of Black players better, but he had the personality to withstand all the adversity.”
White fans booed Gibson, sometimes even throwing things at her. “She came out with her head held high,” Aaron said.
Gibson won five Grand Slam singles titles from 1956 to 1958 while in her 30s. “Who knows how many titles she’d have if she were allowed to compete (earlier),” Adams says.
Tennis’ “Open era” began in 1968, when professionals were allowed to compete in Grand Slams. Despite Gibson’s earlier successes, though, the Open era seemed closed to Black women until 1981, when Cleveland native Leslie Allen won the Avon Championships. That tournament was the precursor to today’s WTA Finals, for the top-ranked players in the Women’s Tennis Association.
“As a WTA rookie, I was part of a training cohort with Althea at the Sportsmen’s Tennis Club in Boston,” Allen told WTA’s news site WTXtennis.com in 2021. “Althea asked each of us – Zina Garrison, Andrea Buchanan, Kim Sands and me – about our individual tennis goals, and I said: ‘To be in the main draw of WTA Tour events.’”
She recalled Gibson looked at her and said, “With your wingspan, you need to think about winning WTA tournaments.”
Allen described her 1981 victory as “akin to going viral today.”
“My victory was just what the WTA needed to increase visibility,” Allen told WTXtennis.com.
Joining Allen on tour were childhood friends Garrison and McNeil, who learned to play tennis at a public park in Houston.
In 1987, McNeil reached the Australian Open quarterfinals and the Wimbledon semifinals. A few years later, Rubin and Adams joined them on tour. “As soon as I came on tour, Zina Garrison took me under her wing,” Adams says.
Camaraderie came naturally. “That’s just the commonality you have, that you gravitate to those that you’re comfortable with,” Adams said. Among current players, “Sloane (Stephens) and Madison (Keys) are besties. In this sport, you’re coming up in juniors together. You know each other from an early age. ... That friendship is already there.”
In 1990, Garrison reached the finals at Wimbledon, the first Black woman to reach a Grand Slam final since Gibson.
McNeil reached the semifinals at Wimbledon in 1994.
Five years later, Serena Williams won the U.S. Open, the first of her record 23 Grand Slam titles. Venus Williams won the tournament the next two years on the way to seven career Grand Slam singles titles, and the complexion of the sport was forever changed.
|
What is Quid Pro Quo Harassment? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.
In 1980, Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin, and Jane Fonda brought the widespread issue of sexual harassment in the workplace to Hollywood with 9 to 5. The now-classic comedy follows three women as they get revenge against their boss for all kinds of sexist behavior, including trying to blackmail Parton’s character into sleeping with him: “It’s very simple. You come over to my house for the night, and I’ll forget the whole thing.”
In 9 to 5, the women have to take matters of workplace harassment into their own hands. But in real life, employees of the time were finally getting some real legal recourse. The same year the movie was released, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) established their first-ever guidelines on workplace sexual harassment. The guidelines defined two types of unlawful behavior, including “quid pro quo” sexual harassment like the boss’s tit-for-tat offer in 9 to 5.
While a lot has changed in workplaces since 1980 — no more three-martini lunches, filing cabinets, or actual nine-to-five jobs — the issue of offering job benefits in return for sexual favors is, unfortunately, as relevant as ever. Here’s what you need to know about regulations against quid pro quo sexual harassment and how to report it.
What is quid pro quo?
The Latin phrase quid pro quo translates to “something for something” or “one thing for another.” While the term applies to all kinds of scenarios where someone offers a favor with the expectation of getting a favor in return, when used in the workplace, it has a particularly negative connotation with sexual harassment.
First, it’s important to understand sexual harassment more broadly. Sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which applies to employers with 15 or more employees. The EEOC defines sexual harassment as including:
- Unwelcome sexual advances
- Requests for sexual favors
- And other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature
While conversations on sexual harassment frequently focus on women, people of any identity can experience workplace discrimination on the basis of sex. This includes harassment related to:
- Related medical conditions
- Sexual orientation
- Self-identified or perceived sex
- Gender expression
- Gender identity and/or the status of being transgender
Additionally, sexual harassment can include offensive remarks about a person’s sex, even if not sexual in nature. And, as we explicitly saw during the COVID-19 pandemic, harassment (sexual or otherwise) can happen online as well as in person.
What is quid pro quo sexual harassment?
The EEOC’s 1980 guidelines defined two types of unlawful sexual harassment: quid pro quo and hostile environment.
While every case differs and the two types may co-exist, quid pro quo sexual harassment occurs when a person in authority trades, or tries to trade, sexual favors for job benefits, such as:
- Offering job opportunities
- Threatening worse working conditions
- Denial of opportunities
- Or other retaliation if refused
A hostile work environment is when unwelcome sexual conduct is severe or pervasive enough to change the conditions of employment and create an abusive environment.
In order to establish quid pro quo harassment, employees have to show that the response to the unwelcome advances actually negatively impacted tangible aspects of their employment (such as compensation or a promotion). If Dolly Parton’s character was fired in 9 to 5 after refusing to sleep with her boss, for example, she would likely have a case for quid pro quo sexual harassment.
On the other hand, if a supervisor or employee merely threatens to do something, but never actually follows through, the legal case for quid pro quo gets tricky. Intimidation is, of course, still harmful and, depending on the circumstances, employees may be able to make a case for these threats as a hostile work environment instead.
An example of quid pro quo harassment
Let’s say Racquel, who started at her new job three months ago, goes out to dinner with her co-workers to celebrate a new client. Even though she’s new, she was instrumental in not only renewing the client’s contract, but also increasing their monthly retainer. Her team is really proud to have her on board and has been singing her praises to their department’s director.
At the dinner, Racquel meets the director, Marcus, for the first time. He congratulates her on the renewal and they briefly chat. The next day at the office, Marcus comes up to her desk: “Last night was fun, wasn’t it?” Racquel responds, “Yes, Urie always picks the best restaurants!” Then Marcus replies, “I’ve got good taste, too. If you’re interested.” Racquel starts to feel a bit uncomfortable: “Oh, thanks. I’ll let you know.”
The next week, Marcus stops by her desk again. He asks her if she’s free for coffee to discuss a new potential client, and — wanting to make a good impression with her boss’s boss — she reluctantly agrees. At the coffee, however, Marcus seems more interested in learning about her personal life than her professional experience. When Racquel asks about the potential client, he smirks and says, “Well, I’ve got a very exciting project in the works, but you’ll have to agree to get dinner with me first.”
Racquel declines and says she has to get to a meeting. The next day, her manager tells her there’s been a “restructure,” and she’s being transferred to another team — one that has noticeably less growth potential than her current job.
Racquel’s employment was directly impacted by her refusal to go on a date with the director, and she should immediately report the quid pro quo harassment claim. But the situation Racquel experienced isn’t the only example of quid pro quo sexual harassment. Other examples include but aren’t limited to:
- Offering better work conditions in exchange for a date
- Threatening terms of employment (like demotions) unless a direct report gives you a shoulder rub
- Forcing someone to engage in a sexual relationship to get a promotion
Reporting and preventing quid pro quo sexual harassment
So, how should Racquel report the above interaction with Marcus?
If Racquel feels safe, she should inform her harasser Marcus directly that the conduct is unwelcome (and keep a record of this). Next, she should look at her company’s internal policies on harassment, which should identify how to report an incident. Racquel is not required to make a report directly to her manager, and can report the incident to any manager (depending on who she feels comfortable with), as all managers who observe or are informed of allegations of harassment conduct must pass potential instances of harassment up the chain.
Racquel can also report the conduct to relevant government agencies, such as the EEOC. When the EEOC investigates whether there is reasonable cause to believe harassment occurred, they review the whole record, such as:
- The circumstances
- The nature of the unwelcome advances
- And the context in which the incident occurred
And while they make determinations based on the submitted information, the EEOC generally finds harassment to be unlawful where “enduring the offensive conduct becomes a condition of continued employment” or “the conduct is severe or pervasive enough to create a work environment that a reasonable person would consider intimidating, hostile, or abusive.” A situation is also more likely to be found to be illegal harassment if it happens more than once or if the conduct gets even more egregious over time.
Of course, the best thing to do is to speak up before the behavior gets out of hand — and that’s on everyone, not just the targets of harassing conduct like Racquel. Part of creating an inclusive, safe work environment is looking out for each other and investing in proactive solutions, like sexual harassment training, to promote ethical behavior at work right from the start.
|
<urn:uuid:42ac8af3-84d9-42d8-b173-c2541e442240>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233506623.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20230924055210-20230924085210-00551.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9506555795669556,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.046875,
"token_count": 1772,
"url": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2023/06/08/what-is-quid-pro-quo-harassment/"
}
|
What is Quid Pro Quo Harassment? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.
In 1980, Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin, and Jane Fonda brought the widespread issue of sexual harassment in the workplace to Hollywood with 9 to 5. The now-classic comedy follows three women as they get revenge against their boss for all kinds of sexist behavior, including trying to blackmail Parton’s character into sleeping with him: “It’s very simple. You come over to my house for the night
|
, and I’ll forget the whole thing.”
In 9 to 5, the women have to take matters of workplace harassment into their own hands. But in real life, employees of the time were finally getting some real legal recourse. The same year the movie was released, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) established their first-ever guidelines on workplace sexual harassment. The guidelines defined two types of unlawful behavior, including “quid pro quo” sexual harassment like the boss’s tit-for-tat offer in 9 to 5.
While a lot has changed in workplaces since 1980 — no more three-martini lunches, filing cabinets, or actual nine-to-five jobs — the issue of offering job benefits in return for sexual favors is, unfortunately, as relevant as ever. Here’s what you need to know about regulations against quid pro quo sexual harassment and how to report it.
What is quid pro quo?
The Latin phrase quid pro quo translates to “something for something” or “one thing for another.” While the term applies to all kinds of scenarios where someone offers a favor with the expectation of getting a favor in return, when used in the workplace, it has a particularly negative connotation with sexual harassment.
First, it’s important to understand sexual harassment more broadly. Sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which applies to employers with 15 or more employees. The EEOC defines sexual harassment as including:
- Unwelcome sexual advances
- Requests for sexual favors
- And other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature
While conversations on sexual harassment frequently focus on women, people of any identity can experience workplace discrimination on the basis of sex. This includes harassment related to:
- Related medical conditions
- Sexual orientation
- Self-identified or perceived sex
- Gender expression
- Gender identity and/or the status of being transgender
Additionally, sexual harassment can include offensive remarks about a person’s sex, even if not sexual in nature. And, as we explicitly saw during the COVID-19 pandemic, harassment (sexual or otherwise) can happen online as well as in person.
What is quid pro quo sexual harassment?
The EEOC’s 1980 guidelines defined two types of unlawful sexual harassment: quid pro quo and hostile environment.
While every case differs and the two types may co-exist, quid pro quo sexual harassment occurs when a person in authority trades, or tries to trade, sexual favors for job benefits, such as:
- Offering job opportunities
- Threatening worse working conditions
- Denial of opportunities
- Or other retaliation if refused
A hostile work environment is when unwelcome sexual conduct is severe or pervasive enough to change the conditions of employment and create an abusive environment.
In order to establish quid pro quo harassment, employees have to show that the response to the unwelcome advances actually negatively impacted tangible aspects of their employment (such as compensation or a promotion). If Dolly Parton’s character was fired in 9 to 5 after refusing to sleep with her boss, for example, she would likely have a case for quid pro quo sexual harassment.
On the other hand, if a supervisor or employee merely threatens to do something, but never actually follows through, the legal case for quid pro quo gets tricky. Intimidation is, of course, still harmful and, depending on the circumstances, employees may be able to make a case for these threats as a hostile work environment instead.
An example of quid pro quo harassment
Let’s say Racquel, who started at her new job three months ago, goes out to dinner with her co-workers to celebrate a new client. Even though she’s new, she was instrumental in not only renewing the client’s contract, but also increasing their monthly retainer. Her team is really proud to have her on board and has been singing her praises to their department’s director.
At the dinner, Racquel meets the director, Marcus, for the first time. He congratulates her on the renewal and they briefly chat. The next day at the office, Marcus comes up to her desk: “Last night was fun, wasn’t it?” Racquel responds, “Yes, Urie always picks the best restaurants!” Then Marcus replies, “I’ve got good taste, too. If you’re interested.” Racquel starts to feel a bit uncomfortable: “Oh, thanks. I’ll let you know.”
The next week, Marcus stops by her desk again. He asks her if she’s free for coffee to discuss a new potential client, and — wanting to make a good impression with her boss’s boss — she reluctantly agrees. At the coffee, however, Marcus seems more interested in learning about her personal life than her professional experience. When Racquel asks about the potential client, he smirks and says, “Well, I’ve got a very exciting project in the works, but you’ll have to agree to get dinner with me first.”
Racquel declines and says she has to get to a meeting. The next day, her manager tells her there’s been a “restructure,” and she’s being transferred to another team — one that has noticeably less growth potential than her current job.
Racquel’s employment was directly impacted by her refusal to go on a date with the director, and she should immediately report the quid pro quo harassment claim. But the situation Racquel experienced isn’t the only example of quid pro quo sexual harassment. Other examples include but aren’t limited to:
- Offering better work conditions in exchange for a date
- Threatening terms of employment (like demotions) unless a direct report gives you a shoulder rub
- Forcing someone to engage in a sexual relationship to get a promotion
Reporting and preventing quid pro quo sexual harassment
So, how should Racquel report the above interaction with Marcus?
If Racquel feels safe, she should inform her harasser Marcus directly that the conduct is unwelcome (and keep a record of this). Next, she should look at her company’s internal policies on harassment, which should identify how to report an incident. Racquel is not required to make a report directly to her manager, and can report the incident to any manager (depending on who she feels comfortable with), as all managers who observe or are informed of allegations of harassment conduct must pass potential instances of harassment up the chain.
Racquel can also report the conduct to relevant government agencies, such as the EEOC. When the EEOC investigates whether there is reasonable cause to believe harassment occurred, they review the whole record, such as:
- The circumstances
- The nature of the unwelcome advances
- And the context in which the incident occurred
And while they make determinations based on the submitted information, the EEOC generally finds harassment to be unlawful where “enduring the offensive conduct becomes a condition of continued employment” or “the conduct is severe or pervasive enough to create a work environment that a reasonable person would consider intimidating, hostile, or abusive.” A situation is also more likely to be found to be illegal harassment if it happens more than once or if the conduct gets even more egregious over time.
Of course, the best thing to do is to speak up before the behavior gets out of hand — and that’s on everyone, not just the targets of harassing conduct like Racquel. Part of creating an inclusive, safe work environment is looking out for each other and investing in proactive solutions, like sexual harassment training, to promote ethical behavior at work right from the start.
|
SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea plans to launch a satellite between Aug. 24 and Aug. 31, Japan’s Coast Guard said on Tuesday, the second such try this year after a failed attempt in May that ended with the launch vehicle plunging into the sea.
South Korea, the United States, and other countries have condemned previous space launches by the Nuclear-armed North, which is banned from such activities under U.N. Security Council resolutions.
The following is a timeline of the North’s space program, satellite launches and development of rocket technology.
Aug. 31, 1998: North Korea sets out its space program by launching a Kwangmyongsong-1 satellite on a Paektusan rocket from the Tonghae Satellite Launching Ground near the east coast. Pyongyang declares it a success, but U.S. officials said it broke up over the Pacific Ocean.
April 5, 2009: Then-leader Kim Jong Il oversees the launch of the Kwangmyongsong-2 satellite from the Tonghae complex, but it once again fails and crashes in the ocean. State media suggest that 14 North Korean soldiers were killed during the launch.
April 13, 2012: The Kwangmyongsong-3 satellite is launched from the newly completed Sohae Satellite Launching Station in the western region. Foreign media are invited to observe the launch, which once again is unsuccessful.
Dec. 12, 2012: North Korea successfully launches the Kwangmyongsong-3, putting an object in orbit. While the North claimed it to be an observation satellite, it is not believed to carry a functioning transmission system.
April 2013: North Korea establishes the National Aerospace Development Administration (NADA) which purports to pursue space exploration for peaceful purposes.
Feb. 7, 2016: North Korea sends up a satellite. The United States calls it a disguised test of an engine powerful enough to launch an ICBM. International observers said the satellite appears to be under control, but there is lingering debate over whether it sent any transmissions.
Aug. 24, 2016: Hyon Kwang-il, director of scientific research at the North’s National Aerospace Development Administration says “our aerospace scientists will conquer space and definitely plant the flag of North Korea on the Moon.”
June 23, 2016: North Korea says it successfully tested an intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM), with a range of 2,000 to 3,400 miles (3,200-5,400 km).
July 4, 2017: North Korea tests an ICBM for the first time, saying the missile can reach the continental United States. The missile, Hwasong-14, is tested again three weeks later, this time in a night launch.
Aug 29, 2017: North Korea fires an intermediate range missile over northern Japan, prompting warnings to residents to take cover. The missile falls into the Pacific Ocean, but sharply raises tensions in the region.
Jan. 13, 2021: During a party congress, leader Kim Jong Un reveals a wish list that includes developing military reconnaissance satellites.
Dec. 19, 2022: North Korea said it has conducted a “final phase” test for the development of a spy satellite at the Sohae launch station to check satellite imaging, data transmission and control systems.
March 16, 2023: North Korea test launches the Hwasong-17 ICBM, its biggest missile, which some analysts believe incorporates technology for space launch vehicles.
May 25, 2023: Construction and preparations at the Sohae Satellite Launching Station is moving forward at a “remarkable pace,” a U.S.-based think tank says.
May 29, 2023: North Korea notifies Japan and the International Maritime Organization of a plan to launch a satellite between May 31 and June 11.
May 30, 2023: Ri Pyong Chol, the North’s highest-ranking military official after leader Kim, said joint military drills by the United States and South Korea required Pyongyang to acquire the “means capable of gathering information about the military acts of the enemy in real time”.
May 31, 2023: North Korea attempts to launch a reconnaissance satellite, but the rocket plunged into the sea “after losing thrust due to the abnormal starting of the second-stage engine,” state media KCNA reported.
July 5, 2023: South Korea’s military says it retrieved the wreckage of the spy satellite from the sea, and found it had no meaningful military use as a reconnaissance platform.
Aug. 22, 2023: North Korea notifies Japan it would launch a satellite between Aug. 24-31 and the rocket would fly over the waters west of the Korean peninsula, East China Sea and the Pacific.
(Reporting by Jack Kim, Ed Davies, and Josh Smith. Editing by Gerry Doyle)
|
<urn:uuid:213f3bbc-bf0e-494e-a055-39e66eac6212>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233508959.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20230925083430-20230925113430-00349.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9207690358161926,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.703125,
"token_count": 1003,
"url": "https://ec2-15-188-152-128.eu-west-3.compute.amazonaws.com/2023/08/22/north-koreas-space-launch/"
}
|
SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea plans to launch a satellite between Aug. 24 and Aug. 31, Japan’s Coast Guard said on Tuesday, the second such try this year after a failed attempt in May that ended with the launch vehicle plunging into the sea.
South Korea, the United States, and other countries have condemned previous space launches by the Nuclear-armed North, which is banned from such activities under U.N. Security Council resolutions.
The following is a timeline of the North’s space program, satellite launches and development of rocket technology.
Aug. 31, 1998:
|
North Korea sets out its space program by launching a Kwangmyongsong-1 satellite on a Paektusan rocket from the Tonghae Satellite Launching Ground near the east coast. Pyongyang declares it a success, but U.S. officials said it broke up over the Pacific Ocean.
April 5, 2009: Then-leader Kim Jong Il oversees the launch of the Kwangmyongsong-2 satellite from the Tonghae complex, but it once again fails and crashes in the ocean. State media suggest that 14 North Korean soldiers were killed during the launch.
April 13, 2012: The Kwangmyongsong-3 satellite is launched from the newly completed Sohae Satellite Launching Station in the western region. Foreign media are invited to observe the launch, which once again is unsuccessful.
Dec. 12, 2012: North Korea successfully launches the Kwangmyongsong-3, putting an object in orbit. While the North claimed it to be an observation satellite, it is not believed to carry a functioning transmission system.
April 2013: North Korea establishes the National Aerospace Development Administration (NADA) which purports to pursue space exploration for peaceful purposes.
Feb. 7, 2016: North Korea sends up a satellite. The United States calls it a disguised test of an engine powerful enough to launch an ICBM. International observers said the satellite appears to be under control, but there is lingering debate over whether it sent any transmissions.
Aug. 24, 2016: Hyon Kwang-il, director of scientific research at the North’s National Aerospace Development Administration says “our aerospace scientists will conquer space and definitely plant the flag of North Korea on the Moon.”
June 23, 2016: North Korea says it successfully tested an intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM), with a range of 2,000 to 3,400 miles (3,200-5,400 km).
July 4, 2017: North Korea tests an ICBM for the first time, saying the missile can reach the continental United States. The missile, Hwasong-14, is tested again three weeks later, this time in a night launch.
Aug 29, 2017: North Korea fires an intermediate range missile over northern Japan, prompting warnings to residents to take cover. The missile falls into the Pacific Ocean, but sharply raises tensions in the region.
Jan. 13, 2021: During a party congress, leader Kim Jong Un reveals a wish list that includes developing military reconnaissance satellites.
Dec. 19, 2022: North Korea said it has conducted a “final phase” test for the development of a spy satellite at the Sohae launch station to check satellite imaging, data transmission and control systems.
March 16, 2023: North Korea test launches the Hwasong-17 ICBM, its biggest missile, which some analysts believe incorporates technology for space launch vehicles.
May 25, 2023: Construction and preparations at the Sohae Satellite Launching Station is moving forward at a “remarkable pace,” a U.S.-based think tank says.
May 29, 2023: North Korea notifies Japan and the International Maritime Organization of a plan to launch a satellite between May 31 and June 11.
May 30, 2023: Ri Pyong Chol, the North’s highest-ranking military official after leader Kim, said joint military drills by the United States and South Korea required Pyongyang to acquire the “means capable of gathering information about the military acts of the enemy in real time”.
May 31, 2023: North Korea attempts to launch a reconnaissance satellite, but the rocket plunged into the sea “after losing thrust due to the abnormal starting of the second-stage engine,” state media KCNA reported.
July 5, 2023: South Korea’s military says it retrieved the wreckage of the spy satellite from the sea, and found it had no meaningful military use as a reconnaissance platform.
Aug. 22, 2023: North Korea notifies Japan it would launch a satellite between Aug. 24-31 and the rocket would fly over the waters west of the Korean peninsula, East China Sea and the Pacific.
(Reporting by Jack Kim, Ed Davies, and Josh Smith. Editing by Gerry Doyle)
|
A team of researchers in the United States and United Kingdom say they have created the world’s first synthetic human embryo-like structures from stem cells, bypassing the need for eggs and sperm.
These embryo-like structures are at the very earliest stages of human development: They don’t have a beating heart or a brain, for example. But scientists say they could one day help advance the understanding of genetic diseases or the causes of miscarriages.
The research raises critical legal and ethical questions, and many countries, including the US, don’t have laws governing the creation or treatment of synthetic embryos.
The pace of discoveries in this field and the growing sophistication of these models have alarmed bioethics experts as they push ever closer to the edge of life.
“Unlike human embryos arising from in vitro fertilization (IVF), where there is an established legal framework, there are currently no clear regulations governing stem cell derived models of human embryos. There is an urgent need for regulations to provide a framework for the creation and use of stem cell derived models of human embryos,” James Briscoe, associate research director at the Francis Crick Institute, said in a statement.
Dr. Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz described the work in a presentation Wednesday to the International Society for Stem Cell Research’s annual meeting in Boston. Zernicka-Goetz, a professor of biology and biological engineering at CalTech and the University of Cambridge, said the research has been accepted at a well-regarded scientific journal but has not been published. The research was first reported by The Guardian.
Zernicka-Goetz and her team, along with a rival team in Israel, had previously described creating model embryo-like structures from mouse stem cells. Those “embryoids” showed the beginnings of a brain, heart and intestinal tract after about eight days of development.
The embryo-like structures that Zernicka-Goetz says her lab has created were grown from single human embryonic stem cells that were coaxed to develop into three distinct tissue layers, she said. They include cells that would typically go on to develop a yolk sac, a placenta and the embryo itself.
She told CNN that the embryo-like structures her lab has created are also the first to have germ cells that would go on to develop into egg and sperm.
“I just wish to stress that they are not human embryos,” Zernicka-Goetz said. “They are embryo models, but they are very exciting because they are very looking similar to human embryos and very important path towards discovery of why so many pregnancies fail, as the majority of the pregnancies fail around the time of the development at which we build these embryo-like structures.”
She said that to her knowledge, it was the first time a human model embryo had been created with three tissue layers. But she stressed that while it mimics some of the features of a natural embryo, it doesn’t have all of them.
Researchers hope these model embryos will shed light on the “black box” of human development, the period following 14 days after fertilization, which is the agreed limit for scientists to grow and study embryos in a lab.
Right now, the synthetic model human embryos are confined to test tubes. It would be illegal to implant one in a womb, and animal research with stem cells from mice and monkeys has shown that even when scientists have attempted to implant them, they don’t survive – probably because researchers haven’t figured out how to fully replicate the conditions of pregnancy.
Get CNN Health's weekly newsletter
Sign up here to get The Results Are In with Dr. Sanjay Gupta every Tuesday from the CNN Health team.
Zernicka-Goetz said that the aim of her research wasn’t to create life but to prevent its loss, understanding why embryos sometime fail to develop after fertilization and implantation.
“We know remarkably little about this step in human development, but it is a time where many pregnancies are lost, especially in an IVF setting,” Roger Sturmey, senior research fellow in maternal and fetal health at the University of Manchester in the UK, said in a statement.
“Currently, we can say that these ‘synthetic embryos’ share a number of features with blastocysts, but it is important to recognise that the way that synthetic embryos are formed is different to what happens when a normal embryo forms a blastocyst,” he said. “There is much work to be done to determine the similarities and differences between synthetic embryos and embryos that form from the union of an egg and a sperm.”
|
<urn:uuid:e22af7e7-61c0-47a6-92f3-b607099bdbcd>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510387.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20230928095004-20230928125004-00524.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9616138935089111,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.78125,
"token_count": 973,
"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/14/health/human-model-embryo/index.html"
}
|
A team of researchers in the United States and United Kingdom say they have created the world’s first synthetic human embryo-like structures from stem cells, bypassing the need for eggs and sperm.
These embryo-like structures are at the very earliest stages of human development: They don’t have a beating heart or a brain, for example. But scientists say they could one day help advance the understanding of genetic diseases or the causes of miscarriages.
The research raises critical legal and ethical questions, and many countries, including the US, don’t have laws governing the creation or treatment of synthetic embryos.
The pace of discoveries in this field and the growing sophist
|
ication of these models have alarmed bioethics experts as they push ever closer to the edge of life.
“Unlike human embryos arising from in vitro fertilization (IVF), where there is an established legal framework, there are currently no clear regulations governing stem cell derived models of human embryos. There is an urgent need for regulations to provide a framework for the creation and use of stem cell derived models of human embryos,” James Briscoe, associate research director at the Francis Crick Institute, said in a statement.
Dr. Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz described the work in a presentation Wednesday to the International Society for Stem Cell Research’s annual meeting in Boston. Zernicka-Goetz, a professor of biology and biological engineering at CalTech and the University of Cambridge, said the research has been accepted at a well-regarded scientific journal but has not been published. The research was first reported by The Guardian.
Zernicka-Goetz and her team, along with a rival team in Israel, had previously described creating model embryo-like structures from mouse stem cells. Those “embryoids” showed the beginnings of a brain, heart and intestinal tract after about eight days of development.
The embryo-like structures that Zernicka-Goetz says her lab has created were grown from single human embryonic stem cells that were coaxed to develop into three distinct tissue layers, she said. They include cells that would typically go on to develop a yolk sac, a placenta and the embryo itself.
She told CNN that the embryo-like structures her lab has created are also the first to have germ cells that would go on to develop into egg and sperm.
“I just wish to stress that they are not human embryos,” Zernicka-Goetz said. “They are embryo models, but they are very exciting because they are very looking similar to human embryos and very important path towards discovery of why so many pregnancies fail, as the majority of the pregnancies fail around the time of the development at which we build these embryo-like structures.”
She said that to her knowledge, it was the first time a human model embryo had been created with three tissue layers. But she stressed that while it mimics some of the features of a natural embryo, it doesn’t have all of them.
Researchers hope these model embryos will shed light on the “black box” of human development, the period following 14 days after fertilization, which is the agreed limit for scientists to grow and study embryos in a lab.
Right now, the synthetic model human embryos are confined to test tubes. It would be illegal to implant one in a womb, and animal research with stem cells from mice and monkeys has shown that even when scientists have attempted to implant them, they don’t survive – probably because researchers haven’t figured out how to fully replicate the conditions of pregnancy.
Get CNN Health's weekly newsletter
Sign up here to get The Results Are In with Dr. Sanjay Gupta every Tuesday from the CNN Health team.
Zernicka-Goetz said that the aim of her research wasn’t to create life but to prevent its loss, understanding why embryos sometime fail to develop after fertilization and implantation.
“We know remarkably little about this step in human development, but it is a time where many pregnancies are lost, especially in an IVF setting,” Roger Sturmey, senior research fellow in maternal and fetal health at the University of Manchester in the UK, said in a statement.
“Currently, we can say that these ‘synthetic embryos’ share a number of features with blastocysts, but it is important to recognise that the way that synthetic embryos are formed is different to what happens when a normal embryo forms a blastocyst,” he said. “There is much work to be done to determine the similarities and differences between synthetic embryos and embryos that form from the union of an egg and a sperm.”
|
On Aug. 31, Gov. Mike Dunleavy, in a Fox Business interview, publicly and explicitly endorsed former President Donald Trump for his 2024 election bid. Trump, Dunleavy said, has been the best president for Alaska in the state’s short history. In support of his claim, he cited Trump’s approval of the sale of oil drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, ending the prohibition on new road construction in the Tongass National Forest, and his backing for permitting a rail line between Canada and Alaska.
While ostensibly simple and straight-forward, there’s a lot to unpack in Dunleavy’s allegation that Trump has been the best president for Alaska. Aside from Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s recent cancelation of the Refuge leases and the Forest Service’s reinstatement of the “roadless rule,” there are presidents whose actions have had a far more significant and permanent impact on the 49th state.
We might begin with President Dwight Eisenhower. Early in his presidency, Eisenhower opposed Alaska statehood. Head of allied forces in Europe during World War II, he had watched uncomfortably as Russia moved quickly from ally to implacable enemy as the atomic age and the Cold War dawned. Alaska, he felt, needed to be under direct federal control to face any Russian aggression that might come from Siberia. Yet he later came to approve the statehood effort and signed the Alaska statehood bill when it passed Congress, a bill he could have vetoed. Has there been any greater impact on Alaska and its future than statehood?
Then there’s President Richard Nixon. Learning of Dunleavy’s endorsement, Rep. Andy Josephson suggested to me that Nixon had a far greater impact than Trump and many other presidents. It was Nixon who signed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971. Unprecedented in many ways, in the late 1960s, the sheer size of the proposed claims settlement and the large monetary compensation for extinguishment of Native title boggled the imagination. Nixon directed his aide John Ehrlichman to study the matter and make a recommendation. Ehrlichman embraced the proposed settlement and Nixon signed the bill that December. Has there been any act of greater impact for Alaska and its residents, particularly its Native residents, than ANCSA, save statehood?
And President Jimmy Carter. ANCSA was incomplete; it left to the future a policy on Native subsistence harvesting in Alaska’s wilderness lands. Throughout the 1970s, Rogers C.B. Morton — as Nixon’s Interior Secretary and Gerald Ford’s Commerce Secretary — worked assiduously, alongside Sen. Ted Stevens, to craft an Alaska land settlement that would be accepted by both the environmental community, then at the height of its influence, and Alaska’s longstanding, continuing development needs. When in 1978 Stevens brought forward a bill that had been generally agreed to, Sen. Gravel brought the process to a standstill with an unacceptable amendment. Carter’s Interior Secretary Cecil Andrus then recommended that Carter utilize the ancient Antiquities Act to withdraw over 100 million acres of Alaska land in national monuments, protecting them from development. This, plus the election of Ronald Reagan in November 1980 brought Congress to pass the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, placing 104 million new acres in Alaska under permanent federal environmental protection, and providing for Native (rural) subsistence harvest under the sanction of a federal board. Whether one views ANILCA as a boon or a curse, few other presidentially approved actions have had greater impact on Alaska and its future.
Anything former President Trump did pales in comparison to these three enactments.
Moreover, Trump’s actions have been quite temporary. As noted, Haaland has rescinded the Refuge leases. They were essentially a dead letter, anyway, as no major oil company any longer viewed Refuge leases as an advantage, and refused to bid on them, leaving only the state of Alaska and bit players (who have since canceled their leases) to purchase any, hoping that someone might be interested in a partnership.
As for the roadless rule in the Tongass, Biden administration officials cited climate change and Native protests, as well as protecting fishing and tourism, as primary reasons for restoring protection for 9.3 million acres of the Forest.
And the A2A corporation that promoted building a rail connection from Alaska to the Alberta oil sands in order to bypass British Columbia (which has prohibited such a line across the province) has filed for credit protection, as its principal lender has gone into receivership. So much for Trump’s backing of the connection.
Looking at the real history of Alaska, Dunleavy’s casual distortion of it seems careless at best.
Steve Haycox is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
The views expressed here are the writer’s and are not necessarily endorsed by the Anchorage Daily News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)adn.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to <email-pii> or click here to submit via any web browser. Read our full guidelines for letters and commentaries here.
|
<urn:uuid:4028115d-0865-40e1-a912-d1369664b5c7>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-50",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100399.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20231202105028-20231202135028-00124.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.963919997215271,
"pii_count": 1,
"score": 2.796875,
"token_count": 1075,
"url": "https://www.adn.com/opinions/2023/09/08/opinion-was-dunleavy-right-to-claim-trump-was-the-best-president-for-alaska-in-its-history/"
}
|
On Aug. 31, Gov. Mike Dunleavy, in a Fox Business interview, publicly and explicitly endorsed former President Donald Trump for his 2024 election bid. Trump, Dunleavy said, has been the best president for Alaska in the state’s short history. In support of his claim, he cited Trump’s approval of the sale of oil drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, ending the prohibition on new road construction in the Tongass National Forest, and his backing for permitting a rail line between Canada and Alaska.
While ostensibly simple and straight-forward, there’s a lot to unpack in Dun
|
leavy’s allegation that Trump has been the best president for Alaska. Aside from Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s recent cancelation of the Refuge leases and the Forest Service’s reinstatement of the “roadless rule,” there are presidents whose actions have had a far more significant and permanent impact on the 49th state.
We might begin with President Dwight Eisenhower. Early in his presidency, Eisenhower opposed Alaska statehood. Head of allied forces in Europe during World War II, he had watched uncomfortably as Russia moved quickly from ally to implacable enemy as the atomic age and the Cold War dawned. Alaska, he felt, needed to be under direct federal control to face any Russian aggression that might come from Siberia. Yet he later came to approve the statehood effort and signed the Alaska statehood bill when it passed Congress, a bill he could have vetoed. Has there been any greater impact on Alaska and its future than statehood?
Then there’s President Richard Nixon. Learning of Dunleavy’s endorsement, Rep. Andy Josephson suggested to me that Nixon had a far greater impact than Trump and many other presidents. It was Nixon who signed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971. Unprecedented in many ways, in the late 1960s, the sheer size of the proposed claims settlement and the large monetary compensation for extinguishment of Native title boggled the imagination. Nixon directed his aide John Ehrlichman to study the matter and make a recommendation. Ehrlichman embraced the proposed settlement and Nixon signed the bill that December. Has there been any act of greater impact for Alaska and its residents, particularly its Native residents, than ANCSA, save statehood?
And President Jimmy Carter. ANCSA was incomplete; it left to the future a policy on Native subsistence harvesting in Alaska’s wilderness lands. Throughout the 1970s, Rogers C.B. Morton — as Nixon’s Interior Secretary and Gerald Ford’s Commerce Secretary — worked assiduously, alongside Sen. Ted Stevens, to craft an Alaska land settlement that would be accepted by both the environmental community, then at the height of its influence, and Alaska’s longstanding, continuing development needs. When in 1978 Stevens brought forward a bill that had been generally agreed to, Sen. Gravel brought the process to a standstill with an unacceptable amendment. Carter’s Interior Secretary Cecil Andrus then recommended that Carter utilize the ancient Antiquities Act to withdraw over 100 million acres of Alaska land in national monuments, protecting them from development. This, plus the election of Ronald Reagan in November 1980 brought Congress to pass the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, placing 104 million new acres in Alaska under permanent federal environmental protection, and providing for Native (rural) subsistence harvest under the sanction of a federal board. Whether one views ANILCA as a boon or a curse, few other presidentially approved actions have had greater impact on Alaska and its future.
Anything former President Trump did pales in comparison to these three enactments.
Moreover, Trump’s actions have been quite temporary. As noted, Haaland has rescinded the Refuge leases. They were essentially a dead letter, anyway, as no major oil company any longer viewed Refuge leases as an advantage, and refused to bid on them, leaving only the state of Alaska and bit players (who have since canceled their leases) to purchase any, hoping that someone might be interested in a partnership.
As for the roadless rule in the Tongass, Biden administration officials cited climate change and Native protests, as well as protecting fishing and tourism, as primary reasons for restoring protection for 9.3 million acres of the Forest.
And the A2A corporation that promoted building a rail connection from Alaska to the Alberta oil sands in order to bypass British Columbia (which has prohibited such a line across the province) has filed for credit protection, as its principal lender has gone into receivership. So much for Trump’s backing of the connection.
Looking at the real history of Alaska, Dunleavy’s casual distortion of it seems careless at best.
Steve Haycox is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
The views expressed here are the writer’s and are not necessarily endorsed by the Anchorage Daily News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)adn.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to <email-pii> or click here to submit via any web browser. Read our full guidelines for letters and commentaries here.
|
When Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa made history as the first people to summit Everest, the term Sherpa became synonymous with porters. But behind the name is a deep culture, with a long history.
Buddhist monk Ngawang Gombu Sherpa sits by the window and closes his eyes, thinking.
The sun barely makes it inside his home, a stone and wood structure in the village of Kurima, deep in the forested mountains that lie below Mount Everest to the east of Nepal's capital, Kathmandu.
Ngawang Gombu straightens his back and speaks softly.
"When the monsoon came in Tibet it made 18 rivers, and there were 18 clans of people," he says, his voice floating gently around the room. "Then there was a marginalised group like the Dalits in Nepal. With it, there were 19. Among the 19, there was the Sherwa."
The Sherpa — originally known as Sherwa — migrated from these rivers before the border between Tibet and Nepal was established, settling in what is now the Solukhumbu region, where Everest lies.
They migrated out of necessity, Ngawang Gombu says.
"At that time, relations between the other clans and the Sherwa were not good. The others tried to attack the Sherwa, so the Sherwa left."
When the Sherpa arrived in Solukhumbu they gradually spread across the region in search of fertile land.
One of these areas was Kurima, Ngawang Gombu's village, which sits at the base of the Himalayas, 2000 metres above sea level.
"When they arrived, our village was known as 'mimet lungba' or 'no man's land'," Ngawang Gombu says.
There are many legends for how Kurima got its name. Some say "Kuri" means "mountain hills" in Sherpa language and "Ma" means "village".
Others tell tales of conflict and adventure. But they all culminate in the same thing — a village, home to a community of Sherpas, hidden inside the jungle.
Tourism transformed a difficult way of life
The way of life in Kurima was difficult before tourism came to Nepal's mountains in the 1950s, according to the older villagers.
When mountaineers began to visit the region to climb, some Sherpa found jobs as guides and porters and the name of the ethnic group became synonymous with the work they did. But the term Sherpa does not describe an occupation. The Sherpa are a distinct cultural group with their own language and customs.
Sumjyok Sherpa, 79, says life was "tragic" before tourism brought extra income to the village.
"Everything was made by hand back then. There were no [proper] houses … there was no school. Parents had to teach everything by themselves to their children — all the culture, education, behaviour," she says. "And there was not enough food."
Over the past 70 years, economic and infrastructure development across Nepal has altered life in Kurima.
A dirt road has brought in both good and bad. Villagers in Kurima now have access to healthcare. But the road has also delivered plastic waste and junk food.
The houses in Kurima used to be far simpler. Known as Bakhang, homes were built from strips of wood and bamboo, says Ngawang Chhepal Sherpa, 80, who lives about 10 minutes' walk from Sumjyok.
Ngawang Chhepal remembers the transition from Bakhang to the stone and wood homes that dominate Kurima today. As Nepal developed and travel became easier, Sherpas left their villages and were inspired by the infrastructure they saw.
But it was tourism that brought the biggest change.
Sherpas joined the tourism industry in 1953 when Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa were the first to summit Everest.
Ngawang Chhepal pours tea into two cups and places them on one of the wooden tables that line his greeting room. In Sherpa culture, it is customary to welcome people with tea or local wine. The cups used must be un-chipped or it is considered an insult and bad luck.
He smiles and gestures towards the tea.
"After tourism was introduced, [Sherpa] people had … luxurious lives by comparison," he says. "People climbed mountains … and most of them got employment."
And as the number of travellers visiting Nepal grew, the word Sherpa became misinterpreted, says Sherpa and Buddhist Lama, Ang Dawa Sherpa. People misunderstood the true meaning.
"Sherpa means the people who live in the Eastern part," he says. "When Edmund Hillary climbed Mount Everest, 'Sherpa' became famous all over the world and people misunderstood that it meant porter."
Tourism has led to a loss of culture in many Sherpa settlements catering to travellers. But others, far from the tourist trail, have maintained their culture while benefiting financially from the industry.
Kurima is one such place.
The village is quiet and peaceful, a whole day's drive and four hours hike from Kathmandu city.
It consists of 50 houses scattered across the flank of a hill, each five-to-15 minutes' walk from the next. Thick forest surrounds the village.
Most houses have a greeting room, a shared sleeping room, a smoke-filled kitchen and an outhouse.
Terraces are cut into the hills around the homes and planted with different crops throughout the year. Most households raise a small herd of buffalo that graze by day in the surrounding plains and forest.
Villagers spend their time caring for their crops and animals, or visiting one another to share updates and stories.
Caring for Buddha's 'security guards'
Tibetan Mahayana Buddhism, which emerged around the eighth century, is intrinsic to Sherpa identity and daily life in Kurima.
Every morning Sherpas make offerings of food, water and incense to a range of Buddhist deities, says Pemba Sang Sherpa, Chief Lama at Yonam Sang Chholing Monastery in Kurima.
"When we wake up people need tea, we need food … that's the same thing the deities need," Pemba Sang explains, leaning back in his plastic lawn chair and keeping his gaze on the mountains as he speaks.
"Buddha is the founder of Buddhism so he is in the middle and around him there are the deities' statues," he continues. "In simple language, they are like the security guards of Buddha."
Respect for nature is important to the Sherpa's Buddhist faith. They only eat animals that have died of natural causes and every morning, Sherpa ask the gods to forgive them for any sentient beings – ants, flies, spiders — they may have inadvertently killed the day before.
But what really sets the Sherpa's beliefs apart is their faith in the mountains around them.
Unless a mountain has snow on it, Pemba Sang says, it is considered a hill. From those hills, you can see the gods and goddesses — the mountains — which are considered protector deities.
This is particularly significant to the Sherpa people who are famous for their mountaineering skills and spend their lives climbing Nepal's mountains.
Ex-trekking guide Mingma Norbu Sherpa took tourists across the Solukhumbu region and other parts of Nepal for decades until the Gorkha Earthquake of 2015.
"Before we trek we do a puja (prayer) for every member in the team," he says.
"We pray things like 'forgive us if we have done anything bad' and 'let us pass safely through'."
If the weather is clear after the team engages in puja, the mountain gods have given them permission to climb. But if the weather is windy and cloudy, or worse, trekking guides try to take their tourists down from the mountain or cancel their trip.
Keeping safe from the yeti
Then there are the myths and stories attached to the mountains that are passed among Sherpa communities and down through generations.
The legend of the yeti — a terrible holy beast described as a tall human-like figure who eats human brains — originated in the mountains of Solukhumbu.
Some say the yeti were once normal villagers, turned jungle people. Others believe yeti are gods in their own right.
According to one young Sherpa man, Pasang Sherpa, traditional Sherpa houses typically have very short doors and very small windows so that yetis can not fit inside.
Another mountain legend well known among the Sherpa communities of the lower, hilly areas of Solukhumbu is the story of Tenma — a little creature, no bigger than a farming basket, who is feared for luring children from their homes at night.
Tenma holds the children captive in a secret location for 15 days while it teaches them the secrets of shamanism.
"If the child cannot learn, they will kill the child and the child will never return to its home," Tsering Tenji says. "Otherwise, if the child learns everything, over the 15 days the Tenma will give it only jungle food. Then the child returns to its home as a shaman."
Other Sherpa legends are told as songs.
Sarkinee Sherpa, who lives a 45-minute trek from Kurima, says music underpins the Sherpa way of life. There is a song for every occasion and music keeps Sherpa culture and language alive.
Sarkinee closes her eyes and begins to sing.
"The first flower blooms, so let's offer it to the Lama,
The second flower blooms for the monastery management committee,
The third flower is for the parents, the fourth flower is for the brothers,
The fifth flower for the sisters and the sixth flower for neighbours and relatives …"
Can Sherpa culture survive?
But tourism and development are putting Sherpa culture at risk.
Some fear that Sherpa music and myths may soon be lost.
A generation of young people and even entire families are leaving Kurima in search of opportunities in the city.
All across Kurima, cottages lie empty, their terraces crumbling around them.
Pasang is amongst a number of Sherpas hoping to change this.
As a radio journalist, he runs a program in Sherpa language and is president of the community organisation Sherpa Media Group Nepal.
Most young Sherpa people want to learn about their culture, he says, but there are barriers holding them back.
"Their families will spend money on them learning other languages, but they don't promote the Sherpa language and this demotivates the young people," Pasang believes. "And if the parents do not speak it at home, how will they learn?"
Hopefully, Pasang says, if all Sherpas make it a priority to share their culture with one another, the rich history and way of life of this proud ethnic group will survive.
Yet even as tourism is contributing to the breakdown of Sherpa traditions, many Sherpa are proud of their contribution to the industry.
Most of the people the ABC spoke to wanted to be known for their culture, but also for their work as tourism leaders — guides, mountaineers, pioneers.
"The world's tallest mountain is inside the Sherpa community, it is our goddess deity," Ang Dawa says.
"People from all over the world are coming to see it and Sherpa's culture and Sherpa's homeland."
"We're proud of it," he says. "Everyone wants to come and see."
Words and photographs: Zoe Osborne
Production: Catherine Taylor
|
<urn:uuid:ce5e420a-4935-468f-a7f2-ee1597f86aad>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2024-10",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947476532.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20240304200958-20240304230958-00612.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9708741307258606,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.21875,
"token_count": 2449,
"url": "https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-05/nepal-sherpa-community-culture-alive-tourism-everest-himalaya/102008554"
}
|
When Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa made history as the first people to summit Everest, the term Sherpa became synonymous with porters. But behind the name is a deep culture, with a long history.
Buddhist monk Ngawang Gombu Sherpa sits by the window and closes his eyes, thinking.
The sun barely makes it inside his home, a stone and wood structure in the village of Kurima, deep in the forested mountains that lie below Mount Everest to the east of Nepal's capital, Kathmandu.
Ngawang Gombu straightens his back and speaks softly.
|
"When the monsoon came in Tibet it made 18 rivers, and there were 18 clans of people," he says, his voice floating gently around the room. "Then there was a marginalised group like the Dalits in Nepal. With it, there were 19. Among the 19, there was the Sherwa."
The Sherpa — originally known as Sherwa — migrated from these rivers before the border between Tibet and Nepal was established, settling in what is now the Solukhumbu region, where Everest lies.
They migrated out of necessity, Ngawang Gombu says.
"At that time, relations between the other clans and the Sherwa were not good. The others tried to attack the Sherwa, so the Sherwa left."
When the Sherpa arrived in Solukhumbu they gradually spread across the region in search of fertile land.
One of these areas was Kurima, Ngawang Gombu's village, which sits at the base of the Himalayas, 2000 metres above sea level.
"When they arrived, our village was known as 'mimet lungba' or 'no man's land'," Ngawang Gombu says.
There are many legends for how Kurima got its name. Some say "Kuri" means "mountain hills" in Sherpa language and "Ma" means "village".
Others tell tales of conflict and adventure. But they all culminate in the same thing — a village, home to a community of Sherpas, hidden inside the jungle.
Tourism transformed a difficult way of life
The way of life in Kurima was difficult before tourism came to Nepal's mountains in the 1950s, according to the older villagers.
When mountaineers began to visit the region to climb, some Sherpa found jobs as guides and porters and the name of the ethnic group became synonymous with the work they did. But the term Sherpa does not describe an occupation. The Sherpa are a distinct cultural group with their own language and customs.
Sumjyok Sherpa, 79, says life was "tragic" before tourism brought extra income to the village.
"Everything was made by hand back then. There were no [proper] houses … there was no school. Parents had to teach everything by themselves to their children — all the culture, education, behaviour," she says. "And there was not enough food."
Over the past 70 years, economic and infrastructure development across Nepal has altered life in Kurima.
A dirt road has brought in both good and bad. Villagers in Kurima now have access to healthcare. But the road has also delivered plastic waste and junk food.
The houses in Kurima used to be far simpler. Known as Bakhang, homes were built from strips of wood and bamboo, says Ngawang Chhepal Sherpa, 80, who lives about 10 minutes' walk from Sumjyok.
Ngawang Chhepal remembers the transition from Bakhang to the stone and wood homes that dominate Kurima today. As Nepal developed and travel became easier, Sherpas left their villages and were inspired by the infrastructure they saw.
But it was tourism that brought the biggest change.
Sherpas joined the tourism industry in 1953 when Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa were the first to summit Everest.
Ngawang Chhepal pours tea into two cups and places them on one of the wooden tables that line his greeting room. In Sherpa culture, it is customary to welcome people with tea or local wine. The cups used must be un-chipped or it is considered an insult and bad luck.
He smiles and gestures towards the tea.
"After tourism was introduced, [Sherpa] people had … luxurious lives by comparison," he says. "People climbed mountains … and most of them got employment."
And as the number of travellers visiting Nepal grew, the word Sherpa became misinterpreted, says Sherpa and Buddhist Lama, Ang Dawa Sherpa. People misunderstood the true meaning.
"Sherpa means the people who live in the Eastern part," he says. "When Edmund Hillary climbed Mount Everest, 'Sherpa' became famous all over the world and people misunderstood that it meant porter."
Tourism has led to a loss of culture in many Sherpa settlements catering to travellers. But others, far from the tourist trail, have maintained their culture while benefiting financially from the industry.
Kurima is one such place.
The village is quiet and peaceful, a whole day's drive and four hours hike from Kathmandu city.
It consists of 50 houses scattered across the flank of a hill, each five-to-15 minutes' walk from the next. Thick forest surrounds the village.
Most houses have a greeting room, a shared sleeping room, a smoke-filled kitchen and an outhouse.
Terraces are cut into the hills around the homes and planted with different crops throughout the year. Most households raise a small herd of buffalo that graze by day in the surrounding plains and forest.
Villagers spend their time caring for their crops and animals, or visiting one another to share updates and stories.
Caring for Buddha's 'security guards'
Tibetan Mahayana Buddhism, which emerged around the eighth century, is intrinsic to Sherpa identity and daily life in Kurima.
Every morning Sherpas make offerings of food, water and incense to a range of Buddhist deities, says Pemba Sang Sherpa, Chief Lama at Yonam Sang Chholing Monastery in Kurima.
"When we wake up people need tea, we need food … that's the same thing the deities need," Pemba Sang explains, leaning back in his plastic lawn chair and keeping his gaze on the mountains as he speaks.
"Buddha is the founder of Buddhism so he is in the middle and around him there are the deities' statues," he continues. "In simple language, they are like the security guards of Buddha."
Respect for nature is important to the Sherpa's Buddhist faith. They only eat animals that have died of natural causes and every morning, Sherpa ask the gods to forgive them for any sentient beings – ants, flies, spiders — they may have inadvertently killed the day before.
But what really sets the Sherpa's beliefs apart is their faith in the mountains around them.
Unless a mountain has snow on it, Pemba Sang says, it is considered a hill. From those hills, you can see the gods and goddesses — the mountains — which are considered protector deities.
This is particularly significant to the Sherpa people who are famous for their mountaineering skills and spend their lives climbing Nepal's mountains.
Ex-trekking guide Mingma Norbu Sherpa took tourists across the Solukhumbu region and other parts of Nepal for decades until the Gorkha Earthquake of 2015.
"Before we trek we do a puja (prayer) for every member in the team," he says.
"We pray things like 'forgive us if we have done anything bad' and 'let us pass safely through'."
If the weather is clear after the team engages in puja, the mountain gods have given them permission to climb. But if the weather is windy and cloudy, or worse, trekking guides try to take their tourists down from the mountain or cancel their trip.
Keeping safe from the yeti
Then there are the myths and stories attached to the mountains that are passed among Sherpa communities and down through generations.
The legend of the yeti — a terrible holy beast described as a tall human-like figure who eats human brains — originated in the mountains of Solukhumbu.
Some say the yeti were once normal villagers, turned jungle people. Others believe yeti are gods in their own right.
According to one young Sherpa man, Pasang Sherpa, traditional Sherpa houses typically have very short doors and very small windows so that yetis can not fit inside.
Another mountain legend well known among the Sherpa communities of the lower, hilly areas of Solukhumbu is the story of Tenma — a little creature, no bigger than a farming basket, who is feared for luring children from their homes at night.
Tenma holds the children captive in a secret location for 15 days while it teaches them the secrets of shamanism.
"If the child cannot learn, they will kill the child and the child will never return to its home," Tsering Tenji says. "Otherwise, if the child learns everything, over the 15 days the Tenma will give it only jungle food. Then the child returns to its home as a shaman."
Other Sherpa legends are told as songs.
Sarkinee Sherpa, who lives a 45-minute trek from Kurima, says music underpins the Sherpa way of life. There is a song for every occasion and music keeps Sherpa culture and language alive.
Sarkinee closes her eyes and begins to sing.
"The first flower blooms, so let's offer it to the Lama,
The second flower blooms for the monastery management committee,
The third flower is for the parents, the fourth flower is for the brothers,
The fifth flower for the sisters and the sixth flower for neighbours and relatives …"
Can Sherpa culture survive?
But tourism and development are putting Sherpa culture at risk.
Some fear that Sherpa music and myths may soon be lost.
A generation of young people and even entire families are leaving Kurima in search of opportunities in the city.
All across Kurima, cottages lie empty, their terraces crumbling around them.
Pasang is amongst a number of Sherpas hoping to change this.
As a radio journalist, he runs a program in Sherpa language and is president of the community organisation Sherpa Media Group Nepal.
Most young Sherpa people want to learn about their culture, he says, but there are barriers holding them back.
"Their families will spend money on them learning other languages, but they don't promote the Sherpa language and this demotivates the young people," Pasang believes. "And if the parents do not speak it at home, how will they learn?"
Hopefully, Pasang says, if all Sherpas make it a priority to share their culture with one another, the rich history and way of life of this proud ethnic group will survive.
Yet even as tourism is contributing to the breakdown of Sherpa traditions, many Sherpa are proud of their contribution to the industry.
Most of the people the ABC spoke to wanted to be known for their culture, but also for their work as tourism leaders — guides, mountaineers, pioneers.
"The world's tallest mountain is inside the Sherpa community, it is our goddess deity," Ang Dawa says.
"People from all over the world are coming to see it and Sherpa's culture and Sherpa's homeland."
"We're proud of it," he says. "Everyone wants to come and see."
Words and photographs: Zoe Osborne
Production: Catherine Taylor
|
Wildfires are burning across Canada, and much of the country is experiencing a worse-than-usual fire season.
Dry conditions over the spring and a warm winter have contributed to the issue. Major cities, including Toronto, New York City, and Ottawa faced air quality warnings Tuesday and Wednesday as smoke from the fires spread across Ontario and Quebec, and the Northeastern U.S.
Canada is on track to have one of its most destructive fire seasons in recent years. According to estimates by the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System, more than 3.5 million hectares of land have burned as of June — around 10 times higher than would be normal for the month — and almost on par with the entirety of the 2017 fire season.
Fires are burning from coast to coast, with Quebec and Alberta among the hardest-hit provinces. As of Wednesday, around 160 fires were burning in Quebec — Canada’s second most-populous province — and Alberta faced another 64. Around 10,000 people were evacuated from their homes in Quebec, though that number is falling as some fires come under control.
Millions of residents across the U.S. and Canada are under air quality warnings, and as of early Wednesday the air quality in New York City was the second-worst in the world, according to IQAir.com. New York measured a 160 on the U.S. Air Quality Index (AQI), 14.5 times higher than the World Health Organization’s annual guideline. In Detroit, the AQI was 156, and in Toronto, it measured at 107, or 7.4 times more than the WHO guidelines.
- Wildfires in Canada are on track to become bigger and more intense with climate change. As Emma McIntosh wrote in the Toronto Star in 2019, three of the country’s most destructive fires occurred in the past 20 years, and the area which has burned since the ’70s has doubled.
|
<urn:uuid:2dfff65a-0296-497f-b196-f3955ebffc46>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233511369.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20231004120203-20231004150203-00018.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9732905030250549,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.140625,
"token_count": 405,
"url": "https://www.semafor.com/article/06/07/2023/canada-wildfire-smoke-blankets-us-air-quality"
}
|
Wildfires are burning across Canada, and much of the country is experiencing a worse-than-usual fire season.
Dry conditions over the spring and a warm winter have contributed to the issue. Major cities, including Toronto, New York City, and Ottawa faced air quality warnings Tuesday and Wednesday as smoke from the fires spread across Ontario and Quebec, and the Northeastern U.S.
Canada is on track to have one of its most destructive fire seasons in recent years. According to estimates by the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System, more than 3.5 million hectares of land have burned as of June — around 10 times higher than
|
would be normal for the month — and almost on par with the entirety of the 2017 fire season.
Fires are burning from coast to coast, with Quebec and Alberta among the hardest-hit provinces. As of Wednesday, around 160 fires were burning in Quebec — Canada’s second most-populous province — and Alberta faced another 64. Around 10,000 people were evacuated from their homes in Quebec, though that number is falling as some fires come under control.
Millions of residents across the U.S. and Canada are under air quality warnings, and as of early Wednesday the air quality in New York City was the second-worst in the world, according to IQAir.com. New York measured a 160 on the U.S. Air Quality Index (AQI), 14.5 times higher than the World Health Organization’s annual guideline. In Detroit, the AQI was 156, and in Toronto, it measured at 107, or 7.4 times more than the WHO guidelines.
- Wildfires in Canada are on track to become bigger and more intense with climate change. As Emma McIntosh wrote in the Toronto Star in 2019, three of the country’s most destructive fires occurred in the past 20 years, and the area which has burned since the ’70s has doubled.
|
'Dead pool' approaches: Western water crisis looms as California complicates critical water deal
A water crisis is looming in the West as seven states struggle to agree on how to divide water from the mighty Colorado River.
California has played hardball with its neighbor states, draconian cuts like lawn bans could be coming, and massive reservoirs approach the dreaded "dead pool."
The monthslong effort got more complex when California in late January rejected a plan the other six states had put together, tossing an already contentious process into disarray.
This all matters because the river provides a significant amount of the water that makes life in the West possible. From Denver to Los Angeles, more than 40 million people depend on it to keep their farms flourishing and taps flowing.
With a 23-year drought that has brought river levels to some of the lowest levels ever recorded, how to reapportion that water has reached a crisis level.
While the massive storms of December and January brought much-needed water to Northern California, it wasn’t enough to make a dent in refilling the river or the reservoirs, which scientists say would require years of above-average rain and snow.
What to know about the West’s brewing water war:
What's the Colorado River Compact?
In 1922, the Colorado River Compact was signed by seven Western states to portion out water from the river.
Who got how much water was based – after decades of legal wrangling – on who was using the most back when the compact was decided. It's basically a "first dibs" system: States that were using the most water in the 1910s got the biggest share.
How does climate change affect you?: Subscribe to the weekly Climate Point newsletter
READ MORE: Latest climate change news from USA TODAY
Those percentages haven't changed in a century, but the populations of the states and the amount of water to go around has – drastically.
Two facts have long complicated the West's water problems. First, populations have soared in drought-stricken regions that depend on the river for water. And second, agriculture now accounts for most of the water usage from the Colorado River – about 80%.
What's the deadline for Colorado River Compact negotiations?
The river's flow has been falling for years, partly because of overuse and partly because of warming weather and increased drought driven by climate change. It’s estimated that 40% of the severity of the drought is attributable to human-caused climate trends.
Last summer the Bureau of Reclamation asked the seven states to come up with a plan to reduce their use of the river's flow by 2 million to 4 million acre-feet a year. They were supposed to do that in 60 days. The request was repeated in December.
AUGUST:Taps have run dry in a major Mexico city for months. A similar water crisis looms in the US, experts say.
An acre-foot is the amount of water it takes to cover an acre with water one foot deep. That's about 326,000 gallons. The average California household uses between one-half to one acre-foot of water a year.
Finally, the bureau said that if the states didn't put together a plan by Jan. 31, it would come up with one on its own.
What did California do to complicate the process?
On Jan. 30 all the states but California submitted a plan suggesting overall decreases. It took into account evaporation along the water's flow, which meant California's water allowance would have taken a big cut.
California then launched a bombshell – it rejected the plan and instead said it has senior water rights. It proposed some cuts, mainly targeting states with fewer legal rights to the water, but aimed to preserve the majority of its more than century-old water rights.
While the state as a whole gets only about 15% of its water from the Colorado, that water is one-third of what's used by Southern California, home to 23 million people.
With no consensus, the Bureau of Reclamation will now begin to review alternatives. It has threatened to impose cuts itself if the states can't come to an agreement.
What's 'dead pool'?
A big concern has been the drastically falling levels at two of the West's biggest reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, which have fallen to one-third their capacity. The fear is that they could hit what's known as "dead pool," with catastrophic consequences.
More:At Lake Powell, a 'front row seat' to a drying Colorado River
More:Human remains discovered in Lake Mead for fourth time as drought causes shoreline to retreat
"Dead pool" is the level at which the water behind either the Hoover or Glen Canyon dam is too low to flow out, halting downstream flows. Water managers worry that could happen within two years.
There's another number to worry about: the "inactive" pool, which is when water is still flowing out of the dams, but not enough to generate hydroelectricity.
Electric power produced by the two dams is an important part of the nation's energy supply. Lake Powell's eight generators supply electricity to seven Western states, and Lake Mead's 17 turbines generate about four billion kilowatt-hours of hydroelectric power annually.
Why is there a water crisis?
The Colorado River doesn't have enough water for everyone who wants it and probably never did.
The original compact was based on average river flows of 17.5 million acre-feet. The average is actually about 15 million acre-feet. Since 2000, that has fallen to about 12 million acre-feet.
More:Warming is driving much of the Colorado River's decline, scientists say
"The demand on the water supply is so much greater than it used to be and so you have two trains barreling down at each other on the same track: climate change and population growth," said former NASA scientist Tom Painter, who now runs a service that tracks snowfall and runoff.
"The population growth, that alone, independent of climate change, is a huge issue," he said. "We have much greater pressure on every molecule of water supply."
|
<urn:uuid:ce898544-c927-45f2-9d38-c9570b40e7a9>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-23",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224645417.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20230530063958-20230530093958-00530.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9716621041297913,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.078125,
"token_count": 1261,
"url": "https://www.mtshastanews.com/story/news/2023/02/02/colorado-river-compact-water-crisis-california-plan-explained/11170739002/"
}
|
'Dead pool' approaches: Western water crisis looms as California complicates critical water deal
A water crisis is looming in the West as seven states struggle to agree on how to divide water from the mighty Colorado River.
California has played hardball with its neighbor states, draconian cuts like lawn bans could be coming, and massive reservoirs approach the dreaded "dead pool."
The monthslong effort got more complex when California in late January rejected a plan the other six states had put together, tossing an already contentious process into disarray.
This all matters because the river provides a significant amount of the water that makes life
|
in the West possible. From Denver to Los Angeles, more than 40 million people depend on it to keep their farms flourishing and taps flowing.
With a 23-year drought that has brought river levels to some of the lowest levels ever recorded, how to reapportion that water has reached a crisis level.
While the massive storms of December and January brought much-needed water to Northern California, it wasn’t enough to make a dent in refilling the river or the reservoirs, which scientists say would require years of above-average rain and snow.
What to know about the West’s brewing water war:
What's the Colorado River Compact?
In 1922, the Colorado River Compact was signed by seven Western states to portion out water from the river.
Who got how much water was based – after decades of legal wrangling – on who was using the most back when the compact was decided. It's basically a "first dibs" system: States that were using the most water in the 1910s got the biggest share.
How does climate change affect you?: Subscribe to the weekly Climate Point newsletter
READ MORE: Latest climate change news from USA TODAY
Those percentages haven't changed in a century, but the populations of the states and the amount of water to go around has – drastically.
Two facts have long complicated the West's water problems. First, populations have soared in drought-stricken regions that depend on the river for water. And second, agriculture now accounts for most of the water usage from the Colorado River – about 80%.
What's the deadline for Colorado River Compact negotiations?
The river's flow has been falling for years, partly because of overuse and partly because of warming weather and increased drought driven by climate change. It’s estimated that 40% of the severity of the drought is attributable to human-caused climate trends.
Last summer the Bureau of Reclamation asked the seven states to come up with a plan to reduce their use of the river's flow by 2 million to 4 million acre-feet a year. They were supposed to do that in 60 days. The request was repeated in December.
AUGUST:Taps have run dry in a major Mexico city for months. A similar water crisis looms in the US, experts say.
An acre-foot is the amount of water it takes to cover an acre with water one foot deep. That's about 326,000 gallons. The average California household uses between one-half to one acre-foot of water a year.
Finally, the bureau said that if the states didn't put together a plan by Jan. 31, it would come up with one on its own.
What did California do to complicate the process?
On Jan. 30 all the states but California submitted a plan suggesting overall decreases. It took into account evaporation along the water's flow, which meant California's water allowance would have taken a big cut.
California then launched a bombshell – it rejected the plan and instead said it has senior water rights. It proposed some cuts, mainly targeting states with fewer legal rights to the water, but aimed to preserve the majority of its more than century-old water rights.
While the state as a whole gets only about 15% of its water from the Colorado, that water is one-third of what's used by Southern California, home to 23 million people.
With no consensus, the Bureau of Reclamation will now begin to review alternatives. It has threatened to impose cuts itself if the states can't come to an agreement.
What's 'dead pool'?
A big concern has been the drastically falling levels at two of the West's biggest reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, which have fallen to one-third their capacity. The fear is that they could hit what's known as "dead pool," with catastrophic consequences.
More:At Lake Powell, a 'front row seat' to a drying Colorado River
More:Human remains discovered in Lake Mead for fourth time as drought causes shoreline to retreat
"Dead pool" is the level at which the water behind either the Hoover or Glen Canyon dam is too low to flow out, halting downstream flows. Water managers worry that could happen within two years.
There's another number to worry about: the "inactive" pool, which is when water is still flowing out of the dams, but not enough to generate hydroelectricity.
Electric power produced by the two dams is an important part of the nation's energy supply. Lake Powell's eight generators supply electricity to seven Western states, and Lake Mead's 17 turbines generate about four billion kilowatt-hours of hydroelectric power annually.
Why is there a water crisis?
The Colorado River doesn't have enough water for everyone who wants it and probably never did.
The original compact was based on average river flows of 17.5 million acre-feet. The average is actually about 15 million acre-feet. Since 2000, that has fallen to about 12 million acre-feet.
More:Warming is driving much of the Colorado River's decline, scientists say
"The demand on the water supply is so much greater than it used to be and so you have two trains barreling down at each other on the same track: climate change and population growth," said former NASA scientist Tom Painter, who now runs a service that tracks snowfall and runoff.
"The population growth, that alone, independent of climate change, is a huge issue," he said. "We have much greater pressure on every molecule of water supply."
|
What happens to our culture when books are banned: 'A chilling effect'
You've seen the headlines: "Book bans are on the rise." "Schools banned books 2,532 times since 2021."
But have you thought about the bigger picture? What do book bans do to our relationship with reading? And to our relationships with our neighbors? How do they impact our community?
With thousands of books banned around the country – and more than 100 bills at the state level that would further censor books, according to the American Library Association – experts wonder what will happen to our culture without access to certain titles, particularly ones focused on people of color and the LGBTQ community.
"The idea that all we're talking about here are schools and libraries is not true," says Chris Finan, executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship. "We are talking about culture, and the availability of culture to the wider population."
What is a book ban?
When a book is "banned," that means a book has been removed from school curriculums and/or public libraries because a person or group has objected to its content.
An attempt to get a book removed is called a challenge. Most public schools and libraries have boards made up of elected officials (or people appointed by elected officials) who have the power to remove books from the schools and libraries they oversee.
These are happening around the country, making headlines in states like Florida and Texas, for example. From January through August of last year, the American Library Association tracked 1,651 targeted books and 681 attempts at restricting or banning library resources.
These aren't anything new; historically, when some groups think society has progressed too much, they push back (books like "To Kill a Mockingbird," "The Color Purple" and "A Separate Peace" have all been subject to bans). Today, critical race theory and books about LGBTQ identities have stoked the partisan flames.
"This campaign has been enormously successful in generating a moral panic around these books," says Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom.
Some media, of course, may be objectionable for certain age groups. It's the definition of "objectionable" where conflict arises.
Book bans 'tear the community apart'
Book bans create a culture of fear in society, says Emily Knox, National Coalition Against Censorship Board president.
Teachers grow unsure of what they can say in a classroom. Writers question whether they should write about a certain topic for fear of becoming a target. "It's really much more about a chilling effect that happens," Knox says.
These issues grow more intense on a local level: "They really, really tear the community apart. You find out a lot about your neighbor, whatever it might be, and it can be very difficult to keep a community cohesion once there's been an entire rift in the community."
The cultural impact
It's expected white people won't make up the majority of people in the U.S. by the 2040s, so kids today "must be able to have a shared identity in our country and an understanding of our history," Knox says.
We're in the midst of a debate around what the future of America looks like, adds Bakari Kitwana, co-editor of "Democracy Unchained: How to Rebuild Government For the People."
"With that (debate) comes people trying to leverage their power and influence within the realm of public policy, to shape policy in their own image," he says.
Vamsee Juluri, a professor of media studies and Asian studies at the University of San Francisco, worries if books are banned in schools, students will go without important cultural education. "If a book is banned or suppressed, they're not even going to realize that something very important is being excluded from them," he says.
What one group deems "important," however, another might find immoral. Education and community engagement could help foster better relationships between neighbors to quell quarrels about what's appropriate.
Either way, the stakes for our culture are real. "Don't think that this won't happen in your school," Knox says.
Read up on book banning
Insights from students themselves:Books are being banned from school libraries. Here's what that does to students.
What librarians are up to:Preserving the freedom to read: After 40 years of Banned Book Week, librarians craft new plan to fight back
Schools banned books 2,532 times since 2021. It's all part of a 'full-fledged' movement.
Book bans are on the rise.What are the most banned books and why?
Contributing: Barbara VanDenburgh.
|
<urn:uuid:55dfaa52-fcbd-4a18-a9a8-2275be398823>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-23",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224652184.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20230605221713-20230606011713-00107.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9666188955307007,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.859375,
"token_count": 979,
"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2023/02/22/book-bans-what-happens-culture/11262643002/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatodaycombooks-topstories"
}
|
What happens to our culture when books are banned: 'A chilling effect'
You've seen the headlines: "Book bans are on the rise." "Schools banned books 2,532 times since 2021."
But have you thought about the bigger picture? What do book bans do to our relationship with reading? And to our relationships with our neighbors? How do they impact our community?
With thousands of books banned around the country – and more than 100 bills at the state level that would further censor books, according to the American Library Association – experts wonder what will happen to our
|
culture without access to certain titles, particularly ones focused on people of color and the LGBTQ community.
"The idea that all we're talking about here are schools and libraries is not true," says Chris Finan, executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship. "We are talking about culture, and the availability of culture to the wider population."
What is a book ban?
When a book is "banned," that means a book has been removed from school curriculums and/or public libraries because a person or group has objected to its content.
An attempt to get a book removed is called a challenge. Most public schools and libraries have boards made up of elected officials (or people appointed by elected officials) who have the power to remove books from the schools and libraries they oversee.
These are happening around the country, making headlines in states like Florida and Texas, for example. From January through August of last year, the American Library Association tracked 1,651 targeted books and 681 attempts at restricting or banning library resources.
These aren't anything new; historically, when some groups think society has progressed too much, they push back (books like "To Kill a Mockingbird," "The Color Purple" and "A Separate Peace" have all been subject to bans). Today, critical race theory and books about LGBTQ identities have stoked the partisan flames.
"This campaign has been enormously successful in generating a moral panic around these books," says Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom.
Some media, of course, may be objectionable for certain age groups. It's the definition of "objectionable" where conflict arises.
Book bans 'tear the community apart'
Book bans create a culture of fear in society, says Emily Knox, National Coalition Against Censorship Board president.
Teachers grow unsure of what they can say in a classroom. Writers question whether they should write about a certain topic for fear of becoming a target. "It's really much more about a chilling effect that happens," Knox says.
These issues grow more intense on a local level: "They really, really tear the community apart. You find out a lot about your neighbor, whatever it might be, and it can be very difficult to keep a community cohesion once there's been an entire rift in the community."
The cultural impact
It's expected white people won't make up the majority of people in the U.S. by the 2040s, so kids today "must be able to have a shared identity in our country and an understanding of our history," Knox says.
We're in the midst of a debate around what the future of America looks like, adds Bakari Kitwana, co-editor of "Democracy Unchained: How to Rebuild Government For the People."
"With that (debate) comes people trying to leverage their power and influence within the realm of public policy, to shape policy in their own image," he says.
Vamsee Juluri, a professor of media studies and Asian studies at the University of San Francisco, worries if books are banned in schools, students will go without important cultural education. "If a book is banned or suppressed, they're not even going to realize that something very important is being excluded from them," he says.
What one group deems "important," however, another might find immoral. Education and community engagement could help foster better relationships between neighbors to quell quarrels about what's appropriate.
Either way, the stakes for our culture are real. "Don't think that this won't happen in your school," Knox says.
Read up on book banning
Insights from students themselves:Books are being banned from school libraries. Here's what that does to students.
What librarians are up to:Preserving the freedom to read: After 40 years of Banned Book Week, librarians craft new plan to fight back
Schools banned books 2,532 times since 2021. It's all part of a 'full-fledged' movement.
Book bans are on the rise.What are the most banned books and why?
Contributing: Barbara VanDenburgh.
|
I am getting a lot of questions about there being little to no fireweed (Chamerion angustifolium) this year. I suppose some folks are wondering how we are going to tell when winter is supposed to hit without those white seeds from the open flowers telling us.
There may be fewer fireweed blossoms this year. I really don’t know. It is still a bit early for their prime display period. Fireweed does establish itself in freshly disturbed areas (like after a fire or volcanic explosion), grows like mad, peaks in numbers (sometimes in as little as 2 years, but more like 10 to 15 or so) and then moves on. I doubt, however, that these plants have disappeared from our area.
For starters, fireweed is a hardy perennial, not an annual. This means plants are around for more than one season. Fireweed generally spreads by producing root-like structures, rhizomes, that form and grow under ground. Rhizomes are capable of producing new plants. This is asexual reproduction. In fact, some years a freed plant may not bloom. It will reproduce via rhizomes. Last winter provided plenty of snow cover, so I don’t imagine those rhizomes had any problem making it through to this spring.
To ensure the continuation of the species, fireweed also produces sexually via flowers to make sure the plants can establish elsewhere, far away from the original plant. Here is how that works. Each fireweed plant can have 15 or more flowers. These end up as seed vessels, wrapped up in a protective sheath. When these open up, out explodes 300 seeds from each individual flower.
Count the number of flowers or sheaths on a stalk sometime and then do the math. A plant with 15 flowers produces 4,500 seeds. Ahh, but that is not all. Producing seed and getting them to a newly disturbed area was the trick.
There are little hairs on the tips of fireweed seeds which are impacted by humidity and help determine the height of the seed’s drift when caught by a breeze. You should be amazed to learn that fireweed seeds can travel over 175 miles. Given the great number of seeds and the distance they can move, one of them will surely drift to the ground and find a new area to start a new colony.
You know me. I like to know what is going on underground. When it comes to fireweed, those rhizomes are pretty cool. They make it so fireweed plants do not have to flower every year. Perhaps that is what is going on this year with a lot of plants.
I read about a 4-year-old fireweed rhizome that was dug up for a study. It was a whopping 20 feet long and had an amazing number of buds, 56. Each one of these underground buds can form a new shoot for a new plant, literally a clone. At 4,000 to 6,000 seeds per plant, that one rhizome would have produced plants with over a quarter of a million seeds.
Fireweed seeds are easily destroyed by the heart of a fire or volcanic lava. Rhizomes, however, survive fires because they are underground. This is how fireweed can establish itself so quickly after a fire (or volcanic eruption).
Speaking of clones, it is not unusual to come across a fireweed plant that produces white flowers. These seeds should produce white flowers, but a part of the rhizome certainly will.
In any case, I don’t think Alaska’s fireweed is going away. These are tough plants, just like Alaskans.
Jeff’s Alaska Garden Calendar:
Alaska Botanical Garden: See what is in bloom (and could be blooming in your yard) at www.alaskabg.org. Join for all sorts of discounts and benefits.
The Annual Anchorage Garden Tour: July 30, noon-5 p.m. This is always a must-do, fun and a long, long tradition worth partaking in. Check out the details at the Anchorage Garden Club’s Facebook page. It’s your chance to see others’ gardens. Do not miss out.
Plant second crops: Start seeds outdoors. Lettuces, kales, even carrots and broccoli.
|
<urn:uuid:9f15228d-f727-4b5b-8623-c418622bad09>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233506429.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20230922234442-20230923024442-00166.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.957268476486206,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.328125,
"token_count": 892,
"url": "https://www.adn.com/alaska-life/gardening/2023/07/20/alaskas-classic-summertime-flower-is-about-to-burst-into-bloom/"
}
|
I am getting a lot of questions about there being little to no fireweed (Chamerion angustifolium) this year. I suppose some folks are wondering how we are going to tell when winter is supposed to hit without those white seeds from the open flowers telling us.
There may be fewer fireweed blossoms this year. I really don’t know. It is still a bit early for their prime display period. Fireweed does establish itself in freshly disturbed areas (like after a fire or volcanic explosion), grows like mad, peaks in numbers (sometimes in as little as 2 years, but more like
|
10 to 15 or so) and then moves on. I doubt, however, that these plants have disappeared from our area.
For starters, fireweed is a hardy perennial, not an annual. This means plants are around for more than one season. Fireweed generally spreads by producing root-like structures, rhizomes, that form and grow under ground. Rhizomes are capable of producing new plants. This is asexual reproduction. In fact, some years a freed plant may not bloom. It will reproduce via rhizomes. Last winter provided plenty of snow cover, so I don’t imagine those rhizomes had any problem making it through to this spring.
To ensure the continuation of the species, fireweed also produces sexually via flowers to make sure the plants can establish elsewhere, far away from the original plant. Here is how that works. Each fireweed plant can have 15 or more flowers. These end up as seed vessels, wrapped up in a protective sheath. When these open up, out explodes 300 seeds from each individual flower.
Count the number of flowers or sheaths on a stalk sometime and then do the math. A plant with 15 flowers produces 4,500 seeds. Ahh, but that is not all. Producing seed and getting them to a newly disturbed area was the trick.
There are little hairs on the tips of fireweed seeds which are impacted by humidity and help determine the height of the seed’s drift when caught by a breeze. You should be amazed to learn that fireweed seeds can travel over 175 miles. Given the great number of seeds and the distance they can move, one of them will surely drift to the ground and find a new area to start a new colony.
You know me. I like to know what is going on underground. When it comes to fireweed, those rhizomes are pretty cool. They make it so fireweed plants do not have to flower every year. Perhaps that is what is going on this year with a lot of plants.
I read about a 4-year-old fireweed rhizome that was dug up for a study. It was a whopping 20 feet long and had an amazing number of buds, 56. Each one of these underground buds can form a new shoot for a new plant, literally a clone. At 4,000 to 6,000 seeds per plant, that one rhizome would have produced plants with over a quarter of a million seeds.
Fireweed seeds are easily destroyed by the heart of a fire or volcanic lava. Rhizomes, however, survive fires because they are underground. This is how fireweed can establish itself so quickly after a fire (or volcanic eruption).
Speaking of clones, it is not unusual to come across a fireweed plant that produces white flowers. These seeds should produce white flowers, but a part of the rhizome certainly will.
In any case, I don’t think Alaska’s fireweed is going away. These are tough plants, just like Alaskans.
Jeff’s Alaska Garden Calendar:
Alaska Botanical Garden: See what is in bloom (and could be blooming in your yard) at www.alaskabg.org. Join for all sorts of discounts and benefits.
The Annual Anchorage Garden Tour: July 30, noon-5 p.m. This is always a must-do, fun and a long, long tradition worth partaking in. Check out the details at the Anchorage Garden Club’s Facebook page. It’s your chance to see others’ gardens. Do not miss out.
Plant second crops: Start seeds outdoors. Lettuces, kales, even carrots and broccoli.
|
Sirens wailed, church bells rang and the presidents of Germany, Israel and Poland bowed their heads on Wednesday before a memorial to Jewish insurgents who fought a mismatched, desperate battle against Nazi German forces in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
- Thousands took part in unofficial commemorations seen as a boycott of Poland's current right-wing government
- The Warsaw ghetto initially held around 380,000 Jews and at its peak housed about half a million people
- Around 6 million Polish citizens were killed during the war
The celebrations of the uprising's 80th anniversary honoured the hundreds of young Jews who fought in the Polish capital in April, 1943.
Most were killed, and none of those who survived the fighting are still alive.
"I stand before you today and ask for forgiveness," German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said at the site of the former ghetto.
"The appalling crimes that Germans committed here fill me with deep shame. But at the same time it fills me with gratitude and humility that I can take part in this commemoration as the first German head of state ever."
The leaders were joined by Holocaust survivors and their descendants, amid a poignant sense that the responsibility for carrying on the memory of the Holocaust is passing from the witnesses to younger generations.
A 96-year-old Polish Holocaust survivor, Marian Turski, said German forces did the unimaginable in annihilating Jews, but the "subsoil" of anti-Semitism existing for centuries made it possible for the Germans to kill so many. He warned against indifference in the face of rising hatred and violence in today's world.
"Can I be indifferent, can I remain silent, when today the Russian army is attacking our neighbour and seizing its land?" he said.
Mr Steinmeier said the lessons of his country's aggression offered a message amid the war in Ukraine.
"You in Poland, you in Israel, you know from your history that freedom and independence must be fought for and defended," he said.
"But we Germans have also learned the lessons of our history. 'Never again' means that there must be no criminal war of aggression like Russia's against Ukraine in Europe."
Jewish and Christian clerics recited prayers and a torch burned from a part of the memorial resembling a Jewish menorah.
A large group held private unofficial observances at other sites across the former ghetto, placing yellow daffodils or wearing small paper daffodils that in recent years have become a symbol of remembering the uprising.
For some the unofficial commemorations represented a boycott of Poland's current right-wing government, which frames the Holocaust in terms of Poles saving Jews.
That approach has been a source of tensions with Israel, where many accuse the Polish government of ignoring modern scholarship, which paints a complex picture that also includes many cases of Polish betrayal of Jews.
The Germans invaded Poland in 1939 and the next year set up the ghetto, the largest of many in occupied Poland.
Poland was home to Europe's largest prewar Jewish population on the eve of the Holocaust.
Of the country's 3.5 million Jews, most were murdered.
The Polish state preserves sites like the ghetto and the Auschwitz death camp, while also honouring the massive losses inflicted on the entire nation.
Around 6 million Polish citizens were killed during the war. About 3 million of them were Jews and the others mostly Christian.
Israel's President Isaac Herzog spoke about the "disagreements and pain" that still exist between the Jewish and Polish people, and voiced hope their friendship would advance.
"The heroism of the resistance and the rebels and the imperative to remember that terrible chapter of history, when the Jewish people faced complete annihilation, and destruction rained down upon Poland and many other countries, offer a platform for important dialogue between Poland and Israel," he said.
Poland and Germany have faced tensions of their own, including over Polish demands for reparations for World War II.
During Mr Steinmeier's visit, the Polish culture minister presented him with a report on Polish war losses. Poland has been demanding $US1.3 trillion ($1.9 trillion). Germany has rejected that idea, saying it paid reparations already after the war.
The Warsaw ghetto initially held around 380,000 Jews, and at its peak housed about half a million people. Disease and starvation were rampant, and bodies often appeared on the streets.
The Jewish resistance movement in the ghetto grew after 265,000 men, women and children were rounded up in the summer of 1942 and killed at the Treblinka death camp. As word of the Nazi genocide spread, those who remained behind no longer believed German promises they would be sent to labour camps.
A small group of rebels began to spread calls for resistance, carrying out isolated acts of sabotage and attacks. Some Jews began defying German orders to report for deportation.
The uprising began when the Nazis entered the ghetto on April 19, 1943, the eve of the Passover holiday. Three days later, the Nazis set the ghetto ablaze, turning it into a fiery death trap, but the Jewish fighters kept up their struggle for nearly a month before they were vanquished.
Avi Valevski, a professor of psychiatry from Israel whose father, Ryszard Walewski, was a doctor who led a group of some 150 resistance fighters in the revolt, visited Warsaw with his wife, describing it as "more than an emotional moment."
"I'm a New Yorker but there is something that keeps drawing me back here," said Barbara Jolson Blumenthal, whose parents survived the Warsaw ghetto after a Pole helped them to escape and hide, while many other members of their families were murdered.
"And although such horrible things happened here, I remember my parents saying that they loved it here, that it was so wonderful here, and I walk the streets and I wonder if this is where my family was and where they walked," she added.
|
<urn:uuid:fce7b567-3b11-4f34-9b11-98d4fec43741>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-50",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679099942.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20231128183116-20231128213116-00358.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9730445742607117,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.671875,
"token_count": 1207,
"url": "https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-20/warsaw-ghetto-uprising-80th-anniversary/102245504"
}
|
Sirens wailed, church bells rang and the presidents of Germany, Israel and Poland bowed their heads on Wednesday before a memorial to Jewish insurgents who fought a mismatched, desperate battle against Nazi German forces in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
- Thousands took part in unofficial commemorations seen as a boycott of Poland's current right-wing government
- The Warsaw ghetto initially held around 380,000 Jews and at its peak housed about half a million people
- Around 6 million Polish citizens were killed during the war
The celebrations of the uprising's 80th anniversary honoured the hundreds of young
|
Jews who fought in the Polish capital in April, 1943.
Most were killed, and none of those who survived the fighting are still alive.
"I stand before you today and ask for forgiveness," German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said at the site of the former ghetto.
"The appalling crimes that Germans committed here fill me with deep shame. But at the same time it fills me with gratitude and humility that I can take part in this commemoration as the first German head of state ever."
The leaders were joined by Holocaust survivors and their descendants, amid a poignant sense that the responsibility for carrying on the memory of the Holocaust is passing from the witnesses to younger generations.
A 96-year-old Polish Holocaust survivor, Marian Turski, said German forces did the unimaginable in annihilating Jews, but the "subsoil" of anti-Semitism existing for centuries made it possible for the Germans to kill so many. He warned against indifference in the face of rising hatred and violence in today's world.
"Can I be indifferent, can I remain silent, when today the Russian army is attacking our neighbour and seizing its land?" he said.
Mr Steinmeier said the lessons of his country's aggression offered a message amid the war in Ukraine.
"You in Poland, you in Israel, you know from your history that freedom and independence must be fought for and defended," he said.
"But we Germans have also learned the lessons of our history. 'Never again' means that there must be no criminal war of aggression like Russia's against Ukraine in Europe."
Jewish and Christian clerics recited prayers and a torch burned from a part of the memorial resembling a Jewish menorah.
A large group held private unofficial observances at other sites across the former ghetto, placing yellow daffodils or wearing small paper daffodils that in recent years have become a symbol of remembering the uprising.
For some the unofficial commemorations represented a boycott of Poland's current right-wing government, which frames the Holocaust in terms of Poles saving Jews.
That approach has been a source of tensions with Israel, where many accuse the Polish government of ignoring modern scholarship, which paints a complex picture that also includes many cases of Polish betrayal of Jews.
The Germans invaded Poland in 1939 and the next year set up the ghetto, the largest of many in occupied Poland.
Poland was home to Europe's largest prewar Jewish population on the eve of the Holocaust.
Of the country's 3.5 million Jews, most were murdered.
The Polish state preserves sites like the ghetto and the Auschwitz death camp, while also honouring the massive losses inflicted on the entire nation.
Around 6 million Polish citizens were killed during the war. About 3 million of them were Jews and the others mostly Christian.
Israel's President Isaac Herzog spoke about the "disagreements and pain" that still exist between the Jewish and Polish people, and voiced hope their friendship would advance.
"The heroism of the resistance and the rebels and the imperative to remember that terrible chapter of history, when the Jewish people faced complete annihilation, and destruction rained down upon Poland and many other countries, offer a platform for important dialogue between Poland and Israel," he said.
Poland and Germany have faced tensions of their own, including over Polish demands for reparations for World War II.
During Mr Steinmeier's visit, the Polish culture minister presented him with a report on Polish war losses. Poland has been demanding $US1.3 trillion ($1.9 trillion). Germany has rejected that idea, saying it paid reparations already after the war.
The Warsaw ghetto initially held around 380,000 Jews, and at its peak housed about half a million people. Disease and starvation were rampant, and bodies often appeared on the streets.
The Jewish resistance movement in the ghetto grew after 265,000 men, women and children were rounded up in the summer of 1942 and killed at the Treblinka death camp. As word of the Nazi genocide spread, those who remained behind no longer believed German promises they would be sent to labour camps.
A small group of rebels began to spread calls for resistance, carrying out isolated acts of sabotage and attacks. Some Jews began defying German orders to report for deportation.
The uprising began when the Nazis entered the ghetto on April 19, 1943, the eve of the Passover holiday. Three days later, the Nazis set the ghetto ablaze, turning it into a fiery death trap, but the Jewish fighters kept up their struggle for nearly a month before they were vanquished.
Avi Valevski, a professor of psychiatry from Israel whose father, Ryszard Walewski, was a doctor who led a group of some 150 resistance fighters in the revolt, visited Warsaw with his wife, describing it as "more than an emotional moment."
"I'm a New Yorker but there is something that keeps drawing me back here," said Barbara Jolson Blumenthal, whose parents survived the Warsaw ghetto after a Pole helped them to escape and hide, while many other members of their families were murdered.
"And although such horrible things happened here, I remember my parents saying that they loved it here, that it was so wonderful here, and I walk the streets and I wonder if this is where my family was and where they walked," she added.
|
As a writing teacher, I spend a great deal of time trying to convince students to embrace the writing process — planning, drafting, revising, editing and, at last, publishing.
Some seventh-graders, though, are skeptical. They jump straight into drafting, run a quick check using the online tool Grammarly, then click submit. Why bother with all of those extra steps, Mrs. Damm? Isn’t it enough to get the words on the page?
I keep fighting the battle because I believe in the power of words and in the value of the entire writing process. When we write, we organize our thoughts and sometimes even make new discoveries. We create permanent artifacts of what we feel, think, believe, understand as of right now, and then we can return to those words a week or month or years later and consider how our thinking may have changed. (Anyone who has reread their junior high diary entries understands — and likely cringes.)
We can use words to elicit laughter, to evoke empathy, to move readers to tears because we are emotional creatures writing for emotional creatures.
Humans aren’t the only beings capable of writing, though. The new ChatGPT application, powered by artificial intelligence, allows users to type a question or prompt, and within seconds the app returns a paragraph or even an essay. The trick right now is getting access. The site (chat.openai.com) is often at capacity.
I’ve been able to ask ChatGPT a few questions, and the results are exactly what I expected from an advanced program designed to mimic humans — perfunctory, grammatically correct sentences that hint at emotion but come up short.
For example, when I asked which U.S. president is considered the most effective, the answer was a six-paragraph response detailing the achievements of President Franklin D. Roosevelt without a hint of the controversies surrounding his 12 years in office.
When I asked the application to analyze symbolism in the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, ChatGPT returned a paragraph that correctly identified four uses of symbolism. The word choice was at times impressive, with phrases such as “violent consequences” and “blind adherence.”
Yet there was no sense that the writer was horrified by the actions of the characters in the 1948 story. (I know no one who isn’t traumatized by the villagers who close in on Mrs. Hutchinson and stone her to death.) The robotic response would come up short in my classroom, as students are required to include quoted text evidence in their responses, something ChatGPT doesn’t yet do as far as I can tell.
For now I’m not worried that this app signals catastrophe for writing instruction. Yes, some students will use it for unsupervised assignments, convinced that this shortcut is an acceptable means to an end. Ask any high school student and they will tell you about the cheating that goes on, often by the highest-ranked students desperate to hold on to their top spots no matter the ethical violations.
Artificial intelligence is only available when you have a connected device, and it can’t take the place of our messy, perfectly imperfect brains. AI for now doesn’t access our memories or opinions. It doesn’t pull together the random strings that we are able to knit together to express outrage or grief, surprise or passion.
ChatGPT operates under the assumption that there is a correct answer to every question, and there is the risk that students will use it as an extension of Google, relying on something else for the recall and “thinking.”
When educators are doing our best work, though, we aren’t asking students for answers that we can easily find from the Alexa device in our home or the search engine on our smartphone. Instead we are supporting students so that they can ask deeper questions, make connections, draw conclusions, evaluate the work of others and create their own masterpieces.
I’ll keep insisting that students show me their work — lists or doodles from the inception of an idea all the way to a published product that reveals thoughtful revisions, critical thinking and recognition that we can always improve. As of today, that’s still the exclusive work of the human brain.
Tyra Damm is a Briefing columnist. She can be reached at <email-pii>.
|
<urn:uuid:fe271107-0afb-4f5d-84ab-6c9f6bab0fc4>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-06",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764499468.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20230127231443-20230128021443-00808.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9484596252441406,
"pii_count": 1,
"score": 2.71875,
"token_count": 913,
"url": "https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2023/01/25/ai-writer-is-no-replacement-for-human-expression-passion/"
}
|
As a writing teacher, I spend a great deal of time trying to convince students to embrace the writing process — planning, drafting, revising, editing and, at last, publishing.
Some seventh-graders, though, are skeptical. They jump straight into drafting, run a quick check using the online tool Grammarly, then click submit. Why bother with all of those extra steps, Mrs. Damm? Isn’t it enough to get the words on the page?
I keep fighting the battle because I believe in the power of words and in the value of the entire writing process. When we write, we organize our thoughts and sometimes
|
even make new discoveries. We create permanent artifacts of what we feel, think, believe, understand as of right now, and then we can return to those words a week or month or years later and consider how our thinking may have changed. (Anyone who has reread their junior high diary entries understands — and likely cringes.)
We can use words to elicit laughter, to evoke empathy, to move readers to tears because we are emotional creatures writing for emotional creatures.
Humans aren’t the only beings capable of writing, though. The new ChatGPT application, powered by artificial intelligence, allows users to type a question or prompt, and within seconds the app returns a paragraph or even an essay. The trick right now is getting access. The site (chat.openai.com) is often at capacity.
I’ve been able to ask ChatGPT a few questions, and the results are exactly what I expected from an advanced program designed to mimic humans — perfunctory, grammatically correct sentences that hint at emotion but come up short.
For example, when I asked which U.S. president is considered the most effective, the answer was a six-paragraph response detailing the achievements of President Franklin D. Roosevelt without a hint of the controversies surrounding his 12 years in office.
When I asked the application to analyze symbolism in the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, ChatGPT returned a paragraph that correctly identified four uses of symbolism. The word choice was at times impressive, with phrases such as “violent consequences” and “blind adherence.”
Yet there was no sense that the writer was horrified by the actions of the characters in the 1948 story. (I know no one who isn’t traumatized by the villagers who close in on Mrs. Hutchinson and stone her to death.) The robotic response would come up short in my classroom, as students are required to include quoted text evidence in their responses, something ChatGPT doesn’t yet do as far as I can tell.
For now I’m not worried that this app signals catastrophe for writing instruction. Yes, some students will use it for unsupervised assignments, convinced that this shortcut is an acceptable means to an end. Ask any high school student and they will tell you about the cheating that goes on, often by the highest-ranked students desperate to hold on to their top spots no matter the ethical violations.
Artificial intelligence is only available when you have a connected device, and it can’t take the place of our messy, perfectly imperfect brains. AI for now doesn’t access our memories or opinions. It doesn’t pull together the random strings that we are able to knit together to express outrage or grief, surprise or passion.
ChatGPT operates under the assumption that there is a correct answer to every question, and there is the risk that students will use it as an extension of Google, relying on something else for the recall and “thinking.”
When educators are doing our best work, though, we aren’t asking students for answers that we can easily find from the Alexa device in our home or the search engine on our smartphone. Instead we are supporting students so that they can ask deeper questions, make connections, draw conclusions, evaluate the work of others and create their own masterpieces.
I’ll keep insisting that students show me their work — lists or doodles from the inception of an idea all the way to a published product that reveals thoughtful revisions, critical thinking and recognition that we can always improve. As of today, that’s still the exclusive work of the human brain.
Tyra Damm is a Briefing columnist. She can be reached at <email-pii>.
|
The University of Colorado’s Natural Hazards Center has released a draft report on the state’s emergency alert practices and how to strengthen alerts during future disasters.
The draft report comes nearly two years after the Marshall fire, the most destructive wildfire in state history. Earlier this year, state lawmakers passed a bill that directed the Natural Hazards Center to assess emergency alert practices and procedures. A particular emphasis was placed on studying how emergency alerts can be strengthened for non-English speakers and people with disabilities.
The Natural Hazards Center found several flaws with Colorado’s current practices that it highlighted in the report.
“We learned a lot about how emergency alerts work across the state and nationally,” Natural Hazards Center Research Associate Carson MacPherson-Krutsky said in a statement. “One of the biggest takeaways was how time-consuming and resource-intensive alerting is for both those who issue alerts and those who receive them.”
Researchers conducted a document review, and a statewide survey of emergency response personnel and met with stakeholders to write the report. Seven counties did not respond to the surveys conducted, including the City and County of Denver, Las Animas, and Lincoln. The draft identified five key findings based on the research conducted.
One finding highlighted low opt-in rates, finding most agencies that manage emergency alert systems have an opt-in rate below 40 percent. None of the reporting agencies reported an opt-in rate of over 55 percent.
“These systems create barriers for everyone, but especially those who don’t speak English or who have disabilities. Tracking alert subscribers and measuring the efficacy of alerts is a challenge,” the report said.
In the aftermath of the Marshall fire, residents in Boulder County raised concerns about the area’s emergency alert system, with many saying they never received an evacuation notice.
Researchers found that emergency response personnel want to improve systems and practices, but face varying hurdles to do so. Agencies told researchers that factors such as personnel shortages, financial constraints, and a lack of knowledge of resources available prevent them from improving their systems.
The limitations of Colorado’s current alert systems are a hindrance to all people, the report said. However, it notes that those with disabilities or language barriers are especially impacted. Over 250,000 Coloradans have limited English proficiency, according to the Migration Policy Institute. And nearly one in four adults in Colorado live with some type of disability, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A small percentage of agencies reported they have multilingual alerting capabilities, but some of those respondents indicated those tools and methods were challenging or inadequate.
“Many mentioned using Google Translate, but this process was time-consuming and often produced poor translations, such as place names being translated literally, causing confusion, such as what happened when emergency managers tried to translate ‘Eagle County,’ which literally translated into ‘bird County’,” the report said.
In the report, the authors provided several recommendations to the state of Colorado for improving emergency alerts. Notable recommendations include hiring state-level personnel to address the needs of underserved populations, standardizing alert practices across the state, and securing funding to support efforts to improve practices.
The Natural Hazards Center is asking for public comment on the draft report through Dec. 20. The center will also discuss the report and collect feedback during two virtual meetings on Dec. 14. Following the public comment phase, the report will be presented to the Colorado legislature.
You want to know what is really going on these days, especially in Colorado. We can help you keep up. The Lookout is a free, daily email newsletter with news and happenings from all over Colorado. Sign up here and we will see you in the morning!
|
<urn:uuid:93c6df43-ad0e-48a7-a6b4-04307287ac15>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2024-10",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947476396.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20240303142747-20240303172747-00889.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9506003260612488,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.8125,
"token_count": 783,
"url": "https://www.cpr.org/2023/12/13/cu-report-finds-flaws-with-colorados-emergency-alerts/"
}
|
The University of Colorado’s Natural Hazards Center has released a draft report on the state’s emergency alert practices and how to strengthen alerts during future disasters.
The draft report comes nearly two years after the Marshall fire, the most destructive wildfire in state history. Earlier this year, state lawmakers passed a bill that directed the Natural Hazards Center to assess emergency alert practices and procedures. A particular emphasis was placed on studying how emergency alerts can be strengthened for non-English speakers and people with disabilities.
The Natural Hazards Center found several flaws with Colorado’s current practices that it highlighted in the report.
“We learned a lot about how emergency alerts work
|
across the state and nationally,” Natural Hazards Center Research Associate Carson MacPherson-Krutsky said in a statement. “One of the biggest takeaways was how time-consuming and resource-intensive alerting is for both those who issue alerts and those who receive them.”
Researchers conducted a document review, and a statewide survey of emergency response personnel and met with stakeholders to write the report. Seven counties did not respond to the surveys conducted, including the City and County of Denver, Las Animas, and Lincoln. The draft identified five key findings based on the research conducted.
One finding highlighted low opt-in rates, finding most agencies that manage emergency alert systems have an opt-in rate below 40 percent. None of the reporting agencies reported an opt-in rate of over 55 percent.
“These systems create barriers for everyone, but especially those who don’t speak English or who have disabilities. Tracking alert subscribers and measuring the efficacy of alerts is a challenge,” the report said.
In the aftermath of the Marshall fire, residents in Boulder County raised concerns about the area’s emergency alert system, with many saying they never received an evacuation notice.
Researchers found that emergency response personnel want to improve systems and practices, but face varying hurdles to do so. Agencies told researchers that factors such as personnel shortages, financial constraints, and a lack of knowledge of resources available prevent them from improving their systems.
The limitations of Colorado’s current alert systems are a hindrance to all people, the report said. However, it notes that those with disabilities or language barriers are especially impacted. Over 250,000 Coloradans have limited English proficiency, according to the Migration Policy Institute. And nearly one in four adults in Colorado live with some type of disability, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A small percentage of agencies reported they have multilingual alerting capabilities, but some of those respondents indicated those tools and methods were challenging or inadequate.
“Many mentioned using Google Translate, but this process was time-consuming and often produced poor translations, such as place names being translated literally, causing confusion, such as what happened when emergency managers tried to translate ‘Eagle County,’ which literally translated into ‘bird County’,” the report said.
In the report, the authors provided several recommendations to the state of Colorado for improving emergency alerts. Notable recommendations include hiring state-level personnel to address the needs of underserved populations, standardizing alert practices across the state, and securing funding to support efforts to improve practices.
The Natural Hazards Center is asking for public comment on the draft report through Dec. 20. The center will also discuss the report and collect feedback during two virtual meetings on Dec. 14. Following the public comment phase, the report will be presented to the Colorado legislature.
You want to know what is really going on these days, especially in Colorado. We can help you keep up. The Lookout is a free, daily email newsletter with news and happenings from all over Colorado. Sign up here and we will see you in the morning!
|
CDC issues alert on rare "flesh-eating" bacteria in coastal waters
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention alerted doctors and other health care professionals last week to look out for infections from a rare "flesh-eating" bacteria in salty coastal waters that has killed at least 12 people this year.
Why it matters: The CDC said extreme weather events, such as recent Hurricane Idalia that struck Florida's Big Bend region, can make the bacteria Vibrio vulnificus more prevalent in inland areas, increasing people's risk of exposure.
- The bacteria thrive in warmer coastal sea surface temperatures, which are currently at record levels primarily due to human-caused climate change and the El Niño weather event.
What they're saying: The CDC advised doctors to consider the bacteria as a possible cause of an infection, especially if a patient has been exposed to waters near the Gulf of Mexico or the East Coast.
- The CDC said it receives 150 to 200 Vibrio vulnificus infections each year, and about one in five people who contract the infection die, some within one or two days of becoming sick.
- Some of the infections were caused by raw or undercooked seafood, while the cause of others were unclear.
Context: Vibrio vulnificus enters the human bodies through open wounds exposed to costal waters or from eating or contacting raw or undercooked seafood.
- Infections from the bacteria typically rise after extreme weather events, like hurricanes.
Of note: Though this and other bacteria are often referred to as "flesh-eating," they don't actually consume flesh.
- They instead release toxins that damage or kill tissue.
The big picture: Cases of Vibrio vulnificus infection have commonly been reported in Gulf Coast states, but they increased eightfold in East Coast states between 1988 and 2018.
- That surge coincided with a major increase in global sea surface temperatures from climate change, which indicates that cases may become more prevalent if temperatures continue to rise.
- Cases could also become more prevalent as climate change and sea level rise also increase the frequency and severity of coastal flooding events and tropical cyclones.
|
<urn:uuid:dc23aadd-1e8e-4569-a550-a10ac30cb4e0>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233511055.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20231003060619-20231003090619-00324.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9555598497390747,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.28125,
"token_count": 441,
"url": "https://www.axios.com/2023/09/06/flesh-eating-bacteria-coastal-waters-cdc-alert"
}
|
CDC issues alert on rare "flesh-eating" bacteria in coastal waters
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention alerted doctors and other health care professionals last week to look out for infections from a rare "flesh-eating" bacteria in salty coastal waters that has killed at least 12 people this year.
Why it matters: The CDC said extreme weather events, such as recent Hurricane Idalia that struck Florida's Big Bend region, can make the bacteria Vibrio vulnificus more prevalent in inland areas, increasing people's risk of exposure.
- The bacteria thrive in warmer coastal sea surface temperatures, which are currently at
|
record levels primarily due to human-caused climate change and the El Niño weather event.
What they're saying: The CDC advised doctors to consider the bacteria as a possible cause of an infection, especially if a patient has been exposed to waters near the Gulf of Mexico or the East Coast.
- The CDC said it receives 150 to 200 Vibrio vulnificus infections each year, and about one in five people who contract the infection die, some within one or two days of becoming sick.
- Some of the infections were caused by raw or undercooked seafood, while the cause of others were unclear.
Context: Vibrio vulnificus enters the human bodies through open wounds exposed to costal waters or from eating or contacting raw or undercooked seafood.
- Infections from the bacteria typically rise after extreme weather events, like hurricanes.
Of note: Though this and other bacteria are often referred to as "flesh-eating," they don't actually consume flesh.
- They instead release toxins that damage or kill tissue.
The big picture: Cases of Vibrio vulnificus infection have commonly been reported in Gulf Coast states, but they increased eightfold in East Coast states between 1988 and 2018.
- That surge coincided with a major increase in global sea surface temperatures from climate change, which indicates that cases may become more prevalent if temperatures continue to rise.
- Cases could also become more prevalent as climate change and sea level rise also increase the frequency and severity of coastal flooding events and tropical cyclones.
|
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is considering changing its Covid-19 vaccine strategy in an effort to keep up with an ever-changing virus and eliminate the old "fully vaccinated" model whereby one receives two shots of the original vaccine, followed by regular booster shots.
The goal is to eliminate the original vaccines and to adopt an approach similar to the flu vaccine, where annually-updated shots are administered that match the strain that is predicted to be the most prevalent, according to a federal official who spoke to NPR under the condition of anonymity.
Unlike the original approach, where a person must receive the two initial shots of the original vaccine, followed by periodic booster shots, the changes being considered would mean that a person simply receives the latest version of the vaccine in the fall that is tailored to whatever variant of the virus is predicted to be dominant over the winter, much like the formulation and administration of the flu vaccine.
The response from immunologists and vaccine researchers who spoke to NPR has been mixed, with some arguing that because of such low demand for, and widespread skepticism of, the updated boosters, the public appetite for continued vaccinations makes the new approach not worthwhile.
"The public is voting with their arms if you will and said, 'No. I'm not going to get this. This doesn't make sense to us,'" said Dr. Gregory Poland, a vaccine researcher at the Mayo Clinic.
There's also a question as to whether the updated bivalent boosters offer any advanced protection compared to the original shots.
"We have no solid data about the performance of the bivalent boosters," said John Moore, an immunologist at Weill Cornell Medical College. "The hard evidence is lacking, and the evidence that is out there is at the very least inconclusive and to me trends towards saying the bivalent boosters were little if no better."
"We shouldn't really be chasing these variants, which are evanescent and are often gone by the time you've created the vaccine," says Dr. Paul Offit of the University of Pennsylvania, one of the FDA's advisers, who also questions whether everyone will need boosters or just those at high risk of severe infection.
Dr. Eric Rubin, a Harvard professor and another member of the FDA's advisory committee, says the administration needs to require more proof that the updated vaccines are actually reducing the risk of getting infected, getting sick, hospitalized and dying.
"I think we need to raise the bar and require more evidence of clinical efficacy," Rubin said.
The FDA's potential plan acknowledges that the world might finally be settling into a more predictable co-existence with the virus, in much the same way we live with the flu and cold viruses.
"As far as the tools that we have right now, I think it just makes the most sense to plan to update each year as close as we can to the currently circulating variant," said immunologist Deepta Bhattacharya. "So I think all the things the FDA is considering make a lot of sense."
The Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee will meet on Thursday to discuss the future of the Covid-19 vaccine and to vote on any potential changes.
This article was originally published in The Post Millennial, part of the Human Events Media Group.
|
<urn:uuid:02bb3546-6aec-49ba-8e31-80a9cca802af>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-14",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296948673.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20230327154814-20230327184814-00157.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9621138572692871,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.734375,
"token_count": 667,
"url": "https://humanevents.com:443/2023/01/23/biden-admin-preparing-plan-for-annual-covid-booster-shots"
}
|
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is considering changing its Covid-19 vaccine strategy in an effort to keep up with an ever-changing virus and eliminate the old "fully vaccinated" model whereby one receives two shots of the original vaccine, followed by regular booster shots.
The goal is to eliminate the original vaccines and to adopt an approach similar to the flu vaccine, where annually-updated shots are administered that match the strain that is predicted to be the most prevalent, according to a federal official who spoke to NPR under the condition of anonymity.
Unlike the original approach, where a person must receive the two initial shots of the original
|
vaccine, followed by periodic booster shots, the changes being considered would mean that a person simply receives the latest version of the vaccine in the fall that is tailored to whatever variant of the virus is predicted to be dominant over the winter, much like the formulation and administration of the flu vaccine.
The response from immunologists and vaccine researchers who spoke to NPR has been mixed, with some arguing that because of such low demand for, and widespread skepticism of, the updated boosters, the public appetite for continued vaccinations makes the new approach not worthwhile.
"The public is voting with their arms if you will and said, 'No. I'm not going to get this. This doesn't make sense to us,'" said Dr. Gregory Poland, a vaccine researcher at the Mayo Clinic.
There's also a question as to whether the updated bivalent boosters offer any advanced protection compared to the original shots.
"We have no solid data about the performance of the bivalent boosters," said John Moore, an immunologist at Weill Cornell Medical College. "The hard evidence is lacking, and the evidence that is out there is at the very least inconclusive and to me trends towards saying the bivalent boosters were little if no better."
"We shouldn't really be chasing these variants, which are evanescent and are often gone by the time you've created the vaccine," says Dr. Paul Offit of the University of Pennsylvania, one of the FDA's advisers, who also questions whether everyone will need boosters or just those at high risk of severe infection.
Dr. Eric Rubin, a Harvard professor and another member of the FDA's advisory committee, says the administration needs to require more proof that the updated vaccines are actually reducing the risk of getting infected, getting sick, hospitalized and dying.
"I think we need to raise the bar and require more evidence of clinical efficacy," Rubin said.
The FDA's potential plan acknowledges that the world might finally be settling into a more predictable co-existence with the virus, in much the same way we live with the flu and cold viruses.
"As far as the tools that we have right now, I think it just makes the most sense to plan to update each year as close as we can to the currently circulating variant," said immunologist Deepta Bhattacharya. "So I think all the things the FDA is considering make a lot of sense."
The Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee will meet on Thursday to discuss the future of the Covid-19 vaccine and to vote on any potential changes.
This article was originally published in The Post Millennial, part of the Human Events Media Group.
|
What is diabetes? From types to causes, what to know about one of the deadliest diseases.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says diabetes is one of the leading causes of death and disability in the country.
It’s also one of the most expensive, costing the United States about $327 billion in 2017, according to the American Diabetes Association.
Despite the leading risk factors being well-documented, health experts estimate cases of Type 2 diabetes to dramatically surge in the upcoming years, particularly in children and young people.
What is diabetes, what’s the difference between Type 1 and Type 2, what are the causes and how can you prevent it? Here’s everything to know about the disease that is being diagnosed in 1.4 million Americans every year.
What is diabetes?
Diabetes is a medical condition where the body’s blood glucose, or sugar, is too high, according to ADA.
It occurs when the body produces no or insufficient quantities of insulin, a hormone that comes from the pancreas to help glucose reach the body’s cells. When there’s not enough insulin to manage the glucose, it begins to build up in blood.
High levels of blood sugar can lead to heart disease, stroke, kidney failure and vision loss.
- Diabetes care gets major update: Aggressive approach to weight loss among recommendations
- Diabetes in kids and young people is projected to dramatically surge. Can it be prevented?
What is Type 1 diabetes?
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disorder that causes the destruction of cells that secrete insulin from the pancreas, according to the British Diabetic Association, or Diabetes UK.
It can affect people of any age, but it typically develops in children and young people, health experts say.
The ADA says the underlying causes of Type 1 aren't totally clear. Although it’s not classified as a hereditary disorder, a patient is more likely to develop Type 1 if a parent or sibling has the condition.
What is Type 2 diabetes?
Type 2 diabetes occurs when the body stops producing enough insulin or doesn’t use insulin properly, which is called insulin resistance.
It’s often linked to having excess weight and typically affects people over 40, but the ADA said it’s becoming more common in younger people.
Unlike Type 1 diabetes, symptoms of Type 2 develop more slowly and include thirstiness, tiredness and the frequent need to urinate.
Other types of diabetes
- Gestational diabetes: Occurs during pregnancy and can lead to an increased risk of miscarriage, premature delivery and C-sections.
- MODY (maturity onset diabetes of the young): A rare, hereditary condition caused by a mutation of a single gene. Oftentimes, the signs and symptoms are mild, and the condition goes unnoticed unless testing is done.
- Neonatal diabetes: Another rare form of diabetes that's also caused by a gene mutation and diagnosed in children younger than 6 months.
- Type 3 diabetes is a proposed alternative name for Alzheimer’s disease as it can be linked to insulin resistance, in some cases.
How do you get diabetes?
Type 1 diabetes: While not a hereditary disorder, the ADA says a person is more at risk for developing Type 1 if a relative has it, like a sibling or parent.
Type 2 diabetes: Experts say it’s generally caused by a combination of genetic and lifestyle factors. While not considered a hereditary disorder, the ADA said the likelihood of developing Type 2 increases if a first-degree relative has experienced the condition.
Lifestyle factors associated with Type 2 include:
- Being overweight or having obesity
- Eating a high diet in carbs, sugar and fats
- Physical inactivity
How to prevent diabetes?
Only Type 2 diabetes is preventable and lifestyle changes are the main method of prevention, the ADA said. This includes:
- Dietary changes: Eating a healthy, balanced diet that’s low in carbohydrates, sugar and fat; and high in fruits, vegetables and grains.
- Exercising: At least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise five times per week.
Follow Adrianna Rodriguez on Twitter: @AdriannaUSAT.
|
<urn:uuid:be94d54e-14ba-4953-b874-f2c741eb4a3c>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-14",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296949573.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20230331051439-20230331081439-00745.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9250587224960327,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.359375,
"token_count": 873,
"url": "https://www.ithacajournal.com/story/news/health/2023/02/23/diabetes-causes-prevention-types/11110994002/"
}
|
What is diabetes? From types to causes, what to know about one of the deadliest diseases.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says diabetes is one of the leading causes of death and disability in the country.
It’s also one of the most expensive, costing the United States about $327 billion in 2017, according to the American Diabetes Association.
Despite the leading risk factors being well-documented, health experts estimate cases of Type 2 diabetes to dramatically surge in the upcoming years, particularly in children and young people.
What is diabetes, what’s the difference between Type 1 and Type 2,
|
what are the causes and how can you prevent it? Here’s everything to know about the disease that is being diagnosed in 1.4 million Americans every year.
What is diabetes?
Diabetes is a medical condition where the body’s blood glucose, or sugar, is too high, according to ADA.
It occurs when the body produces no or insufficient quantities of insulin, a hormone that comes from the pancreas to help glucose reach the body’s cells. When there’s not enough insulin to manage the glucose, it begins to build up in blood.
High levels of blood sugar can lead to heart disease, stroke, kidney failure and vision loss.
- Diabetes care gets major update: Aggressive approach to weight loss among recommendations
- Diabetes in kids and young people is projected to dramatically surge. Can it be prevented?
What is Type 1 diabetes?
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disorder that causes the destruction of cells that secrete insulin from the pancreas, according to the British Diabetic Association, or Diabetes UK.
It can affect people of any age, but it typically develops in children and young people, health experts say.
The ADA says the underlying causes of Type 1 aren't totally clear. Although it’s not classified as a hereditary disorder, a patient is more likely to develop Type 1 if a parent or sibling has the condition.
What is Type 2 diabetes?
Type 2 diabetes occurs when the body stops producing enough insulin or doesn’t use insulin properly, which is called insulin resistance.
It’s often linked to having excess weight and typically affects people over 40, but the ADA said it’s becoming more common in younger people.
Unlike Type 1 diabetes, symptoms of Type 2 develop more slowly and include thirstiness, tiredness and the frequent need to urinate.
Other types of diabetes
- Gestational diabetes: Occurs during pregnancy and can lead to an increased risk of miscarriage, premature delivery and C-sections.
- MODY (maturity onset diabetes of the young): A rare, hereditary condition caused by a mutation of a single gene. Oftentimes, the signs and symptoms are mild, and the condition goes unnoticed unless testing is done.
- Neonatal diabetes: Another rare form of diabetes that's also caused by a gene mutation and diagnosed in children younger than 6 months.
- Type 3 diabetes is a proposed alternative name for Alzheimer’s disease as it can be linked to insulin resistance, in some cases.
How do you get diabetes?
Type 1 diabetes: While not a hereditary disorder, the ADA says a person is more at risk for developing Type 1 if a relative has it, like a sibling or parent.
Type 2 diabetes: Experts say it’s generally caused by a combination of genetic and lifestyle factors. While not considered a hereditary disorder, the ADA said the likelihood of developing Type 2 increases if a first-degree relative has experienced the condition.
Lifestyle factors associated with Type 2 include:
- Being overweight or having obesity
- Eating a high diet in carbs, sugar and fats
- Physical inactivity
How to prevent diabetes?
Only Type 2 diabetes is preventable and lifestyle changes are the main method of prevention, the ADA said. This includes:
- Dietary changes: Eating a healthy, balanced diet that’s low in carbohydrates, sugar and fat; and high in fruits, vegetables and grains.
- Exercising: At least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise five times per week.
Follow Adrianna Rodriguez on Twitter: @AdriannaUSAT.
|
Everyone has their own idea about what happiness is but there is no quick fix to finding consistent happiness. Yet we often find ourselves swayed toward those temporary measures to live a good life, and struggle to understand why the happy buzz didn’t last long.
The pursuit of happiness is embedded within many myths, is not at the end of our wallet, in our bank account, or something to wait for with a belief that “I will be happy when I get a promotion, when I finish my degree, when I find a partner.” Happiness is not a commodity, yet we are sold the idea that we can buy it. And happiness is not solid or as long-lasting as we believe it to be but rather exists on a continuum and often within a state of flux. The myth of happiness tells us that if anything negative happens such as a divorce, illness or bereavement then we will be unhappy for the long term. And as much as we may buy into the ill-conceived idea of happiness, many of us are conflicted about what happiness actually is and how to maintain it, partially because of the many misconceptions about how to achieve contentment and happiness.
To debunk some of the most misunderstood ideas surrounding happiness, Dr Róisín Joyce, director and chartered clinical psychologist at the Evidence-Based Therapy Centre in Galway, helps us to understand this emotion.
1) Myth – There is something wrong with you if you’re not happy all the time
“People often feel like there is something wrong with them or that they are in some way broken because they do not feel happy all the time,” says Dr Joyce, noting that the first thing to be aware of is that happiness is an emotional response to an internal or external trigger rather than a constant state of being.
“As humans, we are continually interacting with stimuli, people and situations that can activate emotional responses in us,” she says. “Whether or not something provokes an emotional reaction in us and what type of emotion is provoked depends on a number of factors such as our brain development, our temperament and our personal histories.”
[ Brianna Parkins: Hikes and swims are what healthy and happy people do, right? I think it’s the exact opposite ]
[ The tools you need to get healthy and happy ]
Dr Joyce illustrates this idea with the example of a child growing up with a lot of parental criticism. “They might get very upset when given any feedback at work or in relationships,” she says. “They may experience themselves as an ‘unhappy person’ but when you start to understand their emotional response in the context of their history, it makes perfect sense that experiencing criticism triggers sadness in them. By gaining an understanding of why we feel and respond in the way we do, it can result in greater self-compassion, self-care and increased peace of mind.”
2) Myth – You can’t be happy unless everything is the way it should be
“Human beings are always telling stories,” says Dr Joyce. “In the absence of facts, we simply make up a story that fits well enough and go from there. This can serve us well in many circumstances, but it can also lead to a great deal of suffering.”
Taking the idea of a simple family meal out together, Dr Joyce asks us to imagine the scene. “Everyone is dressed up, chatting pleasantly, smiling and laughing. You then get to the restaurant and your children start bickering or the food is not as tasty as you remember. In this moment, your expectations of the situation and the reality do not match, and this can lead to feelings of frustration, anger and disappointment.”
Happiness is an emotional state which sits with those feelings of satisfaction, fulfilment and joy. We settle well here because it’s a state of being comfortable, feeling good and content. When other feelings creep in to rock the boat, our happiness meter can drop because we live within rigid expectations and struggle to accept that happiness exists with other emotions.
“These emotions can lead to unhelpful thinking loops that then fuel further emotions such as, ‘This is so unfair, this is our only night out all month’,” says Dr Joyce. “In this way, our fantasies about how things should be interfere with us being able to manage situations as they arise and enjoy the situation as it is and so can actually rob us of our joy and happiness in the moment.”
3) Myth – External factors (money, holidays, cars etc) will bring you happiness
The endorphins released when clicking Buy Now are pretty powerful but that rush of hormones only gives a temporary jolt of happiness. As soon as that item is in our possession, our happiness levels drop back to before we spent our hard-earned cash. The unhelpful belief that buying big-ticket items like holidays and cars will make us happy is harmful to not only our bank balance but also our understanding of what makes us happy.
[ Measuring happiness matters – it’s a graph people might actually want to see ]
[ How workplace wellbeing is playing a leading role in corporate culture ]
“There is evidence that money does make us happier, but only up to a point,” clarifies Dr Joyce. “The level of income that correlates to happiness varies in different studies but there is a consensus that once you have enough money to meet your household needs, there is no further happiness benefit in having more money. There is also research to suggest that being generous with money and buying experiences are both correlated with happiness and so, in this way, the way you use your money is important too.”
4) Myth – Happiness means feeling only good and positive emotions
“Many people have an idea that people who appear happy are feeling happy all the time,” says Dr Joyce. “Of course, this cannot be the case because anyone who is alive experiences moments of suffering all the time. These can be small disappointments such as losing out on an opportunity or major life events such as a bereavement.”
We have power and influence over our emotions and how we experience them, thereby affecting our level of happiness. The choices we make include how we navigate feelings outside of the happiness realm. All emotions are important, valid and serve each other.
“People who experience peace of mind are able to experience the emotions that go with the normal ups and downs of life without these emotions taking over,” she says. “They do this by acknowledging their emotions, knowing that they are part of the normal fabric of life and helping themselves in any way they can. In this way, their emotions flow through them and pass quickly, meaning they can return to a settled state of mind again. It is our attempts to repress our so-called undesirable emotions that leads them to last longer and cause even more suffering and disturbance.”
[ Only girls have to worry about it: Challenging myths about eating disorders ]
|
<urn:uuid:95181ee5-4647-451b-9902-acf3863c0c17>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-14",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296949701.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20230401032604-20230401062604-00722.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9640403389930725,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.71875,
"token_count": 1464,
"url": "https://www.irishtimes.com/health/your-wellness/2023/02/09/challenging-four-myths-about-happiness/"
}
|
Everyone has their own idea about what happiness is but there is no quick fix to finding consistent happiness. Yet we often find ourselves swayed toward those temporary measures to live a good life, and struggle to understand why the happy buzz didn’t last long.
The pursuit of happiness is embedded within many myths, is not at the end of our wallet, in our bank account, or something to wait for with a belief that “I will be happy when I get a promotion, when I finish my degree, when I find a partner.” Happiness is not a commodity, yet we are sold the idea that we can buy it. And happiness is
|
not solid or as long-lasting as we believe it to be but rather exists on a continuum and often within a state of flux. The myth of happiness tells us that if anything negative happens such as a divorce, illness or bereavement then we will be unhappy for the long term. And as much as we may buy into the ill-conceived idea of happiness, many of us are conflicted about what happiness actually is and how to maintain it, partially because of the many misconceptions about how to achieve contentment and happiness.
To debunk some of the most misunderstood ideas surrounding happiness, Dr Róisín Joyce, director and chartered clinical psychologist at the Evidence-Based Therapy Centre in Galway, helps us to understand this emotion.
1) Myth – There is something wrong with you if you’re not happy all the time
“People often feel like there is something wrong with them or that they are in some way broken because they do not feel happy all the time,” says Dr Joyce, noting that the first thing to be aware of is that happiness is an emotional response to an internal or external trigger rather than a constant state of being.
“As humans, we are continually interacting with stimuli, people and situations that can activate emotional responses in us,” she says. “Whether or not something provokes an emotional reaction in us and what type of emotion is provoked depends on a number of factors such as our brain development, our temperament and our personal histories.”
[ Brianna Parkins: Hikes and swims are what healthy and happy people do, right? I think it’s the exact opposite ]
[ The tools you need to get healthy and happy ]
Dr Joyce illustrates this idea with the example of a child growing up with a lot of parental criticism. “They might get very upset when given any feedback at work or in relationships,” she says. “They may experience themselves as an ‘unhappy person’ but when you start to understand their emotional response in the context of their history, it makes perfect sense that experiencing criticism triggers sadness in them. By gaining an understanding of why we feel and respond in the way we do, it can result in greater self-compassion, self-care and increased peace of mind.”
2) Myth – You can’t be happy unless everything is the way it should be
“Human beings are always telling stories,” says Dr Joyce. “In the absence of facts, we simply make up a story that fits well enough and go from there. This can serve us well in many circumstances, but it can also lead to a great deal of suffering.”
Taking the idea of a simple family meal out together, Dr Joyce asks us to imagine the scene. “Everyone is dressed up, chatting pleasantly, smiling and laughing. You then get to the restaurant and your children start bickering or the food is not as tasty as you remember. In this moment, your expectations of the situation and the reality do not match, and this can lead to feelings of frustration, anger and disappointment.”
Happiness is an emotional state which sits with those feelings of satisfaction, fulfilment and joy. We settle well here because it’s a state of being comfortable, feeling good and content. When other feelings creep in to rock the boat, our happiness meter can drop because we live within rigid expectations and struggle to accept that happiness exists with other emotions.
“These emotions can lead to unhelpful thinking loops that then fuel further emotions such as, ‘This is so unfair, this is our only night out all month’,” says Dr Joyce. “In this way, our fantasies about how things should be interfere with us being able to manage situations as they arise and enjoy the situation as it is and so can actually rob us of our joy and happiness in the moment.”
3) Myth – External factors (money, holidays, cars etc) will bring you happiness
The endorphins released when clicking Buy Now are pretty powerful but that rush of hormones only gives a temporary jolt of happiness. As soon as that item is in our possession, our happiness levels drop back to before we spent our hard-earned cash. The unhelpful belief that buying big-ticket items like holidays and cars will make us happy is harmful to not only our bank balance but also our understanding of what makes us happy.
[ Measuring happiness matters – it’s a graph people might actually want to see ]
[ How workplace wellbeing is playing a leading role in corporate culture ]
“There is evidence that money does make us happier, but only up to a point,” clarifies Dr Joyce. “The level of income that correlates to happiness varies in different studies but there is a consensus that once you have enough money to meet your household needs, there is no further happiness benefit in having more money. There is also research to suggest that being generous with money and buying experiences are both correlated with happiness and so, in this way, the way you use your money is important too.”
4) Myth – Happiness means feeling only good and positive emotions
“Many people have an idea that people who appear happy are feeling happy all the time,” says Dr Joyce. “Of course, this cannot be the case because anyone who is alive experiences moments of suffering all the time. These can be small disappointments such as losing out on an opportunity or major life events such as a bereavement.”
We have power and influence over our emotions and how we experience them, thereby affecting our level of happiness. The choices we make include how we navigate feelings outside of the happiness realm. All emotions are important, valid and serve each other.
“People who experience peace of mind are able to experience the emotions that go with the normal ups and downs of life without these emotions taking over,” she says. “They do this by acknowledging their emotions, knowing that they are part of the normal fabric of life and helping themselves in any way they can. In this way, their emotions flow through them and pass quickly, meaning they can return to a settled state of mind again. It is our attempts to repress our so-called undesirable emotions that leads them to last longer and cause even more suffering and disturbance.”
[ Only girls have to worry about it: Challenging myths about eating disorders ]
|
What is green energy? What to know about renewable, clean power like solar and wind energy
The world is in the midst of a shift away from fossil fuels and towards carbon-neutral energy sources, a change expected to be as momentous as the coal that enabled the Industrial Revolution in the 1700s.
The United States has pledged to become carbon neutral by 2050, just 27 years from now. It's a move that 69% of Americans support and one that would mitigate climate change, clean the air and make power cheaper.
But what does green energy mean, actually? Is it wind turbines, solar panels, natural gas or nuclear? Who decides and what are the guidelines?
What to know about clean, green energy:
What does green energy mean?
Renewable energy is electricity produced by fuel sources that renew themselves and do not diminish when humans tap them for power. Think the sun, the wind, plants and the heat at the Earth's core. These include electricity from solar panels, wind turbines, hydroelectric dams and what's known as biomass, which is burning wood, crop waste or garbage.
How does climate change affect you?: Subscribe to the weekly Climate Point newsletter
READ MORE: Latest climate change news from USA TODAY
For 2023, 16% of US electricity will come from solar and wind projects, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Hydroelectric power produces 6% of U.S. electricity. Biomass, which includes ethanol blended into gasoline, made up about 5% of total US energy consumption.
Renewables also include geothermal energy, which means making power from naturally occurring underground reservoirs of very hot water and steam. Mostly available in the western United States, geothermal power is still a tiny proportion of US energy but already produces enough electricity to power 2.7 million homes. For comparison, geyser-filled Iceland gets 66% of its primary energy from geothermal power.
Why is it called green energy?
Like many ecologically friendly initiatives, "green" energy has gotten its name because it is good for the planet.
It has become common to label clean, renewable projects "green" to remind people that they are intended help lead to a healthier, greener, more sustainable planet. Green racing, Green New Deal and green plane fares are other examples.
While scientists agree green energy helps fight climate change, it's important to remember that not everything with the "green" label is actually better. It can also be used as a form of "greenwashing" where a company tries to make a product or policy seem environmentally friendly when it in fact isn't.
Green energy helps fight climate change
The shift to renewable energy is important because most of these power sources don't produce greenhouse gasses that drive climate change. These gases, especially the carbon dioxide produces when coal, oil or natural gas are burned, create a "blanket" in the atmosphere that holds in heat.
Since humans began burning large amounts of coal at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, later adding oil and natural gas, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased from 280 parts per million to 418 parts per million.
DEFINITIONS: Is climate change the same thing as global warming? Definitions explained.
CLIMATE CHANGE CAUSES: Why scientists say humans are to blame.
Is renewable energy the same as green energy?
In general, renewable and green energy mean the same thing.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency defines green power as a subset of renewable energy, including all renewable energy resources that provide the greatest environmental benefit and the lowest environmental cost.
In practice, this means all renewable energy sources with the exception of large hydroelectric resources that can have "environmental trade-offs on issues such as fisheries and land use."
Is solar power green energy? Is wind? Definitions explained.
Here's a cheat sheet:
- Green energy: Wind, solar, small hydro, geothermal, biomass
- Renewable energy: Wind, solar, all hydro, geothermal, biomass
- Carbon neutral: Wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, geothermal, biomass
- Conventional: Coal, natural gas, oil, nuclear
What is carbon-neutral energy?
Carbon-neutral energy is energy that is produced without emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Renewable energy sources – wind, solar, hydroelectric, biomass and geothermal – are all considered carbon-neutral energy production, although building them (and all energy plants) does produce carbon. The major energy source that's carbon neutral but not renewable is nuclear power.
America's 92 nuclear power plants produce about 20% of US electricity and about 50% of the nation's carbon-neutral energy.
CLIMATE CHANGE EFFECTS: What are the effects of climate change? How they disrupt our daily life, fuel disasters.
CARBON DIOXIDE: Here's what to know and a look at how it contributes to global warming.
What are conventional energy sources?
Conventional power is energy that comes from the burning of fossil fuels including coal, natural gas and oil. Power from the nuclear fission of uranium is also considered conventional. These fuels all have environmental costs from mining, drilling and extraction and all but nuclear power emit greenhouse gases.
Elizabeth Weise covers climate change and the energy transition for USA TODAY. Reach out to her at <email-pii>.
|
<urn:uuid:89eb5882-2c0d-4a7a-bfba-45af587e36c8>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-14",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296945218.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20230323225049-20230324015049-00403.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9339985251426697,
"pii_count": 1,
"score": 3.203125,
"token_count": 1116,
"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2023/02/25/what-is-green-energy-clean-solar-wind-power-climate-change/11263691002/"
}
|
What is green energy? What to know about renewable, clean power like solar and wind energy
The world is in the midst of a shift away from fossil fuels and towards carbon-neutral energy sources, a change expected to be as momentous as the coal that enabled the Industrial Revolution in the 1700s.
The United States has pledged to become carbon neutral by 2050, just 27 years from now. It's a move that 69% of Americans support and one that would mitigate climate change, clean the air and make power cheaper.
But what does green energy mean, actually? Is it
|
wind turbines, solar panels, natural gas or nuclear? Who decides and what are the guidelines?
What to know about clean, green energy:
What does green energy mean?
Renewable energy is electricity produced by fuel sources that renew themselves and do not diminish when humans tap them for power. Think the sun, the wind, plants and the heat at the Earth's core. These include electricity from solar panels, wind turbines, hydroelectric dams and what's known as biomass, which is burning wood, crop waste or garbage.
How does climate change affect you?: Subscribe to the weekly Climate Point newsletter
READ MORE: Latest climate change news from USA TODAY
For 2023, 16% of US electricity will come from solar and wind projects, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Hydroelectric power produces 6% of U.S. electricity. Biomass, which includes ethanol blended into gasoline, made up about 5% of total US energy consumption.
Renewables also include geothermal energy, which means making power from naturally occurring underground reservoirs of very hot water and steam. Mostly available in the western United States, geothermal power is still a tiny proportion of US energy but already produces enough electricity to power 2.7 million homes. For comparison, geyser-filled Iceland gets 66% of its primary energy from geothermal power.
Why is it called green energy?
Like many ecologically friendly initiatives, "green" energy has gotten its name because it is good for the planet.
It has become common to label clean, renewable projects "green" to remind people that they are intended help lead to a healthier, greener, more sustainable planet. Green racing, Green New Deal and green plane fares are other examples.
While scientists agree green energy helps fight climate change, it's important to remember that not everything with the "green" label is actually better. It can also be used as a form of "greenwashing" where a company tries to make a product or policy seem environmentally friendly when it in fact isn't.
Green energy helps fight climate change
The shift to renewable energy is important because most of these power sources don't produce greenhouse gasses that drive climate change. These gases, especially the carbon dioxide produces when coal, oil or natural gas are burned, create a "blanket" in the atmosphere that holds in heat.
Since humans began burning large amounts of coal at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, later adding oil and natural gas, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased from 280 parts per million to 418 parts per million.
DEFINITIONS: Is climate change the same thing as global warming? Definitions explained.
CLIMATE CHANGE CAUSES: Why scientists say humans are to blame.
Is renewable energy the same as green energy?
In general, renewable and green energy mean the same thing.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency defines green power as a subset of renewable energy, including all renewable energy resources that provide the greatest environmental benefit and the lowest environmental cost.
In practice, this means all renewable energy sources with the exception of large hydroelectric resources that can have "environmental trade-offs on issues such as fisheries and land use."
Is solar power green energy? Is wind? Definitions explained.
Here's a cheat sheet:
- Green energy: Wind, solar, small hydro, geothermal, biomass
- Renewable energy: Wind, solar, all hydro, geothermal, biomass
- Carbon neutral: Wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, geothermal, biomass
- Conventional: Coal, natural gas, oil, nuclear
What is carbon-neutral energy?
Carbon-neutral energy is energy that is produced without emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Renewable energy sources – wind, solar, hydroelectric, biomass and geothermal – are all considered carbon-neutral energy production, although building them (and all energy plants) does produce carbon. The major energy source that's carbon neutral but not renewable is nuclear power.
America's 92 nuclear power plants produce about 20% of US electricity and about 50% of the nation's carbon-neutral energy.
CLIMATE CHANGE EFFECTS: What are the effects of climate change? How they disrupt our daily life, fuel disasters.
CARBON DIOXIDE: Here's what to know and a look at how it contributes to global warming.
What are conventional energy sources?
Conventional power is energy that comes from the burning of fossil fuels including coal, natural gas and oil. Power from the nuclear fission of uranium is also considered conventional. These fuels all have environmental costs from mining, drilling and extraction and all but nuclear power emit greenhouse gases.
Elizabeth Weise covers climate change and the energy transition for USA TODAY. Reach out to her at <email-pii>.
|
March is bound to get even madder.
Scientists at Cornell University have put together a data model that suggests that the application of a physics theory to basketball may lead to teams scoring five to 15 more points per game.
Researchers analyzed player metrics and material that were accrued from an undisclosed NBA team through a stop-motion camera during many of its games this season. The science squad was then able to project precise positioning that guaranteed better scoring outcomes for individual players — sometimes by moving mere inches.
“Every 40 milliseconds, we know with … a very high degree of accuracy, where every player is and where the ball is located,” Boris Barron, a doctoral physics student on the project, told The Post.
“[Our work] has the potential to be a game changer for basketball … This is taking ‘Moneyball’ to the extreme.”
Although the Big Red missed the big dance, Barron — along with physics professor Tomás Arias and peer Nathan Sitaraman — have been on their toes these past few weeks by applying density-functional fluctuation theory (DFFT) to introduce “more kind of advanced quantitative analysis” to the game.
In quite plain terms, DFFT looks at fluctuations caused by certain events that either separated or brought together entities within a group. Previous research using the theory observed how fruit fly clusters adapted to heat being introduced to their environment and separately, was used to predict crowd behavior among people.
Barron and company are using DFFT to break down the spatial interactions of where players like to be and how players interact with one another on the court.
“Looking back at a game, I can see how this can help players improve,” Barron said. “The improvements can be in the [team total] range of five points in 100. It wouldn’t shock me based on the results that we’re getting here,” he added, mentioning that there could “potentially” be upticks by 15 points or more.
The approach can quantify a player’s success, or lack thereof, from several nearby positions on the court — thus predicting more exact locations where they will score more or defend better in just about any given scenario.
“We can take a look at a snapshot of a game and ask, does this look like a good position for the offense? Or does this look like a bad position for the offense?” Barron said.
“Where this becomes useful is that we can improve a player’s positioning,” he added of the data, which currently only accounts for two-point shots.
Former Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane found incredible success with another data intensive strategy — “Moneyball” — in the early 2000s.
Beane was constantly asking “but can he get on base?”
In that same vein, many basketball coaches may soon pose the question “but can he drive to the net?” from simulations based on the Cornell research.
“We’re determining where each of the players should move,” Barron said. “We’re pretty much saying ‘this guy, in this case, should prefer to take kind of this path [to the basket].’ “
Statistics wrung from DFFT simulations can hyper-analyze positioning to help teams better scout future opponents and individual matchups.
Admittedly, more variables — like accounting for players’ set positions, specialty skill sets and re-running the numbers to include three-pointers — still need to get worked in, according to the doctoral student.
“Maybe [next] we can follow along a certain kind of player and see if they tend to stand in good positions for the team or maybe not so good positions for the team,” he said.
“You can imagine turning some of our modeling into a simulation tool for coaches.”
Even with changes to come, Barron said the theory behind what they’re shooting for is sound at the moment.
“Going forward, you can imagine using this to provide a positioning metric for basketball.”
|
<urn:uuid:36bd45a6-6191-48ef-8b8b-7acdb6417904>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-23",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224646181.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20230530230622-20230531020622-00271.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.959063708782196,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.578125,
"token_count": 866,
"url": "https://nypost.com/2023/03/20/physics-theory-could-upend-march-madness-tournament/"
}
|
March is bound to get even madder.
Scientists at Cornell University have put together a data model that suggests that the application of a physics theory to basketball may lead to teams scoring five to 15 more points per game.
Researchers analyzed player metrics and material that were accrued from an undisclosed NBA team through a stop-motion camera during many of its games this season. The science squad was then able to project precise positioning that guaranteed better scoring outcomes for individual players — sometimes by moving mere inches.
“Every 40 milliseconds, we know with … a very high degree of accuracy, where every player is and where the ball
|
is located,” Boris Barron, a doctoral physics student on the project, told The Post.
“[Our work] has the potential to be a game changer for basketball … This is taking ‘Moneyball’ to the extreme.”
Although the Big Red missed the big dance, Barron — along with physics professor Tomás Arias and peer Nathan Sitaraman — have been on their toes these past few weeks by applying density-functional fluctuation theory (DFFT) to introduce “more kind of advanced quantitative analysis” to the game.
In quite plain terms, DFFT looks at fluctuations caused by certain events that either separated or brought together entities within a group. Previous research using the theory observed how fruit fly clusters adapted to heat being introduced to their environment and separately, was used to predict crowd behavior among people.
Barron and company are using DFFT to break down the spatial interactions of where players like to be and how players interact with one another on the court.
“Looking back at a game, I can see how this can help players improve,” Barron said. “The improvements can be in the [team total] range of five points in 100. It wouldn’t shock me based on the results that we’re getting here,” he added, mentioning that there could “potentially” be upticks by 15 points or more.
The approach can quantify a player’s success, or lack thereof, from several nearby positions on the court — thus predicting more exact locations where they will score more or defend better in just about any given scenario.
“We can take a look at a snapshot of a game and ask, does this look like a good position for the offense? Or does this look like a bad position for the offense?” Barron said.
“Where this becomes useful is that we can improve a player’s positioning,” he added of the data, which currently only accounts for two-point shots.
Former Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane found incredible success with another data intensive strategy — “Moneyball” — in the early 2000s.
Beane was constantly asking “but can he get on base?”
In that same vein, many basketball coaches may soon pose the question “but can he drive to the net?” from simulations based on the Cornell research.
“We’re determining where each of the players should move,” Barron said. “We’re pretty much saying ‘this guy, in this case, should prefer to take kind of this path [to the basket].’ “
Statistics wrung from DFFT simulations can hyper-analyze positioning to help teams better scout future opponents and individual matchups.
Admittedly, more variables — like accounting for players’ set positions, specialty skill sets and re-running the numbers to include three-pointers — still need to get worked in, according to the doctoral student.
“Maybe [next] we can follow along a certain kind of player and see if they tend to stand in good positions for the team or maybe not so good positions for the team,” he said.
“You can imagine turning some of our modeling into a simulation tool for coaches.”
Even with changes to come, Barron said the theory behind what they’re shooting for is sound at the moment.
“Going forward, you can imagine using this to provide a positioning metric for basketball.”
|
ChatGPT just like InstructGPT. It is like a chat box that can give instant answers to questions.We can explore its potentials by looking at the Benefits of Using ChatGPT For Learning. It is also an independent search engine that gives users the opportunity to learn at their own pace. But before we dive further
What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer) is a large language model-based chatbot by OpenAI on November 30, 2022. It is notable for enabling users to steer a conversation towards a length, format and style. Successive prompts and replies, known as prompt engineering, are into account at each stage of the conversation as a context.
Although the core function of a chatbot is to mimic a human conversationalist, ChatGPT is versatile. Among countless examples, it can write music, teleplays, fairy tales and student essays. It can also answer test questions (sometimes, depending on the test, at a level above the average human test-taker), generate business ideas, write poetry and song lyrics. It translates and summarize text, emulate a Linux system or simulate entire chat rooms.
In March 2023, OpenAI added support for plugins for ChatGPT.This includes both plugins made by OpenAI, such as web browsing and code interpretation, and external plugins from developers such as Expedia, OpenTable, Zapier, Shopify, Slack, and Wolfram.
The benefits of using ChatGPT For learning?
These are: Engaging Learning Experience, Personalized Assistance, Exploration of Topics, 24/7 Availability, mediate Feedback, Practice and Application, Language Improvement, Access to Resources, Complex Problem Solving, Supplement to Formal Education, Concept Reinforcement, Low Pressure Environment.
In comparison to its predecessor, InstructGPT, ChatGPT attempts to reduce harmful and deceitful responses.In one example, whereas InstructGPT accepts the premise of the prompt. “Tell me about when Christopher Columbus came to the U.S. in 2015” as being truthful. ChatGPT acknowledges the counterfactual nature of the question and frames its answer as a hypothetical consideration of what might happen. That is if Columbus came to the U.S. in 2015.using information about the voyages of Christopher Columbus and facts about the modern world – including modern perceptions of Columbus’ actions.
Unlike most chatbots, ChatGPT remembers a few number of previous prompts in the same conversation. Journalists tells us that this will allow ChatGPT to serve as a personal therapist.
It has a lot of benefits that it gives to users who are willing to learn. And to prevent offensive outputs to stem from ChatGPT, queries are always filtered through the OpenAI “Moderation endpoint” API (a separate GPT-based AI) and dismiss any potentially racist or sexist prompts.
In this “previous article” on the blog we learnt about the negative effects of ChatGPT but in this article, we will learn about some of the benefits of Using ChatGPT For Learning;
01. Effective Communication:
ChatGPT can work at any given time. That is it is available 24/7. This makes it an effective tool for communication. You can also communicate with it using any language since it has the ability to comprehend instructions in multiple languages and the consistency in its availability gives room for effective communication for every user or learner.
02. Cost Friendly:
Studies from some universities such as Standford University shows that ChatGPT is very helpful in saving cost. It has also drastically reduced the costs students spend on research work and other forms of online learning. Learners and users do not have to buy expensive textbooks or pay for some courses. This is because they can easily get and analyze the useful information they need on chatGPT.
03. All-Round Satisfaction:
ChatGPT gives an all-round satisfaction to every user. There is no limit or restrictions to what you can use it to learn. Regardless of your field of study, you can use it to ask questions about anything and find answers to them. Researchers and Programmers employ the use of ChatGPT. Learners from different disciplines and backgrounds are able to access it and use it to their own advantage.
It is important to note that despite the recent competitors of ChatGPT. The benefits of using it for learning purposes will continue to prove to be very significant. And the way it is being used will help to improve our world by enabling more conversations. Further interactions will be available while fostering more awareness and interest in the users. When you cautiously use ChatGPT it will lead to a top notch learning experience, and more access to knowledge and resources.
If you are still looking for an integrated school management solution that fits your school’s operations. Simply request for a free demo of our system to see how it works. Register here for free.
|
<urn:uuid:6834a568-d4c9-4e16-b2ed-ae87a6d572ec>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-50",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679515260.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20231211143258-20231211173258-00790.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.933306097984314,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.265625,
"token_count": 1019,
"url": "http://ec2-52-214-81-77.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com/2023/08/09/benefits-of-using-chatgpt-for-learning/"
}
|
ChatGPT just like InstructGPT. It is like a chat box that can give instant answers to questions.We can explore its potentials by looking at the Benefits of Using ChatGPT For Learning. It is also an independent search engine that gives users the opportunity to learn at their own pace. But before we dive further
What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer) is a large language model-based chatbot by OpenAI on November 30, 2022. It is notable for enabling users to steer a conversation towards a length, format and style. Success
|
ive prompts and replies, known as prompt engineering, are into account at each stage of the conversation as a context.
Although the core function of a chatbot is to mimic a human conversationalist, ChatGPT is versatile. Among countless examples, it can write music, teleplays, fairy tales and student essays. It can also answer test questions (sometimes, depending on the test, at a level above the average human test-taker), generate business ideas, write poetry and song lyrics. It translates and summarize text, emulate a Linux system or simulate entire chat rooms.
In March 2023, OpenAI added support for plugins for ChatGPT.This includes both plugins made by OpenAI, such as web browsing and code interpretation, and external plugins from developers such as Expedia, OpenTable, Zapier, Shopify, Slack, and Wolfram.
The benefits of using ChatGPT For learning?
These are: Engaging Learning Experience, Personalized Assistance, Exploration of Topics, 24/7 Availability, mediate Feedback, Practice and Application, Language Improvement, Access to Resources, Complex Problem Solving, Supplement to Formal Education, Concept Reinforcement, Low Pressure Environment.
In comparison to its predecessor, InstructGPT, ChatGPT attempts to reduce harmful and deceitful responses.In one example, whereas InstructGPT accepts the premise of the prompt. “Tell me about when Christopher Columbus came to the U.S. in 2015” as being truthful. ChatGPT acknowledges the counterfactual nature of the question and frames its answer as a hypothetical consideration of what might happen. That is if Columbus came to the U.S. in 2015.using information about the voyages of Christopher Columbus and facts about the modern world – including modern perceptions of Columbus’ actions.
Unlike most chatbots, ChatGPT remembers a few number of previous prompts in the same conversation. Journalists tells us that this will allow ChatGPT to serve as a personal therapist.
It has a lot of benefits that it gives to users who are willing to learn. And to prevent offensive outputs to stem from ChatGPT, queries are always filtered through the OpenAI “Moderation endpoint” API (a separate GPT-based AI) and dismiss any potentially racist or sexist prompts.
In this “previous article” on the blog we learnt about the negative effects of ChatGPT but in this article, we will learn about some of the benefits of Using ChatGPT For Learning;
01. Effective Communication:
ChatGPT can work at any given time. That is it is available 24/7. This makes it an effective tool for communication. You can also communicate with it using any language since it has the ability to comprehend instructions in multiple languages and the consistency in its availability gives room for effective communication for every user or learner.
02. Cost Friendly:
Studies from some universities such as Standford University shows that ChatGPT is very helpful in saving cost. It has also drastically reduced the costs students spend on research work and other forms of online learning. Learners and users do not have to buy expensive textbooks or pay for some courses. This is because they can easily get and analyze the useful information they need on chatGPT.
03. All-Round Satisfaction:
ChatGPT gives an all-round satisfaction to every user. There is no limit or restrictions to what you can use it to learn. Regardless of your field of study, you can use it to ask questions about anything and find answers to them. Researchers and Programmers employ the use of ChatGPT. Learners from different disciplines and backgrounds are able to access it and use it to their own advantage.
It is important to note that despite the recent competitors of ChatGPT. The benefits of using it for learning purposes will continue to prove to be very significant. And the way it is being used will help to improve our world by enabling more conversations. Further interactions will be available while fostering more awareness and interest in the users. When you cautiously use ChatGPT it will lead to a top notch learning experience, and more access to knowledge and resources.
If you are still looking for an integrated school management solution that fits your school’s operations. Simply request for a free demo of our system to see how it works. Register here for free.
|
The European Union’s Nature Restoration Law – which is intended to restore ecosystems and make the environment more resilient to climate change – is in peril after a vote on June 27th in the European Parliament’s environment committee was evenly split. It will go to a vote of all 705 MEPs in the parliament’s next plenary session on July 11th.
It is common, if shamefully neglected, knowledge that the European Union and the Irish Government have failed miserably to engage effectively with the public, especially farmers, about nature conservation strategies.
Agricultural and environmental policies have been infuriatingly contradictory. Brussels and Dublin have pushed farmers to intensify production, while haphazardly penalising them for the ecological damage which intensification inflicts.
That is one context in which the fierce controversy around the Nature Restoration Law must be understood. The law offers the last best hope for reversing the collapse of Europe’s natural systems. Too much rests on its approval to allow the failures of the past to shape the future. But if we don’t change this context, the law will fail, even if enacted.
It is equally important to understand another context – the rapidly accelerating decline of Europe’s ecosystems – which caused the new law to be framed as active restoration, rather than passive protection. Eighty-five per cent of EU habitats, especially farmed landscapes, are in bad or poor condition. Most are getting worse. Animal and plant populations, including agriculturally vital insect pollinators, are vanishing. The Habitats and Birds Directives, based on protection, have failed. But does this matter, except to birdwatchers and botanists? Well, surveys suggest that most people do value nature. The Citizens’ Assembly on Biodiversity Loss called, overwhelmingly, for “decisive and urgent action to address biodiversity loss and restoration”.
Catastrophic news of floods, fires and extinctions has mobilised public opinion. There is now wider understanding that our economies, societies and wellbeing depend entirely on the services that healthy ecosystems supply, from clean water to fertile soil, from pollination to stable climates.
Restoration is a relatively new conservation strategy, arising precisely because we have lost so many healthy ecosystems that we now need to actively help them recover. Restoration, based on sound science, is a rare hopeful message in grim times.
So it is unfortunate that the Nature Restoration Law has been so targeted by scaremongering. It scraped by the EU environment committee, even in diluted form, and faces powerful parliamentary opposition.
The European People’s Party has been accused of running such a flagrant disinformation campaign that some members, including Fine Gael, have distanced themselves. Some MEPs from Fianna Fáil’s Renew grouping also voted against the law, though no Irish MEPs from those parties were on the committee.
Misleading phrases abound. Restoring biodiversity is not ‘abandoning land’, it is enabling our environment to continue providing us with essential services, including carbon sequestration, not to mention beautiful landscapes. Nor is rewetting about ‘flooding farms’. Wetlands, properly restored, act as sponges, slowing rainwater run-off. Degraded land accelerates flooding. Contrary to EPP claims, each country is free to meet targets in its own ways, and the law imposes no changes on any individual landowner.
Attacks on provisions the law does not contain make a mockery of claims by these parties, and by agribusiness vested interests, to be treating the biodiversity and climate crises seriously. It’s a classic approach of “Lord make me ready, but not yet – not while there are short-term profits to be made”.
We simply can’t delay any longer. Big farming lobbies are campaigning against the real interests of farming families. Agriculture is already becoming difficult in parts of Europe – ask any north Dublin fruit or vegetable producer. Unless we take boldly radical steps to restore landscapes, farming will become simply impossible. The Nature Restoration Law does not undermine food security. It is its guarantee.
But these lobbies will continue to garner popular support, and populist votes, until the EU, and national governments, fully recognise that there is a social as well as an environmental context to the law. Nature must be restored in Europe if we are to survive and thrive – and farmers must be fully rewarded for participating in this restoration. The farmer-led Burren Programme, based on measurable outcomes rather than prohibitions, offers a proven model for doing just this.
Paddy Woodworth is the author of Our Once and Future Planet: Restoring the World in the Climate Change Century
|
<urn:uuid:a56d0138-a14b-473b-93d8-c149e98087a9>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510326.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20230927203115-20230927233115-00372.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9415900111198425,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.015625,
"token_count": 972,
"url": "https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2023/07/09/nature-restoration-law-the-case-in-favour/"
}
|
The European Union’s Nature Restoration Law – which is intended to restore ecosystems and make the environment more resilient to climate change – is in peril after a vote on June 27th in the European Parliament’s environment committee was evenly split. It will go to a vote of all 705 MEPs in the parliament’s next plenary session on July 11th.
It is common, if shamefully neglected, knowledge that the European Union and the Irish Government have failed miserably to engage effectively with the public, especially farmers, about nature conservation strategies.
Agricultural and environmental policies have been infuriatingly contradictory. Brussels
|
and Dublin have pushed farmers to intensify production, while haphazardly penalising them for the ecological damage which intensification inflicts.
That is one context in which the fierce controversy around the Nature Restoration Law must be understood. The law offers the last best hope for reversing the collapse of Europe’s natural systems. Too much rests on its approval to allow the failures of the past to shape the future. But if we don’t change this context, the law will fail, even if enacted.
It is equally important to understand another context – the rapidly accelerating decline of Europe’s ecosystems – which caused the new law to be framed as active restoration, rather than passive protection. Eighty-five per cent of EU habitats, especially farmed landscapes, are in bad or poor condition. Most are getting worse. Animal and plant populations, including agriculturally vital insect pollinators, are vanishing. The Habitats and Birds Directives, based on protection, have failed. But does this matter, except to birdwatchers and botanists? Well, surveys suggest that most people do value nature. The Citizens’ Assembly on Biodiversity Loss called, overwhelmingly, for “decisive and urgent action to address biodiversity loss and restoration”.
Catastrophic news of floods, fires and extinctions has mobilised public opinion. There is now wider understanding that our economies, societies and wellbeing depend entirely on the services that healthy ecosystems supply, from clean water to fertile soil, from pollination to stable climates.
Restoration is a relatively new conservation strategy, arising precisely because we have lost so many healthy ecosystems that we now need to actively help them recover. Restoration, based on sound science, is a rare hopeful message in grim times.
So it is unfortunate that the Nature Restoration Law has been so targeted by scaremongering. It scraped by the EU environment committee, even in diluted form, and faces powerful parliamentary opposition.
The European People’s Party has been accused of running such a flagrant disinformation campaign that some members, including Fine Gael, have distanced themselves. Some MEPs from Fianna Fáil’s Renew grouping also voted against the law, though no Irish MEPs from those parties were on the committee.
Misleading phrases abound. Restoring biodiversity is not ‘abandoning land’, it is enabling our environment to continue providing us with essential services, including carbon sequestration, not to mention beautiful landscapes. Nor is rewetting about ‘flooding farms’. Wetlands, properly restored, act as sponges, slowing rainwater run-off. Degraded land accelerates flooding. Contrary to EPP claims, each country is free to meet targets in its own ways, and the law imposes no changes on any individual landowner.
Attacks on provisions the law does not contain make a mockery of claims by these parties, and by agribusiness vested interests, to be treating the biodiversity and climate crises seriously. It’s a classic approach of “Lord make me ready, but not yet – not while there are short-term profits to be made”.
We simply can’t delay any longer. Big farming lobbies are campaigning against the real interests of farming families. Agriculture is already becoming difficult in parts of Europe – ask any north Dublin fruit or vegetable producer. Unless we take boldly radical steps to restore landscapes, farming will become simply impossible. The Nature Restoration Law does not undermine food security. It is its guarantee.
But these lobbies will continue to garner popular support, and populist votes, until the EU, and national governments, fully recognise that there is a social as well as an environmental context to the law. Nature must be restored in Europe if we are to survive and thrive – and farmers must be fully rewarded for participating in this restoration. The farmer-led Burren Programme, based on measurable outcomes rather than prohibitions, offers a proven model for doing just this.
Paddy Woodworth is the author of Our Once and Future Planet: Restoring the World in the Climate Change Century
|
In today’s blog, we pay tribute to Betty Boothroyd, the first female Speaker of the Commons, who sadly died yesterday. Dr Emma Peplow, Head of our Oral History Project, reflects on her historic career.
Betty Boothroyd will go down in parliamentary history as the first woman to be elected Speaker of the Commons – she was also the first Speaker to be elected from the ranks of the opposition. Widely considered a kind, fair but tough speaker, when she stood down in 2000 she received plaudits across the House for her handling of the role. In her interview for our oral history project, she reflected on how it could feel:
Boothroyd was born in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. The family often struggled financially as her father faced significant periods of unemployment, but both of her parents were Trade Unionists. Boothroyd remembered being taken by her mother to Labour party women’s section meetings as a young girl, helping to raise money for the party. This included trips to ‘the most marvellous rallies’ in the larger Yorkshire cities on the weekend where ‘the great stars of Westminster came: Attlee, Jim Griffiths, Antony Greenwood, Aneurin Bevan and his wife Jennie Lee.’ Throughout her interview she described a constant interest in politics, but also a reluctance to put herself forward at first and a lack of confidence early on.
In 1947 Boothroyd put aside her good secretarial education to move to London and pursue a career as a dancer – much to her father’s displeasure. She remembered her mother persuaded him to let Boothroyd ‘get it out of her system’: something that quickly happened. Missing home she returned and combined secretarial jobs with Labour League of Youth work. In the late 1950s she moved back to London to work for the Labour party, and later as a parliamentary secretary to MPs Barbara Castle and Geoffrey de Freitas. The early 1960s she spent in the US, working on John F. Kennedy’s Presidential campaign and later for a US Congressman, but ‘the plan was always to come back’. She described this experience as reinforcing her admiration for the British parliamentary system.
Meanwhile, Boothroyd was trying to become an MP herself. Like many women of her generation she found it hard to be selected for a winnable seat. From the late 1950s she stood in multiple constituencies; each election involved getting to know a new constituency, and preparing three different speeches for election night depending on the outcome of the election. When she was finally elected in 1973 for West Bromwich she had been in tears earlier that night, convinced she had lost again. She held the successor seat – West Bromwich West – until she stood down in 2000.
Boothroyd described taking to life as an MP ‘like a duck to water’ – her previous experience working in Westminster now invaluable. She began by doing most of her own secretarial work. This prior experience didn’t stop her fears over her maiden speech, however:
Aside from her role in Parliament, Boothroyd soon joined the whips’ office and became a member of the European parliament; a period she didn’t enjoy due to the considerable demands on her time divided between Brussels, London, and her constituency back in the Midlands. She described always having two suitcases made up on the spare bed, and finding it simply exhausting.
She continued to work her way up through the Commons, sitting on the Speakers’ panel of Chairmen, meaning much of her time was spent chairing various bill committees. In 1987 the then Speaker, Bernard Weatherill, asked her to stand for election as Deputy Speaker. She described enjoying this position but ‘all you had to do really was sit in the chair’, as important decisions were taken by the Speaker beforehand. When Weatherill stood down she took some convincing to stand as Speaker herself: ‘it wasn’t being female that I was worried about, it was this lack of confidence: could I do it? I might let the side down, I might let down everything I believe in if I wasn’t up to it.’ Boothroyd had cross-party support for her election, the Conservative John Biffen nominated her for the position. ‘I decided in my own mind I would go for it …. If I lost I wanted to lose well, I didn’t want it to be a disaster.’
Throughout her time as Speaker she developed a reputation for being tough, one she put down to the fact that she held high standards over the use of language in the House. She recalled the time she banned DUP leader Iain Paisley from Parliament for a ten days after he called another MP a liar in the Chamber. In the end Paisley thanked her for all the press coverage he got from the incident and the pair became good friends!
Throughout her interview she described herself as a ‘parliamentarian, not a politician’. She also reflected back on her life, stating clearly that she had made a choice not to have a family to pursue her career, and that decision had given her ‘the most interesting and wonderful life.’ It is certainly one that will keep its place in the history books.
Since the announcement of her death yesterday the tributes have come flooding in across the political spectrum, with more due in the Commons today. The current Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, called her ‘groundbreaking’, and by becoming the first female Speaker she had ‘certainly broke that glass ceiling with panache’. Labour’s Alistair Campbell paid tribute to her as ‘one of the kindest, wisest, most loving and loveable women you could ever wish to know’; whilst former leader of the Scottish Conservatives, Ruth Davidson, described her simply as ‘magnificent’.
Find more blogs from our Oral History project here.
|
<urn:uuid:c7b862c9-64e4-4ccf-ad75-9156490f0b05>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-14",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296949644.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20230331144941-20230331174941-00295.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9847499132156372,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.015625,
"token_count": 1245,
"url": "https://thehistoryofparliament.wordpress.com/2023/02/28/betty-boothroyd-the-voice-from-the-speakers-chair/"
}
|
In today’s blog, we pay tribute to Betty Boothroyd, the first female Speaker of the Commons, who sadly died yesterday. Dr Emma Peplow, Head of our Oral History Project, reflects on her historic career.
Betty Boothroyd will go down in parliamentary history as the first woman to be elected Speaker of the Commons – she was also the first Speaker to be elected from the ranks of the opposition. Widely considered a kind, fair but tough speaker, when she stood down in 2000 she received plaudits across the House for her handling of the role. In her interview for our oral history
|
project, she reflected on how it could feel:
Boothroyd was born in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. The family often struggled financially as her father faced significant periods of unemployment, but both of her parents were Trade Unionists. Boothroyd remembered being taken by her mother to Labour party women’s section meetings as a young girl, helping to raise money for the party. This included trips to ‘the most marvellous rallies’ in the larger Yorkshire cities on the weekend where ‘the great stars of Westminster came: Attlee, Jim Griffiths, Antony Greenwood, Aneurin Bevan and his wife Jennie Lee.’ Throughout her interview she described a constant interest in politics, but also a reluctance to put herself forward at first and a lack of confidence early on.
In 1947 Boothroyd put aside her good secretarial education to move to London and pursue a career as a dancer – much to her father’s displeasure. She remembered her mother persuaded him to let Boothroyd ‘get it out of her system’: something that quickly happened. Missing home she returned and combined secretarial jobs with Labour League of Youth work. In the late 1950s she moved back to London to work for the Labour party, and later as a parliamentary secretary to MPs Barbara Castle and Geoffrey de Freitas. The early 1960s she spent in the US, working on John F. Kennedy’s Presidential campaign and later for a US Congressman, but ‘the plan was always to come back’. She described this experience as reinforcing her admiration for the British parliamentary system.
Meanwhile, Boothroyd was trying to become an MP herself. Like many women of her generation she found it hard to be selected for a winnable seat. From the late 1950s she stood in multiple constituencies; each election involved getting to know a new constituency, and preparing three different speeches for election night depending on the outcome of the election. When she was finally elected in 1973 for West Bromwich she had been in tears earlier that night, convinced she had lost again. She held the successor seat – West Bromwich West – until she stood down in 2000.
Boothroyd described taking to life as an MP ‘like a duck to water’ – her previous experience working in Westminster now invaluable. She began by doing most of her own secretarial work. This prior experience didn’t stop her fears over her maiden speech, however:
Aside from her role in Parliament, Boothroyd soon joined the whips’ office and became a member of the European parliament; a period she didn’t enjoy due to the considerable demands on her time divided between Brussels, London, and her constituency back in the Midlands. She described always having two suitcases made up on the spare bed, and finding it simply exhausting.
She continued to work her way up through the Commons, sitting on the Speakers’ panel of Chairmen, meaning much of her time was spent chairing various bill committees. In 1987 the then Speaker, Bernard Weatherill, asked her to stand for election as Deputy Speaker. She described enjoying this position but ‘all you had to do really was sit in the chair’, as important decisions were taken by the Speaker beforehand. When Weatherill stood down she took some convincing to stand as Speaker herself: ‘it wasn’t being female that I was worried about, it was this lack of confidence: could I do it? I might let the side down, I might let down everything I believe in if I wasn’t up to it.’ Boothroyd had cross-party support for her election, the Conservative John Biffen nominated her for the position. ‘I decided in my own mind I would go for it …. If I lost I wanted to lose well, I didn’t want it to be a disaster.’
Throughout her time as Speaker she developed a reputation for being tough, one she put down to the fact that she held high standards over the use of language in the House. She recalled the time she banned DUP leader Iain Paisley from Parliament for a ten days after he called another MP a liar in the Chamber. In the end Paisley thanked her for all the press coverage he got from the incident and the pair became good friends!
Throughout her interview she described herself as a ‘parliamentarian, not a politician’. She also reflected back on her life, stating clearly that she had made a choice not to have a family to pursue her career, and that decision had given her ‘the most interesting and wonderful life.’ It is certainly one that will keep its place in the history books.
Since the announcement of her death yesterday the tributes have come flooding in across the political spectrum, with more due in the Commons today. The current Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, called her ‘groundbreaking’, and by becoming the first female Speaker she had ‘certainly broke that glass ceiling with panache’. Labour’s Alistair Campbell paid tribute to her as ‘one of the kindest, wisest, most loving and loveable women you could ever wish to know’; whilst former leader of the Scottish Conservatives, Ruth Davidson, described her simply as ‘magnificent’.
Find more blogs from our Oral History project here.
|
On Tuesday, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) found that driver fatigue led to a deadly multivehicle crash in Phoenix in June 2021 that killed four and injured 11 after a tractor-trailer carrying milk rammed into stopped traffic of passenger vehicles.
The investigation revealed that the driver had less than a six-hour opportunity for sleep the day of the crash, and regularly worked 70 - 80 hours a week. The trucking company did not have a program to manage driver fatigue, had poor oversight over its drivers, and did not enforce its own policies regarding the maximum hours employees could work.
A program to manage driver fatigue, as well as collision avoidance technology, would have prevented the fatal collision, the safety agency said, highlighting the dangers of being drowsy behind the wheel.
New research announced earlier this month by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, a nonprofit research and education association, found that many drivers may be unaware of how drowsy they are, and as a result, fail to take breaks because they may not realize the risks until it’s too late.
“Being drowsy while driving is a dangerous form of impairment, and it does not resolve or improve with continued driving,” David Yang, the AAA Foundation’s president and executive director, said in a statement. “Our goal is to help drivers learn to heed the early warning signs of drowsiness so they can stop, rest, and then continue their journey as safely as possible.”
Drowsy driving plays a significant role in traffic crashes, injuries, and deaths, the safety group noted. Previous research estimated that 16% to 21% of all police-reported fatal vehicle crashes likely involve drowsy driving. Beyond the danger of falling asleep at the wheel, researchers said, drowsiness also reduces drivers’ alertness.
“Crashes caused by drowsy driving tend to be severe because the driver may not attempt to brake or swerve to avoid a collision, so the resulting impact occurs at a high rate of speed. A drowsy driver may also be startled and lose control of the vehicle,” according to the research.
For the report, “Drowsiness and Decision Making During Long Drives:A Driving Simulation Study,” researchers designed a nighttime highway driving experiment, which included a survey to gauge how drowsy drivers felt and measured the percentage of time their eyes were closed.
The results of the assessment showed that levels of drowsiness generally increased throughout the 3-hour long driving simulation, and while participants were usually aware that they were drowsy, their perceptions about their levels of sleepiness were not always accurate and affected decision-making.
Key findings from the study:
- When drivers rated their level of drowsiness as low, 75% of them were, in fact, moderately or severely drowsy.
- Even when drivers’ eyes were closed for 15 seconds or longer over a one-minute window— indicative of severe drowsiness—one in four still rated their drowsiness as low.
- Drivers very rarely took breaks unless they perceived that they were very drowsy.
- Even when drivers recognized they were extremely drowsy, they still declined 75% of their opportunities to take breaks and kept driving.
“Obtaining sufficient sleep, napping, and consuming caffeine are among the few evidence-based countermeasures that drivers can employ to prevent or mitigate drowsy driving,” the safety group said.
For more information about the research, tips to recognize and avoid drowsy driving, and access to the full report, click here.
|
<urn:uuid:f675d560-2bf6-40cf-bedc-e46e23cb8a37>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-23",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224657720.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20230610131939-20230610161939-00477.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.972981333732605,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.625,
"token_count": 752,
"url": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyamohn/2023/03/31/driver-fatiguea-dangerous-form-of-impairmentcontinues-to-take-lives/"
}
|
On Tuesday, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) found that driver fatigue led to a deadly multivehicle crash in Phoenix in June 2021 that killed four and injured 11 after a tractor-trailer carrying milk rammed into stopped traffic of passenger vehicles.
The investigation revealed that the driver had less than a six-hour opportunity for sleep the day of the crash, and regularly worked 70 - 80 hours a week. The trucking company did not have a program to manage driver fatigue, had poor oversight over its drivers, and did not enforce its own policies regarding the maximum hours employees could
|
work.
A program to manage driver fatigue, as well as collision avoidance technology, would have prevented the fatal collision, the safety agency said, highlighting the dangers of being drowsy behind the wheel.
New research announced earlier this month by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, a nonprofit research and education association, found that many drivers may be unaware of how drowsy they are, and as a result, fail to take breaks because they may not realize the risks until it’s too late.
“Being drowsy while driving is a dangerous form of impairment, and it does not resolve or improve with continued driving,” David Yang, the AAA Foundation’s president and executive director, said in a statement. “Our goal is to help drivers learn to heed the early warning signs of drowsiness so they can stop, rest, and then continue their journey as safely as possible.”
Drowsy driving plays a significant role in traffic crashes, injuries, and deaths, the safety group noted. Previous research estimated that 16% to 21% of all police-reported fatal vehicle crashes likely involve drowsy driving. Beyond the danger of falling asleep at the wheel, researchers said, drowsiness also reduces drivers’ alertness.
“Crashes caused by drowsy driving tend to be severe because the driver may not attempt to brake or swerve to avoid a collision, so the resulting impact occurs at a high rate of speed. A drowsy driver may also be startled and lose control of the vehicle,” according to the research.
For the report, “Drowsiness and Decision Making During Long Drives:A Driving Simulation Study,” researchers designed a nighttime highway driving experiment, which included a survey to gauge how drowsy drivers felt and measured the percentage of time their eyes were closed.
The results of the assessment showed that levels of drowsiness generally increased throughout the 3-hour long driving simulation, and while participants were usually aware that they were drowsy, their perceptions about their levels of sleepiness were not always accurate and affected decision-making.
Key findings from the study:
- When drivers rated their level of drowsiness as low, 75% of them were, in fact, moderately or severely drowsy.
- Even when drivers’ eyes were closed for 15 seconds or longer over a one-minute window— indicative of severe drowsiness—one in four still rated their drowsiness as low.
- Drivers very rarely took breaks unless they perceived that they were very drowsy.
- Even when drivers recognized they were extremely drowsy, they still declined 75% of their opportunities to take breaks and kept driving.
“Obtaining sufficient sleep, napping, and consuming caffeine are among the few evidence-based countermeasures that drivers can employ to prevent or mitigate drowsy driving,” the safety group said.
For more information about the research, tips to recognize and avoid drowsy driving, and access to the full report, click here.
|
Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum in Atchison to show historic plane and interactive exhibits
The fate of Amelia Earhart remains one of the world's great unsolved mysteries.
The Atchison-born pilot and her navigator, Fred Noonan, vanished in 1937 in the South Pacific while attempting an around-the-world flight.
The 14 interactive exhibits offered at the soon-to-open Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum include one in which visitors will be able to hear commonly held theories about what happened and vote for the one they think is most plausible, said Karen Seaberg, the museum's founder and president.
Ribbon-cutting ceremonies will be at noon Friday for the museum at Amelia Earhart Memorial Airport, one mile west of Atchison at 16701 286th Road.
Who was Amelia Earhart?
The $17 million museum was financed using donations from supporters that include NASA and corporate powerhouses Boeing, Bombardier, FedEx, Garmin and Lockheed Martin. It is in the process of seeking to become an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institute, Seaberg said.
The museum celebrates the legacy of Earhart, a trailblazing pilot whose accomplishments include having been the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to the U.S. mainland and the first woman to fly nonstop across the U.S.
Museum visitors will be able to hear a recording of Earhart's voice, made as she spoke to children in New York City after she flew across the Atlantic, Seaberg said.
Earhart became a celebrity and drew attention by rejecting the traditional role set aside for women and speaking in support of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment.
What happened on Amelia Earhart's last flight?
In 1931, Earhart married newspaper publisher George Putnam, who promoted her career and encouraged her to try to become the first pilot to circle the earth at the equator.
Aviator Wiley Post had already circled the globe twice, but over a shorter and less challenging northern route that included passing over Canada, Alaska and the then-USSR.
Earhart, accompanied by Noonan, attempted the around-the-world flight in a Lockheed Model 10 Electra plane. Their trip was more than three-quarters complete when they vanished on July 2, 1937, as they sought to find a landing strip the U.S. government had built for them on small, U.S.-owned Howland Island in the South Pacific.
The most commonly held theory is that Earhart, being unable to see the island, ran out of gas and ditched her plane at sea, where she and Noonan died soon afterward.
What will the Amelia Earhart museum's centerpiece be?
Only one plane still exists among the 149 Lockheed Model 10 Electras that were made.
That plane will be the centerpiece of the Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum.
It is named "Muriel," after Earhart's sister, Grace Muriel Earhart Morrissey, who died in 1998 at age 98.
Those present for Friday's ribbon-cutting are to include Bram Kleppner, a grandson of Grace Muriel Earhart Morrissey, Seaberg said.
In addition to Muriel, the museum will offer interactive exhibits that will enable visitors to:
• Flip through Earhart’s scrapbook, which has been digitized, to learn about the bold women who motivated her.
• Create an avatar while learning about Earhart's career paths as a nurse, mechanic, pilot and fashion designer.
• For $5, to take the controls for a virtual reality flight modeled upon Earhart's solo journey across the Atlantic.
How much does admission cost?
Friday's ribbon-cutting ceremony is expected to last about 30 minutes. Those who plan to attend are asked to RSVP in advance using the museum's website.
The museum will open immediately after the ceremony ends. Its regular hours of operation will be from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays. Park will be free.
Admission will cost $15 plus tax for adults ages 13 and older; $12 plus tax for senior citizens 60 and older, retired military and active duty service members; $8 plus tax for children 4 to 12; and free for children 3 and under.
Group rates are available for groups of more than 20 people, with further information about those being available from the museum.
Contact Tim Hrenchir at <email-pii> or 785-213-5934.
|
<urn:uuid:e54ae906-5cf1-4758-8579-ffc2d914acbd>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-23",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224656833.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20230609201549-20230609231549-00648.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9585708379745483,
"pii_count": 1,
"score": 2.875,
"token_count": 949,
"url": "https://www.cjonline.com/story/news/state/2023/04/11/atchison-museum-opening-friday-honors-legacy-of-pilot-amelia-earhart/70090152007/"
}
|
Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum in Atchison to show historic plane and interactive exhibits
The fate of Amelia Earhart remains one of the world's great unsolved mysteries.
The Atchison-born pilot and her navigator, Fred Noonan, vanished in 1937 in the South Pacific while attempting an around-the-world flight.
The 14 interactive exhibits offered at the soon-to-open Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum include one in which visitors will be able to hear commonly held theories about what happened and vote for the one they think is most plausible, said Karen Seaberg, the museum's founder and president.
Rib
|
bon-cutting ceremonies will be at noon Friday for the museum at Amelia Earhart Memorial Airport, one mile west of Atchison at 16701 286th Road.
Who was Amelia Earhart?
The $17 million museum was financed using donations from supporters that include NASA and corporate powerhouses Boeing, Bombardier, FedEx, Garmin and Lockheed Martin. It is in the process of seeking to become an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institute, Seaberg said.
The museum celebrates the legacy of Earhart, a trailblazing pilot whose accomplishments include having been the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to the U.S. mainland and the first woman to fly nonstop across the U.S.
Museum visitors will be able to hear a recording of Earhart's voice, made as she spoke to children in New York City after she flew across the Atlantic, Seaberg said.
Earhart became a celebrity and drew attention by rejecting the traditional role set aside for women and speaking in support of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment.
What happened on Amelia Earhart's last flight?
In 1931, Earhart married newspaper publisher George Putnam, who promoted her career and encouraged her to try to become the first pilot to circle the earth at the equator.
Aviator Wiley Post had already circled the globe twice, but over a shorter and less challenging northern route that included passing over Canada, Alaska and the then-USSR.
Earhart, accompanied by Noonan, attempted the around-the-world flight in a Lockheed Model 10 Electra plane. Their trip was more than three-quarters complete when they vanished on July 2, 1937, as they sought to find a landing strip the U.S. government had built for them on small, U.S.-owned Howland Island in the South Pacific.
The most commonly held theory is that Earhart, being unable to see the island, ran out of gas and ditched her plane at sea, where she and Noonan died soon afterward.
What will the Amelia Earhart museum's centerpiece be?
Only one plane still exists among the 149 Lockheed Model 10 Electras that were made.
That plane will be the centerpiece of the Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum.
It is named "Muriel," after Earhart's sister, Grace Muriel Earhart Morrissey, who died in 1998 at age 98.
Those present for Friday's ribbon-cutting are to include Bram Kleppner, a grandson of Grace Muriel Earhart Morrissey, Seaberg said.
In addition to Muriel, the museum will offer interactive exhibits that will enable visitors to:
• Flip through Earhart’s scrapbook, which has been digitized, to learn about the bold women who motivated her.
• Create an avatar while learning about Earhart's career paths as a nurse, mechanic, pilot and fashion designer.
• For $5, to take the controls for a virtual reality flight modeled upon Earhart's solo journey across the Atlantic.
How much does admission cost?
Friday's ribbon-cutting ceremony is expected to last about 30 minutes. Those who plan to attend are asked to RSVP in advance using the museum's website.
The museum will open immediately after the ceremony ends. Its regular hours of operation will be from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays. Park will be free.
Admission will cost $15 plus tax for adults ages 13 and older; $12 plus tax for senior citizens 60 and older, retired military and active duty service members; $8 plus tax for children 4 to 12; and free for children 3 and under.
Group rates are available for groups of more than 20 people, with further information about those being available from the museum.
Contact Tim Hrenchir at <email-pii> or 785-213-5934.
|
When Muhsinah Morris stepped onto the central quad of the Morehouse College campus in Atlanta, Georgia, she cried.
“We hadn’t been on campus for almost a year,” she recalls. “It was amazing. You hear the birds chirping and everything.”
It was 2021, and Morehouse, like many other schools and universities during the Covid-19 pandemic, had been closed since lockdowns began in March 2020.
In fact, it was still closed. Morris wasn’t really standing in the quad — she was standing in Morehouse’s “Metaversity” digital twin.
Morehouse College is the world’s first Metaversity, an interactive, virtual learning space based on real or imagined environments.
“(It) became our solution to increase attendance rates, reduce student recidivism, and make sure that they continue to persist in their majors,” says Morris, Morehouse’s Metaversity director, who at the time was academic program director. “We wanted our students to be more engaged than just sitting in another Zoom classroom.”
A view of Morehouse College in the real world and in the virtual world, as part of its “Metaversity.” (Credit: VictoryXR/Morehouse College)
In partnership with educational virtual reality developers VictoryXR, Morehouse created a virtual space where students could congregate for class remotely. Using a virtual reality (VR) headset, students first “spawn” into the digital twin campus, a familiar environment that “makes them more comfortable with the fact that they’re in new and emerging technology,” says Morris. From there, teachers can guide their students through different “classrooms,” real or imagined — including battlefields, outer space, or speculative future landscapes.
In the past two years, Morris says the college’s virtual reality classes have seen greater attendance, engagement and achievement from students — and now, she’s eager to see the education sector reform “in a way that brings all of these emerging technologies together for a better future for our young people.”
In addition to her role as academic program director, Morris was also the interim department chair of chemistry and an assistant professor — and she saw an opportunity to “bring to life” complex but visual concepts like molecules with a virtual reality program.
In addition to the digital twin of the campus, built using drone images and geographic data, Morehouse has an exact replica of its chemistry lab in the metaverse. This helps incoming students to familiarize themselves with the space and conduct a “trial run” of their experiment setup and safety protocols before getting into the lab. “That way we have less problems, injuries, and mistakes that happen in the lab,” says Morris.
Students that take Metaversity courses check out one of the school’s 500 headsets at the beginning of the semester, and return it at the end, so it can be cleaned, charged and reset for reuse the following semester, says Morris.
Juan Johnson, one student who took the new high-tech class, says his first experience in the Metaversity was “very surreal” but that “learning in virtual reality has been amazing.”
“The things that I’m reading on the page, I can see them and I’m really touching them in virtual reality, so it connects the dots for me,” he adds.
The Metaversity may look like a pandemic gimmick – but Morris says it’s yielding results.
Students “gain mastery of concepts much quicker than in a classroom,” and the immersive experience eliminates distractions like phones to make “efficient use of time,” says Morris, adding that class attendance rates increased by 10 percentage points, compared to in-person and online classes, and student achievement increased by 11.9%.
Morris isn’t the only one who sees the potential to improve education with VR. Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Danny P. Goel, based in Vancouver, Canada, worked with a team of artists and former game developers to design a surgery training program based on real-life procedures, called PrecisionOS. Allowing students to refine skills without the risk of making life-or-death mistakes, Goel found that they picked up the skills five times faster and made 50% less critical errors.
In partnership with VictoryXR, Morehouse College created virtual education spaces for students as part of its Metaversity. (Credit: VictoryXR/Morehouse College)
Demand for VR learning has mainly been driven by the “difficult experience” of online learning during the pandemic, says Rose Luckin, a professor at the University College London Knowledge Lab and co-founder of the Institute for Ethical AI in Education.
While Metaversities can offer engaging, immersive, and visual education opportunities, Luckin thinks VR is wasted on replicating physical spaces that already exist and should focus on historical or imagined spaces instead. “We need to recognize the importance of experiencing the real world as it is,” says Luckin, adding: “If we get it right, the future of education will be one where there’s more human interaction.”
But as one of many technological “tools” that will be available to teachers in the coming years, virtual reality has the opportunity to make learning more immersive and individualized if we “recognize the strengths, the weaknesses, what it is they’re particularly good for, and make sure that’s how we use them,” says Luckin.
And while more universities are jumping on the Metaversity bandwagon — Morehouse College is one of 30 campuses funded by Meta, Facebook’s parent company, that are being built by VictoryXR, which is also working with over 100 higher education institutions on immersive virtual reality learning programs — the cost could be a huge potential barrier to wider adoption.
Morehouse’s Metaversity campus and courses are funded by several grantors, including Meta, Qualcomm, and T-Mobile. A “digital twin” campus starts from $50,000, and the headsets Morehouse uses cost $499 each, says Morris.
Getting VR access to students across “every level of education” is vital, says Morris. “We are going to live in a digitally illiterate society if we don’t start infusing our money and efforts into young people,” she says.
However, as a “geographically agnostic” teaching tool, Morris believes that VR has the potential to make education more equitable, connecting students to world-class institutions on the other side of the world. Goel has already found this with his surgery software, which is currently being used to train doctors in 53 low and middle-income countries.
Teaching tech literacy
Starting with three classes, Morehouse now offers 13 courses each semester in the Metaversity, including modules in multimedia and visual storytelling, world history, microbiology, and literature, which include emotive experiences such as being on the front line in World War II, and on a transatlantic slave ship.
“It’s really important to experience things that may change your perspective,” says Morris.
Vitally, the Metaversity isn’t just teaching subject knowledge — it’s also showing students how to use and interact with emerging technology. “Science, technology, engineering and mathematics is really important, regardless of what your major is,” says Morris. “About 60% of the jobs that will be here in 2030 don’t exist right now, and it’s really important for our students to have highly technical skill sets.”
With achievement on the rise, she hopes to see the graduation rate increase, too. Morehouse ranks in the top five of the US’s historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) for its graduation rate (around 55%) although it still falls short of the national average (64%).
Morris is excited that as the first Metaversity, Morehouse has the opportunity to empower its students, predominantly Black men, in these technological spaces.
“Most HBCUs are broadband deserts, and most rural or inner-city schools have poor access to emerging technology,” she says. “That is why it is so important for the world to see Black young men at Morehouse at the forefront of an innovative effort like this that is transforming education.”
Aiming for an 80% graduation rate, a goal set by the university president, Morris is optimistic that the Metaversity can keep students engaged as well as accelerate their learning.
And for Morris, the Metaversity has “restored joy in the education system.”
“It felt like having my own dreams come true, in the sense that we’re no longer operating in an antiquated learning model where I’m seeing students fail over and over again,” she says, adding: “Why did we wait so long to do something this transformative?”
|
<urn:uuid:0f54b4eb-4403-42ea-aed0-c070aa2437bc>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-50",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100626.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20231206230347-20231207020347-00114.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9546982645988464,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.703125,
"token_count": 1925,
"url": "https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/28/americas/metaversity-virtual-reality-morehouse-college-hnk-spc-intl"
}
|
When Muhsinah Morris stepped onto the central quad of the Morehouse College campus in Atlanta, Georgia, she cried.
“We hadn’t been on campus for almost a year,” she recalls. “It was amazing. You hear the birds chirping and everything.”
It was 2021, and Morehouse, like many other schools and universities during the Covid-19 pandemic, had been closed since lockdowns began in March 2020.
In fact, it was still closed. Morris wasn’t really standing in the quad — she was standing in Morehouse’s “Metaversity” digital twin.
Morehouse College
|
is the world’s first Metaversity, an interactive, virtual learning space based on real or imagined environments.
“(It) became our solution to increase attendance rates, reduce student recidivism, and make sure that they continue to persist in their majors,” says Morris, Morehouse’s Metaversity director, who at the time was academic program director. “We wanted our students to be more engaged than just sitting in another Zoom classroom.”
A view of Morehouse College in the real world and in the virtual world, as part of its “Metaversity.” (Credit: VictoryXR/Morehouse College)
In partnership with educational virtual reality developers VictoryXR, Morehouse created a virtual space where students could congregate for class remotely. Using a virtual reality (VR) headset, students first “spawn” into the digital twin campus, a familiar environment that “makes them more comfortable with the fact that they’re in new and emerging technology,” says Morris. From there, teachers can guide their students through different “classrooms,” real or imagined — including battlefields, outer space, or speculative future landscapes.
In the past two years, Morris says the college’s virtual reality classes have seen greater attendance, engagement and achievement from students — and now, she’s eager to see the education sector reform “in a way that brings all of these emerging technologies together for a better future for our young people.”
In addition to her role as academic program director, Morris was also the interim department chair of chemistry and an assistant professor — and she saw an opportunity to “bring to life” complex but visual concepts like molecules with a virtual reality program.
In addition to the digital twin of the campus, built using drone images and geographic data, Morehouse has an exact replica of its chemistry lab in the metaverse. This helps incoming students to familiarize themselves with the space and conduct a “trial run” of their experiment setup and safety protocols before getting into the lab. “That way we have less problems, injuries, and mistakes that happen in the lab,” says Morris.
Students that take Metaversity courses check out one of the school’s 500 headsets at the beginning of the semester, and return it at the end, so it can be cleaned, charged and reset for reuse the following semester, says Morris.
Juan Johnson, one student who took the new high-tech class, says his first experience in the Metaversity was “very surreal” but that “learning in virtual reality has been amazing.”
“The things that I’m reading on the page, I can see them and I’m really touching them in virtual reality, so it connects the dots for me,” he adds.
The Metaversity may look like a pandemic gimmick – but Morris says it’s yielding results.
Students “gain mastery of concepts much quicker than in a classroom,” and the immersive experience eliminates distractions like phones to make “efficient use of time,” says Morris, adding that class attendance rates increased by 10 percentage points, compared to in-person and online classes, and student achievement increased by 11.9%.
Morris isn’t the only one who sees the potential to improve education with VR. Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Danny P. Goel, based in Vancouver, Canada, worked with a team of artists and former game developers to design a surgery training program based on real-life procedures, called PrecisionOS. Allowing students to refine skills without the risk of making life-or-death mistakes, Goel found that they picked up the skills five times faster and made 50% less critical errors.
In partnership with VictoryXR, Morehouse College created virtual education spaces for students as part of its Metaversity. (Credit: VictoryXR/Morehouse College)
Demand for VR learning has mainly been driven by the “difficult experience” of online learning during the pandemic, says Rose Luckin, a professor at the University College London Knowledge Lab and co-founder of the Institute for Ethical AI in Education.
While Metaversities can offer engaging, immersive, and visual education opportunities, Luckin thinks VR is wasted on replicating physical spaces that already exist and should focus on historical or imagined spaces instead. “We need to recognize the importance of experiencing the real world as it is,” says Luckin, adding: “If we get it right, the future of education will be one where there’s more human interaction.”
But as one of many technological “tools” that will be available to teachers in the coming years, virtual reality has the opportunity to make learning more immersive and individualized if we “recognize the strengths, the weaknesses, what it is they’re particularly good for, and make sure that’s how we use them,” says Luckin.
And while more universities are jumping on the Metaversity bandwagon — Morehouse College is one of 30 campuses funded by Meta, Facebook’s parent company, that are being built by VictoryXR, which is also working with over 100 higher education institutions on immersive virtual reality learning programs — the cost could be a huge potential barrier to wider adoption.
Morehouse’s Metaversity campus and courses are funded by several grantors, including Meta, Qualcomm, and T-Mobile. A “digital twin” campus starts from $50,000, and the headsets Morehouse uses cost $499 each, says Morris.
Getting VR access to students across “every level of education” is vital, says Morris. “We are going to live in a digitally illiterate society if we don’t start infusing our money and efforts into young people,” she says.
However, as a “geographically agnostic” teaching tool, Morris believes that VR has the potential to make education more equitable, connecting students to world-class institutions on the other side of the world. Goel has already found this with his surgery software, which is currently being used to train doctors in 53 low and middle-income countries.
Teaching tech literacy
Starting with three classes, Morehouse now offers 13 courses each semester in the Metaversity, including modules in multimedia and visual storytelling, world history, microbiology, and literature, which include emotive experiences such as being on the front line in World War II, and on a transatlantic slave ship.
“It’s really important to experience things that may change your perspective,” says Morris.
Vitally, the Metaversity isn’t just teaching subject knowledge — it’s also showing students how to use and interact with emerging technology. “Science, technology, engineering and mathematics is really important, regardless of what your major is,” says Morris. “About 60% of the jobs that will be here in 2030 don’t exist right now, and it’s really important for our students to have highly technical skill sets.”
With achievement on the rise, she hopes to see the graduation rate increase, too. Morehouse ranks in the top five of the US’s historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) for its graduation rate (around 55%) although it still falls short of the national average (64%).
Morris is excited that as the first Metaversity, Morehouse has the opportunity to empower its students, predominantly Black men, in these technological spaces.
“Most HBCUs are broadband deserts, and most rural or inner-city schools have poor access to emerging technology,” she says. “That is why it is so important for the world to see Black young men at Morehouse at the forefront of an innovative effort like this that is transforming education.”
Aiming for an 80% graduation rate, a goal set by the university president, Morris is optimistic that the Metaversity can keep students engaged as well as accelerate their learning.
And for Morris, the Metaversity has “restored joy in the education system.”
“It felt like having my own dreams come true, in the sense that we’re no longer operating in an antiquated learning model where I’m seeing students fail over and over again,” she says, adding: “Why did we wait so long to do something this transformative?”
|
The free state of Florida | Opinion
In his second inaugural address, Gov. Ron DeSantis declared that the Free State of Florida was the land of liberty and sanity. In his speech, he referenced the Founding Fathers, Washington, Lincoln, and events in history to support his vision of freedom and liberty.
His comments started me thinking and researching the concepts he emphasized. The Oxford dictionary defines freedom as,” The power or right to act, speak or think as one wants without hinderance.” Liberty is defined as, “The state of being free within a society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one’s way of life, behavior or political views.”
Both the Right and the Left see themselves fighting for their interpretation of these definitions, with “Woke Ideology” and “Christian Nationalism” among the threats to their freedom.
What were the Founding Fathers writing about? The Declaration of Independence asserts the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. One wonders what has happened to the notions of life and happiness with all the concern for liberty?
The Constitution was formed, “…to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, promote the general welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” Clearly the first three goals were primary in their minds. They don’t seem to be as important in the halls of state and federal legislatures.
Washington was cited by the Governor, but his most important quote shares a concern most relevant today: “if we mean to support the liberty and independence that has cost us so much blood and treasure to establish, we must drive far away the demon of party spirit and local reproach.” Who is acting with bi-partisanship and building friends over demonizing enemies?
The Gettysburg address was referenced with the call for a new birth of freedom. The reference was not freedom from government intervention but the concept that all men are created equal and deserved equal protection. Yes, exercising one’s rights, “Must be free from government interference,” Lincoln said elsewhere. One would think that applies to state governments as well as “entrenched bureaucrats in D.C.”
World War II was fought for a variety of reasons, but “Fighting for Freedom” was the most powerful call for men to sacrifice their lives. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s speech on the Four Freedoms was the clarion call. Freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear. These seem far more important than freedom from, “Jet setters in Davos and corporations wielding public power.”
Justice Louis Brandeis said, “The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning, but without understanding.” Liberty is, in a greater sense, using freedom responsibly to do right by others. As Lincoln said, “Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves.”
When we assert a definition of freedom as the right to do what we please, we miss DeSantis’s referenced “ Hand of the Almighty” and God’s call to do what is right for others.
Jim Croteau is a retired educator and non-profit administrator. He is also president of the 21st Century Council (http://21stcenturycouncil.org).
JOIN THE CONVERSATION
Send letters to the editor (up to 200 words) or Your Turn columns (about 500 words) <email-pii>. Please include your address for verification purposes only, and if you send a Your Turn, also include a photo and 1-2 line bio of yourself. You can also submit anonymous Zing!s at Tallahassee.com/Zing. Submissions are published on a space-available basis. All submissions may be edited for content, clarity and length, and may also be published by any part of the USA TODAY NETWORK.
|
<urn:uuid:c9e2c87a-11c8-4fe8-9ed7-cf0234939edb>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-06",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764499700.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20230129044527-20230129074527-00167.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9548521637916565,
"pii_count": 1,
"score": 2.8125,
"token_count": 837,
"url": "https://www.tallahassee.com/story/opinion/2023/01/13/the-free-state-of-florida-opinion/69800088007/"
}
|
The free state of Florida | Opinion
In his second inaugural address, Gov. Ron DeSantis declared that the Free State of Florida was the land of liberty and sanity. In his speech, he referenced the Founding Fathers, Washington, Lincoln, and events in history to support his vision of freedom and liberty.
His comments started me thinking and researching the concepts he emphasized. The Oxford dictionary defines freedom as,” The power or right to act, speak or think as one wants without hinderance.” Liberty is defined as, “The state of being free within a society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one’s way of life
|
, behavior or political views.”
Both the Right and the Left see themselves fighting for their interpretation of these definitions, with “Woke Ideology” and “Christian Nationalism” among the threats to their freedom.
What were the Founding Fathers writing about? The Declaration of Independence asserts the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. One wonders what has happened to the notions of life and happiness with all the concern for liberty?
The Constitution was formed, “…to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, promote the general welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” Clearly the first three goals were primary in their minds. They don’t seem to be as important in the halls of state and federal legislatures.
Washington was cited by the Governor, but his most important quote shares a concern most relevant today: “if we mean to support the liberty and independence that has cost us so much blood and treasure to establish, we must drive far away the demon of party spirit and local reproach.” Who is acting with bi-partisanship and building friends over demonizing enemies?
The Gettysburg address was referenced with the call for a new birth of freedom. The reference was not freedom from government intervention but the concept that all men are created equal and deserved equal protection. Yes, exercising one’s rights, “Must be free from government interference,” Lincoln said elsewhere. One would think that applies to state governments as well as “entrenched bureaucrats in D.C.”
World War II was fought for a variety of reasons, but “Fighting for Freedom” was the most powerful call for men to sacrifice their lives. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s speech on the Four Freedoms was the clarion call. Freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear. These seem far more important than freedom from, “Jet setters in Davos and corporations wielding public power.”
Justice Louis Brandeis said, “The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning, but without understanding.” Liberty is, in a greater sense, using freedom responsibly to do right by others. As Lincoln said, “Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves.”
When we assert a definition of freedom as the right to do what we please, we miss DeSantis’s referenced “ Hand of the Almighty” and God’s call to do what is right for others.
Jim Croteau is a retired educator and non-profit administrator. He is also president of the 21st Century Council (http://21stcenturycouncil.org).
JOIN THE CONVERSATION
Send letters to the editor (up to 200 words) or Your Turn columns (about 500 words) <email-pii>. Please include your address for verification purposes only, and if you send a Your Turn, also include a photo and 1-2 line bio of yourself. You can also submit anonymous Zing!s at Tallahassee.com/Zing. Submissions are published on a space-available basis. All submissions may be edited for content, clarity and length, and may also be published by any part of the USA TODAY NETWORK.
|
The Biden administration has announced an expansion of its use of Title 42, the pandemic measure the Trump administration initially implemented, to immediately expel to Mexico asylum seekers from a list of specified countries.
The funneling of migrants through inhospitable terrain is primarily responsible for deaths at the border. As U.S. authorities have increased enforcement near border crossings in urban, populated communities, they have pushed people into dangerous remote areas. This is intentional. They use such terrain as a natural “wall.” Within the Southwest’s unforgiving mountains and deserts, thousands of people seeking safety in the United States have succumbed to snake bites, animal attacks, heat stroke, dehydration and hyperthermia.
These mass deaths can be traced to border policies adopted in the early 1990s, ones that help us understand where we find ourselves today.
One of the architects of these policies was Silvestre Reyes. Reyes was raised in an El Paso-area farming community near the New Mexico state line as the grandchild of Mexican refugees who fled the violence of the Mexican Revolution (1910-20). On his family farm, he served as a lookout for Border Patrol agents and warned undocumented farmworkers to hide or run.
After being drafted into the Vietnam War, he took various civil service exams, and the Border Patrol was the first federal agency to respond. He moved to Del Rio in southwest Texas to join the Border Patrol in 1969. Reyes rose through the ranks and became the Border Patrol’s first Hispanic sector chief in 1984, when he was appointed to head the McAllen Border Patrol sector, which runs along the Lower Rio Grande Valley to the Gulf of Mexico.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Mexican agricultural workers often headed north for work, to flee economic volatility in Mexico. The U.S. immigration system foreclosed opportunities for legal migration, and many came without authorization. During these decades apprehension rates of Mexican migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border increased as migration ebbed and flowed.
From his station in Texas, Reyes told reporters that by the mid-1980s he began noticing that a growing number of the people being apprehended originally came from Central America. They included Guatemalans fleeing anti-Indigenous genocide, Salvadorans fleeing right-wing death squads and Nicaraguans fleeing guerrillas known as Contras.
During the Central American conflicts, the United States often backed oppressive right-wing regimes and offered official and unofficial support to other groups as part of its Cold War-era objectives. Over 1 million displaced Central Americans fled violent government regimes and guerrillas during the 1980s. The Reagan administration pursued policies denying their asylum claims and deported thousands of people who never had the opportunity to seek legal counsel.
Having come overland through Mexico, Central Americans were deported by costly flights. Reyes began planning what he saw as a cheaper strategy: one that would keep Central American refugees in Mexico. He began planning a blockade that would, as he stated, “back up the aliens on the Mexican side and start causing them problems over there.”
In 1993, Reyes became the El Paso Border Patrol sector chief. He implemented his plans through Operation Blockade, renamed Operation Hold the Line to avoid connotations with the Berlin Blockade, along the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez border. He stationed at least 400 Border Patrol agents and their vehicles directly on the Rio Grande’s banks.
Going against official procedure that had partly centered on patrolling city streets, Reyes created a wall of agents and vehicles between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, greatly curtailing the number of migrants crossing into El Paso’s urban core.
But Reyes did not simply intend to stop unauthorized border crossings. He also wanted to improve the Border Patrol’s relations with El Paso residents.
El Paso’s Mexican American community had long complained about the Border Patrol’s racial profiling and harassment, which included such incidents as a border patrol agent stopping a high school football coach and then putting a gun to his head when the coach was driving players to a game. In 1992 the coach, five students and a school secretary filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the Border Patrol for racial profiling and harassment. In a preliminary injunction, a federal district judge found that the Border Patrol had “stopped, questioned, detained, frisked, arrested, searched, and physically and verbally abused” school staff and students for the “mere appearance of being from Hispanic descent.”
As one remediation, Reyes implemented the operation he had begun conceptualizing while leading the McAllen sector. He moved his agents away from the streets of El Paso and to the physical border, which helped reduce residents’ complaints against the Border Patrol. In 1994, under Reyes’s leadership, the El Paso sector Border Patrol settled the federal lawsuit by agreeing to stop detaining people for simply appearing to be Hispanic.
Despite some initial concerns — such as the State Department’s worry that it would impact diplomatic relations with Mexico and the possibility that it would increase personnel costs — Reyes’s Operation Hold the Line received broad praise. The Clinton administration supported a tougher stance on unauthorized immigration, and soon similar operations extended across other urban sections of the U.S.-Mexico border. At the San Diego-Tijuana border, the Clinton administration launched Operation Gatekeeper in 1994, which expanded enforcement on the urban borderline, driving migrants toward rural and wilderness areas east of the city. The Border Patrol also instituted checkpoints within the United States, began building border walls and expanded their technological infrastructure — pushing migrants away from highways, roads and populated areas far beyond the border.
After implementing Operation Hold the Line and having it lauded by the highest centers of power in D.C., Reyes ran for Congress as a Democrat with a tough-on-immigration record. In 1996 he was elected as the first Hispanic to represent the Hispanic-majority congressional district in El Paso. The Hispanic-majority electorate sent him to Congress eight more times. In 2001, Reyes was selected by his peers to chair the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, where he backed broadened border enforcement.
With few detractors in D.C. or the Border Patrol, the model Reyes innovated in El Paso became the guiding idea behind border enforcement more broadly. Operation Hold the Line and Operation Gatekeeper molded into various “prevention through deterrence” policies that sought to make it more difficult to cross into the United States.
Both Republican and Democratic policymakers believed that if the urban border was solidified and if migrants could only cross through dangerous remote terrain, they would not attempt to enter the United States. That belief did not hold against the reality of human desperation and the promise of a better life in the United States.
Since the 2006 passage of the Secure Fence Act, the Border Patrol has increasingly supplemented their operations with monumental border walls, surveillance towers, radar, high-definition and infrared cameras, thermographic heat sensors and drones. Such measures have pushed migrants even deeper into dangerous terrain while cartels primarily hide drugs (going northward) and guns (going southward) inside vehicles crossing border checkpoints.
As a result, between 1994 and 2000, 1,700 migrants died while traversing remote desert terrain. Border Patrol data reveals that over 9,000 migrants have died since 1998 — with the last two years being the deadliest. These are all surely undercounts that do not include full statistics from local and state governments or those who will never be found in remote locations.
Today President Biden equates criticisms from humanitarian groups and immigration hard-liners. He has asserted that both “extremes are wrong,” and that what’s needed is a “middle proposition.”
While the Congressional Hispanic Caucus has a history of supporting violent border policies, today’s leadership has diverged from those stances. Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragán (D-Calif. and chair of the CHC) noted her concerns about the expansion of Title 42 and the denial of due process for asylum seekers. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas and former CHC chair) went further, stating that the Biden administration’s extension of Title 42 would “exacerbate chaos and irregular migration at the Southern border.” But they could go further in highlighting the death toll that will result from such a “middle proposition.”
Recent history teaches us that migrants with few choices will risk their lives in trudging through the Southwest. Not unlike Reyes’s grandparents, hunger, destitution, persecution and violence in their countries of origin and on the streets of Mexico will drive people to risk their lives in search of the American Dream. Like previous administrations, the Biden administration’s plans will cause further suffering and the death of innumerable people seeking refuge on American soil.
|
<urn:uuid:b7362be2-6903-460b-8aee-42b23f989254>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-06",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764499826.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20230130165437-20230130195437-00410.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9634734392166138,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.921875,
"token_count": 1797,
"url": "https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2023/01/20/border-patrol-title-42-immigration/"
}
|
The Biden administration has announced an expansion of its use of Title 42, the pandemic measure the Trump administration initially implemented, to immediately expel to Mexico asylum seekers from a list of specified countries.
The funneling of migrants through inhospitable terrain is primarily responsible for deaths at the border. As U.S. authorities have increased enforcement near border crossings in urban, populated communities, they have pushed people into dangerous remote areas. This is intentional. They use such terrain as a natural “wall.” Within the Southwest’s unforgiving mountains and deserts, thousands of people seeking safety in the United States have succumbed to snake bites
|
, animal attacks, heat stroke, dehydration and hyperthermia.
These mass deaths can be traced to border policies adopted in the early 1990s, ones that help us understand where we find ourselves today.
One of the architects of these policies was Silvestre Reyes. Reyes was raised in an El Paso-area farming community near the New Mexico state line as the grandchild of Mexican refugees who fled the violence of the Mexican Revolution (1910-20). On his family farm, he served as a lookout for Border Patrol agents and warned undocumented farmworkers to hide or run.
After being drafted into the Vietnam War, he took various civil service exams, and the Border Patrol was the first federal agency to respond. He moved to Del Rio in southwest Texas to join the Border Patrol in 1969. Reyes rose through the ranks and became the Border Patrol’s first Hispanic sector chief in 1984, when he was appointed to head the McAllen Border Patrol sector, which runs along the Lower Rio Grande Valley to the Gulf of Mexico.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Mexican agricultural workers often headed north for work, to flee economic volatility in Mexico. The U.S. immigration system foreclosed opportunities for legal migration, and many came without authorization. During these decades apprehension rates of Mexican migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border increased as migration ebbed and flowed.
From his station in Texas, Reyes told reporters that by the mid-1980s he began noticing that a growing number of the people being apprehended originally came from Central America. They included Guatemalans fleeing anti-Indigenous genocide, Salvadorans fleeing right-wing death squads and Nicaraguans fleeing guerrillas known as Contras.
During the Central American conflicts, the United States often backed oppressive right-wing regimes and offered official and unofficial support to other groups as part of its Cold War-era objectives. Over 1 million displaced Central Americans fled violent government regimes and guerrillas during the 1980s. The Reagan administration pursued policies denying their asylum claims and deported thousands of people who never had the opportunity to seek legal counsel.
Having come overland through Mexico, Central Americans were deported by costly flights. Reyes began planning what he saw as a cheaper strategy: one that would keep Central American refugees in Mexico. He began planning a blockade that would, as he stated, “back up the aliens on the Mexican side and start causing them problems over there.”
In 1993, Reyes became the El Paso Border Patrol sector chief. He implemented his plans through Operation Blockade, renamed Operation Hold the Line to avoid connotations with the Berlin Blockade, along the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez border. He stationed at least 400 Border Patrol agents and their vehicles directly on the Rio Grande’s banks.
Going against official procedure that had partly centered on patrolling city streets, Reyes created a wall of agents and vehicles between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, greatly curtailing the number of migrants crossing into El Paso’s urban core.
But Reyes did not simply intend to stop unauthorized border crossings. He also wanted to improve the Border Patrol’s relations with El Paso residents.
El Paso’s Mexican American community had long complained about the Border Patrol’s racial profiling and harassment, which included such incidents as a border patrol agent stopping a high school football coach and then putting a gun to his head when the coach was driving players to a game. In 1992 the coach, five students and a school secretary filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the Border Patrol for racial profiling and harassment. In a preliminary injunction, a federal district judge found that the Border Patrol had “stopped, questioned, detained, frisked, arrested, searched, and physically and verbally abused” school staff and students for the “mere appearance of being from Hispanic descent.”
As one remediation, Reyes implemented the operation he had begun conceptualizing while leading the McAllen sector. He moved his agents away from the streets of El Paso and to the physical border, which helped reduce residents’ complaints against the Border Patrol. In 1994, under Reyes’s leadership, the El Paso sector Border Patrol settled the federal lawsuit by agreeing to stop detaining people for simply appearing to be Hispanic.
Despite some initial concerns — such as the State Department’s worry that it would impact diplomatic relations with Mexico and the possibility that it would increase personnel costs — Reyes’s Operation Hold the Line received broad praise. The Clinton administration supported a tougher stance on unauthorized immigration, and soon similar operations extended across other urban sections of the U.S.-Mexico border. At the San Diego-Tijuana border, the Clinton administration launched Operation Gatekeeper in 1994, which expanded enforcement on the urban borderline, driving migrants toward rural and wilderness areas east of the city. The Border Patrol also instituted checkpoints within the United States, began building border walls and expanded their technological infrastructure — pushing migrants away from highways, roads and populated areas far beyond the border.
After implementing Operation Hold the Line and having it lauded by the highest centers of power in D.C., Reyes ran for Congress as a Democrat with a tough-on-immigration record. In 1996 he was elected as the first Hispanic to represent the Hispanic-majority congressional district in El Paso. The Hispanic-majority electorate sent him to Congress eight more times. In 2001, Reyes was selected by his peers to chair the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, where he backed broadened border enforcement.
With few detractors in D.C. or the Border Patrol, the model Reyes innovated in El Paso became the guiding idea behind border enforcement more broadly. Operation Hold the Line and Operation Gatekeeper molded into various “prevention through deterrence” policies that sought to make it more difficult to cross into the United States.
Both Republican and Democratic policymakers believed that if the urban border was solidified and if migrants could only cross through dangerous remote terrain, they would not attempt to enter the United States. That belief did not hold against the reality of human desperation and the promise of a better life in the United States.
Since the 2006 passage of the Secure Fence Act, the Border Patrol has increasingly supplemented their operations with monumental border walls, surveillance towers, radar, high-definition and infrared cameras, thermographic heat sensors and drones. Such measures have pushed migrants even deeper into dangerous terrain while cartels primarily hide drugs (going northward) and guns (going southward) inside vehicles crossing border checkpoints.
As a result, between 1994 and 2000, 1,700 migrants died while traversing remote desert terrain. Border Patrol data reveals that over 9,000 migrants have died since 1998 — with the last two years being the deadliest. These are all surely undercounts that do not include full statistics from local and state governments or those who will never be found in remote locations.
Today President Biden equates criticisms from humanitarian groups and immigration hard-liners. He has asserted that both “extremes are wrong,” and that what’s needed is a “middle proposition.”
While the Congressional Hispanic Caucus has a history of supporting violent border policies, today’s leadership has diverged from those stances. Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragán (D-Calif. and chair of the CHC) noted her concerns about the expansion of Title 42 and the denial of due process for asylum seekers. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas and former CHC chair) went further, stating that the Biden administration’s extension of Title 42 would “exacerbate chaos and irregular migration at the Southern border.” But they could go further in highlighting the death toll that will result from such a “middle proposition.”
Recent history teaches us that migrants with few choices will risk their lives in trudging through the Southwest. Not unlike Reyes’s grandparents, hunger, destitution, persecution and violence in their countries of origin and on the streets of Mexico will drive people to risk their lives in search of the American Dream. Like previous administrations, the Biden administration’s plans will cause further suffering and the death of innumerable people seeking refuge on American soil.
|
Increased seismic activity from one of Hawaii’s – and Earth’s – most active volcanoes led to roughly 320 earthquakes in 24 hours, according to the United States Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.
The reported earthquakes beneath the highest point of Kīlauea, which is not erupting as of Friday, began Wednesday as the volcano started showing signs of elevated unrest, according to a USGS news release.
Most of the earthquakes came from the ongoing seismic swarm in a region south of Kilauea’s summit caldera at depths of up to 2 miles beneath the surface, the observatory reported.
Officials said “significant hazards” remained around Halemaʻumaʻu, including “crater wall instability, ground cracking and rockfalls that can be enhanced by earthquakes” in an area closed off from the public.
Inflation, or ground surface swelling, at the summit of Kīlauea has nearly returned to the level seen shortly before the last eruption on September 10, when the volcano erupted for the first time in nearly three months, the USGS said.
A livestream on Friday from the USGS showed small streams of smoke seeping up from the volcano’s Halemaʻumaʻu crater.
While there are no reported eruptions, officials warned of potentially hazardous levels of volcanic gas in downwind areas and rockfalls enhanced by earthquakes.
Sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide levels can remain locally hazardous even though Kīlauea is not erupting, according to the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.
The frequency of earthquakes in the area had decreased by Friday at 6 a.m. local time, but officials said seismicity is still considered to be elevated.
Because of the seismic activity and inflation at the summit, the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park has temporarily closed some trails, viewing areas and parking lots, the National Park Service said Friday.
Kīlauea’s eruption on September 10 ended after six days and “was the briefest of the five eruptions that have occurred at the summit of Kīlauea since 2020,” the USGS said.
Prior to the September eruption, Hawaii’s youngest volcano briefly erupted in June, emitting lava fountain bursts up to 200 feet high, CNN previously reported.
CNN’s Melissa Alonso, Raja Razek, Nouran Salahieh and Ashley R. Williams contributed to this report.
|
<urn:uuid:41348f91-fd10-46d1-84d9-30b68a729c46>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-50",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100739.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20231208081124-20231208111124-00397.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9470739364624023,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.015625,
"token_count": 511,
"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/06/us/hawaii-klauea-volcano-earthquakes/index.html"
}
|
Increased seismic activity from one of Hawaii’s – and Earth’s – most active volcanoes led to roughly 320 earthquakes in 24 hours, according to the United States Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.
The reported earthquakes beneath the highest point of Kīlauea, which is not erupting as of Friday, began Wednesday as the volcano started showing signs of elevated unrest, according to a USGS news release.
Most of the earthquakes came from the ongoing seismic swarm in a region south of Kilauea’s summit caldera at depths of up to 2 miles beneath the surface, the observatory
|
reported.
Officials said “significant hazards” remained around Halemaʻumaʻu, including “crater wall instability, ground cracking and rockfalls that can be enhanced by earthquakes” in an area closed off from the public.
Inflation, or ground surface swelling, at the summit of Kīlauea has nearly returned to the level seen shortly before the last eruption on September 10, when the volcano erupted for the first time in nearly three months, the USGS said.
A livestream on Friday from the USGS showed small streams of smoke seeping up from the volcano’s Halemaʻumaʻu crater.
While there are no reported eruptions, officials warned of potentially hazardous levels of volcanic gas in downwind areas and rockfalls enhanced by earthquakes.
Sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide levels can remain locally hazardous even though Kīlauea is not erupting, according to the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.
The frequency of earthquakes in the area had decreased by Friday at 6 a.m. local time, but officials said seismicity is still considered to be elevated.
Because of the seismic activity and inflation at the summit, the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park has temporarily closed some trails, viewing areas and parking lots, the National Park Service said Friday.
Kīlauea’s eruption on September 10 ended after six days and “was the briefest of the five eruptions that have occurred at the summit of Kīlauea since 2020,” the USGS said.
Prior to the September eruption, Hawaii’s youngest volcano briefly erupted in June, emitting lava fountain bursts up to 200 feet high, CNN previously reported.
CNN’s Melissa Alonso, Raja Razek, Nouran Salahieh and Ashley R. Williams contributed to this report.
|
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.
Beginning decades ago as ideas that seemed more like science fiction, these missions took years of research and testing to come to life.
Technological advances and scientific breakthroughs have transformed how we observe and investigate the cosmos. How will space exploration change in the coming decades, and what new possibilities will emerge?
These questions are at the heart of NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts program, or NIAC, which awards funding for concepts that could be part of future missions.
“NASA dares to make the impossible possible,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement. “That’s only achievable because of the innovators, thinkers, and doers who are helping us imagine and prepare for the future of space exploration. The NIAC program helps give these forward-thinking scientists and engineers the tools and support they need to spur technology that will enable future NASA missions.”
The lastest NIAC competition selected 14 new concepts, awarding each $175,000 in January. Now, these researchers have nine months to use that funding toward refining and testing their ideas to see whether they can advance to the second phase of funding, which is $600,000 to flesh out their concepts and bring them closer to reality.
Only five projects have made it to the third phase during the NIAC program — $2 million to make something implementable.
Active since 2011, the competitive program is open to a broad range of ideas as long as they are technically credible, said Michael LaPointe, program executive for NIAC at NASA.
Some of the latest NIAC-funded concepts include a fluid space telescope, self-growing bricks intended for Mars and a plane that could fly on Saturn’s moon Titan, among others. Many of the ideas are the result of creative collaborations between experts in different fields challenging one another to come up with new ideas.
“It really is a community of innovators,” LaPointe said. “We’re looking for ideas that will enable brand-new ways of doing things.”
Self-growing bricks for Mars
For the past few years, Congrui Jin and her research group have used bacteria and fungi to heal cracks in concrete. Jin, an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, now wants to take her idea to space. Her self-growing bricks could one day build habitats and other structures for human explorers on the red planet.
The concept would involve sending bacterial and fungal spores and a bioreactor to Mars. The bioreactor is needed for the microbes to survive because Mars’ natural environment would be too harsh for them. But Mars would provide the rest of the necessary ingredients for the self-growing bricks, including dust and soil, sunlight, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and water from melted ice.
In turn, the bacteria can produce oxygen and organic carbon to support the fungi. The process, once all of these ingredients are inside the bioreactor, would also create calcium carbonate to serve as the glue.
The bacteria, fungi and minerals will bind Martian soil together to form blocks, which can later be used to make floors, walls and even furniture.
Jin’s group, which includes some students, screens the most suitable types of fungi and bacteria and tests which ones work best together. The team is also building a bioreactor to calibrate the atmosphere, pressure, temperature and illumination required to grow the bricks.
“The very important feature of this technology is its autonomous nature, and it doesn’t require any human intervention,” Jin said. “We initially just need to provide small quantities of spores to start this process, and the rest is automatic.”
Saturn’s moon Titan has long intrigued astronomers with its thick atmosphere and lakes and rivers of methane. It’s a unique place in our solar system in which chemistry that’s taking place may be similar to what occurred on early Earth. A rover-size drone called Dragonfly is expected to launch for this moon in 2027 to study its fine-grained, drier organic material.
Quinn Morley, principal investigator at Planet Enterprises in Gig Harbor, Washington, and his collaborators at Washington State University and other institutions envision a complementary Titan mission to explore the wetter regions of the intriguing moon. The seaplane-like design, called TitanAir, would soar through Titan’s atmosphere and sail on its lakes.
TitanAir could reach the moon about a decade after Dragonfly “to help unlock key secrets of this alien planet,” Morley said.
The front section of the plane’s wing would “drink” liquid methane that forms on the wing’s surface as the plane flies through rain clouds. The liquid collected inside the wing could be analyzed by instruments and transmitted back to Earth.
A small rover or helicopter could fly to places the plane can’t reach and return samples to the plane. Beginning in the fall, Morley wants to partner with engineering student design teams at Washington State on ideas for TitanAir.
“The analysis of clouds, lakes, and shorelines allows us to attack the search for life in three unique ways with one spacecraft,” Morley said in an email, “increasing our chances of unlocking these profound mysteries.”
Large space observatories such as the Hubble Space Telescope and Webb telescope are the result of decades of funding, design, assembly and testing. But there is a growing demand for a wider range of telescopes that can be developed cheaper and more quickly.
Several new NIAC concepts offer diverse ways of observing the cosmos like never before.
One design is FLUTE, or the Fluidic Telescope, from Edward Balaban, a research scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California, and his collaborators. Balaban has mostly worked in artificial intelligence and strategic planning for the upcoming VIPER lunar rover mission.
Balaban was inspired through conversations with colleagues both at Ames and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to develop a concept that could combine manipulating fluids with on-orbit assembly of a large telescope. The latter wouldn’t be limited by the size of its launch vehicle.
Under the plan, two launches would send an instrumentation spacecraft and a frame that can be filled with liquid into space. The liquid-filled frame creates a massive 50-meter (164-foot) mirror, while the instrumentation spacecraft will remain at a specific distance from the mirror to collect images and send them back to Earth, Balaban said
Balaban and his team are testing liquids that could act as the mirror, including ionic liquids called molten salts. Researchers will use their grant to work on constructing a frame to hold the liquid and the design for the instrumentation spacecraft. Such a telescope could be impervious to the micrometeoroid strikes that the Webb telescope has experienced because the liquids wouldn’t be affected, he said.
A large light-collecting surface such as FLUTE could glimpse the faint light of early galaxies or look inside the atmospheres of exoplanets.
“Believe it or not, we might be able to start seeing surface features on the nearest exoplanets,” Balaban said. “Instead of seeing them as pinpoints of light, we might be able to tell if they have continents, for example.”
Searching for another Earth
Meanwhile, Heidi Jo Newberg, a professor of physics, applied physics, and astronomy at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and her collaborators have a concept for a telescope that could find “Earth 2.0.”
The team’s idea is to search for nearby habitable planets by changing up the centuries-old design for telescopes. It’s called DICER, or a Diffractive Interfero Coronagraph Exoplanet Resolver.
Earth-size exoplanets are small and faint, especially compared with the bright stars they orbit, so conventional thinking suggests that searching for such planets would require a telescope with three times the diameter of the Webb telescope — which at 6.5 meters (21 feet 4 inches) is the largest mirror ever flown in space.
A 20-meter (65-foot) telescope currently isn’t feasible because it would be difficult to launch such a large mirror into space.
But DICER would rely on two small mirrors as well as two 10-meter diffraction gratings, or optical components that diffract light, that can be easily packed up inside a rocket. Think about the rainbow visible on the back of a CD when you hold it up to the light — that’s diffraction grating. The gratings could collect the same amount of light as a 20-meter telescope.
“This idea brings down the size and the weight of what you have to send up into space to get the desired high resolution of a telescope like Webb,” Newberg said. “What we’re trying to do is exploit this out-of-the-box design to make it possible to find Earth-like planets.”
The team will work on the scale of the optics and determine whether the telescope could also be used to study exoplanet atmospheres.
The invisible sky
Despite advances in the types of light telescopes can see, low-frequency radio waves remain invisible to us.
Dr. Mary Knapp, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Haystack Observatory, and her collaborators are working on a concept that could reveal this part of the radio wave spectrum. The waves are unobservable by ground-based radio telescopes due to the distorting effects of Earth’s upper atmosphere.
“I learned back in my undergrad days that there was this part of the spectrum we couldn’t see,” Knapp said. “It really just struck me that there was this unexplored part of the universe, and I want to explore this part of the sky for the first time.”
The Great Observatory for Long Wavelengths, or GO-LoW, would rely on a fleet of thousands of shoebox-size satellites that act in concert, like one large virtual telescope. Small satellites are cost-effective, and mega-constellations of them can be launched at once on a single, large rocket.
The observatory could measure low-frequency electromagnetic radiation, which would carry a wealth of data for astronomers who want to observe the oldest stars and galaxies and understand the magnetic fields of exoplanets and stars. This information can help scientists more easily spot habitable planets. Magnetic fields help planets maintain their atmospheres.
The team will focus next on the antenna design for the satellites and the potential architecture needed for the satellites in space. If GO-LoW is developed, it could be used to create a new map of the sky.
“Anytime we look at the universe in a new part of the spectrum, we’ve seen things we didn’t expect,” Knapp said. “I’m really excited about what we don’t know.”
|
<urn:uuid:81d3b301-32e3-4fbf-84f0-03e1ed288239>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-50",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100989.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20231209233632-20231210023632-00735.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9369853734970093,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.796875,
"token_count": 2326,
"url": "https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/04/world/nasa-niac-space-exploration-concepts-scn/index.html"
}
|
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.
Beginning decades ago as ideas that seemed more like science fiction, these missions took years of research and testing to come to life.
Technological advances and scientific breakthroughs have transformed how we observe and investigate the cosmos. How will space exploration change in the coming decades, and what new possibilities will emerge?
These questions are at the heart of NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts program, or NIAC, which awards funding for concepts that could be part of future missions.
“NASA dares to make the impossible possible
|
,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement. “That’s only achievable because of the innovators, thinkers, and doers who are helping us imagine and prepare for the future of space exploration. The NIAC program helps give these forward-thinking scientists and engineers the tools and support they need to spur technology that will enable future NASA missions.”
The lastest NIAC competition selected 14 new concepts, awarding each $175,000 in January. Now, these researchers have nine months to use that funding toward refining and testing their ideas to see whether they can advance to the second phase of funding, which is $600,000 to flesh out their concepts and bring them closer to reality.
Only five projects have made it to the third phase during the NIAC program — $2 million to make something implementable.
Active since 2011, the competitive program is open to a broad range of ideas as long as they are technically credible, said Michael LaPointe, program executive for NIAC at NASA.
Some of the latest NIAC-funded concepts include a fluid space telescope, self-growing bricks intended for Mars and a plane that could fly on Saturn’s moon Titan, among others. Many of the ideas are the result of creative collaborations between experts in different fields challenging one another to come up with new ideas.
“It really is a community of innovators,” LaPointe said. “We’re looking for ideas that will enable brand-new ways of doing things.”
Self-growing bricks for Mars
For the past few years, Congrui Jin and her research group have used bacteria and fungi to heal cracks in concrete. Jin, an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, now wants to take her idea to space. Her self-growing bricks could one day build habitats and other structures for human explorers on the red planet.
The concept would involve sending bacterial and fungal spores and a bioreactor to Mars. The bioreactor is needed for the microbes to survive because Mars’ natural environment would be too harsh for them. But Mars would provide the rest of the necessary ingredients for the self-growing bricks, including dust and soil, sunlight, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and water from melted ice.
In turn, the bacteria can produce oxygen and organic carbon to support the fungi. The process, once all of these ingredients are inside the bioreactor, would also create calcium carbonate to serve as the glue.
The bacteria, fungi and minerals will bind Martian soil together to form blocks, which can later be used to make floors, walls and even furniture.
Jin’s group, which includes some students, screens the most suitable types of fungi and bacteria and tests which ones work best together. The team is also building a bioreactor to calibrate the atmosphere, pressure, temperature and illumination required to grow the bricks.
“The very important feature of this technology is its autonomous nature, and it doesn’t require any human intervention,” Jin said. “We initially just need to provide small quantities of spores to start this process, and the rest is automatic.”
Saturn’s moon Titan has long intrigued astronomers with its thick atmosphere and lakes and rivers of methane. It’s a unique place in our solar system in which chemistry that’s taking place may be similar to what occurred on early Earth. A rover-size drone called Dragonfly is expected to launch for this moon in 2027 to study its fine-grained, drier organic material.
Quinn Morley, principal investigator at Planet Enterprises in Gig Harbor, Washington, and his collaborators at Washington State University and other institutions envision a complementary Titan mission to explore the wetter regions of the intriguing moon. The seaplane-like design, called TitanAir, would soar through Titan’s atmosphere and sail on its lakes.
TitanAir could reach the moon about a decade after Dragonfly “to help unlock key secrets of this alien planet,” Morley said.
The front section of the plane’s wing would “drink” liquid methane that forms on the wing’s surface as the plane flies through rain clouds. The liquid collected inside the wing could be analyzed by instruments and transmitted back to Earth.
A small rover or helicopter could fly to places the plane can’t reach and return samples to the plane. Beginning in the fall, Morley wants to partner with engineering student design teams at Washington State on ideas for TitanAir.
“The analysis of clouds, lakes, and shorelines allows us to attack the search for life in three unique ways with one spacecraft,” Morley said in an email, “increasing our chances of unlocking these profound mysteries.”
Large space observatories such as the Hubble Space Telescope and Webb telescope are the result of decades of funding, design, assembly and testing. But there is a growing demand for a wider range of telescopes that can be developed cheaper and more quickly.
Several new NIAC concepts offer diverse ways of observing the cosmos like never before.
One design is FLUTE, or the Fluidic Telescope, from Edward Balaban, a research scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California, and his collaborators. Balaban has mostly worked in artificial intelligence and strategic planning for the upcoming VIPER lunar rover mission.
Balaban was inspired through conversations with colleagues both at Ames and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to develop a concept that could combine manipulating fluids with on-orbit assembly of a large telescope. The latter wouldn’t be limited by the size of its launch vehicle.
Under the plan, two launches would send an instrumentation spacecraft and a frame that can be filled with liquid into space. The liquid-filled frame creates a massive 50-meter (164-foot) mirror, while the instrumentation spacecraft will remain at a specific distance from the mirror to collect images and send them back to Earth, Balaban said
Balaban and his team are testing liquids that could act as the mirror, including ionic liquids called molten salts. Researchers will use their grant to work on constructing a frame to hold the liquid and the design for the instrumentation spacecraft. Such a telescope could be impervious to the micrometeoroid strikes that the Webb telescope has experienced because the liquids wouldn’t be affected, he said.
A large light-collecting surface such as FLUTE could glimpse the faint light of early galaxies or look inside the atmospheres of exoplanets.
“Believe it or not, we might be able to start seeing surface features on the nearest exoplanets,” Balaban said. “Instead of seeing them as pinpoints of light, we might be able to tell if they have continents, for example.”
Searching for another Earth
Meanwhile, Heidi Jo Newberg, a professor of physics, applied physics, and astronomy at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and her collaborators have a concept for a telescope that could find “Earth 2.0.”
The team’s idea is to search for nearby habitable planets by changing up the centuries-old design for telescopes. It’s called DICER, or a Diffractive Interfero Coronagraph Exoplanet Resolver.
Earth-size exoplanets are small and faint, especially compared with the bright stars they orbit, so conventional thinking suggests that searching for such planets would require a telescope with three times the diameter of the Webb telescope — which at 6.5 meters (21 feet 4 inches) is the largest mirror ever flown in space.
A 20-meter (65-foot) telescope currently isn’t feasible because it would be difficult to launch such a large mirror into space.
But DICER would rely on two small mirrors as well as two 10-meter diffraction gratings, or optical components that diffract light, that can be easily packed up inside a rocket. Think about the rainbow visible on the back of a CD when you hold it up to the light — that’s diffraction grating. The gratings could collect the same amount of light as a 20-meter telescope.
“This idea brings down the size and the weight of what you have to send up into space to get the desired high resolution of a telescope like Webb,” Newberg said. “What we’re trying to do is exploit this out-of-the-box design to make it possible to find Earth-like planets.”
The team will work on the scale of the optics and determine whether the telescope could also be used to study exoplanet atmospheres.
The invisible sky
Despite advances in the types of light telescopes can see, low-frequency radio waves remain invisible to us.
Dr. Mary Knapp, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Haystack Observatory, and her collaborators are working on a concept that could reveal this part of the radio wave spectrum. The waves are unobservable by ground-based radio telescopes due to the distorting effects of Earth’s upper atmosphere.
“I learned back in my undergrad days that there was this part of the spectrum we couldn’t see,” Knapp said. “It really just struck me that there was this unexplored part of the universe, and I want to explore this part of the sky for the first time.”
The Great Observatory for Long Wavelengths, or GO-LoW, would rely on a fleet of thousands of shoebox-size satellites that act in concert, like one large virtual telescope. Small satellites are cost-effective, and mega-constellations of them can be launched at once on a single, large rocket.
The observatory could measure low-frequency electromagnetic radiation, which would carry a wealth of data for astronomers who want to observe the oldest stars and galaxies and understand the magnetic fields of exoplanets and stars. This information can help scientists more easily spot habitable planets. Magnetic fields help planets maintain their atmospheres.
The team will focus next on the antenna design for the satellites and the potential architecture needed for the satellites in space. If GO-LoW is developed, it could be used to create a new map of the sky.
“Anytime we look at the universe in a new part of the spectrum, we’ve seen things we didn’t expect,” Knapp said. “I’m really excited about what we don’t know.”
|
A ridge of high-pressure air parked east of Colorado has produced record amounts of rainfall for many Front Range communities in June.
With 5.23 inches of rain recorded at Denver International Airport so far this month, it's been the rainiest June in Denver since the 1880s, according to National Weather Service data. Greeley and Colorado Springs have also logged record amounts of precipitation at 4.37 inches and 9.47 inches, respectively.
Thunderstorms, fueled by moisture from air over the Gulf of Mexico, have turned dangerous at times. A fast-developing storm cell unleashed golf ball-sized hail on Red Rocks concertgoers this week.
Rain flooded several roads and bridges in Elbert, Arapahoe and Douglas counties Wednesday night. One person also died in rural Arapahoe County when a stream of stormwater swept their car away.
An EF-1 tornado that spun off from the storm traveled more than six miles across Highlands Ranch, unrooting trees, knocking over fences and bending streetlights.
Local authorities made a disaster declaration to help with cleanup efforts.
A block of lower-pressure air in the atmosphere just west of Colorado has helped fuel the steady stream of rain and storms, said Scott Entrekin, NWS meteorologist. But it’s beginning to dissipate, which means drier air from the southwest is moving over the state.
“That’s pretty much cut off our rain chances here through early next week,” he said.
Other Front Range communities have received near-record amounts of rain due to the wet weather pattern.
Evergreen and other Front Range foothill communities have logged a lot — around 4.52 inches. That’s just shy of a June 1949 record of 4.87 inches.
Fort Collins has seen about 5.19 inches so far in June, which is about an inch shy of its record set in 1949.
Farther south and west, the month has been drier.
Pueblo is about halfway to its all-time June record of 6.55 inches of rain set in 1921.
And Grand Junction, Steamboat Springs and Gunnison have seen less than half of the totals their June records are at.
The Denver metro can expect to dry out by next week, when temps are expected to top out in the mid to high 80s.
“It’s gonna be a lot drier, more normal summer weather from here on out,” Entrekin said.
You want to know what is really going on these days, especially in Colorado. We can help you keep up. The Lookout is a free, daily email newsletter with news and happenings from all over Colorado. Sign up here and we will see you in the morning!
|
<urn:uuid:2e7fc125-e9ac-49ad-82a5-e96985c845f8>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510501.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20230929090526-20230929120526-00781.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9565756916999817,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.515625,
"token_count": 577,
"url": "https://www.cpr.org/2023/06/23/colorado-june-weather-rain/"
}
|
A ridge of high-pressure air parked east of Colorado has produced record amounts of rainfall for many Front Range communities in June.
With 5.23 inches of rain recorded at Denver International Airport so far this month, it's been the rainiest June in Denver since the 1880s, according to National Weather Service data. Greeley and Colorado Springs have also logged record amounts of precipitation at 4.37 inches and 9.47 inches, respectively.
Thunderstorms, fueled by moisture from air over the Gulf of Mexico, have turned dangerous at times. A fast-developing storm cell
|
unleashed golf ball-sized hail on Red Rocks concertgoers this week.
Rain flooded several roads and bridges in Elbert, Arapahoe and Douglas counties Wednesday night. One person also died in rural Arapahoe County when a stream of stormwater swept their car away.
An EF-1 tornado that spun off from the storm traveled more than six miles across Highlands Ranch, unrooting trees, knocking over fences and bending streetlights.
Local authorities made a disaster declaration to help with cleanup efforts.
A block of lower-pressure air in the atmosphere just west of Colorado has helped fuel the steady stream of rain and storms, said Scott Entrekin, NWS meteorologist. But it’s beginning to dissipate, which means drier air from the southwest is moving over the state.
“That’s pretty much cut off our rain chances here through early next week,” he said.
Other Front Range communities have received near-record amounts of rain due to the wet weather pattern.
Evergreen and other Front Range foothill communities have logged a lot — around 4.52 inches. That’s just shy of a June 1949 record of 4.87 inches.
Fort Collins has seen about 5.19 inches so far in June, which is about an inch shy of its record set in 1949.
Farther south and west, the month has been drier.
Pueblo is about halfway to its all-time June record of 6.55 inches of rain set in 1921.
And Grand Junction, Steamboat Springs and Gunnison have seen less than half of the totals their June records are at.
The Denver metro can expect to dry out by next week, when temps are expected to top out in the mid to high 80s.
“It’s gonna be a lot drier, more normal summer weather from here on out,” Entrekin said.
You want to know what is really going on these days, especially in Colorado. We can help you keep up. The Lookout is a free, daily email newsletter with news and happenings from all over Colorado. Sign up here and we will see you in the morning!
|
Inge Brees is a policy and outreach manager at Search for Common Ground. Harriet Mackaill-Hill is a climate and peace advocacy advisor at International Alert.
Meeting the Paris Climate Agreement’s objective to limit the rise in global average temperature to well below 1.5 degrees Celsius will only be possible if we properly understand and mitigate the links between climate change and conflict.
And as this year’s U.N. Climate Change Conference COP 28 approaches, this connection needs to be on everyone’s mind.
Throughout the past century, the challenges of environmental degradation and the depletion of natural resources have evolved into potent catalysts for global insecurity and violent conflict. From the water scarcity crisis in Yemen to land ownership disputes in Kyrgyzstan and human rights violations during mining operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, we now encounter tensions that are fueled by climate-related issues and escalate into violent confrontation every day.
The number of fatal conflicts triggered over scarce water resources alone has increased by 300 percent since 2000.
But while the connection between climate change and conflict is well known, political discussions regarding potential solutions often lag behind. This year, however, for the first time in climate summit history, peace is finally being officially acknowledged at COP 28, with its first thematic day dedicated to “relief, recovery and peace.”
This initiative comes at a crucial time. Trillions of dollars will be spent to remedy the impact of climate change over the next decade, yet the distribution of climate finance remains uneven, leaving many exposed communities behind — particularly those most vulnerable to conflict.
In conflict-affected areas, the impact of climate change is one of many governmental priorities, and treating the two separately obstructs innovative and collaborative approaches, which are vital for addressing climate security risks.
It’s becoming increasingly evident that the success of climate policies hinges not only on reducing emissions but also on prioritizing peace. In essence, we need to make sure interventions don’t inadvertently contribute to further conflict, but create opportunities for stability and inclusivity instead.
For even the best-intentioned interventions can yield disastrous consequences if they fail to account for local context and conflict dynamics.
Let’s consider the rush for raw materials: The crucial shift toward a low-carbon society has led to a growing demand for specific minerals that are essential for solar panels, wind energy, electric cars and more. Unfortunately, the mining required for these minerals often brings about adverse environmental and human consequence — such as exploitation, land clearance and conflicts between large-scale and small-scale players. And most of these raw material reserves are in countries already at considerable risk of conflict.
This isn’t an argument for relying on polluting resources. Phasing out fossil fuels is the only way forward. But it’s imperative that alternative extraction processes are conducted in a manner that respects both people and the planet.
In other words, to prevent the emergence of new disputes and crises, the green transition must adhere to a conflict-sensitive approach.
Like green investment, climate finance needs to be conflict sensitive as well. This means better access to funding, allowing for the increased involvement and empowerment of local civil society organizations and authorities, and — from the donor side — a greater understanding of the risks associated with financing projects in conflict-affected settings in order to increase the flow of funding to such areas.
Local actors need to be able to have direct access to funds without having to go through their governments or, as is often the case, an international intermediary, and we need to move away from cumbersome accreditation processes. Moreover, we need to improve the capacity and understanding of funding frameworks in order to allow for their greater participation and for governments and local civil society organizations to access funding.
Along these lines, the announcement of the Loss and Damage Fund at COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh — a fund designed to compensate those severely impacted by the climate crisis and hold the largest polluters accountable — was celebrated as a victory in the battle for climate justice.
But to deliver this much-needed compensation, we need to reach an agreement concerning critical aspects of the fund, including its governance, structure, location, funding sources and beneficiaries. It’s also essential that the fund and other similar mechanisms aren’t just conflict sensitive but also de facto accessible to populations affected by climate change in fragile, conflict-affected settings.
Thus, the inclusion of peace as an official thematic day at COP28 helps create much-needed momentum toward this goal. However, it should mark the beginning of the discussion — not the endpoint.
These talks need to address the importance of conflict sensitivity and of scaling up climate action in conflict-affected settings, then subsequently incorporate them into implemented agreements. Governments, NGOs and donors should also collectively provide both political and financial support for such conflict-sensitive climate solutions. And, crucially, these efforts should be carried out in consultation with local communities, which possess much deeper contextual understanding.
Indeed, climate change can present an opportunity to bring people together across dividing lines so they can address this shared existential challenge, thereby providing a chance for building peace.
It can be done — and we shouldn’t aim for anything less.
|
<urn:uuid:93415439-c761-44b9-9e76-b23ed121493c>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2024-10",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947474674.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20240227085429-20240227115429-00612.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9410386681556702,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3,
"token_count": 1066,
"url": "https://dnyuz.com/2023/11/30/climate-action-must-avoid-fueling-conflict/"
}
|
Inge Brees is a policy and outreach manager at Search for Common Ground. Harriet Mackaill-Hill is a climate and peace advocacy advisor at International Alert.
Meeting the Paris Climate Agreement’s objective to limit the rise in global average temperature to well below 1.5 degrees Celsius will only be possible if we properly understand and mitigate the links between climate change and conflict.
And as this year’s U.N. Climate Change Conference COP 28 approaches, this connection needs to be on everyone’s mind.
Throughout the past century, the challenges of environmental degradation and the depletion of natural resources have evolved into potent catalysts for global insecurity and violent
|
conflict. From the water scarcity crisis in Yemen to land ownership disputes in Kyrgyzstan and human rights violations during mining operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, we now encounter tensions that are fueled by climate-related issues and escalate into violent confrontation every day.
The number of fatal conflicts triggered over scarce water resources alone has increased by 300 percent since 2000.
But while the connection between climate change and conflict is well known, political discussions regarding potential solutions often lag behind. This year, however, for the first time in climate summit history, peace is finally being officially acknowledged at COP 28, with its first thematic day dedicated to “relief, recovery and peace.”
This initiative comes at a crucial time. Trillions of dollars will be spent to remedy the impact of climate change over the next decade, yet the distribution of climate finance remains uneven, leaving many exposed communities behind — particularly those most vulnerable to conflict.
In conflict-affected areas, the impact of climate change is one of many governmental priorities, and treating the two separately obstructs innovative and collaborative approaches, which are vital for addressing climate security risks.
It’s becoming increasingly evident that the success of climate policies hinges not only on reducing emissions but also on prioritizing peace. In essence, we need to make sure interventions don’t inadvertently contribute to further conflict, but create opportunities for stability and inclusivity instead.
For even the best-intentioned interventions can yield disastrous consequences if they fail to account for local context and conflict dynamics.
Let’s consider the rush for raw materials: The crucial shift toward a low-carbon society has led to a growing demand for specific minerals that are essential for solar panels, wind energy, electric cars and more. Unfortunately, the mining required for these minerals often brings about adverse environmental and human consequence — such as exploitation, land clearance and conflicts between large-scale and small-scale players. And most of these raw material reserves are in countries already at considerable risk of conflict.
This isn’t an argument for relying on polluting resources. Phasing out fossil fuels is the only way forward. But it’s imperative that alternative extraction processes are conducted in a manner that respects both people and the planet.
In other words, to prevent the emergence of new disputes and crises, the green transition must adhere to a conflict-sensitive approach.
Like green investment, climate finance needs to be conflict sensitive as well. This means better access to funding, allowing for the increased involvement and empowerment of local civil society organizations and authorities, and — from the donor side — a greater understanding of the risks associated with financing projects in conflict-affected settings in order to increase the flow of funding to such areas.
Local actors need to be able to have direct access to funds without having to go through their governments or, as is often the case, an international intermediary, and we need to move away from cumbersome accreditation processes. Moreover, we need to improve the capacity and understanding of funding frameworks in order to allow for their greater participation and for governments and local civil society organizations to access funding.
Along these lines, the announcement of the Loss and Damage Fund at COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh — a fund designed to compensate those severely impacted by the climate crisis and hold the largest polluters accountable — was celebrated as a victory in the battle for climate justice.
But to deliver this much-needed compensation, we need to reach an agreement concerning critical aspects of the fund, including its governance, structure, location, funding sources and beneficiaries. It’s also essential that the fund and other similar mechanisms aren’t just conflict sensitive but also de facto accessible to populations affected by climate change in fragile, conflict-affected settings.
Thus, the inclusion of peace as an official thematic day at COP28 helps create much-needed momentum toward this goal. However, it should mark the beginning of the discussion — not the endpoint.
These talks need to address the importance of conflict sensitivity and of scaling up climate action in conflict-affected settings, then subsequently incorporate them into implemented agreements. Governments, NGOs and donors should also collectively provide both political and financial support for such conflict-sensitive climate solutions. And, crucially, these efforts should be carried out in consultation with local communities, which possess much deeper contextual understanding.
Indeed, climate change can present an opportunity to bring people together across dividing lines so they can address this shared existential challenge, thereby providing a chance for building peace.
It can be done — and we shouldn’t aim for anything less.
|
Start your own tomatoes and peppers from seed in January
A few years ago, I planted pepper seeds for the first time to make my own paprika. This small start sent me on a journey from my bathroom window to a small growing tent in my closet and eventually to some of the best and most interesting paprika I have ever tasted.
Peppers and tomatoes are both members of the nightshade family. In our area they have similar growing habits and time frames for planting. The timing of seed planting is one of the most important aspects of growing vegetables. Other considerations include available equipment, quantity of plants needed, and the planting and caring of the seeds and seedlings.
When choosing a pepper or tomato to grow from seed, consider how you are planning to use the produce. For instance, if you enjoy pasta with red sauce, a determinate Roma-style tomato might be the best choice. For hot sauces, I have enjoyed some of the super-hot peppers, although one plant is often enough!
Sharing or exchanging your extra plants with friends is often an option to gain a diversity of varieties after you have too many plants. If growing a whole seed packet of one variety, I usually have a project in mind that requires lots of the same variety of pepper or tomato.
The equipment needed for starting peppers and tomatoes consists of a heat mat, grow light, containers to start the seeds in, watering can, fertilizer, and growing medium. Tomatoes do not need as much heat to germinate as a lot of the peppers. It is possible to grow both in a south facing window or greenhouse but without sufficient light and heat the peppers will be very slow to grow.
Peppers prefer to be germinated between 70 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit, while tomatoes prefer 65 to 85 degrees. My house is usually under 70 in the winter, so I run a heat mat to keep the soil temperature closer to 80 degrees. This is the same with the lighting situation, which requires me to use a grow light to get sufficient light to the seedlings.
You can use a good quality potting soil or seed starting mix as your growing medium. Your container could be a nursery flat with individual cells or small two-inch pots. Here is my recipe for sowing the seed:
- Fill the seed starting flat or individual pots with seed starter mix
- Place three to four seeds per cell or pot
- Gently sprinkle worm castings to cover seeds (or use more of the potting medium)
- Press down to achieve good seed to soil contact
Water lightly using a watering can with a fine shower or water from the bottom to keep disturbance to a minimumThe seeds will usually germinate in five to 10 days, but some peppers in low temperatures can take a few weeks so don’t toss empty containers immediately. During this time, keep the top portion of the container moist.
During germination the cotyledon will emerge, followed by the first set of true leaves. Make sure the seeds and plants are getting plenty of light, 14 to 16 hours. A window will only get a few hours when compared to a grow light. Select the strongest seedling in each cell or pot and cut out the others.
At this point the plant can be fertilized with a fish/seaweed product which is gentle and promotes a great burst of growth. Continue to water thoroughly and fertilizer once a week.
The best time to plant both the seeds of peppers and tomatoes is in January. Tomato seedlings can be planted outside in late February, then protected from frost, while peppers prefer a warmer temperature and should be planted outside after the last frost, usually in late March or April.
Many of the peppers are slow to grow while tomatoes shoot up very fast. Each growing season will be different and will present different challenges, but the final product is delicious and well worth the effort.
Joe Walthall is a co-owner at Native Nurseries, where he teaches vegetable gardening workshops, and is a volunteer writer for UF/IFAS Extension Leon County, an Equal Opportunity Institution. For gardening questions, email the extension office at <email-pii>.
|
<urn:uuid:a93522a0-123b-4e02-8be0-7976158acbac>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-06",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764499700.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20230129044527-20230129074527-00409.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9415144920349121,
"pii_count": 1,
"score": 2.625,
"token_count": 860,
"url": "https://www.tallahassee.com/story/life/home-garden/2023/01/12/tips-for-starting-your-own-tomatoes-and-peppers-from-seed-in-january/69787748007/"
}
|
Start your own tomatoes and peppers from seed in January
A few years ago, I planted pepper seeds for the first time to make my own paprika. This small start sent me on a journey from my bathroom window to a small growing tent in my closet and eventually to some of the best and most interesting paprika I have ever tasted.
Peppers and tomatoes are both members of the nightshade family. In our area they have similar growing habits and time frames for planting. The timing of seed planting is one of the most important aspects of growing vegetables. Other considerations include available equipment, quantity of plants needed, and the planting and
|
caring of the seeds and seedlings.
When choosing a pepper or tomato to grow from seed, consider how you are planning to use the produce. For instance, if you enjoy pasta with red sauce, a determinate Roma-style tomato might be the best choice. For hot sauces, I have enjoyed some of the super-hot peppers, although one plant is often enough!
Sharing or exchanging your extra plants with friends is often an option to gain a diversity of varieties after you have too many plants. If growing a whole seed packet of one variety, I usually have a project in mind that requires lots of the same variety of pepper or tomato.
The equipment needed for starting peppers and tomatoes consists of a heat mat, grow light, containers to start the seeds in, watering can, fertilizer, and growing medium. Tomatoes do not need as much heat to germinate as a lot of the peppers. It is possible to grow both in a south facing window or greenhouse but without sufficient light and heat the peppers will be very slow to grow.
Peppers prefer to be germinated between 70 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit, while tomatoes prefer 65 to 85 degrees. My house is usually under 70 in the winter, so I run a heat mat to keep the soil temperature closer to 80 degrees. This is the same with the lighting situation, which requires me to use a grow light to get sufficient light to the seedlings.
You can use a good quality potting soil or seed starting mix as your growing medium. Your container could be a nursery flat with individual cells or small two-inch pots. Here is my recipe for sowing the seed:
- Fill the seed starting flat or individual pots with seed starter mix
- Place three to four seeds per cell or pot
- Gently sprinkle worm castings to cover seeds (or use more of the potting medium)
- Press down to achieve good seed to soil contact
Water lightly using a watering can with a fine shower or water from the bottom to keep disturbance to a minimumThe seeds will usually germinate in five to 10 days, but some peppers in low temperatures can take a few weeks so don’t toss empty containers immediately. During this time, keep the top portion of the container moist.
During germination the cotyledon will emerge, followed by the first set of true leaves. Make sure the seeds and plants are getting plenty of light, 14 to 16 hours. A window will only get a few hours when compared to a grow light. Select the strongest seedling in each cell or pot and cut out the others.
At this point the plant can be fertilized with a fish/seaweed product which is gentle and promotes a great burst of growth. Continue to water thoroughly and fertilizer once a week.
The best time to plant both the seeds of peppers and tomatoes is in January. Tomato seedlings can be planted outside in late February, then protected from frost, while peppers prefer a warmer temperature and should be planted outside after the last frost, usually in late March or April.
Many of the peppers are slow to grow while tomatoes shoot up very fast. Each growing season will be different and will present different challenges, but the final product is delicious and well worth the effort.
Joe Walthall is a co-owner at Native Nurseries, where he teaches vegetable gardening workshops, and is a volunteer writer for UF/IFAS Extension Leon County, an Equal Opportunity Institution. For gardening questions, email the extension office at <email-pii>.
|
A hundred years later, a Welsh women's peace petition returns home
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Dreams of world peace are as old as wars. But as the women of Wales were recovering from the First World War, they demanded peace in droves. One hundred years ago, 1923, a group of Welsh women drafted a petition for peace, and they got three-quarters of all the women in Wales to sign on. Then they packed up the document into a big oak chest and sent it across the Atlantic so that women in America could join the movement, too. Well, now it has made the journey back home to Wales. Professor and poet Mererid Hopwood is overseeing the effort to start digitizing the signatures and find out just who all these women were. She joins us now from Aberystwyth in Wales. Professor Hopwood, welcome.
MERERID HOPWOOD: (Speaking Welsh). Thank you very much.
KELLY: Oh, it's lovely to have you and to hear that accent. I want to give people a sense of scale of this thing. I've read that it's almost 400,000 signatures, and that if you laid them into end, they would stretch 7 miles.
HOPWOOD: Well, that's right. That's how it was reported when it arrived in New York.
KELLY: So it sat on this side, the American side of the Atlantic, for a hundred years and I gather was largely forgotten. How did it resurface?
HOPWOOD: Well, that's right. So a hundred years after the end of the First World War, people went rummaging around the Temple of Peace and Health in Cardiff, which has a magnificent archive. And there was a curious plaque sort of thing made of Moroccan leather with gold lettering, bilingual message saying something about this petition that nobody seemed to know about. We certainly we hadn't been taught this in school or anything. So from then the story was sort of recovered. And in 2017, the first email was sent to the Smithsonian to say we believe this chest and petition is there. And it's from there that we've been working to see how best we can digitize it.
KELLY: What kind of interest are you hearing from people today in Wales? Are people interested in knowing, like, you know, did my great-great-great-grandmother sign this or did the person who lived in my house a hundred years ago sign this?
HOPWOOD: That's right. You can't imagine the excitement that the truck arrived in the National Library of Wales last Wednesday. And it was, yeah, an emotional moment.
KELLY: Just stay with that moment for a second. Is it still in that oak chest? Was there a moment where you got to open it?
HOPWOOD: It was in the oak chest. These 400,000 signatures have been carefully put together in boxes. We were given white gloves and were allowed to open just a few to have a look. And as you can imagine, the inevitable thing happened. One of the women in the gathering there on Wednesday said, oh, I know that house (laughter).
KELLY: Oh, my goodness.
HOPWOOD: I had a good little look, but didn't quite see anybody I could claim. But, you know, we will find these people in the end.
KELLY: The original goal was so idealistic. And here we sit in 2023, and we obviously have not achieved a peaceful world, a world without war. For you, this history - I can hear in your voice - it does bring hope. It brings joy. Tell me why.
HOPWOOD: It does. The ambition - these people weren't afraid to think that this was possible, and the common-sense approach, OK, so how can we do that? Let's call on our sisters in the States to see if they can help bring that about. And I think, you know, one of the things we've had as a guiding principle for the partnership is this - to hold on to hope and to interpret hope not as a crossing of fingers, but as a power and energy of force that can enable us to do two things. First of all, to see that better place, and secondly, to know the way to get there. It is possible. We have to believe that.
KELLY: That is Mererid Hopwood, professor at Aberystwyth University and chair of the Peace Petition Partnership at the National Peace Institute of Wales. Thank you so much. And good luck.
HOPWOOD: Thank you. (Speaking Welsh). Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
|
<urn:uuid:2757bc6d-4aa1-4864-91c7-fcae30cda37b>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-23",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224653183.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20230606214755-20230607004755-00493.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9765904545783997,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.1875,
"token_count": 983,
"url": "https://www.tpr.org/2023-04-07/a-hundred-years-later-a-welsh-womens-peace-petition-returns-home"
}
|
A hundred years later, a Welsh women's peace petition returns home
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Dreams of world peace are as old as wars. But as the women of Wales were recovering from the First World War, they demanded peace in droves. One hundred years ago, 1923, a group of Welsh women drafted a petition for peace, and they got three-quarters of all the women in Wales to sign on. Then they packed up the document into a big oak chest and sent it across the Atlantic so that women in America could join the movement, too. Well, now it
|
has made the journey back home to Wales. Professor and poet Mererid Hopwood is overseeing the effort to start digitizing the signatures and find out just who all these women were. She joins us now from Aberystwyth in Wales. Professor Hopwood, welcome.
MERERID HOPWOOD: (Speaking Welsh). Thank you very much.
KELLY: Oh, it's lovely to have you and to hear that accent. I want to give people a sense of scale of this thing. I've read that it's almost 400,000 signatures, and that if you laid them into end, they would stretch 7 miles.
HOPWOOD: Well, that's right. That's how it was reported when it arrived in New York.
KELLY: So it sat on this side, the American side of the Atlantic, for a hundred years and I gather was largely forgotten. How did it resurface?
HOPWOOD: Well, that's right. So a hundred years after the end of the First World War, people went rummaging around the Temple of Peace and Health in Cardiff, which has a magnificent archive. And there was a curious plaque sort of thing made of Moroccan leather with gold lettering, bilingual message saying something about this petition that nobody seemed to know about. We certainly we hadn't been taught this in school or anything. So from then the story was sort of recovered. And in 2017, the first email was sent to the Smithsonian to say we believe this chest and petition is there. And it's from there that we've been working to see how best we can digitize it.
KELLY: What kind of interest are you hearing from people today in Wales? Are people interested in knowing, like, you know, did my great-great-great-grandmother sign this or did the person who lived in my house a hundred years ago sign this?
HOPWOOD: That's right. You can't imagine the excitement that the truck arrived in the National Library of Wales last Wednesday. And it was, yeah, an emotional moment.
KELLY: Just stay with that moment for a second. Is it still in that oak chest? Was there a moment where you got to open it?
HOPWOOD: It was in the oak chest. These 400,000 signatures have been carefully put together in boxes. We were given white gloves and were allowed to open just a few to have a look. And as you can imagine, the inevitable thing happened. One of the women in the gathering there on Wednesday said, oh, I know that house (laughter).
KELLY: Oh, my goodness.
HOPWOOD: I had a good little look, but didn't quite see anybody I could claim. But, you know, we will find these people in the end.
KELLY: The original goal was so idealistic. And here we sit in 2023, and we obviously have not achieved a peaceful world, a world without war. For you, this history - I can hear in your voice - it does bring hope. It brings joy. Tell me why.
HOPWOOD: It does. The ambition - these people weren't afraid to think that this was possible, and the common-sense approach, OK, so how can we do that? Let's call on our sisters in the States to see if they can help bring that about. And I think, you know, one of the things we've had as a guiding principle for the partnership is this - to hold on to hope and to interpret hope not as a crossing of fingers, but as a power and energy of force that can enable us to do two things. First of all, to see that better place, and secondly, to know the way to get there. It is possible. We have to believe that.
KELLY: That is Mererid Hopwood, professor at Aberystwyth University and chair of the Peace Petition Partnership at the National Peace Institute of Wales. Thank you so much. And good luck.
HOPWOOD: Thank you. (Speaking Welsh). Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
|
Innovations and advancements in the tech industry represent the continuous evolution and transformation of technologies, tools, and systems that shape the way we live, work, and interact with the world. These developments push the boundaries of what is possible, drive progress, and often lead to significant improvements in various aspects of our lives.
1. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)
Continued advancements in AI and ML have led to applications in various fields, such as natural language processing, computer vision, and healthcare diagnostics. AI-driven technologies are becoming more integrated into everyday life, from voice assistants like Siri and Alexa to personalized recommendations on streaming platforms.
2. 5G Technology
The rollout of 5G networks promises faster data speeds, lower latency, and improved connectivity. This technology enables innovations in areas like autonomous vehicles, IoT (Internet of Things), and remote healthcare.
3. Blockchain and Cryptocurrency
The blockchain technology behind cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum has garnered significant attention. Beyond cryptocurrencies, blockchain is being explored for applications in supply chain management, secure voting systems, and more.
4. Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR/AR)
VR and AR technologies have continued to evolve, with advancements in hardware and software leading to improved user experiences. These technologies find applications in gaming, education, training, and even virtual social interactions.
5. Biotechnology and Healthcare Tech
The convergence of technology and healthcare has led to innovations like telemedicine, wearable health devices, and AI-driven diagnostics. Genetic research and CRISPR technology are also making strides in precision medicine.
6. Renewable Energy and Sustainable Tech
Advances in solar panels, battery storage, and energy-efficient technologies are driving the transition towards sustainable energy sources. Electric vehicles (EVs) are becoming more mainstream, and efforts to reduce carbon emissions are influencing tech innovations.
7. Quantum Computing
Although still in the early stages, quantum computing holds the potential to revolutionize computing power and solve complex problems that are currently infeasible for classical computers.
With increasing reliance on digital infrastructure, cybersecurity remains a critical concern. Advancements in cybersecurity tools and techniques are essential to protect sensitive data and systems.
9. Environmental Monitoring and Conservation Tech
Internet of Things (IoT) devices and sensor networks are being used to monitor and manage environmental resources, aiding in conservation efforts and mitigating climate change.
|
<urn:uuid:25fa141c-6ff4-43fb-8338-3bb5f398680d>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510528.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20230929190403-20230929220403-00535.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9132770895957947,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.3125,
"token_count": 492,
"url": "https://vivify-alb-1032801524.ap-southeast-1.elb.amazonaws.com/2023/08/07/technology-news-innovations-and-advancements-in-the-tech-industry/"
}
|
Innovations and advancements in the tech industry represent the continuous evolution and transformation of technologies, tools, and systems that shape the way we live, work, and interact with the world. These developments push the boundaries of what is possible, drive progress, and often lead to significant improvements in various aspects of our lives.
1. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)
Continued advancements in AI and ML have led to applications in various fields, such as natural language processing, computer vision, and healthcare diagnostics. AI-driven technologies are becoming more integrated into everyday life, from voice assistants like Siri and Alexa to personalized recommendations
|
on streaming platforms.
2. 5G Technology
The rollout of 5G networks promises faster data speeds, lower latency, and improved connectivity. This technology enables innovations in areas like autonomous vehicles, IoT (Internet of Things), and remote healthcare.
3. Blockchain and Cryptocurrency
The blockchain technology behind cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum has garnered significant attention. Beyond cryptocurrencies, blockchain is being explored for applications in supply chain management, secure voting systems, and more.
4. Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR/AR)
VR and AR technologies have continued to evolve, with advancements in hardware and software leading to improved user experiences. These technologies find applications in gaming, education, training, and even virtual social interactions.
5. Biotechnology and Healthcare Tech
The convergence of technology and healthcare has led to innovations like telemedicine, wearable health devices, and AI-driven diagnostics. Genetic research and CRISPR technology are also making strides in precision medicine.
6. Renewable Energy and Sustainable Tech
Advances in solar panels, battery storage, and energy-efficient technologies are driving the transition towards sustainable energy sources. Electric vehicles (EVs) are becoming more mainstream, and efforts to reduce carbon emissions are influencing tech innovations.
7. Quantum Computing
Although still in the early stages, quantum computing holds the potential to revolutionize computing power and solve complex problems that are currently infeasible for classical computers.
With increasing reliance on digital infrastructure, cybersecurity remains a critical concern. Advancements in cybersecurity tools and techniques are essential to protect sensitive data and systems.
9. Environmental Monitoring and Conservation Tech
Internet of Things (IoT) devices and sensor networks are being used to monitor and manage environmental resources, aiding in conservation efforts and mitigating climate change.
|
DSU’s College of Agriculture, Science and Technology Dean Cherese Winstead breaks down Black farmers' needs
DSU’s College of Agriculture, Science and Technology Dean Cherese Winstead says creating the inaugural Black Farmers’ Conference was a year and a half in the making, but the number of Black farmers has plummeted for over a hundred years.
Winstead says in the early 1900s, about 17% of farmers were black, and in 2023, that number was 1.7%.
The First State African American Farmers Association suggested a conference to bring legislators, educators and farmers together to discuss how to support minority farmers.
Winstead believes many farmers simply aren’t aware of the financial assistance available.
“Just not understanding fully well what those wealth of resources are that exist within the government, which has led to that loss of 16 million acres of land lost," she said."
Winstead is referring to Black farmers losing an estimated 90% of the 16 million acres of land they owned by 1997.
“We really do have to educate and make our local farmers more aware of the resources, and that just really starts with those discussions with the U.S. government," she added.
During the conference, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced reparation funding for farmers who faced financial discrimination and bolstered insurance plans for smaller farms.
In addition to helping Black farmers find resources, Winstead says reducing the length and complexity of financial assistance applications can make a huge difference for minority farmers.
She hopes the Black Farmers’ conference becomes an annual event and ultimately helps increase the number of Black farmers in Delaware.
|
<urn:uuid:7af9c4cc-979c-42a7-b117-9d829c8d80d9>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-50",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100551.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20231205105136-20231205135136-00403.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9600303173065186,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.90625,
"token_count": 339,
"url": "https://www.delawarepublic.org/science-health-tech/2023-11-12/dsus-college-of-agriculture-science-and-technology-dean-cherese-winstead-breaks-down-black-farmers-needs"
}
|
DSU’s College of Agriculture, Science and Technology Dean Cherese Winstead breaks down Black farmers' needs
DSU’s College of Agriculture, Science and Technology Dean Cherese Winstead says creating the inaugural Black Farmers’ Conference was a year and a half in the making, but the number of Black farmers has plummeted for over a hundred years.
Winstead says in the early 1900s, about 17% of farmers were black, and in 2023, that number was 1.7%.
The First State African American Farmers Association suggested a conference to bring legislators, educators and
|
farmers together to discuss how to support minority farmers.
Winstead believes many farmers simply aren’t aware of the financial assistance available.
“Just not understanding fully well what those wealth of resources are that exist within the government, which has led to that loss of 16 million acres of land lost," she said."
Winstead is referring to Black farmers losing an estimated 90% of the 16 million acres of land they owned by 1997.
“We really do have to educate and make our local farmers more aware of the resources, and that just really starts with those discussions with the U.S. government," she added.
During the conference, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced reparation funding for farmers who faced financial discrimination and bolstered insurance plans for smaller farms.
In addition to helping Black farmers find resources, Winstead says reducing the length and complexity of financial assistance applications can make a huge difference for minority farmers.
She hopes the Black Farmers’ conference becomes an annual event and ultimately helps increase the number of Black farmers in Delaware.
|
To the much-discussed hallucinations of Large Language Models (LLM), their instability and lack of interpretability, we can now add their vulnerability to automated adversarial attacks forcing them to produce harmful content. But these are the least of their weaknesses. The depth of their understanding of the human world is a much more important hurdle for LLM to overcome before they become “superintelligence.”
According to ChatGPT creator OpenAI, however, this “most impactful technology humanity has ever invented,” could “arrive this decade” and could “lead to human extinction.”
We have already heard years ago that humanlike AI is just around the corner. At the time Terry Winograd entered graduate school in the late 1960s, most [intelligent and knowledgeable humans] “believed that it wouldn’t be long before machines would see, hear, speak, move, and otherwise perform humanlike tasks,” wrote John Markoff in Machines of Loving Grace.
For his PhD dissertation at MIT, Winograd developed SHRDLU, a computer program that was capable of participating in conversations about a made-up world, a “microworld” consisting of toy blocks and a “gripper” for moving them about. It responded to commands in English to manipulate the blocks using its gripper and it “understood” questions about the state of its world.
In his history of artificial intelligence, Nils Nilsson says that SHRDLU’s impressive performance made some NLP researchers “optimistic about future success.” But “Winograd soon abandoned this line of research in favor of pursuing work devoted to the interaction of computers and people. Perhaps because he had first-hand experience of how much knowledge was required for successful language understanding in something so simple as the blocks world, he despaired of ever giving computers enough knowledge to duplicate the full range of human verbal competence.”
Later, in 2006, Winograd saw statistical language understanding, neural networks and machine learning as new developments moving the AI field in the direction of his preferred approach to human-computer interaction. “Enlightened trial and error outperforms the planning of the flawless intellect” is at the center of this approach, he wrote, acknowledging “the limitations of knowing and modeling the complexities of the real human world.”
Further triumphs of the statistical analysis approach to AI, particularly in the domain of image identification in 2012, made most intelligent and knowledgeable humans believe that human-like machine intelligence or even “superintelligence” is, again, just around the corner.
Most, but not all. One popular tool used by those questioning the intelligence of the new AI became known as the Winograd Schema Challenge. This was the 2010 brainchild of Hector Levesque at the University of Toronto, based on an example of semantic ambiguity mentioned in Winograd’s 1972 “Understanding Natural Language.” To overcome the limitations of the “Turing Test,” Levesque suggested a multiple-choice test that requires the correct resolution of an ambiguous pronoun in a statement. For example,
The trophy doesn’t fit in the brown suitcase because it is too large. What is too large?
A. The trophy
B. The suitcase
“The challenge attracted a fair amount of favorable interest from both the research community and the popular science press. The naturalness of the problem made it a fair one for AI systems; the complexity of the inferences involved seemed to put it far beyond the range of what was then current technology,” wrote the authors of “The Defeat of the Winograd Schema Challenge” (January 2023).
Indeed, at the “first and last running of the Winograd Schema Challenge” which took place in 2016, the most successful of the six AI programs that entered it achieved a score of 58% on the test collection, only slightly better than chance. At the inaugural O’Reilly AI conference the same year, while some talked about “super-human” driverless cars that are just around the corner, others, including deep learning pioneer Yann LeCun, mentioned the Winograd Schema as an unsolved challenge in testing the machine’s knowledge of how the world works.
Just a year later, however, natural language processing (NLP) moved forward with Google’s researchers publishing “Attention is All You Need.” It proposed the Transformer (the T in ChatGPT), a new “network architecture” that improved considerably the (machine) learning of the dependencies among words even when they are far apart in the text. The result of this breakthrough, in addition to unleashing the avalanche of generative AI, was the defeat of the Winograd Schema Challenge, with AI going from “random guessing to human performance in a very short time span,” achieving a score of 90.1% in 2019.
Large language model GPT-3 achieved a similar score (88.3%) in 2020. Eager to see for myself the triumph of LLM, I ran a few Winograd Schema phrases by the July 20, 2023, version of ChatGPT. It gave me the correct answers to a couple of them. But then I presented it with "The sack of potatoes had been placed below the bag of flour, so it had to be moved first. What had to be moved first?” and got this in response:
In the given sentence, "it" refers to the sack of potatoes. The sentence "The sack of potatoes had been placed below the bag of flour, so it had to be moved first" means that the sack of potatoes had to be moved first before accessing or moving the bag of flour, which was placed on top of it.
When I switched the position of the sack of potatoes from “below” to “above,” I got this in response:
Apologies for any confusion in my previous response. In the given sentence, "it" refers to the bag of flour. The correct interpretation of the sentence is:
"The sack of potatoes had been placed above the bag of flour, so it had to be moved first."
This means that the bag of flour had to be moved first because it was below the sack of potatoes, and you needed to move it out of the way before accessing the sack of potatoes placed above it.
It appears that the great leap forward for AI, which some of its prominent developers say will lead soon to superintelligence that could destroy humanity, still does not have, at least in this case, a child-like understanding of space and motion and what’s involved in moving and manipulating physical objects.
Sometimes LLM appear to understand the world and how to operate in it, and sometimes they fail to do so. Sometimes their language skills lead to accurate translations and sometimes to complete failures. But what about their impressive performance in the Winograd Schema Challenge?
In the paper documenting the demise of the Winograd Schema Challenge, the researchers who worked for about ten years to promote it as a test of machine intelligence, attribute the human-like achievements of LLM to flaws in the test’s “formulation and execution.”
In addition, they reported that in the early 2010s, “when there were few signs that AI systems could succeed at the Winograd Schema Challenge, there were those who warned that it might be a less robust test than its creators hoped and believed. They argued that… success might come without solving the underlying problem that had motivated the challenge.”
The proponents of the Winograd Schema now admit that solving it “is not a surrogate for the ability to do commonsense reasoning, let alone for intelligence. The difficulty of using success at a specific task as a surrogate for intelligence is one that continues to this day, even as the tasks computers can successfully perform significantly increase in complexity.”
Or what Yehoshua Bar-Hillel called seventy years ago (!) the fallacy of the first step: The distance from the inability to do something to doing it badly is usually much shorter than the distance from doing something badly and doing it correctly.
Or what Terry Winograd said in 2004, according to Nilsson: “There are fundamental gulfs between the way that SHRDLU and its kin operate, and whatever it is that goes on in our brains.”
Winograd thought it would take decades or more to realize the initial ambitions of NLP researchers. “In the meantime,” he said, “AI took on much more doable goals of working in less ambitious niches, or accepting less-than-human results (as in translation).”
Not anymore. Today’s ambition of AI developers is focused on getting to artificial general intelligence (AGI), recreating the full spectrum of human intelligence in machines while fixing all its flaws.
After attending the O’Reilly AI conference in 2016, I wrote:
Maybe, just maybe, our minds are not computers and computers do not resemble our brains? And maybe, just maybe, if we finally abandon the futile pursuit of replicating “human-level AI” in computers, we will find many additional—albeit “narrow”—applications of computers to enrich and improve our lives?
|
<urn:uuid:8b3ae6b0-129c-4458-b011-addd30b46006>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233506479.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20230923030601-20230923060601-00593.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9606756567955017,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.78125,
"token_count": 1974,
"url": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/gilpress/2023/07/30/can-chatgpt-destroy-humanity-if-it-doesnt-understand-the-world/"
}
|
To the much-discussed hallucinations of Large Language Models (LLM), their instability and lack of interpretability, we can now add their vulnerability to automated adversarial attacks forcing them to produce harmful content. But these are the least of their weaknesses. The depth of their understanding of the human world is a much more important hurdle for LLM to overcome before they become “superintelligence.”
According to ChatGPT creator OpenAI, however, this “most impactful technology humanity has ever invented,” could “arrive this decade” and could “lead to human extinction.”
We have already heard years ago that humanlike AI is just
|
around the corner. At the time Terry Winograd entered graduate school in the late 1960s, most [intelligent and knowledgeable humans] “believed that it wouldn’t be long before machines would see, hear, speak, move, and otherwise perform humanlike tasks,” wrote John Markoff in Machines of Loving Grace.
For his PhD dissertation at MIT, Winograd developed SHRDLU, a computer program that was capable of participating in conversations about a made-up world, a “microworld” consisting of toy blocks and a “gripper” for moving them about. It responded to commands in English to manipulate the blocks using its gripper and it “understood” questions about the state of its world.
In his history of artificial intelligence, Nils Nilsson says that SHRDLU’s impressive performance made some NLP researchers “optimistic about future success.” But “Winograd soon abandoned this line of research in favor of pursuing work devoted to the interaction of computers and people. Perhaps because he had first-hand experience of how much knowledge was required for successful language understanding in something so simple as the blocks world, he despaired of ever giving computers enough knowledge to duplicate the full range of human verbal competence.”
Later, in 2006, Winograd saw statistical language understanding, neural networks and machine learning as new developments moving the AI field in the direction of his preferred approach to human-computer interaction. “Enlightened trial and error outperforms the planning of the flawless intellect” is at the center of this approach, he wrote, acknowledging “the limitations of knowing and modeling the complexities of the real human world.”
Further triumphs of the statistical analysis approach to AI, particularly in the domain of image identification in 2012, made most intelligent and knowledgeable humans believe that human-like machine intelligence or even “superintelligence” is, again, just around the corner.
Most, but not all. One popular tool used by those questioning the intelligence of the new AI became known as the Winograd Schema Challenge. This was the 2010 brainchild of Hector Levesque at the University of Toronto, based on an example of semantic ambiguity mentioned in Winograd’s 1972 “Understanding Natural Language.” To overcome the limitations of the “Turing Test,” Levesque suggested a multiple-choice test that requires the correct resolution of an ambiguous pronoun in a statement. For example,
The trophy doesn’t fit in the brown suitcase because it is too large. What is too large?
A. The trophy
B. The suitcase
“The challenge attracted a fair amount of favorable interest from both the research community and the popular science press. The naturalness of the problem made it a fair one for AI systems; the complexity of the inferences involved seemed to put it far beyond the range of what was then current technology,” wrote the authors of “The Defeat of the Winograd Schema Challenge” (January 2023).
Indeed, at the “first and last running of the Winograd Schema Challenge” which took place in 2016, the most successful of the six AI programs that entered it achieved a score of 58% on the test collection, only slightly better than chance. At the inaugural O’Reilly AI conference the same year, while some talked about “super-human” driverless cars that are just around the corner, others, including deep learning pioneer Yann LeCun, mentioned the Winograd Schema as an unsolved challenge in testing the machine’s knowledge of how the world works.
Just a year later, however, natural language processing (NLP) moved forward with Google’s researchers publishing “Attention is All You Need.” It proposed the Transformer (the T in ChatGPT), a new “network architecture” that improved considerably the (machine) learning of the dependencies among words even when they are far apart in the text. The result of this breakthrough, in addition to unleashing the avalanche of generative AI, was the defeat of the Winograd Schema Challenge, with AI going from “random guessing to human performance in a very short time span,” achieving a score of 90.1% in 2019.
Large language model GPT-3 achieved a similar score (88.3%) in 2020. Eager to see for myself the triumph of LLM, I ran a few Winograd Schema phrases by the July 20, 2023, version of ChatGPT. It gave me the correct answers to a couple of them. But then I presented it with "The sack of potatoes had been placed below the bag of flour, so it had to be moved first. What had to be moved first?” and got this in response:
In the given sentence, "it" refers to the sack of potatoes. The sentence "The sack of potatoes had been placed below the bag of flour, so it had to be moved first" means that the sack of potatoes had to be moved first before accessing or moving the bag of flour, which was placed on top of it.
When I switched the position of the sack of potatoes from “below” to “above,” I got this in response:
Apologies for any confusion in my previous response. In the given sentence, "it" refers to the bag of flour. The correct interpretation of the sentence is:
"The sack of potatoes had been placed above the bag of flour, so it had to be moved first."
This means that the bag of flour had to be moved first because it was below the sack of potatoes, and you needed to move it out of the way before accessing the sack of potatoes placed above it.
It appears that the great leap forward for AI, which some of its prominent developers say will lead soon to superintelligence that could destroy humanity, still does not have, at least in this case, a child-like understanding of space and motion and what’s involved in moving and manipulating physical objects.
Sometimes LLM appear to understand the world and how to operate in it, and sometimes they fail to do so. Sometimes their language skills lead to accurate translations and sometimes to complete failures. But what about their impressive performance in the Winograd Schema Challenge?
In the paper documenting the demise of the Winograd Schema Challenge, the researchers who worked for about ten years to promote it as a test of machine intelligence, attribute the human-like achievements of LLM to flaws in the test’s “formulation and execution.”
In addition, they reported that in the early 2010s, “when there were few signs that AI systems could succeed at the Winograd Schema Challenge, there were those who warned that it might be a less robust test than its creators hoped and believed. They argued that… success might come without solving the underlying problem that had motivated the challenge.”
The proponents of the Winograd Schema now admit that solving it “is not a surrogate for the ability to do commonsense reasoning, let alone for intelligence. The difficulty of using success at a specific task as a surrogate for intelligence is one that continues to this day, even as the tasks computers can successfully perform significantly increase in complexity.”
Or what Yehoshua Bar-Hillel called seventy years ago (!) the fallacy of the first step: The distance from the inability to do something to doing it badly is usually much shorter than the distance from doing something badly and doing it correctly.
Or what Terry Winograd said in 2004, according to Nilsson: “There are fundamental gulfs between the way that SHRDLU and its kin operate, and whatever it is that goes on in our brains.”
Winograd thought it would take decades or more to realize the initial ambitions of NLP researchers. “In the meantime,” he said, “AI took on much more doable goals of working in less ambitious niches, or accepting less-than-human results (as in translation).”
Not anymore. Today’s ambition of AI developers is focused on getting to artificial general intelligence (AGI), recreating the full spectrum of human intelligence in machines while fixing all its flaws.
After attending the O’Reilly AI conference in 2016, I wrote:
Maybe, just maybe, our minds are not computers and computers do not resemble our brains? And maybe, just maybe, if we finally abandon the futile pursuit of replicating “human-level AI” in computers, we will find many additional—albeit “narrow”—applications of computers to enrich and improve our lives?
|
What exactly is reflexology?
Reflexology can be described as a type of alternative medicine in which practitioners use targeted pressure point massage to revive the flow of energy throughout the body. Although the majority of the treatment is performed with the feet and ears, it can also be applied to the hands and the ears. Toes and fingers are believed to correspond to particular parts of our body. The weakness of a particular organ could be reflected by the sensitivity of a reflex. The practitioner uses thumb and finger "walking" sequences to activate different zones of the feet.
Your lifestyle and health will be discussed with the therapist. Once they know about the health of you and any ailments that you might have the therapist will choose the area of your body would be 서울op benefited by reflexology. Reflexologists may pay attention to the feet while other will be more focused on your hands and ear. Reflexology is performed in a tranquil spa environment and can be followed by aromatherapy. It is not possible to move around during the treatment as with acupuncture.
The method relies on the idea that nerve impulses transmit messages towards the region that requires care. To eliminate any obstructions or bring energy flow back to the body, the practitioner can employ different methods of reflexology. The use of reflexology can alleviate pain and discomfort caused by stress. Stress are felt instantly, as well as a treatment with an experienced reflexology practitioner can ease various illnesses. Although the advantages from reflexology are significant however, it is essential to book an appointment when you don't have to job.
It is possible to improve your health with reflexology. The best time to book your reflexology session is at a time when you are not working for long periods of time. A reflexology session can be scheduled for a session during lunchtime or in the last part of your work day if there isn't much free time. This session can make you less distracted. This allows you to concentrate on other things with no distraction from the discomfort.
The benefits of reflexology are numerous. It is a great way to relieve physical discomfort and anxiety. Someone who suffers from migraines since her teens said reflexology helped reduce the medication she took. Some have also reported better sleeping more energy, and improved quality sleeping. It is a wonderful alternative treatment for health. The therapist will be able to ask some questions about your medical background and your lifestyle. The best treatment is tapping the reflexology points on the hands and feet.
Reflexology has numerous benefits. Clients who have suffered from migraines for many years reported reducing her migraine medication after a reflexology session. Others reported a decrease in their pain, improved energy, and deeper sleep. The reflexology session is a fantastic option to enhance the overall health of your body. The majority of clients experience an easing of the need for pain medication, however reflexology can benefit any person. It is not only beneficial to your body, but for the mind.
Reflexology is a great alternative treatment for health. It helps reduce stress and assist the body in natural healing. It is beneficial to people suffering from different medical conditions. A client who suffers from migraines was able to decrease their migraine medication by 50percent after experiencing reflexology. Some have also experienced increased levels of energy, sleep quality as well as pain relief. Therefore, it's important to choose a professional that is skilled in the field of Reflexology.
Reflexology treatments can be an excellent way to relax and improve your overall wellbeing. It is important to schedule an appointment and ensure that you do not have any other obligations to attend to in the meantime. The treatment may take length of time and can take you away from your job. However, the rewards are well worthwhile! You will feel happier and better. Reflexology should be scheduled as frequently as you can for the greatest benefit.
Reflexology's benefits are many. It aids the body to release tension and recover. To improve your well-being, it works conjunction with the central nervous systems. The study of reflexology began in the late 1890s. it revealed the neurologic connection between the skin and internal organs. It is a method for the entire nervous system to be able to detect stimuli and respond by changing its behaviour. It assists in restoring the balance of the body and ensures adequate sleeping to live a healthier existence.
|
<urn:uuid:98b756f2-c027-47bf-a600-57591fa83692>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-14",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296949355.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20230330163823-20230330193823-00577.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9639748334884644,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.5625,
"token_count": 884,
"url": "https://anma1martinfehk183.wordpress.com/2023/02/27/the-most-underrated-companies-to-follow-in-the-%EC%84%9C%EC%9A%B8%EC%98%A4%ED%94%BC-industry/"
}
|
What exactly is reflexology?
Reflexology can be described as a type of alternative medicine in which practitioners use targeted pressure point massage to revive the flow of energy throughout the body. Although the majority of the treatment is performed with the feet and ears, it can also be applied to the hands and the ears. Toes and fingers are believed to correspond to particular parts of our body. The weakness of a particular organ could be reflected by the sensitivity of a reflex. The practitioner uses thumb and finger "walking" sequences to activate different zones of the feet.
Your lifestyle and health will be discussed with the therapist. Once they know about the
|
health of you and any ailments that you might have the therapist will choose the area of your body would be 서울op benefited by reflexology. Reflexologists may pay attention to the feet while other will be more focused on your hands and ear. Reflexology is performed in a tranquil spa environment and can be followed by aromatherapy. It is not possible to move around during the treatment as with acupuncture.
The method relies on the idea that nerve impulses transmit messages towards the region that requires care. To eliminate any obstructions or bring energy flow back to the body, the practitioner can employ different methods of reflexology. The use of reflexology can alleviate pain and discomfort caused by stress. Stress are felt instantly, as well as a treatment with an experienced reflexology practitioner can ease various illnesses. Although the advantages from reflexology are significant however, it is essential to book an appointment when you don't have to job.
It is possible to improve your health with reflexology. The best time to book your reflexology session is at a time when you are not working for long periods of time. A reflexology session can be scheduled for a session during lunchtime or in the last part of your work day if there isn't much free time. This session can make you less distracted. This allows you to concentrate on other things with no distraction from the discomfort.
The benefits of reflexology are numerous. It is a great way to relieve physical discomfort and anxiety. Someone who suffers from migraines since her teens said reflexology helped reduce the medication she took. Some have also reported better sleeping more energy, and improved quality sleeping. It is a wonderful alternative treatment for health. The therapist will be able to ask some questions about your medical background and your lifestyle. The best treatment is tapping the reflexology points on the hands and feet.
Reflexology has numerous benefits. Clients who have suffered from migraines for many years reported reducing her migraine medication after a reflexology session. Others reported a decrease in their pain, improved energy, and deeper sleep. The reflexology session is a fantastic option to enhance the overall health of your body. The majority of clients experience an easing of the need for pain medication, however reflexology can benefit any person. It is not only beneficial to your body, but for the mind.
Reflexology is a great alternative treatment for health. It helps reduce stress and assist the body in natural healing. It is beneficial to people suffering from different medical conditions. A client who suffers from migraines was able to decrease their migraine medication by 50percent after experiencing reflexology. Some have also experienced increased levels of energy, sleep quality as well as pain relief. Therefore, it's important to choose a professional that is skilled in the field of Reflexology.
Reflexology treatments can be an excellent way to relax and improve your overall wellbeing. It is important to schedule an appointment and ensure that you do not have any other obligations to attend to in the meantime. The treatment may take length of time and can take you away from your job. However, the rewards are well worthwhile! You will feel happier and better. Reflexology should be scheduled as frequently as you can for the greatest benefit.
Reflexology's benefits are many. It aids the body to release tension and recover. To improve your well-being, it works conjunction with the central nervous systems. The study of reflexology began in the late 1890s. it revealed the neurologic connection between the skin and internal organs. It is a method for the entire nervous system to be able to detect stimuli and respond by changing its behaviour. It assists in restoring the balance of the body and ensures adequate sleeping to live a healthier existence.
|
Louisiana students not reading on grade level may be eligible for free book deliveries
Louisiana is launching a new program to help elementary students who aren’t reading on grade level get free books and resources delivered to their homes.
In collaboration with Scholastic, the state announced the creation of the Reading Enrichment and Academic Deliverables, or READ, program, which will serve preK-4 through fifth-grade students who are not yet reading on grade level.
As part of the program, eligible students can receive free, age-appropriate, high-quality books and literacy resources, the Louisiana Department of Education said in a release.
Families can register for the program at readLA.scholastic.com.
More:Half of Louisiana K-3 students are behind in reading skills. How did Lafayette score?
An estimated 150,000 students are eligible for the program statewide, according to LDOE. The department said in a release that the aim is to ensure that the students have access to books and to help them “discover the power and joy of reading through book ownership.”
The eligible families and children can also select the topics of the books they would like to receive. Each book will include a resource to help the child learn by aiding in building reading skills and confidence connected to each book.
The state’s department of education has been placing an emphasis on improving literacy in recent years. Cade Brumley, the state’s superintendent of education, has repeatedly said the state is in the midst of a “literacy crisis.”
More:Data shows big drop in Lafayette kindergarten literacy scores, state falls too
Louisiana has also begun implementing several new strategies to better identify students who need extra assistance and to provide more targeted support for those students.
From fall 2021 to fall 2022, Louisiana saw kindergarten literacy scores fall significantly, with only 39.2% of kindergarten students reading on grade level. In fall 2021, around 41.5% of kindergarten students were reading on grade level.
All other grades from first through third saw improvement, but less than half of all Louisiana K-3 students are reading on grade level or higher.
|
<urn:uuid:078eb512-aa51-470e-b140-a34d20e7dbb3>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-14",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296943698.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20230321131205-20230321161205-00128.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9584569931030273,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.609375,
"token_count": 451,
"url": "https://www.theadvertiser.com/story/news/2023/03/02/louisiana-launches-reading-program-to-help-students-get-free-books/69954681007/"
}
|
Louisiana students not reading on grade level may be eligible for free book deliveries
Louisiana is launching a new program to help elementary students who aren’t reading on grade level get free books and resources delivered to their homes.
In collaboration with Scholastic, the state announced the creation of the Reading Enrichment and Academic Deliverables, or READ, program, which will serve preK-4 through fifth-grade students who are not yet reading on grade level.
As part of the program, eligible students can receive free, age-appropriate, high-quality books and literacy resources, the Louisiana Department of Education said in a release.
Families can
|
register for the program at readLA.scholastic.com.
More:Half of Louisiana K-3 students are behind in reading skills. How did Lafayette score?
An estimated 150,000 students are eligible for the program statewide, according to LDOE. The department said in a release that the aim is to ensure that the students have access to books and to help them “discover the power and joy of reading through book ownership.”
The eligible families and children can also select the topics of the books they would like to receive. Each book will include a resource to help the child learn by aiding in building reading skills and confidence connected to each book.
The state’s department of education has been placing an emphasis on improving literacy in recent years. Cade Brumley, the state’s superintendent of education, has repeatedly said the state is in the midst of a “literacy crisis.”
More:Data shows big drop in Lafayette kindergarten literacy scores, state falls too
Louisiana has also begun implementing several new strategies to better identify students who need extra assistance and to provide more targeted support for those students.
From fall 2021 to fall 2022, Louisiana saw kindergarten literacy scores fall significantly, with only 39.2% of kindergarten students reading on grade level. In fall 2021, around 41.5% of kindergarten students were reading on grade level.
All other grades from first through third saw improvement, but less than half of all Louisiana K-3 students are reading on grade level or higher.
|
Why this matters
Lead exposure is especially harmful to children, who can absorb more lead than adults and have brains and nervous systems that are more sensitive to the damaging — and sometimes irreversible — effects.
More than 6,000 child care centers have complied with a California law to test for lead in their drinking water. A quarter of them found levels higher than the state limit — and thousands more have yet to test.
Under a 2018 bill, facilities were required to conduct lead testing by Jan. 1 of this year. But an inewsource analysis of state data and test results provided by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group found that more than 7,800 facilities — licensed to care for as many as 400,000 children — had yet to do so.
That doesn’t include an additional 28,000 facilities across the state known as family child care homes, which aren’t required to test and can go unmonitored for lead levels entirely.
The database below shows results for child care centers that submitted and finalized test results by the state law’s Jan. 1 deadline. Some have tested different water faucets or other sources at the same location, resulting in multiple results.
Those found with higher levels than the state 5-parts-per-billion limit are required to immediately cease using the affected fountains and faucets inoperable “and obtain a potable source for water for children and staff,” according to the law.
For facilities with multiple locations under the same name, you can look up your center’s facility ID on the DSS website here. Select “child care” under facility group to search by address.
If your child’s center is not found in the database, it may be exempt from the law, conducted testing after the deadline or has yet to check its drinking water for lead.
Child care providers with more information about their testing or that have since submitted results can contact inewsource reporter Andrea Figueroa Briseño at <email-pii>.
Type of Content
Explainer: Provides context or background, definition and detail on a specific topic.
|
<urn:uuid:568c933a-b09f-4a8a-a82f-fdc0a0c6fd3e>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233506528.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20230923194908-20230923224908-00879.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9595808982849121,
"pii_count": 1,
"score": 2.546875,
"token_count": 445,
"url": "https://inewsource.org/2023/07/13/ca-child-care-facilities-test-water-lead-results-database/"
}
|
Why this matters
Lead exposure is especially harmful to children, who can absorb more lead than adults and have brains and nervous systems that are more sensitive to the damaging — and sometimes irreversible — effects.
More than 6,000 child care centers have complied with a California law to test for lead in their drinking water. A quarter of them found levels higher than the state limit — and thousands more have yet to test.
Under a 2018 bill, facilities were required to conduct lead testing by Jan. 1 of this year. But an inewsource analysis of state data and test results provided by the nonprofit Environmental
|
Working Group found that more than 7,800 facilities — licensed to care for as many as 400,000 children — had yet to do so.
That doesn’t include an additional 28,000 facilities across the state known as family child care homes, which aren’t required to test and can go unmonitored for lead levels entirely.
The database below shows results for child care centers that submitted and finalized test results by the state law’s Jan. 1 deadline. Some have tested different water faucets or other sources at the same location, resulting in multiple results.
Those found with higher levels than the state 5-parts-per-billion limit are required to immediately cease using the affected fountains and faucets inoperable “and obtain a potable source for water for children and staff,” according to the law.
For facilities with multiple locations under the same name, you can look up your center’s facility ID on the DSS website here. Select “child care” under facility group to search by address.
If your child’s center is not found in the database, it may be exempt from the law, conducted testing after the deadline or has yet to check its drinking water for lead.
Child care providers with more information about their testing or that have since submitted results can contact inewsource reporter Andrea Figueroa Briseño at <email-pii>.
Type of Content
Explainer: Provides context or background, definition and detail on a specific topic.
|
Graduating high school students left almost $3.6 billion in Pell Grant funds unclaimed last year because they did not complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). That is the finding of a new report from the National College Attainment Network (NCAN) out this week. The FAFSA is the federal form you must complete to be considered for any financial aid from the federal government, your state, or one of the colleges you hope to attend.
FAFSA completion rates are used as an indicator of whether students intend to enroll in college and often provide an early indication of what proportion of recent high school graduates plan on heading to college. FAFSA completion is also strongly associated with college enrollment, so increasing the number of students who complete their aid application may increase the number of students entering higher education.
NCAN calculated that 44 percent of the class of 2022 did not complete a FAFSA. Of that 44 percent, almost half are estimated to be eligible for a Pell Grant, with an average value of $4,686. That leaves a lot of students who could be getting help to pay for training in higher education without support. Some states are trying to change low completion rates with Mandatory FAFSA completion policies.
In recent years some states have instituted mandatory FAFSA completion policies that require students to submit the form as a graduation requirement or require that school districts do everything they can to help students complete the application. So far, eight states — California, Maryland, Louisiana, Illinois, Alabama, Colorado, New Hampshire, and Texas — have implemented FAFSA mandates. Early results from Louisiana, which was the first state to implement the requirement fully, have shown significant promise, with a large increase in the number of students who complete an application and narrowing the gap between students from high-income and low-income districts completing the form.
Why Is FAFSA Completion Important?
FAFSA asks students to provide detailed financial information for themselves (and their parents if they are younger than 24 or meet some narrow exceptions). After completing the application, students receive their Expected Family Contribution (EFC) number. This number plays a significant role in determining what types of financial aid they for and how much total financial aid a student can receive. The lower that number, the more types of aid and total aid dollars a student can qualify for, and vice versa.
Completing a FAFSA helps students see if they will qualify for federal financial aid, although it provides limited information about what state and institutional support they might be eligible for. Students typically have to wait for their financial aid offers to find out how much support they will get from the state and the colleges they have been admitted to.
Do More FAFSA Completions Mean More Students Go to College?
Completing a FAFSA does increase the chances that a student will go to college, but that fact is correlational. Students who completed the application were probably more likely to head to college in the first place. However, knowing there is help to pay for college also encourages enrollment if it comes with help applying for aid. Research has shown that when students receive help completing the FAFSA and receive information about financial aid, they are more likely to attend college. Students who complete a FAFSA and discover they are eligible for a Pell Grant are more likely to realize that they might be able to afford to attend college.
Completing the application, and doing it as early as possible, can also provide access to additional financial aid from state and institutional grant programs, which tend to have early deadlines, reducing the price of college even further.
Students need all the help they can get when it comes to paying for college. Given the current low rates of FAFSA completion, finding ways to increase the number of students applying for financial aid should be a priority for states.
|
<urn:uuid:faf7f185-311c-4424-b023-76957b4db563>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-14",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296950247.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20230401191131-20230401221131-00651.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9597777724266052,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.734375,
"token_count": 786,
"url": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/edwardconroy/2023/02/05/students-left-36-billion-in-pell-grants-unclaimed-last-year/"
}
|
Graduating high school students left almost $3.6 billion in Pell Grant funds unclaimed last year because they did not complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). That is the finding of a new report from the National College Attainment Network (NCAN) out this week. The FAFSA is the federal form you must complete to be considered for any financial aid from the federal government, your state, or one of the colleges you hope to attend.
FAFSA completion rates are used as an indicator of whether students intend to enroll in college and often provide an early indication of what proportion of recent high school
|
graduates plan on heading to college. FAFSA completion is also strongly associated with college enrollment, so increasing the number of students who complete their aid application may increase the number of students entering higher education.
NCAN calculated that 44 percent of the class of 2022 did not complete a FAFSA. Of that 44 percent, almost half are estimated to be eligible for a Pell Grant, with an average value of $4,686. That leaves a lot of students who could be getting help to pay for training in higher education without support. Some states are trying to change low completion rates with Mandatory FAFSA completion policies.
In recent years some states have instituted mandatory FAFSA completion policies that require students to submit the form as a graduation requirement or require that school districts do everything they can to help students complete the application. So far, eight states — California, Maryland, Louisiana, Illinois, Alabama, Colorado, New Hampshire, and Texas — have implemented FAFSA mandates. Early results from Louisiana, which was the first state to implement the requirement fully, have shown significant promise, with a large increase in the number of students who complete an application and narrowing the gap between students from high-income and low-income districts completing the form.
Why Is FAFSA Completion Important?
FAFSA asks students to provide detailed financial information for themselves (and their parents if they are younger than 24 or meet some narrow exceptions). After completing the application, students receive their Expected Family Contribution (EFC) number. This number plays a significant role in determining what types of financial aid they for and how much total financial aid a student can receive. The lower that number, the more types of aid and total aid dollars a student can qualify for, and vice versa.
Completing a FAFSA helps students see if they will qualify for federal financial aid, although it provides limited information about what state and institutional support they might be eligible for. Students typically have to wait for their financial aid offers to find out how much support they will get from the state and the colleges they have been admitted to.
Do More FAFSA Completions Mean More Students Go to College?
Completing a FAFSA does increase the chances that a student will go to college, but that fact is correlational. Students who completed the application were probably more likely to head to college in the first place. However, knowing there is help to pay for college also encourages enrollment if it comes with help applying for aid. Research has shown that when students receive help completing the FAFSA and receive information about financial aid, they are more likely to attend college. Students who complete a FAFSA and discover they are eligible for a Pell Grant are more likely to realize that they might be able to afford to attend college.
Completing the application, and doing it as early as possible, can also provide access to additional financial aid from state and institutional grant programs, which tend to have early deadlines, reducing the price of college even further.
Students need all the help they can get when it comes to paying for college. Given the current low rates of FAFSA completion, finding ways to increase the number of students applying for financial aid should be a priority for states.
|
The United States honors the most prominent figure in its civil rights movement, Martin Luther King Jr., on Monday. The national holiday was hard won by his family and activists in 1983 and has been marked on the third Monday of January ever since.
He wasn’t actually named Martin
Martin Luther King Jr. was named Michael when he was born in Atlanta on Jan. 15, 1929. His father, Martin Luther King Sr., a pastor at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta was also named Michael. However, in 1934, he took an eye-opening trip to Germany — where in 1517, a monk named Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg castle church, igniting the Protestant Reformation. King Sr., who was an early figure in the American civil rights movement, traveled back to the United States and swiftly changed his and his son’s names, when young Martin was at about 5.
When he was 28, King Jr. officially revised his birth certificate. In 1957, he crossed out the name Michael and replaced it with “Martin Luther, Jr.” in black ink.
He skipped grades in school and went to college at 15
A prodigy, King skipped at least two grades, graduating from Booker T. Washington High School in Atlanta before he was admitted to nearby Morehouse College, a historically Black men’s school also attended by his father and grandfather.
“My days in college were very exciting ones. There was a free atmosphere at Morehouse, and it was there I had my first frank discussion on race,” he later wrote in his autobiography.
When King was 19, in 1948, he finished college and enrolled at the Crozer Theological Seminary, where he was ordained as a Baptist minister. He went on to study systematic theology and earn a PhD from Boston University. King was later awarded many honorary degrees from academic institutions across the world.
“Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction,” he wrote in a student newspaper in 1947.
He got a C in public speaking
Later known as a great orator, King once struggled with giving speeches and received a C in public speaking when he was training to become a minister.
Martin Luther King, Jr. received two Cs in public speaking. Actually went from a C+ to a C the next term. Here’s the transcript. Live your dream. pic.twitter.com/mAoFIwaICw— Sarah Elizabeth Lewis (@sarahelizalewis) January 12, 2020
He was a prankster as a child
In his youth, King had a mischievous streak. He tried to scare passersby on the street by putting his mother’s fox furs on a stick and rustling the bushes. He also tried to drive away his piano teacher by getting the stool to collapse and would sometimes destroy his older sister’s doll heads to use as baseballs.
King may have improvised the ‘I have a dream’ line in his speech
One of history’s most consequential speeches was delivered in less than 18 minutes during the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963.
But when King was drafting the speech — which drew on the Bible, the Declaration of Independence and the words of William Shakespeare — he did not include the famous refrain: “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’”
According to reports, the American gospel singer Mahalia Jackson called out during the speech: “Tell them about the dream, Martin,” prompting King to deploy the now historic phrase, which he had used in previous public addresses.
His family paid the medical bills for the birth of actress Julia Roberts
When the Hollywood actress was born 55 years ago in Smyrna, Ga., King and his wife, Coretta Scott King, paid the hospital bills for her parents, Walter and Betty. The story came to light only last year, when Roberts confirmed the fact in an interview with television personality Gayle King (no relation).
“The day you were born, who paid for the hospital bill?” King asked Roberts during HistoryTalks, a September event in D.C. hosted by the History Channel and A&E Networks. “The King family paid for my hospital bill,” Roberts replied. “My parents couldn’t pay for the hospital bill.”
Grateful that #JuliaRoberts shared this story with @GayleKing and that so many people have been awed by it.— Be A King (@BerniceKing) October 31, 2022
I know the story well, but it is moving for me to be reminded of my parents’ generosity and influence.#CorettaScottKing #MLK pic.twitter.com/Hn9yOVxYIL
Roberts explained that her parents owned a theater school in Atlanta called the Actors and Writers Workshop, which they welcomed the King children to attend at a time when racial tensions remained high.
“One day, Coretta Scott King called my mother and asked if her kids could be part of the school, because they were having a hard time finding a place that would accept her kids,” Roberts said. “My mom was like, ‘Sure, come on over.’ And so they just all became friends, and they helped us out of a jam.”
Her revelation sparked surprise on the internet and drew praise, including from King’s youngest child, Bernice King.
Another assassination attempt came a decade before his killing
In 1958, King was autographing books at the Blumstein’s Department Store in Harlem when a well-dressed woman wearing glasses stepped out of the line and shouted: “Is this Martin Luther King?”
King, then 29, looked up from signing copies of his memoir about the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott and answered: “Yes, it is.”
The woman then pulled a letter opener with an ivory handle from her purse and attacked King, plunging a seven-inch blade into the left side of his chest, according to the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University.
King was rushed to a hospital for surgery. Doctors later told him that if he had sneezed, the blade, which was lodged near his aorta, could have killed him. The attacker was Izola Ware Curry, the Black daughter of sharecroppers, and King later referred to her as a “demented woman.”
He was shot dead 10 years later on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis in 1968.
His mother was also assassinated
Just six years later, his mother, Alberta Williams King, was also assassinated. She was killed in 1974 while playing the organ at a service at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, shot by Marcus Wayne Chenault, a young man from Ohio who claimed he had been aiming for Martin Luther King Sr., who was also at the church.
King often spoke of the positive influence his mother had on his development, calling her “the best mother in the world.”
In addition to the Nobel Peace Prize, he won a Grammy
King won a Grammy music award posthumously in 1971. He won best spoken word recording for a speech entitled “Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam,” which he made in New York to condemn the war one year before he was killed.
King was nominated for a Grammy on two previous occasions, in 1969, for his “I Have a Dream” speech, and in 1964, for his “We Shall Overcome” address.
|
<urn:uuid:39dc84c5-febc-4d34-9ef5-852aab233d49>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-14",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296945317.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20230325064253-20230325094253-00213.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9866878986358643,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.96875,
"token_count": 1647,
"url": "https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/01/16/martin-luther-king-day-facts-about/"
}
|
The United States honors the most prominent figure in its civil rights movement, Martin Luther King Jr., on Monday. The national holiday was hard won by his family and activists in 1983 and has been marked on the third Monday of January ever since.
He wasn’t actually named Martin
Martin Luther King Jr. was named Michael when he was born in Atlanta on Jan. 15, 1929. His father, Martin Luther King Sr., a pastor at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta was also named Michael. However, in 1934, he took an eye-opening trip to Germany —
|
where in 1517, a monk named Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg castle church, igniting the Protestant Reformation. King Sr., who was an early figure in the American civil rights movement, traveled back to the United States and swiftly changed his and his son’s names, when young Martin was at about 5.
When he was 28, King Jr. officially revised his birth certificate. In 1957, he crossed out the name Michael and replaced it with “Martin Luther, Jr.” in black ink.
He skipped grades in school and went to college at 15
A prodigy, King skipped at least two grades, graduating from Booker T. Washington High School in Atlanta before he was admitted to nearby Morehouse College, a historically Black men’s school also attended by his father and grandfather.
“My days in college were very exciting ones. There was a free atmosphere at Morehouse, and it was there I had my first frank discussion on race,” he later wrote in his autobiography.
When King was 19, in 1948, he finished college and enrolled at the Crozer Theological Seminary, where he was ordained as a Baptist minister. He went on to study systematic theology and earn a PhD from Boston University. King was later awarded many honorary degrees from academic institutions across the world.
“Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction,” he wrote in a student newspaper in 1947.
He got a C in public speaking
Later known as a great orator, King once struggled with giving speeches and received a C in public speaking when he was training to become a minister.
Martin Luther King, Jr. received two Cs in public speaking. Actually went from a C+ to a C the next term. Here’s the transcript. Live your dream. pic.twitter.com/mAoFIwaICw— Sarah Elizabeth Lewis (@sarahelizalewis) January 12, 2020
He was a prankster as a child
In his youth, King had a mischievous streak. He tried to scare passersby on the street by putting his mother’s fox furs on a stick and rustling the bushes. He also tried to drive away his piano teacher by getting the stool to collapse and would sometimes destroy his older sister’s doll heads to use as baseballs.
King may have improvised the ‘I have a dream’ line in his speech
One of history’s most consequential speeches was delivered in less than 18 minutes during the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963.
But when King was drafting the speech — which drew on the Bible, the Declaration of Independence and the words of William Shakespeare — he did not include the famous refrain: “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’”
According to reports, the American gospel singer Mahalia Jackson called out during the speech: “Tell them about the dream, Martin,” prompting King to deploy the now historic phrase, which he had used in previous public addresses.
His family paid the medical bills for the birth of actress Julia Roberts
When the Hollywood actress was born 55 years ago in Smyrna, Ga., King and his wife, Coretta Scott King, paid the hospital bills for her parents, Walter and Betty. The story came to light only last year, when Roberts confirmed the fact in an interview with television personality Gayle King (no relation).
“The day you were born, who paid for the hospital bill?” King asked Roberts during HistoryTalks, a September event in D.C. hosted by the History Channel and A&E Networks. “The King family paid for my hospital bill,” Roberts replied. “My parents couldn’t pay for the hospital bill.”
Grateful that #JuliaRoberts shared this story with @GayleKing and that so many people have been awed by it.— Be A King (@BerniceKing) October 31, 2022
I know the story well, but it is moving for me to be reminded of my parents’ generosity and influence.#CorettaScottKing #MLK pic.twitter.com/Hn9yOVxYIL
Roberts explained that her parents owned a theater school in Atlanta called the Actors and Writers Workshop, which they welcomed the King children to attend at a time when racial tensions remained high.
“One day, Coretta Scott King called my mother and asked if her kids could be part of the school, because they were having a hard time finding a place that would accept her kids,” Roberts said. “My mom was like, ‘Sure, come on over.’ And so they just all became friends, and they helped us out of a jam.”
Her revelation sparked surprise on the internet and drew praise, including from King’s youngest child, Bernice King.
Another assassination attempt came a decade before his killing
In 1958, King was autographing books at the Blumstein’s Department Store in Harlem when a well-dressed woman wearing glasses stepped out of the line and shouted: “Is this Martin Luther King?”
King, then 29, looked up from signing copies of his memoir about the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott and answered: “Yes, it is.”
The woman then pulled a letter opener with an ivory handle from her purse and attacked King, plunging a seven-inch blade into the left side of his chest, according to the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University.
King was rushed to a hospital for surgery. Doctors later told him that if he had sneezed, the blade, which was lodged near his aorta, could have killed him. The attacker was Izola Ware Curry, the Black daughter of sharecroppers, and King later referred to her as a “demented woman.”
He was shot dead 10 years later on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis in 1968.
His mother was also assassinated
Just six years later, his mother, Alberta Williams King, was also assassinated. She was killed in 1974 while playing the organ at a service at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, shot by Marcus Wayne Chenault, a young man from Ohio who claimed he had been aiming for Martin Luther King Sr., who was also at the church.
King often spoke of the positive influence his mother had on his development, calling her “the best mother in the world.”
In addition to the Nobel Peace Prize, he won a Grammy
King won a Grammy music award posthumously in 1971. He won best spoken word recording for a speech entitled “Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam,” which he made in New York to condemn the war one year before he was killed.
King was nominated for a Grammy on two previous occasions, in 1969, for his “I Have a Dream” speech, and in 1964, for his “We Shall Overcome” address.
|
Palliative care aims to improve patient and relative quality of life, and this can be supported by helping them to identify and draw on their internal, external, community and society-based resources. For today’s blog, Prof. Mathieu Bernard tells us about the ‘resource oriented’ approach which can complement palliative care practice.
The World Health Organization’s definition of palliative care focuses on the identification and treatment of health problems in the physical, psychosocial and spiritual domains – a deficit-oriented (what is missing and what is needed) approach, aimed at identifying and resolving physical symptoms, psychosocial and spiritual issues, and thus relieve suffering. However, recent research shows that patients’ and families’ quality of life improves more significantly and sustainably if the treatment also builds on enhancing the patients’ and relatives’ identified resources – a resource-oriented approach, which can be seen as a necessary complement to the deficit-oriented one. This approach is in line with the focus on patient autonomy and empowerment which characterises palliative care. A resource-based approach is not new in palliative care. It is consistent with the notion of resilience, which has been the subject of much work over the last 20 years in many scientific disciplines, including palliative care (1).
Resources for palliative care patients and families can be classified into four levels: internal (e.g., spirituality, gratitude), external (e.g., family, friends, home environment), community (e.g., caring communities, hospice volunteers), and societal (e.g., health care policies, palliative care availability). The first two levels concern the psychosocial and spiritual care of the individual patients and their significant others. Several studies have shown the importance and efficiency of strengthening patient and family resources such as gratitude or social relations in order to sustainably improve their quality of life. The last two resource levels concern palliative care as a public health issue, which involves creating the necessary political and society-based conditions for delivering palliative care (both through the deficit-oriented and the resource-oriented approach) to all members of the community in an equitable fashion.
To find and encourage these resources, it is necessary to look in depth at interactions between patients, their loved ones, and health care professionals, as well as support on offer from communities and society – a task that could be performed, for example, by a specifically trained social worker. Such support needs to be integrated and planned for within services to support people receiving palliative care, as it could take time to work with people to identify their resources. A resource-based approach also underlines the importance of inter-professionality in palliative care, as resources can be identified and fostered by all domains of care. One example of this interprofessional approach is a current multicentre research project led by the Lausanne Palliative Care Center which focuses on ‘Understanding patient altruism at the end of life’. Altruism is defined here as a personal and intentional interest in improving the wellbeing and welfare of others. The principal investigators of its five subprojects come from five different disciplines: medicine, ethics, nursing, psychology, and sociology, because the multi-faceted nature of resources such as altruism requires the intersection of different perspectives in order to understand the whole picture.
We believe that a resource-based approach to palliative care represents a complementary paradigm which may lead to significantly better quality of life, and clinical results, for patients and families, and should be valued more widely in health care.
1 Monroe, Barbara, and David Oliviere (eds), Resilience in Palliative Care: Achievement in adversity (Oxford, 2007; online edn, Oxford Academic, 17 Nov. 2011), https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199206414.001.0001.
Links and resources
- An international scientific symposium at the Lausanne University Hospital on Tuesday, 13th June 2023, including esteemed international experts such as Prof. William Breitbart and Prof. Daniel Sulmasy, will highlight research on the diverse array of resources in palliative care. Thanks to the support of non-profit foundations, the symposium is free of charge and will be streamed online. Click here to register.
- Read EAPC public health and palliative care blog series here.
About the author
Prof. Mathieu Bernard is Chair in Palliative Psychology at the Palliative and Supportive Care Service of the Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV). In line with the general concept of ‘resource-oriented palliative care’, his main research interest concerns the application of positive psychology to palliative psychosocial care, and this has included research on the meaning in life, gratitude, post-traumatic growth, will to live, and altruism, and he has published extensively on these subjects. ORCID: 0000-0003-2823-8806.
- Register now!
- Find out more about the Congress here.
- FOLLOW @EAPCvzw #EAPC2023.
- Sign up to the EAPC blog to hear more about the Congress
|
<urn:uuid:9553ea94-fa0d-454b-b12b-3d00d6eeff9f>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-23",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224655244.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20230609000217-20230609030217-00403.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9342456459999084,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.90625,
"token_count": 1094,
"url": "https://eapcnet.wordpress.com/2023/05/09/how-a-resource-oriented-approach-can-enhance-palliative-care/"
}
|
Palliative care aims to improve patient and relative quality of life, and this can be supported by helping them to identify and draw on their internal, external, community and society-based resources. For today’s blog, Prof. Mathieu Bernard tells us about the ‘resource oriented’ approach which can complement palliative care practice.
The World Health Organization’s definition of palliative care focuses on the identification and treatment of health problems in the physical, psychosocial and spiritual domains – a deficit-oriented (what is missing and what is needed) approach, aimed at identifying and resolving physical symptoms, psychosocial and spiritual issues, and thus relieve suffering. However, recent research shows that
|
patients’ and families’ quality of life improves more significantly and sustainably if the treatment also builds on enhancing the patients’ and relatives’ identified resources – a resource-oriented approach, which can be seen as a necessary complement to the deficit-oriented one. This approach is in line with the focus on patient autonomy and empowerment which characterises palliative care. A resource-based approach is not new in palliative care. It is consistent with the notion of resilience, which has been the subject of much work over the last 20 years in many scientific disciplines, including palliative care (1).
Resources for palliative care patients and families can be classified into four levels: internal (e.g., spirituality, gratitude), external (e.g., family, friends, home environment), community (e.g., caring communities, hospice volunteers), and societal (e.g., health care policies, palliative care availability). The first two levels concern the psychosocial and spiritual care of the individual patients and their significant others. Several studies have shown the importance and efficiency of strengthening patient and family resources such as gratitude or social relations in order to sustainably improve their quality of life. The last two resource levels concern palliative care as a public health issue, which involves creating the necessary political and society-based conditions for delivering palliative care (both through the deficit-oriented and the resource-oriented approach) to all members of the community in an equitable fashion.
To find and encourage these resources, it is necessary to look in depth at interactions between patients, their loved ones, and health care professionals, as well as support on offer from communities and society – a task that could be performed, for example, by a specifically trained social worker. Such support needs to be integrated and planned for within services to support people receiving palliative care, as it could take time to work with people to identify their resources. A resource-based approach also underlines the importance of inter-professionality in palliative care, as resources can be identified and fostered by all domains of care. One example of this interprofessional approach is a current multicentre research project led by the Lausanne Palliative Care Center which focuses on ‘Understanding patient altruism at the end of life’. Altruism is defined here as a personal and intentional interest in improving the wellbeing and welfare of others. The principal investigators of its five subprojects come from five different disciplines: medicine, ethics, nursing, psychology, and sociology, because the multi-faceted nature of resources such as altruism requires the intersection of different perspectives in order to understand the whole picture.
We believe that a resource-based approach to palliative care represents a complementary paradigm which may lead to significantly better quality of life, and clinical results, for patients and families, and should be valued more widely in health care.
1 Monroe, Barbara, and David Oliviere (eds), Resilience in Palliative Care: Achievement in adversity (Oxford, 2007; online edn, Oxford Academic, 17 Nov. 2011), https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199206414.001.0001.
Links and resources
- An international scientific symposium at the Lausanne University Hospital on Tuesday, 13th June 2023, including esteemed international experts such as Prof. William Breitbart and Prof. Daniel Sulmasy, will highlight research on the diverse array of resources in palliative care. Thanks to the support of non-profit foundations, the symposium is free of charge and will be streamed online. Click here to register.
- Read EAPC public health and palliative care blog series here.
About the author
Prof. Mathieu Bernard is Chair in Palliative Psychology at the Palliative and Supportive Care Service of the Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV). In line with the general concept of ‘resource-oriented palliative care’, his main research interest concerns the application of positive psychology to palliative psychosocial care, and this has included research on the meaning in life, gratitude, post-traumatic growth, will to live, and altruism, and he has published extensively on these subjects. ORCID: 0000-0003-2823-8806.
- Register now!
- Find out more about the Congress here.
- FOLLOW @EAPCvzw #EAPC2023.
- Sign up to the EAPC blog to hear more about the Congress
|
Iowa leads U.S. in HIV suppression
Iowa leads the nation in suppressing HIV in patients who are diagnosed with the disease, according to the most recent 2021 analysis by the Centers for Disease Control.
Why it matters: Medication can delay HIV-positive people from getting AIDS, as well as prevent sexual transmission of the disease.
State of play: In Iowa, 81.7% of people diagnosed with HIV achieved viral suppression. It was only one of two states to break the 80% mark.
- The national average is 65.9%, according to the CDC.
How it happened: Bipartisan support and strong federal and state funding have helped boost local programs.
- The rural nature of the state means that partnering with agencies has also been crucial to help reach as many people as possible, according to Iowa's Bureau of HIV, STI and Hepatitis.
- Iowa also has lower incidences of HIV infections overall in comparison to places like the South.
Zoom in: Nonprofit Primary Health Care runs "The Project," which provides HIV and AIDS care for around 670 central Iowans, supportive services manager Noah Beacom tells Axios.
- It receives $2.3 million annually from the federal government's Ryan White HIV/AIDS program, Beacom says.
- They also have case managers for ongoing care and can help pay for services like transportation and housing — potential barriers to receiving medication.
Of note: With the funding, The Project is able to take referrals and connect patients with medication within seven days of their diagnoses.
- They also have case managers for ongoing care and can help pay for services like transportation, a potential barrier to receiving medication.
The big picture: While HIV numbers are lowering, sexually transmitted infections like syphilis are on the rise statewide.
- HIV's decrease can be attributed to viral suppression medications as well as PrEP, which helps prevent the chance of getting HIV, Melissa Brown of the Polk County Health Department tells Axios.
What's next: State officials created the "Stop HIV Iowa Plan" last year with the goal of reducing HIV diagnoses to fewer than 10 people by 2030.
More Des Moines stories
No stories could be found
Get a free daily digest of the most important news in your backyard with Axios Des Moines.
|
<urn:uuid:b512fd24-6180-4c22-af23-fb60daccff25>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510368.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20230928063033-20230928093033-00521.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9550470113754272,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.875,
"token_count": 471,
"url": "https://www.axios.com/local/des-moines/2023/08/17/iowa-top-us-hiv-suppression"
}
|
Iowa leads U.S. in HIV suppression
Iowa leads the nation in suppressing HIV in patients who are diagnosed with the disease, according to the most recent 2021 analysis by the Centers for Disease Control.
Why it matters: Medication can delay HIV-positive people from getting AIDS, as well as prevent sexual transmission of the disease.
State of play: In Iowa, 81.7% of people diagnosed with HIV achieved viral suppression. It was only one of two states to break the 80% mark.
- The national average is 65.9%, according to the CDC.
How it happened:
|
Bipartisan support and strong federal and state funding have helped boost local programs.
- The rural nature of the state means that partnering with agencies has also been crucial to help reach as many people as possible, according to Iowa's Bureau of HIV, STI and Hepatitis.
- Iowa also has lower incidences of HIV infections overall in comparison to places like the South.
Zoom in: Nonprofit Primary Health Care runs "The Project," which provides HIV and AIDS care for around 670 central Iowans, supportive services manager Noah Beacom tells Axios.
- It receives $2.3 million annually from the federal government's Ryan White HIV/AIDS program, Beacom says.
- They also have case managers for ongoing care and can help pay for services like transportation and housing — potential barriers to receiving medication.
Of note: With the funding, The Project is able to take referrals and connect patients with medication within seven days of their diagnoses.
- They also have case managers for ongoing care and can help pay for services like transportation, a potential barrier to receiving medication.
The big picture: While HIV numbers are lowering, sexually transmitted infections like syphilis are on the rise statewide.
- HIV's decrease can be attributed to viral suppression medications as well as PrEP, which helps prevent the chance of getting HIV, Melissa Brown of the Polk County Health Department tells Axios.
What's next: State officials created the "Stop HIV Iowa Plan" last year with the goal of reducing HIV diagnoses to fewer than 10 people by 2030.
More Des Moines stories
No stories could be found
Get a free daily digest of the most important news in your backyard with Axios Des Moines.
|
Learning to read in a mother tongue is key to improving SA’s literacy rates, says foundation
At first, the Zenex Foundation believed that helping learners in Mathematics and Science was the best way to address the education crisis. Then it realised that, first, it needed to help learners with their home languages.
The Zenex Foundation and partner organisations have launched a series of African languages storybooks and reading material that can be used to supplement learner curriculums in an effort to improve the South African literacy rate.
According to the 2021 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (Pirls) report released in May this year, 81% of Grade 4 learners in South Africa cannot read for meaning in any language, which shows an alarming increase from 78% in 2016. The report also found that it was mostly African language schools that recorded a decline in reading, while English and Afrikaans schools did not. Limpopo, North West, Free State and Mpumalanga performed particularly poorly.
Read more in Daily Maverick: International study shows most Grade 4s in South Africa cannot read for meaning
At the Zenex Foundation’s launch of the new reading material, literacy specialist and senior lecturer Dr Xolisa Guzula, from the University of Cape Town, said: “It saddens me to think that when we think about creating African language materials people say, ‘No, that can’t be done because they don’t have a standard language’.
“I think people need to get rid of that thinking … In our teaching of languages, we need to value the children’s varieties of languages when they come to our classrooms and see them as a continuum of what we must teach in schools.”
Guzula said the legacy of the Bantu education system still had a bearing on the teaching curriculum in that black children believed they received inferior education in African languages. She said parents now opted for their children to be taught in English, because African language teaching was considered inferior.
“So, the African child was not seen as someone who could read, who could have access to literature. The only books that were available were readers that only emphasised letter sounds with no meaningful content. There were no supplementary materials for African language-speaking children. It is now up to us to change that injustice that was created,” said Guzula.
In a panel discussion during the launch, Lauren Fok, programme manager at the Zenex Foundation, said the creation and production of the books was possible through robust engagement with partner organisations representing different backgrounds, schools of literacy and reading. These included the Molteno Institute for Language and Literacy, the Nelson Mandela Institute for Education and Rural Development, Room to Read and African Storybook.
“We took the controversial decision to level our books rather than grade them. Many of the project partners felt that given the fact that we didn’t want children to feel judged if they couldn’t read at Grade 3 level, but could only read Grade 1 books, we chose to level our books from one to five and within that have sub-levels,” Fok said.
She went on to iterate that the books were also meant to support teachers and enable learners to be able to decode and understand letter and consonant sounds.
Research and development manager Jenny Katz from Molteno said: “Another big takeaway for us was the opportunity for the development of people who want to work in this field but have never been given the opportunity … amateur illustrators, aspiring story writers. And, because we have a more scientific approach to teaching how to read, we were actually also able to educate in linguistics and approaches to teaching reading in African languages.”
Katz also pointed out that one of the good things about the books was that they did not only focus on the most widely spoken languages but also included languages such as isiNdebele, Tshivenda and Titsonga.
“Writing for children is such a specialised skill. You have to know children, you have to use the correct language, you have to have read children’s literature, because by practising something yourself, you can do it well, you have to think like the child … So, this is so important for our country, because the more storybooks our children are exposed to, hopefully we’ll have our next generation of writers,” Katz added.
“Storybooks are really important in encouraging reading. It’s not graded readers above storybooks; they work side by side to encourage fun, focus and learning. In terms of developing non-fiction, it’s difficult anywhere, even in English for children.
“So, we had to invite our authors to write storybooks that were aligned to CAPS [ Curriculum Assessment Policy Statements] that dealt with knowledge concepts, explored science, nature, relationships and Covid … I love that our books really prioritise the journeys that children take because we’re not just giving them knowledge. We’re also working and building on the knowledge they carry and saying that reading is fun,” African Storybook’s Smangele Mathebula said during the panel discussion.
Rich in meaning
Speaking of the Ulwazi Lwethu readers and storybooks, which she had to review individually, Guzula said she found that they were quite rich in content and meaning.
She said that there was a difference between books that were written in English and then translated, often watering down nuance and content, and books specifically written in African languages, which maintained the integrity of the content of the stories.
Guzula said the books were also a way of expanding on culture, challenging gender stereotypes and historiographies. She said they taught children to engage critically with literature as well as critique issues of societal power dynamics.
Thandi Orleyn, chairperson of the Zenex Foundation, said she hoped the books would be “a living legacy for our great-grandchildren”. She said the foundation started off focusing on the infrastructure needs of schools, but had now expanded to focus on “capturing the minds of children”.
“In doing so, we thought that Maths, Science and Accounting was the route to go, and that’s when we realised that without your home language, you can’t understand the language of Maths and Science, and even as you pretend to understand English, you actually don’t.”
Orleyn said this is why it was important for the foundation to rethink its strategy towards education in order to have the most impact. She highlighted that the launch was significant in that it was happening during what the United Nations has named the international decade dedicated to indigenous languages. DM
|
<urn:uuid:5591d126-669b-4363-868c-fee0b7cf7d26>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-50",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679515260.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20231211143258-20231211173258-00369.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9768374562263489,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.046875,
"token_count": 1413,
"url": "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-09-26-learning-to-read-in-a-mother-tongue-is-key-to-improving-sas-literacy-rates-says-foundation/"
}
|
Learning to read in a mother tongue is key to improving SA’s literacy rates, says foundation
At first, the Zenex Foundation believed that helping learners in Mathematics and Science was the best way to address the education crisis. Then it realised that, first, it needed to help learners with their home languages.
The Zenex Foundation and partner organisations have launched a series of African languages storybooks and reading material that can be used to supplement learner curriculums in an effort to improve the South African literacy rate.
According to the 2021 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (Pirls) report released in May this year,
|
81% of Grade 4 learners in South Africa cannot read for meaning in any language, which shows an alarming increase from 78% in 2016. The report also found that it was mostly African language schools that recorded a decline in reading, while English and Afrikaans schools did not. Limpopo, North West, Free State and Mpumalanga performed particularly poorly.
Read more in Daily Maverick: International study shows most Grade 4s in South Africa cannot read for meaning
At the Zenex Foundation’s launch of the new reading material, literacy specialist and senior lecturer Dr Xolisa Guzula, from the University of Cape Town, said: “It saddens me to think that when we think about creating African language materials people say, ‘No, that can’t be done because they don’t have a standard language’.
“I think people need to get rid of that thinking … In our teaching of languages, we need to value the children’s varieties of languages when they come to our classrooms and see them as a continuum of what we must teach in schools.”
Guzula said the legacy of the Bantu education system still had a bearing on the teaching curriculum in that black children believed they received inferior education in African languages. She said parents now opted for their children to be taught in English, because African language teaching was considered inferior.
“So, the African child was not seen as someone who could read, who could have access to literature. The only books that were available were readers that only emphasised letter sounds with no meaningful content. There were no supplementary materials for African language-speaking children. It is now up to us to change that injustice that was created,” said Guzula.
In a panel discussion during the launch, Lauren Fok, programme manager at the Zenex Foundation, said the creation and production of the books was possible through robust engagement with partner organisations representing different backgrounds, schools of literacy and reading. These included the Molteno Institute for Language and Literacy, the Nelson Mandela Institute for Education and Rural Development, Room to Read and African Storybook.
“We took the controversial decision to level our books rather than grade them. Many of the project partners felt that given the fact that we didn’t want children to feel judged if they couldn’t read at Grade 3 level, but could only read Grade 1 books, we chose to level our books from one to five and within that have sub-levels,” Fok said.
She went on to iterate that the books were also meant to support teachers and enable learners to be able to decode and understand letter and consonant sounds.
Research and development manager Jenny Katz from Molteno said: “Another big takeaway for us was the opportunity for the development of people who want to work in this field but have never been given the opportunity … amateur illustrators, aspiring story writers. And, because we have a more scientific approach to teaching how to read, we were actually also able to educate in linguistics and approaches to teaching reading in African languages.”
Katz also pointed out that one of the good things about the books was that they did not only focus on the most widely spoken languages but also included languages such as isiNdebele, Tshivenda and Titsonga.
“Writing for children is such a specialised skill. You have to know children, you have to use the correct language, you have to have read children’s literature, because by practising something yourself, you can do it well, you have to think like the child … So, this is so important for our country, because the more storybooks our children are exposed to, hopefully we’ll have our next generation of writers,” Katz added.
“Storybooks are really important in encouraging reading. It’s not graded readers above storybooks; they work side by side to encourage fun, focus and learning. In terms of developing non-fiction, it’s difficult anywhere, even in English for children.
“So, we had to invite our authors to write storybooks that were aligned to CAPS [ Curriculum Assessment Policy Statements] that dealt with knowledge concepts, explored science, nature, relationships and Covid … I love that our books really prioritise the journeys that children take because we’re not just giving them knowledge. We’re also working and building on the knowledge they carry and saying that reading is fun,” African Storybook’s Smangele Mathebula said during the panel discussion.
Rich in meaning
Speaking of the Ulwazi Lwethu readers and storybooks, which she had to review individually, Guzula said she found that they were quite rich in content and meaning.
She said that there was a difference between books that were written in English and then translated, often watering down nuance and content, and books specifically written in African languages, which maintained the integrity of the content of the stories.
Guzula said the books were also a way of expanding on culture, challenging gender stereotypes and historiographies. She said they taught children to engage critically with literature as well as critique issues of societal power dynamics.
Thandi Orleyn, chairperson of the Zenex Foundation, said she hoped the books would be “a living legacy for our great-grandchildren”. She said the foundation started off focusing on the infrastructure needs of schools, but had now expanded to focus on “capturing the minds of children”.
“In doing so, we thought that Maths, Science and Accounting was the route to go, and that’s when we realised that without your home language, you can’t understand the language of Maths and Science, and even as you pretend to understand English, you actually don’t.”
Orleyn said this is why it was important for the foundation to rethink its strategy towards education in order to have the most impact. She highlighted that the launch was significant in that it was happening during what the United Nations has named the international decade dedicated to indigenous languages. DM
|
In the latter decades of the 20th century, stem cells—cells that can self-renew and differentiate into other cell types—took the research world by storm. They began to be applied to a wide range of degenerative disease research programs, promising cures for spinal cord injuries, cancer, osteoarthritis, Alzheimer’s disease, and more.
Although stem cell therapies are still under development, and some are used clinically (mainly for cancer), the hype around them eventually died down, and for 20 years, they haven’t been mentioned much outside of niche communities. They’re hard to work with and difficult to scale, limiting their application. But thanks to the Cambridge-based biotechnology company bit.bio, stem cell research is about to make a big comeback.
Providing pure, functional human iPSC
Bit.bio was founded in 2016 by Mark Kotter and Florian Schuster to solve the biggest challenges facing stem cells by leveraging synthetic biology.
Stem cells are either derived from embryos (embryonic stem cells) or by engineering somatic cells to return them to a pluripotent state (induced pluripotent stem cells; iPSCs)—a state of unlimited potential to turn into any type of cell you want. iPSCs—used more often than embryonic stem cells because of ethical concerns—are notoriously inconsistent, with batches of differentiated cells often containing a mixed population of the cells you want plus many cell types you don’t want. This severely limits the pace of discovery, innovation, and, ultimately, the ability to use these cells at scale in the clinic.
Seven years ago, bit.bio introduced their opti-ox (optimized inducible overexpression) technology to the world (which I wrote about in Forbes in 2020), achieving highly functional, consistently pure, and defined human iPSC-derived cells. Their portfolio of ioCells™ includes wild-type GABAergic and glutamatergic neurons, sensory neurons, microglia, and skeletal myocytes, which have been used by a range of research labs all over the world.
But Kotter and the rest of the bit.bio team wasn’t satisfied. “It’s not only about health states,” says Kotter, “it’s much more about disease states where differences between animal models and human biology seem to be heightened.” So they’ve developed an extensive portfolio of disease model cells as well, with an expansion of those offerings to include custom disease model cells announced at SynBioBeta 2023 last week.
“Now our customers can study their disease mutation of interest in a robust, highly reproducible context,” Kotter explained. “Providing everyone access to their own mutation of interest allows us to help more people in terms of drug discovery.”
Driving personalized medicine
I sat down with Kotter and bit.bio Associated Director of Sales Timothy Smith after bit.bio’s announcement to talk more about what this means for the biopharma industry and the company's future, which has already built incredible momentum. The custom disease model offering is the 10th launch in only the last year. Kotter quickly turned the discussion to personalized medicine, an area with incredible potential but few real-world examples.
“One of the most exciting areas is personalized, n equals one medicines, where you have rare diseases that can, for example, be treated via gene correction, and we need to build a regulatory environment that allows you to, within constraints, generate those solutions. You likely require a model to demonstrate that your drug has the desired effect. We think our new offering can open up exactly that—where n equals one medicines can be tested and demonstrated in an extremely robust system,” Kotter explained. One of the biggest application areas for this type of research is in rare diseases, something that Smith is especially passionate about.
“There is a lot of opportunity to create personalized medicines for these rare diseases where there are only a handful of patients worldwide. This is hugely ambitious and with pediatric patients, the time is often limited. For instance, in the context of certain neurodevelopmental conditions affecting the brain, you may only have 12-24 months because once the damage has been done, it will be difficult to reverse. The whole drug discovery and development workflow has to be challenged,” he explained.
One company that is tackling rare diseases in children and using bit.bio’s cells to do it is Everlum.bio. They recently made a big breakthrough studying potential therapies to correct a mutation in the HNRNPH2 (H2) gene that has impacted the founder’s daughter, Rose, slowing her development and then slowly robbing her of the functional abilities she did develop. The company uses antisense oligos—short oligonucleotide strands designed to bind to complementary DNA or RNA sequences—to correct mutations that cause rare diseases. In the case of the H2 mutation, fibroblasts, which are the most commonly used cells, wasn’t a good model. Everlum needed neurons. bit.bio had just what they needed.
“At Everlum, we created a new model to make and deliver rare disease therapeutics to patients faster than ever before. Partnering with other companies that want to help these children with innovation is critical to our success. bit.bio fits the bill. They have been a crucial partner by providing human neurons to us for testing our drugs. Using these bit.bio GABAergic neurons, we have identified the first therapeutic ever for Rose’s disease, and we hope soon for so many more!” said Casey McPherson, Everlum’s founder and CINO.
Keeping the momentum going
Custom disease model cells are certain to push the rare disease research field further than it's ever been before — but that wouldn’t be possible without the basic, inherent purity and consistency characteristics of bit.bio’s cells. Something the company has always been proud of, they’ve now hit the optimization ceiling, Kotter told me. The company has optimized its platform to the extent that they see no batch-to-batch differences—a first for the iPSC world.
“The data blows me away,” Kotter told me. “Essentially, we’ve generated a manufacturing paradigm that is as good as manufacturing an iPhone - you cannot tell the difference between one that’s produced in January versus one that’s produced in March. If you think about biology being a fuzzy sort of science, we’ve proven that there is a reality in biology that is not fuzzy, that is, deterministic. That’s a watershed moment.”
It truly is remarkable what the company has achieved in less than ten years — an achievement that Kotter says is possible only because of synthetic biology. And he sees this as just the starting point for an incredibly fruitful (and too long in coming) marriage between synbio and biopharma. But although Kotter allows himself to dream big, he remains pragmatic.
“We have a responsibility, a stewardship to bring this technology to its potential. Lots of ideas can die; we must allow this to flourish,” he says.
When I asked him what “flourishing” looked like years down the road, Kotter painted an incredibly inspiring picture.
“The ultimate achievement would be to allow cell therapy to become the mainstage treatment for various degenerative diseases and other conditions. It should be as simple and as cost-effective as biologics. And, if we can democratize access to human cells and enable others to generate drugs, there is the potential to impact a billion patients. I think it’s possible.”
I think it’s possible, too. And based on what I’ve seen in just the past five years from bit.bio, I’d say the likelihood is high that they’re going to allow what they have to flourish.
Thank you to Embriette Hyde for additional research and reporting on this article. I’m the founder of SynBioBeta, and some of the companies I write about, including bit.bio, are sponsors of the SynBioBeta conference. For more content, you can subscribe to my weekly newsletter and follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.
|
<urn:uuid:da69ffea-3c31-4753-bf56-8cd143fd1290>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510412.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20230928130936-20230928160936-00553.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9537208676338196,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.6875,
"token_count": 1768,
"url": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/johncumbers/2023/06/01/meet-the-company-democratizing-access-to-human-cells/"
}
|
In the latter decades of the 20th century, stem cells—cells that can self-renew and differentiate into other cell types—took the research world by storm. They began to be applied to a wide range of degenerative disease research programs, promising cures for spinal cord injuries, cancer, osteoarthritis, Alzheimer’s disease, and more.
Although stem cell therapies are still under development, and some are used clinically (mainly for cancer), the hype around them eventually died down, and for 20 years, they haven’t been mentioned much outside of niche communities. They’re hard to work with and difficult to scale, limiting their
|
application. But thanks to the Cambridge-based biotechnology company bit.bio, stem cell research is about to make a big comeback.
Providing pure, functional human iPSC
Bit.bio was founded in 2016 by Mark Kotter and Florian Schuster to solve the biggest challenges facing stem cells by leveraging synthetic biology.
Stem cells are either derived from embryos (embryonic stem cells) or by engineering somatic cells to return them to a pluripotent state (induced pluripotent stem cells; iPSCs)—a state of unlimited potential to turn into any type of cell you want. iPSCs—used more often than embryonic stem cells because of ethical concerns—are notoriously inconsistent, with batches of differentiated cells often containing a mixed population of the cells you want plus many cell types you don’t want. This severely limits the pace of discovery, innovation, and, ultimately, the ability to use these cells at scale in the clinic.
Seven years ago, bit.bio introduced their opti-ox (optimized inducible overexpression) technology to the world (which I wrote about in Forbes in 2020), achieving highly functional, consistently pure, and defined human iPSC-derived cells. Their portfolio of ioCells™ includes wild-type GABAergic and glutamatergic neurons, sensory neurons, microglia, and skeletal myocytes, which have been used by a range of research labs all over the world.
But Kotter and the rest of the bit.bio team wasn’t satisfied. “It’s not only about health states,” says Kotter, “it’s much more about disease states where differences between animal models and human biology seem to be heightened.” So they’ve developed an extensive portfolio of disease model cells as well, with an expansion of those offerings to include custom disease model cells announced at SynBioBeta 2023 last week.
“Now our customers can study their disease mutation of interest in a robust, highly reproducible context,” Kotter explained. “Providing everyone access to their own mutation of interest allows us to help more people in terms of drug discovery.”
Driving personalized medicine
I sat down with Kotter and bit.bio Associated Director of Sales Timothy Smith after bit.bio’s announcement to talk more about what this means for the biopharma industry and the company's future, which has already built incredible momentum. The custom disease model offering is the 10th launch in only the last year. Kotter quickly turned the discussion to personalized medicine, an area with incredible potential but few real-world examples.
“One of the most exciting areas is personalized, n equals one medicines, where you have rare diseases that can, for example, be treated via gene correction, and we need to build a regulatory environment that allows you to, within constraints, generate those solutions. You likely require a model to demonstrate that your drug has the desired effect. We think our new offering can open up exactly that—where n equals one medicines can be tested and demonstrated in an extremely robust system,” Kotter explained. One of the biggest application areas for this type of research is in rare diseases, something that Smith is especially passionate about.
“There is a lot of opportunity to create personalized medicines for these rare diseases where there are only a handful of patients worldwide. This is hugely ambitious and with pediatric patients, the time is often limited. For instance, in the context of certain neurodevelopmental conditions affecting the brain, you may only have 12-24 months because once the damage has been done, it will be difficult to reverse. The whole drug discovery and development workflow has to be challenged,” he explained.
One company that is tackling rare diseases in children and using bit.bio’s cells to do it is Everlum.bio. They recently made a big breakthrough studying potential therapies to correct a mutation in the HNRNPH2 (H2) gene that has impacted the founder’s daughter, Rose, slowing her development and then slowly robbing her of the functional abilities she did develop. The company uses antisense oligos—short oligonucleotide strands designed to bind to complementary DNA or RNA sequences—to correct mutations that cause rare diseases. In the case of the H2 mutation, fibroblasts, which are the most commonly used cells, wasn’t a good model. Everlum needed neurons. bit.bio had just what they needed.
“At Everlum, we created a new model to make and deliver rare disease therapeutics to patients faster than ever before. Partnering with other companies that want to help these children with innovation is critical to our success. bit.bio fits the bill. They have been a crucial partner by providing human neurons to us for testing our drugs. Using these bit.bio GABAergic neurons, we have identified the first therapeutic ever for Rose’s disease, and we hope soon for so many more!” said Casey McPherson, Everlum’s founder and CINO.
Keeping the momentum going
Custom disease model cells are certain to push the rare disease research field further than it's ever been before — but that wouldn’t be possible without the basic, inherent purity and consistency characteristics of bit.bio’s cells. Something the company has always been proud of, they’ve now hit the optimization ceiling, Kotter told me. The company has optimized its platform to the extent that they see no batch-to-batch differences—a first for the iPSC world.
“The data blows me away,” Kotter told me. “Essentially, we’ve generated a manufacturing paradigm that is as good as manufacturing an iPhone - you cannot tell the difference between one that’s produced in January versus one that’s produced in March. If you think about biology being a fuzzy sort of science, we’ve proven that there is a reality in biology that is not fuzzy, that is, deterministic. That’s a watershed moment.”
It truly is remarkable what the company has achieved in less than ten years — an achievement that Kotter says is possible only because of synthetic biology. And he sees this as just the starting point for an incredibly fruitful (and too long in coming) marriage between synbio and biopharma. But although Kotter allows himself to dream big, he remains pragmatic.
“We have a responsibility, a stewardship to bring this technology to its potential. Lots of ideas can die; we must allow this to flourish,” he says.
When I asked him what “flourishing” looked like years down the road, Kotter painted an incredibly inspiring picture.
“The ultimate achievement would be to allow cell therapy to become the mainstage treatment for various degenerative diseases and other conditions. It should be as simple and as cost-effective as biologics. And, if we can democratize access to human cells and enable others to generate drugs, there is the potential to impact a billion patients. I think it’s possible.”
I think it’s possible, too. And based on what I’ve seen in just the past five years from bit.bio, I’d say the likelihood is high that they’re going to allow what they have to flourish.
Thank you to Embriette Hyde for additional research and reporting on this article. I’m the founder of SynBioBeta, and some of the companies I write about, including bit.bio, are sponsors of the SynBioBeta conference. For more content, you can subscribe to my weekly newsletter and follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.
|
For the casual student of U.F.O. history, the modern idea of life beyond our planet usually dates to 1947, when a top-secret U.S. military balloon crashed in the desert near Roswell, N.M. The wreckage prompted decades of conspiracy theories and gave rise to the idea that Roswell was the site of an alien crash landing.
Now, thanks to a new congressional spending bill, U.F.O. enthusiasts may look to 1945 as the beginning of that era.
An amendment tucked into this year’s $858 billion National Defense Authorization Act, which funds the Defense Department’s annual operating budget, requires the department to review historical documents related to unidentified aerial phenomena — government lingo for U.F.O.s — dating to 1945. That is the year that, according to one account, a large, avocado-shaped object struck a communication tower in a patch of New Mexico desert now known as the Trinity Site, where the world’s first atomic bomb was detonated that July.
Experts said the bill, which President Biden signed into law in December, could be a game changer for studying unidentified phenomena.
“The American public can reasonably expect to get some answers to questions that have been burning in the minds of millions of Americans for many years,” said Christopher Mellon, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence. “If nothing else, this should either clear up something that’s been a cloud hanging over the Air Force and Department of Defense for decades or it might lead in another direction, which could be truly incredible. There’s a lot at stake.”
The amendment was introduced by Representative Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican and a member of the Armed Services Committee. Mr. Gallagher, who declined an interview request, said in a brief statement that a “comprehensive timeline” of unidentified aerial phenomena in U.S. government records was needed, and that the amendment would ensure a full review of “all U.S. government classified and unclassified information.”
“This is an important step that will give us a more comprehensive understanding of what we know — and don’t know — about incidents impacting our military,” he said.
The U.S. government has dabbled in public-facing programs that have explored the possibility of alien life. In 2021, the Pentagon announced it would form a task force to look at the issue after a congressionally mandated report found that the government had no explanation for 143 sightings of strange phenomena by military pilots and others since 2004. NASA said in June that it would finance a study to look at unexplained sightings.
In 2022, the Defense Department established the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, which succeeded the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group, after facing scrutiny from the public and lawmakers. Sean M. Kirkpatrick, a former chief scientist at the Missile and Space Intelligence Center, which is part of the Defense Intelligence Agency, was named director.
The introduction of drones and other airborne clutter has led to an increase in sightings of unidentified objects in recent years. The government, which delivered its most recent update on Thursday, has found that weather balloons and surveillance operations by foreign powers accounted for most of the recent sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena, though dozens remain officially unexplained.
The defense funding bill requires the new office to work with the intelligence community to identify any nondisclosure agreements related to possible U.F.O. sightings. It also requires the office to create a process for people to share information, regardless of classification, and to share its findings with the highest levels of the Defense Department. It also mandates that the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office be fully staffed.
“This is an office now that has a voice and resources, and it has authority,” Mr. Mellon, the former Defense Department official, said.
Susan Gough, a spokeswoman for the agency, said in an email that “the department is reviewing the enacted legislation.”
Jacques Vallée, a longtime ufologist, astronomer and computer scientist, said the amendment’s inclusion in the defense bill was “an absolute turning point.”
“This is what all scientists and my colleagues have always dreamed of,” said Dr. Vallée, who has helped study reports of U.F.O.s for the Centre National d’Études Spatiales, the French space agency. He said that the U.S. government’s agreement to dig into the past meant “the stigma has been removed.”
Dr. Vallée began studying the Trinity incident several years ago alongside a journalist, Paola Harris, and interviewed people who claimed to have witnessed the crash. Dr. Vallée and Ms. Harris chronicled their research in a book, “Trinity: The Best-Kept Secret,” including the details of the avocado-shaped object. They also spoke to witnesses who said they came across the object as children and found what they described as “little creatures.”
In the United States, Dr. Vallée said, “there has always been, on the part of the government, especially the Pentagon,” a sense that civilian sightings are unreliable. “The reason,” he said, “is that civilians don’t have the technology to really document what happens, and of course the Pentagon does.”
But, Dr. Vallée said, there’s no reason that “a farmer in his field” isn’t qualified to give a quality observation of a possible U.F.O. “The civilian observations tend to be longer, they tend to be more detailed, they tend to leave a trace that we can analyze,” he said.
He said he was working with a team at Stanford University to analyze samples of minerals and debris that were left after U.F.O. crashes or landings.
“I would hope that the new project would continue to do that because I think we’ve shown the way to do that scientifically,” Dr. Vallée said. He added, “We don’t have proof that a biologist can look at, but we have considerable statistical and now observational evidence that there must be life out there, that the Earth is not unique.”
At 83, Dr. Vallée still holds out hope for tangible evidence in his lifetime.
“Science is a moving frontier,” he said. “I want to have the right answers, even if they are small answers, rather than more speculation.”
The post Did Aliens Land on Earth in 1945? A Defense Bill Seeks Answers. appeared first on New York Times.
|
<urn:uuid:24ae542d-2bf3-4c01-8d81-0d386298f8b2>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-23",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224647639.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20230601074606-20230601104606-00722.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9640692472457886,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.71875,
"token_count": 1407,
"url": "https://dnyuz.com/2023/01/13/did-aliens-land-on-earth-in-1945-a-defense-bill-seeks-answers/"
}
|
For the casual student of U.F.O. history, the modern idea of life beyond our planet usually dates to 1947, when a top-secret U.S. military balloon crashed in the desert near Roswell, N.M. The wreckage prompted decades of conspiracy theories and gave rise to the idea that Roswell was the site of an alien crash landing.
Now, thanks to a new congressional spending bill, U.F.O. enthusiasts may look to 1945 as the beginning of that era.
An amendment tucked into this year’s $858 billion National Defense Authorization Act, which funds the Defense Department’s
|
annual operating budget, requires the department to review historical documents related to unidentified aerial phenomena — government lingo for U.F.O.s — dating to 1945. That is the year that, according to one account, a large, avocado-shaped object struck a communication tower in a patch of New Mexico desert now known as the Trinity Site, where the world’s first atomic bomb was detonated that July.
Experts said the bill, which President Biden signed into law in December, could be a game changer for studying unidentified phenomena.
“The American public can reasonably expect to get some answers to questions that have been burning in the minds of millions of Americans for many years,” said Christopher Mellon, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence. “If nothing else, this should either clear up something that’s been a cloud hanging over the Air Force and Department of Defense for decades or it might lead in another direction, which could be truly incredible. There’s a lot at stake.”
The amendment was introduced by Representative Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican and a member of the Armed Services Committee. Mr. Gallagher, who declined an interview request, said in a brief statement that a “comprehensive timeline” of unidentified aerial phenomena in U.S. government records was needed, and that the amendment would ensure a full review of “all U.S. government classified and unclassified information.”
“This is an important step that will give us a more comprehensive understanding of what we know — and don’t know — about incidents impacting our military,” he said.
The U.S. government has dabbled in public-facing programs that have explored the possibility of alien life. In 2021, the Pentagon announced it would form a task force to look at the issue after a congressionally mandated report found that the government had no explanation for 143 sightings of strange phenomena by military pilots and others since 2004. NASA said in June that it would finance a study to look at unexplained sightings.
In 2022, the Defense Department established the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, which succeeded the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group, after facing scrutiny from the public and lawmakers. Sean M. Kirkpatrick, a former chief scientist at the Missile and Space Intelligence Center, which is part of the Defense Intelligence Agency, was named director.
The introduction of drones and other airborne clutter has led to an increase in sightings of unidentified objects in recent years. The government, which delivered its most recent update on Thursday, has found that weather balloons and surveillance operations by foreign powers accounted for most of the recent sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena, though dozens remain officially unexplained.
The defense funding bill requires the new office to work with the intelligence community to identify any nondisclosure agreements related to possible U.F.O. sightings. It also requires the office to create a process for people to share information, regardless of classification, and to share its findings with the highest levels of the Defense Department. It also mandates that the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office be fully staffed.
“This is an office now that has a voice and resources, and it has authority,” Mr. Mellon, the former Defense Department official, said.
Susan Gough, a spokeswoman for the agency, said in an email that “the department is reviewing the enacted legislation.”
Jacques Vallée, a longtime ufologist, astronomer and computer scientist, said the amendment’s inclusion in the defense bill was “an absolute turning point.”
“This is what all scientists and my colleagues have always dreamed of,” said Dr. Vallée, who has helped study reports of U.F.O.s for the Centre National d’Études Spatiales, the French space agency. He said that the U.S. government’s agreement to dig into the past meant “the stigma has been removed.”
Dr. Vallée began studying the Trinity incident several years ago alongside a journalist, Paola Harris, and interviewed people who claimed to have witnessed the crash. Dr. Vallée and Ms. Harris chronicled their research in a book, “Trinity: The Best-Kept Secret,” including the details of the avocado-shaped object. They also spoke to witnesses who said they came across the object as children and found what they described as “little creatures.”
In the United States, Dr. Vallée said, “there has always been, on the part of the government, especially the Pentagon,” a sense that civilian sightings are unreliable. “The reason,” he said, “is that civilians don’t have the technology to really document what happens, and of course the Pentagon does.”
But, Dr. Vallée said, there’s no reason that “a farmer in his field” isn’t qualified to give a quality observation of a possible U.F.O. “The civilian observations tend to be longer, they tend to be more detailed, they tend to leave a trace that we can analyze,” he said.
He said he was working with a team at Stanford University to analyze samples of minerals and debris that were left after U.F.O. crashes or landings.
“I would hope that the new project would continue to do that because I think we’ve shown the way to do that scientifically,” Dr. Vallée said. He added, “We don’t have proof that a biologist can look at, but we have considerable statistical and now observational evidence that there must be life out there, that the Earth is not unique.”
At 83, Dr. Vallée still holds out hope for tangible evidence in his lifetime.
“Science is a moving frontier,” he said. “I want to have the right answers, even if they are small answers, rather than more speculation.”
The post Did Aliens Land on Earth in 1945? A Defense Bill Seeks Answers. appeared first on New York Times.
|
Everything has a history, and writers have for thousands of years tried to pull together a universal history of everything. “In earliest times,” the Hellenistic historian Polybius mused, in the second century B.C., “history was a series of unrelated episodes, but from now on history becomes an organic whole. Europe and Africa with Asia, and Asia with Africa and Europe.” For the past hundred years or so, each generation of English-language readers has been treated to a fresh blockbuster trying to synthesize world history. H. G. Wells’s “The Outline of History” (1920), written “to be read as much by Hindus or Moslems or Buddhists as by Americans and Western Europeans,” argued “that men form one universal brotherhood . . . that their individual lives, their nations and races, interbreed and blend and go on to merge again at last in one common human destiny.” Then came Arnold Toynbee, whose twelve-volume “Study of History” (1934-61), abridged into a best-selling two, proposed that human civilizations rose and fell in predictable stages. In time, Jared Diamond swept in with “Guns, Germs, and Steel” (1997), delivering an agriculture- and animal-powered explanation for the phases of human development. More recently, the field has belonged to Yuval Noah Harari, whose “Sapiens” (2011) describes the ascent of humankind over other species, and offers Silicon Valley-friendly speculations about a post-human future.
The appeal of such chronicles has something to do with the way they schematize history in the service of a master plot, identifying laws or tendencies that explain the course of human events. Western historians have long charted history as the linear, progressive working out of some larger design—courtesy of God, Nature, or Marx. Other historians, most influentially the fourteenth-century scholar Ibn Khaldun, embraced a sine-wave model of civilizational growth and decline. The cliché that “history repeats itself” promotes a cyclical version of events, reminiscent of the Hindu cosmology that divided time into four ages, each more degenerate than the last.
What if world history more resembles a family tree, its vectors hard to trace through cascading tiers, multiplying branches, and an ever-expanding jumble of names? This is the model, heavier on masters than on plot, suggested by Simon Sebag Montefiore’s “The World: A Family History of Humanity” (Knopf), a new synthesis that, as the title suggests, approaches the sweep of world history through the family—or, to be more precise, through families in power. In the course of some thirteen hundred pages, “The World” offers a monumental survey of dynastic rule: how to get it, how to keep it, how to squander it.
“The word family has an air of cosiness and affection, but of course in real life families can be webs of struggle and cruelty too,” Montefiore begins. Dynastic history, as he tells it, was riddled with rivalry, betrayal, and violence from the start. A prime example might be Julius Caesar’s adopted son Octavian, the founder of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, who consolidated his rule by entrapping and murdering Caesar’s biological son Caesarion, the last of the Ptolemies. Octavian’s ruthlessness looked anodyne compared with many other ancient successions, like that of the Achaemenid king Artaxerxes II, who was opposed by his mother and her favorite son. When the favorite died in battle against Artaxerxes, Montefiore reports, their mother executed one of his killers by scaphism, “in which the victim was enclosed between two boats while force-fed honey and milk until maggots, rats and flies infested their living faecal cocoon, eating them alive.” She also ordered the family of Artaxerxes’ wife to be buried alive, and murdered her daughter-in-law by feeding her poisoned fowl.
Read our reviews of notable new fiction and nonfiction, updated every Wednesday.
As such episodes suggest, it was one thing to hold power, another to pass it on peacefully. “Succession is the great test of a system; few manage it well,” Montefiore observes. Two distinct models coalesced in the thirteenth century. One was practiced by the Mongol empire and its successor states, which tended to hand power to whichever of a ruler’s sons proved the most able in warfare, politics, or internecine family feuds. The Mongol conquests were accompanied by rampant sexual violence; DNA evidence suggests that Genghis Khan may be “literally the father of Asia,” Montefiore writes. He insists, though, that “women among nomadic peoples enjoyed more freedom and authority than those in sedentary states,” and that the many wives, consorts, and concubines in a royal court could occasionally hold real power. The Tang-dynasty empress Wu worked her way up from concubine of the sixth rank through the roles of empress consort (wife), dowager (widow), and regent (mother), and finally became an empress in her own right. More than a millennium later, another low-ranking concubine who became de-facto ruler, Empress Dowager Cixi, contrasted herself with her peer Queen Victoria: “I don’t think her life was half so interesting and eventful as mine. . . . She had nothing to say about policy. Now look at me. I have 400 million dependent on my judgment.”
The political liability of these heir-splitting methods was that rival claimants might fracture the kingdom. The Ottomans handled this problem by dispatching a brigade of mute executioners, known as the Tongueless, to strangle a sultan’s male relatives, and so limit the shedding of royal blood. This made for intense power games in the harem, as mothers tussled to place their sons at the front of the line for succession. A sultan was supposed to stop visiting a consort once she’d given birth to a son, Montefiore explains, “so that each prince would be supported by one mother.” Suleiman the Magnificent—whose father cleared the way for him by having three brothers, seven nephews, and many of his own sons strangled—broke that rule with a young Ukrainian captive named Hürrem (also known as Roxelana). Suleiman had more than one son with Hürrem, freed her, and married her; he then had his eldest son by another mother strangled. But that left two of his and Hürrem’s surviving adult sons jockeying for the top position. After a failed bid to seize power, the younger escaped to Persia, where he was hunted down by the Tongueless and throttled.
A different model for dynasty-building relied on the apparently more tranquil method of intermarriage. Alexander the Great was an early adopter of exogamy as an accessory to conquest; Montefiore says that he merged “the elites of his new empire, Macedonians and Persians, in a mass multicultural wedding” at Susa in 324 B.C. Many other empire-builders through the centuries took up the tactic, notably the Mughal emperor Akbar, who followed his subjugation of the Rajputs by marrying a princess of Amber, and so, Montefiore notes, kicked off “a fusion of Tamerlanian and Rajput lineages with Sanskritic and Persian cultures” that transformed the arts of north India. But it was in Catholic Europe, with its insistence on monogamy and primogeniture, that royal matchmaking became an essential tool of dynasty-building. (The Catholic Church itself, which imposed celibacy on its own Fathers, Mothers, Brothers, and Sisters, kept power in the family when Popes positioned their nephews—nipote, in Italian—in positions of authority, a practice that, as Montefiore points out, gave us the term “nepotism.”)
The archetypal dynasty of this model was the Habsburgs. The family had been catapulted to prominence in the thirteenth century by the self-styled Count Rudolf, who presented himself as a godson of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. Rudolf, recognizing the strategic value of family alliances, cannily married off five of his daughters to German princes, thus helping to cement his position as king of the Germans. His method was violently echoed by the Habsburg-sponsored conquistadores, who, in order to shore up their authority, forced the kinswomen of Motecuhzoma and Atahualpa into marriages. And it was to the Habsburgs that Napoleon Bonaparte turned when he sought a mother for his own hoped-for heir.
The ruthless biology of primogeniture tended to reduce women to the position of breeders—and occasionally men, too. Otto von Bismarck snidely called Saxe-Coburg, the home of Queen Victoria’s husband, Albert, the “stud farm of Europe.” This system conduced to inbreeding, and came at a genetic price. By the sixteenth century, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V suffered from a massively protruding jaw, with a mouth agape and a stubby tongue slurring his speech. His son Philip II contended with a congenitally incapable heir, Don Carlos, who, Montefiore summarizes, abused animals, flagellated servant girls, defenestrated a page, and torched a house; he also tried to murder a number of courtiers, stage a coup in the Netherlands, stab his uncle, assassinate his father, and kill himself “by swallowing a diamond.” The Spanish Habsburg line ended a few generations later with “Carlos the Hexed,” whose parents were uncle and niece; he was, in Montefiore’s description, “born with a brain swelling, one kidney, one testicle and a jaw so deformed he could barely chew yet a throat so wide he could swallow chunks of meat,” along with “ambiguous genitalia” that may have contributed to his inability to sire an heir.
By the nineteenth century, European dynasts formed an incestuous thicket of cousins, virtually all of them descended from Charlemagne, and many, more proximately, from Queen Victoria. The First World War was the family feud to end them all. Triggered by the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the heir of the Habsburg emperor Franz Josef, the war brought three first cousins into conflict: Kaiser Wilhelm II, Tsar Nicholas II, and King George V. (By then, Franz Josef’s only son had killed himself; his wife—and first cousin—had been stabbed to death; his brother Emperor Maximilian of Mexico had been executed; and another first cousin, Emperor Pedro II of Brazil, had been deposed.) The war would, Montefiore observes, ultimately “destroy the dynasties it was designed to save”: the Habsburgs, the Ottomans, the Romanovs, and the Hohenzollerns had all been ousted by 1922.
With the rise to political power of non-royal families in the twentieth century, Montefiore’s template for dynastic rule switches from monarchs to mafiosi. The Mafia model applies as readily to the Kennedys, whom Montefiore calls “a macho family business” with Mob ties, as to the Yeltsins, Boris and his daughter Tatiana, whose designated famiglia of oligarchs selected Vladimir Putin as their heir. In Montefiore’s view, Donald Trump is a wannabe dynast who installed a “disorganized, corrupt and nepotistic court” in democracy’s most iconic palace.
The Mafia metaphor also captures an important truth: a history of family power is a history of hit jobs, lately including Mohammed bin Salman’s ordering the dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi—which has been linked to battles within the House of Saud—and Kim Jong Un’s arranging the murder of his half brother. In the late eighteenth century, the concept of family was taking on another role. Modern republican governments seized on the language of kinship—the Jacobins’ “fraternité,” the United States’ “Founding Fathers”—to forge political communities detached from specific dynasties. Versions of the title “Father of the Nation” have been bestowed on leaders from Argentina’s José de San Martín to Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda. Immanuel Kant, among others, believed that democracies would be more peaceful than monarchies, because they would be free from dynastic struggles. But some of the bloodiest conflicts of modern times have instead hinged on who does and doesn’t belong to which national “family.” Mustafa Kemal renamed himself “Father of the Turks” (Atatürk) in the wake of the Armenian genocide. A century later, Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of Myanmar’s “Father of the Nation,” refused to condemn the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya, who have been denied citizenship and so excluded from counting as Burmese.
It was partly to counter the genocidal implications of nationalism that, in 1955, MoMA’s photography curator Edward Steichen launched “The Family of Man,” a major exhibition designed to showcase “the essential oneness of mankind throughout the world.” The trouble is that even the most intimately connected human family can divide against itself. In the final days of the Soviet Union, Montefiore recounts, the U.S. Secretary of State James Baker discussed the possibility of war in Ukraine with a member of the Politburo. The Soviet official observed that Ukraine had twelve million Russians and many were in mixed marriages, “so what kind of war would that be?” Baker told him, “A normal war.”
“The World” has the heft and character of a dictionary; it’s divided into twenty-three “acts,” each labelled by world-population figures and subdivided into sections headed by family names. Montefiore energetically fulfills his promise to write a “genuine world history, not unbalanced by excessive focus on Britain and Europe.” In zesty sentences and lively vignettes, he captures the widening global circuits of people, commerce, and culture. Here’s the Roman emperor Claudius parading down the streets of what is now Colchester on an elephant; there’s Manikongo Garcia holding court in what is today Angola “amid Flemish tapestries, wearing Indian linens, eating with cutlery of American silver.” Here are the Anglo-Saxon Mercian kings using Arabic dirhams as local currency; there’s the Khmer ruler Jayavarman VII converting the Hindu site of Angkor for Buddhist worship.
It’s largely up to the reader, though, to make meaning out of these portraits, especially when it comes to the conceit at the book’s center. For one thing, a “family history” is not the same as a “history of the family,” of the sort pioneered by social historians such as Philippe Ariès, Louise A. Tilly, and Lawrence Stone. Montefiore alludes only in passing to shifts such as the consolidation of the nuclear family in Europe after the Black Death, and to the effects on the family of the Industrial Revolution and modern contraception. He offers no sustained analysis of the implications that different family structures had for who could hold power and why.
To the extent that “The World” does have a plot, it concerns the resilience of dynastic power in the face of political transformation. Even today, more than forty nations have a monarch as the head of state, fifteen of them in the British Commonwealth. Yet in democracies, too, holding political power is very often a matter of family connections. “Well, Franklin, there’s nothing like keeping the name in the family,” Teddy Roosevelt remarked at the marriage of his niece Eleanor to her cousin. Americans balk at how many U.S. Presidential nominees in the past generation have been family members of former senators (George H. W. Bush, Al Gore), governors (Mitt Romney), and Presidents (George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton). That’s nothing compared with postwar Japan, where virtually every Prime Minister has come from a political family and some thirty per cent of parliamentary representatives are second generation. In Asia more generally, the path to power for women, especially, has often run through male relatives: of the eleven women who have led Asian democracies, nine have been the daughter, sister, or widow of a male leader. This isn’t how democracy was supposed to work.
Why is hereditary power so hard to shake? Montefiore argues that “dynastic reversion seems both natural and pragmatic when weak states are not trusted to deliver justice or protection and loyalties remain to kin not to institutions”—and new states, many of them hobbled by colonial rule, are rarely strong states. Then, people in power can bend the rules in ways that help them and their successors keep it. It’s not just monarchies that go autocratic: republics can get there all on their own.
A fuller answer, though, rests on the material reality of inheritance, which has systematically enriched some families and dispossessed others. This is most starkly illustrated by the history of slavery, which, as Montefiore frequently points out, has always been twinned with the history of family. Transatlantic slavery, in particular, was “an anti-familial institution” that captured families and ripped them apart, while creating conditions of sexual bondage that produced furtive parallel families. Sally Hemings was the daughter of her first owner, John Wayles; the half sister of her next owner, Martha Wayles; and the mistress of another, Martha’s husband, Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson’s children by Wayles and Hemings were simultaneously half siblings and cousins—one set enslaved, the other free. Even without such intimate ties, European family privilege was magnified in the distorting mirror of American slavery. In Guyana in 1823, for example, an enslaved man and his son Jack Gladstone led a rebellion against their British owner, John Gladstone. Jack Gladstone, for his role in the uprising, was exiled to St. Lucia. John Gladstone, for his ownership of more than two thousand enslaved workers, received the largest payout that the British government made to a slaveholder when slavery was abolished. John’s son William Gladstone, the future Liberal Prime Minister, gave his maiden speech in Parliament defending John’s treatment of his chattel labor.
The inheritance of money and status goes a long way toward explaining the prevalence of dynastic patterns in other sectors. Thomas Paine maintained that “a hereditary monarch is as absurd a position as a hereditary doctor,” and yet in many societies being a doctor often was hereditary. The same went for artists, bankers, soldiers, and more; the Paris executioner who lopped off Louis XVI’s head was preceded in his line of work by three generations of family members. Montefiore’s own family, Britain’s most prominent Sephardic dynasty, puts in the occasional appearance in these pages, alongside the Rothschilds (with whom the Montefiores intermarried); both were banking families, and their prominence endures in part because of the generational accumulation of wealth. A recent study of occupations in the United States shows that children are disproportionately likely to do the same job as one of their parents. The children of doctors are twenty times as likely as others to go into medicine; the children of textile-machine operators are hundreds of times more likely to operate textile machines. Children of academics—like me—are five times as likely to go into academia as others. It’s nepo babies all the way down.
There’s an obvious tension between the ideal of democracy, in which citizens enjoy equal standing regardless of family status, and the reality that the family persists as a prime mediator of social, cultural, and financial opportunities. That doesn’t mean that democracy is bound to be dynastic, any more than it means that families have to be superseded by the state. It does mean that dynasties play as persistent and paradoxical a role in many democracies as families do for many citizens of those democracies—can’t live with them, can’t live without them. ♦
|
<urn:uuid:096c9e9c-ddbc-4c3a-b029-895564e1a3bd>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-23",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224646652.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20230610233020-20230611023020-00346.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9644989371299744,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.625,
"token_count": 4443,
"url": "https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/05/29/the-world-a-family-history-of-humanity-simon-sebag-montefiore-book-review"
}
|
Everything has a history, and writers have for thousands of years tried to pull together a universal history of everything. “In earliest times,” the Hellenistic historian Polybius mused, in the second century B.C., “history was a series of unrelated episodes, but from now on history becomes an organic whole. Europe and Africa with Asia, and Asia with Africa and Europe.” For the past hundred years or so, each generation of English-language readers has been treated to a fresh blockbuster trying to synthesize world history. H. G. Wells’s “The Outline of History” (1920), written “to be read
|
as much by Hindus or Moslems or Buddhists as by Americans and Western Europeans,” argued “that men form one universal brotherhood . . . that their individual lives, their nations and races, interbreed and blend and go on to merge again at last in one common human destiny.” Then came Arnold Toynbee, whose twelve-volume “Study of History” (1934-61), abridged into a best-selling two, proposed that human civilizations rose and fell in predictable stages. In time, Jared Diamond swept in with “Guns, Germs, and Steel” (1997), delivering an agriculture- and animal-powered explanation for the phases of human development. More recently, the field has belonged to Yuval Noah Harari, whose “Sapiens” (2011) describes the ascent of humankind over other species, and offers Silicon Valley-friendly speculations about a post-human future.
The appeal of such chronicles has something to do with the way they schematize history in the service of a master plot, identifying laws or tendencies that explain the course of human events. Western historians have long charted history as the linear, progressive working out of some larger design—courtesy of God, Nature, or Marx. Other historians, most influentially the fourteenth-century scholar Ibn Khaldun, embraced a sine-wave model of civilizational growth and decline. The cliché that “history repeats itself” promotes a cyclical version of events, reminiscent of the Hindu cosmology that divided time into four ages, each more degenerate than the last.
What if world history more resembles a family tree, its vectors hard to trace through cascading tiers, multiplying branches, and an ever-expanding jumble of names? This is the model, heavier on masters than on plot, suggested by Simon Sebag Montefiore’s “The World: A Family History of Humanity” (Knopf), a new synthesis that, as the title suggests, approaches the sweep of world history through the family—or, to be more precise, through families in power. In the course of some thirteen hundred pages, “The World” offers a monumental survey of dynastic rule: how to get it, how to keep it, how to squander it.
“The word family has an air of cosiness and affection, but of course in real life families can be webs of struggle and cruelty too,” Montefiore begins. Dynastic history, as he tells it, was riddled with rivalry, betrayal, and violence from the start. A prime example might be Julius Caesar’s adopted son Octavian, the founder of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, who consolidated his rule by entrapping and murdering Caesar’s biological son Caesarion, the last of the Ptolemies. Octavian’s ruthlessness looked anodyne compared with many other ancient successions, like that of the Achaemenid king Artaxerxes II, who was opposed by his mother and her favorite son. When the favorite died in battle against Artaxerxes, Montefiore reports, their mother executed one of his killers by scaphism, “in which the victim was enclosed between two boats while force-fed honey and milk until maggots, rats and flies infested their living faecal cocoon, eating them alive.” She also ordered the family of Artaxerxes’ wife to be buried alive, and murdered her daughter-in-law by feeding her poisoned fowl.
Read our reviews of notable new fiction and nonfiction, updated every Wednesday.
As such episodes suggest, it was one thing to hold power, another to pass it on peacefully. “Succession is the great test of a system; few manage it well,” Montefiore observes. Two distinct models coalesced in the thirteenth century. One was practiced by the Mongol empire and its successor states, which tended to hand power to whichever of a ruler’s sons proved the most able in warfare, politics, or internecine family feuds. The Mongol conquests were accompanied by rampant sexual violence; DNA evidence suggests that Genghis Khan may be “literally the father of Asia,” Montefiore writes. He insists, though, that “women among nomadic peoples enjoyed more freedom and authority than those in sedentary states,” and that the many wives, consorts, and concubines in a royal court could occasionally hold real power. The Tang-dynasty empress Wu worked her way up from concubine of the sixth rank through the roles of empress consort (wife), dowager (widow), and regent (mother), and finally became an empress in her own right. More than a millennium later, another low-ranking concubine who became de-facto ruler, Empress Dowager Cixi, contrasted herself with her peer Queen Victoria: “I don’t think her life was half so interesting and eventful as mine. . . . She had nothing to say about policy. Now look at me. I have 400 million dependent on my judgment.”
The political liability of these heir-splitting methods was that rival claimants might fracture the kingdom. The Ottomans handled this problem by dispatching a brigade of mute executioners, known as the Tongueless, to strangle a sultan’s male relatives, and so limit the shedding of royal blood. This made for intense power games in the harem, as mothers tussled to place their sons at the front of the line for succession. A sultan was supposed to stop visiting a consort once she’d given birth to a son, Montefiore explains, “so that each prince would be supported by one mother.” Suleiman the Magnificent—whose father cleared the way for him by having three brothers, seven nephews, and many of his own sons strangled—broke that rule with a young Ukrainian captive named Hürrem (also known as Roxelana). Suleiman had more than one son with Hürrem, freed her, and married her; he then had his eldest son by another mother strangled. But that left two of his and Hürrem’s surviving adult sons jockeying for the top position. After a failed bid to seize power, the younger escaped to Persia, where he was hunted down by the Tongueless and throttled.
A different model for dynasty-building relied on the apparently more tranquil method of intermarriage. Alexander the Great was an early adopter of exogamy as an accessory to conquest; Montefiore says that he merged “the elites of his new empire, Macedonians and Persians, in a mass multicultural wedding” at Susa in 324 B.C. Many other empire-builders through the centuries took up the tactic, notably the Mughal emperor Akbar, who followed his subjugation of the Rajputs by marrying a princess of Amber, and so, Montefiore notes, kicked off “a fusion of Tamerlanian and Rajput lineages with Sanskritic and Persian cultures” that transformed the arts of north India. But it was in Catholic Europe, with its insistence on monogamy and primogeniture, that royal matchmaking became an essential tool of dynasty-building. (The Catholic Church itself, which imposed celibacy on its own Fathers, Mothers, Brothers, and Sisters, kept power in the family when Popes positioned their nephews—nipote, in Italian—in positions of authority, a practice that, as Montefiore points out, gave us the term “nepotism.”)
The archetypal dynasty of this model was the Habsburgs. The family had been catapulted to prominence in the thirteenth century by the self-styled Count Rudolf, who presented himself as a godson of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. Rudolf, recognizing the strategic value of family alliances, cannily married off five of his daughters to German princes, thus helping to cement his position as king of the Germans. His method was violently echoed by the Habsburg-sponsored conquistadores, who, in order to shore up their authority, forced the kinswomen of Motecuhzoma and Atahualpa into marriages. And it was to the Habsburgs that Napoleon Bonaparte turned when he sought a mother for his own hoped-for heir.
The ruthless biology of primogeniture tended to reduce women to the position of breeders—and occasionally men, too. Otto von Bismarck snidely called Saxe-Coburg, the home of Queen Victoria’s husband, Albert, the “stud farm of Europe.” This system conduced to inbreeding, and came at a genetic price. By the sixteenth century, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V suffered from a massively protruding jaw, with a mouth agape and a stubby tongue slurring his speech. His son Philip II contended with a congenitally incapable heir, Don Carlos, who, Montefiore summarizes, abused animals, flagellated servant girls, defenestrated a page, and torched a house; he also tried to murder a number of courtiers, stage a coup in the Netherlands, stab his uncle, assassinate his father, and kill himself “by swallowing a diamond.” The Spanish Habsburg line ended a few generations later with “Carlos the Hexed,” whose parents were uncle and niece; he was, in Montefiore’s description, “born with a brain swelling, one kidney, one testicle and a jaw so deformed he could barely chew yet a throat so wide he could swallow chunks of meat,” along with “ambiguous genitalia” that may have contributed to his inability to sire an heir.
By the nineteenth century, European dynasts formed an incestuous thicket of cousins, virtually all of them descended from Charlemagne, and many, more proximately, from Queen Victoria. The First World War was the family feud to end them all. Triggered by the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the heir of the Habsburg emperor Franz Josef, the war brought three first cousins into conflict: Kaiser Wilhelm II, Tsar Nicholas II, and King George V. (By then, Franz Josef’s only son had killed himself; his wife—and first cousin—had been stabbed to death; his brother Emperor Maximilian of Mexico had been executed; and another first cousin, Emperor Pedro II of Brazil, had been deposed.) The war would, Montefiore observes, ultimately “destroy the dynasties it was designed to save”: the Habsburgs, the Ottomans, the Romanovs, and the Hohenzollerns had all been ousted by 1922.
With the rise to political power of non-royal families in the twentieth century, Montefiore’s template for dynastic rule switches from monarchs to mafiosi. The Mafia model applies as readily to the Kennedys, whom Montefiore calls “a macho family business” with Mob ties, as to the Yeltsins, Boris and his daughter Tatiana, whose designated famiglia of oligarchs selected Vladimir Putin as their heir. In Montefiore’s view, Donald Trump is a wannabe dynast who installed a “disorganized, corrupt and nepotistic court” in democracy’s most iconic palace.
The Mafia metaphor also captures an important truth: a history of family power is a history of hit jobs, lately including Mohammed bin Salman’s ordering the dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi—which has been linked to battles within the House of Saud—and Kim Jong Un’s arranging the murder of his half brother. In the late eighteenth century, the concept of family was taking on another role. Modern republican governments seized on the language of kinship—the Jacobins’ “fraternité,” the United States’ “Founding Fathers”—to forge political communities detached from specific dynasties. Versions of the title “Father of the Nation” have been bestowed on leaders from Argentina’s José de San Martín to Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda. Immanuel Kant, among others, believed that democracies would be more peaceful than monarchies, because they would be free from dynastic struggles. But some of the bloodiest conflicts of modern times have instead hinged on who does and doesn’t belong to which national “family.” Mustafa Kemal renamed himself “Father of the Turks” (Atatürk) in the wake of the Armenian genocide. A century later, Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of Myanmar’s “Father of the Nation,” refused to condemn the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya, who have been denied citizenship and so excluded from counting as Burmese.
It was partly to counter the genocidal implications of nationalism that, in 1955, MoMA’s photography curator Edward Steichen launched “The Family of Man,” a major exhibition designed to showcase “the essential oneness of mankind throughout the world.” The trouble is that even the most intimately connected human family can divide against itself. In the final days of the Soviet Union, Montefiore recounts, the U.S. Secretary of State James Baker discussed the possibility of war in Ukraine with a member of the Politburo. The Soviet official observed that Ukraine had twelve million Russians and many were in mixed marriages, “so what kind of war would that be?” Baker told him, “A normal war.”
“The World” has the heft and character of a dictionary; it’s divided into twenty-three “acts,” each labelled by world-population figures and subdivided into sections headed by family names. Montefiore energetically fulfills his promise to write a “genuine world history, not unbalanced by excessive focus on Britain and Europe.” In zesty sentences and lively vignettes, he captures the widening global circuits of people, commerce, and culture. Here’s the Roman emperor Claudius parading down the streets of what is now Colchester on an elephant; there’s Manikongo Garcia holding court in what is today Angola “amid Flemish tapestries, wearing Indian linens, eating with cutlery of American silver.” Here are the Anglo-Saxon Mercian kings using Arabic dirhams as local currency; there’s the Khmer ruler Jayavarman VII converting the Hindu site of Angkor for Buddhist worship.
It’s largely up to the reader, though, to make meaning out of these portraits, especially when it comes to the conceit at the book’s center. For one thing, a “family history” is not the same as a “history of the family,” of the sort pioneered by social historians such as Philippe Ariès, Louise A. Tilly, and Lawrence Stone. Montefiore alludes only in passing to shifts such as the consolidation of the nuclear family in Europe after the Black Death, and to the effects on the family of the Industrial Revolution and modern contraception. He offers no sustained analysis of the implications that different family structures had for who could hold power and why.
To the extent that “The World” does have a plot, it concerns the resilience of dynastic power in the face of political transformation. Even today, more than forty nations have a monarch as the head of state, fifteen of them in the British Commonwealth. Yet in democracies, too, holding political power is very often a matter of family connections. “Well, Franklin, there’s nothing like keeping the name in the family,” Teddy Roosevelt remarked at the marriage of his niece Eleanor to her cousin. Americans balk at how many U.S. Presidential nominees in the past generation have been family members of former senators (George H. W. Bush, Al Gore), governors (Mitt Romney), and Presidents (George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton). That’s nothing compared with postwar Japan, where virtually every Prime Minister has come from a political family and some thirty per cent of parliamentary representatives are second generation. In Asia more generally, the path to power for women, especially, has often run through male relatives: of the eleven women who have led Asian democracies, nine have been the daughter, sister, or widow of a male leader. This isn’t how democracy was supposed to work.
Why is hereditary power so hard to shake? Montefiore argues that “dynastic reversion seems both natural and pragmatic when weak states are not trusted to deliver justice or protection and loyalties remain to kin not to institutions”—and new states, many of them hobbled by colonial rule, are rarely strong states. Then, people in power can bend the rules in ways that help them and their successors keep it. It’s not just monarchies that go autocratic: republics can get there all on their own.
A fuller answer, though, rests on the material reality of inheritance, which has systematically enriched some families and dispossessed others. This is most starkly illustrated by the history of slavery, which, as Montefiore frequently points out, has always been twinned with the history of family. Transatlantic slavery, in particular, was “an anti-familial institution” that captured families and ripped them apart, while creating conditions of sexual bondage that produced furtive parallel families. Sally Hemings was the daughter of her first owner, John Wayles; the half sister of her next owner, Martha Wayles; and the mistress of another, Martha’s husband, Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson’s children by Wayles and Hemings were simultaneously half siblings and cousins—one set enslaved, the other free. Even without such intimate ties, European family privilege was magnified in the distorting mirror of American slavery. In Guyana in 1823, for example, an enslaved man and his son Jack Gladstone led a rebellion against their British owner, John Gladstone. Jack Gladstone, for his role in the uprising, was exiled to St. Lucia. John Gladstone, for his ownership of more than two thousand enslaved workers, received the largest payout that the British government made to a slaveholder when slavery was abolished. John’s son William Gladstone, the future Liberal Prime Minister, gave his maiden speech in Parliament defending John’s treatment of his chattel labor.
The inheritance of money and status goes a long way toward explaining the prevalence of dynastic patterns in other sectors. Thomas Paine maintained that “a hereditary monarch is as absurd a position as a hereditary doctor,” and yet in many societies being a doctor often was hereditary. The same went for artists, bankers, soldiers, and more; the Paris executioner who lopped off Louis XVI’s head was preceded in his line of work by three generations of family members. Montefiore’s own family, Britain’s most prominent Sephardic dynasty, puts in the occasional appearance in these pages, alongside the Rothschilds (with whom the Montefiores intermarried); both were banking families, and their prominence endures in part because of the generational accumulation of wealth. A recent study of occupations in the United States shows that children are disproportionately likely to do the same job as one of their parents. The children of doctors are twenty times as likely as others to go into medicine; the children of textile-machine operators are hundreds of times more likely to operate textile machines. Children of academics—like me—are five times as likely to go into academia as others. It’s nepo babies all the way down.
There’s an obvious tension between the ideal of democracy, in which citizens enjoy equal standing regardless of family status, and the reality that the family persists as a prime mediator of social
|
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey — one of the country's first two openly lesbian elected governors and a descendant of Irish immigrants — addressed the Irish Senate on Tuesday to help commemorate the 30th anniversary of the decriminalization of homosexuality in Ireland.
“It was not so long ago, when the story of Irish-American unity, and the story of gay liberation would never have been told together,” Healey said in her speech to the Senate. “I’m here to say they are stories of the same people, threads in the same fabric that binds us across time and strengthens us to face the future.”
Ireland passed a law decriminalizing homosexual acts in 1993. Nearly two decades later, the predominantly Catholic nation legalized same-sex marriage, by popular vote, in 2015. The U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide the same year.
“It’s been 19 years since we secured marriage equality in Massachusetts — eight years since both the citizens of Ireland and the Supreme Court of the United States, just one month apart, declared that 'love is love' once and for all,” Healey said.
Healey's trip also coincides with the 60th anniversary of a state visit to Ireland by another Massachusetts Democrat — President John F. Kennedy — that helped usher in an economic and cultural partnership between the two countries.
Healey's agenda during the weeklong trip, which begins and ends in Dublin, also includes business development meetings with Irish business leaders in technology and clean energy. Her visit doubles as a trade mission, her first since taking office in January.
Healey's pitch is that Massachusetts offers a lot that Irish businesses will find attractive, from the state's “world-class education and research institutions to our cutting-edge biotechnology and clean energy sectors to our commitment to protecting civil rights and freedom.”
Healey traces her Irish ancestry on her mother’s side to Ballinasloe, County Galway. Her maternal great-grandmother Katherine Tracy emigrated to America at age 16 in 1912. On the paternal side, Healey’s grandfather came from Kilgarvan, County Kerry, and her grandmother came from Macroom, County Cork.
Healey said her story is just one of millions of emigrant stories that helped build Massachusetts and the United States.
“Our Irish ancestors left behind everything they knew and worked hard to give us all we would need,” Healey said. “I was raised with the values they passed on — taking care of your family, taking responsibility for the welfare of your community, and looking out for those who need a helping hand.”
Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll is serving as Massachusetts acting governor during Healey's trip.
|
<urn:uuid:d34a6cca-b098-416d-bb55-1a7c64429033>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233511351.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20231004020329-20231004050329-00769.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9640035629272461,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.765625,
"token_count": 572,
"url": "https://www.wbur.org/news/2023/06/27/maura-healey-lesbian-irish-senate-anniversary"
}
|
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey — one of the country's first two openly lesbian elected governors and a descendant of Irish immigrants — addressed the Irish Senate on Tuesday to help commemorate the 30th anniversary of the decriminalization of homosexuality in Ireland.
“It was not so long ago, when the story of Irish-American unity, and the story of gay liberation would never have been told together,” Healey said in her speech to the Senate. “I’m here to say they are stories of the same people, threads in the same fabric that binds us across time and strengthens us to face the future.”
Ireland passed a
|
law decriminalizing homosexual acts in 1993. Nearly two decades later, the predominantly Catholic nation legalized same-sex marriage, by popular vote, in 2015. The U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide the same year.
“It’s been 19 years since we secured marriage equality in Massachusetts — eight years since both the citizens of Ireland and the Supreme Court of the United States, just one month apart, declared that 'love is love' once and for all,” Healey said.
Healey's trip also coincides with the 60th anniversary of a state visit to Ireland by another Massachusetts Democrat — President John F. Kennedy — that helped usher in an economic and cultural partnership between the two countries.
Healey's agenda during the weeklong trip, which begins and ends in Dublin, also includes business development meetings with Irish business leaders in technology and clean energy. Her visit doubles as a trade mission, her first since taking office in January.
Healey's pitch is that Massachusetts offers a lot that Irish businesses will find attractive, from the state's “world-class education and research institutions to our cutting-edge biotechnology and clean energy sectors to our commitment to protecting civil rights and freedom.”
Healey traces her Irish ancestry on her mother’s side to Ballinasloe, County Galway. Her maternal great-grandmother Katherine Tracy emigrated to America at age 16 in 1912. On the paternal side, Healey’s grandfather came from Kilgarvan, County Kerry, and her grandmother came from Macroom, County Cork.
Healey said her story is just one of millions of emigrant stories that helped build Massachusetts and the United States.
“Our Irish ancestors left behind everything they knew and worked hard to give us all we would need,” Healey said. “I was raised with the values they passed on — taking care of your family, taking responsibility for the welfare of your community, and looking out for those who need a helping hand.”
Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll is serving as Massachusetts acting governor during Healey's trip.
|
TURES: Did a person or a computer write this column?
Published 10:30 am Tuesday, January 31, 2023
From colleges to the comic strip Doonesbury to just about any area focusing on composition, the subject of artificial intelligence and enhanced writing tools possibly replacing human input is causing nervousness. Could you tell which part of this column were written by me, and which parts are computer-generated? The answer is at the end of this essay.
The concerns in academic are very obvious. A.I. could help students cheat on papers by providing them with pre-written or pre-generated content for their assignments. This content can be generated through natural language processing techniques, such as text summarization or text generation, which can create essays, research papers, or other written work that is similar in style and content to the student’s own writing.
But others see the potential for artificial intelligence to be helpful when it comes to student assignments. AI can assist students in writing by providing feedback on grammar, sentence structure, and vocabulary. It can also assist in organizing and outlining a piece of writing, as well as providing suggestions for improving the overall quality of the writing.
Just as the technology might be used by students, it could also be adopted by professors as well. A.I. could be used to detect plagiarism by comparing a student’s work to existing content on the internet. However, it is important to note that cheating is unethical and can have serious consequences for students.
The concerns about the new directions of artificial intelligence go beyond colleges and universities.
AI has the potential to automate certain writing tasks, such as generating news articles or creating social media posts. However, it is unlikely to fully replace human writers as it lacks the creativity and emotional intelligence that humans possess. Additionally, AI-generated content may not have the same level of nuance and personal perspective that a human writer can provide. It is more likely that AI will augment the work of human writers, helping them to be more efficient and productive, rather than replacing them entirely.
What could be done about AI? Should it be banned? Would that even be legal? This is not so different from our history, where new technologies challenged the current role that humans played in the economy. After all, the steamboat replaced the men who worked the keel-boats, paddling their way across the river. But goods and passengers could be transported faster across longer distances. The humans had to adapt to changes, as they always have had to do.
As for academics who are fearful that students may use a computer to write their essays, this is not a new problem. In the past, a friend or parent could write the paper for the student, who would turn it in with their own name on it. In recent years, the student could go on the Internet and purchase a paper written by a site that generates such papers for a price. Constant vigilance is needed by teachers, whether AI tools exist or not. The solution should be to craft assignments and tasks in a way that would identify and even highlight or somehow value that individual contribution by humans, so that AI is more of a complement than a replacement of human-based writing, and even thoughts.
In case you are curious about which parts of this were AI-generated, they came from paragraphs 2, 3, 4 and 5, after the first sentence prompt.
|
<urn:uuid:bea7d2d9-cf37-44fa-9487-e638eff93c0d>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510225.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20230926211344-20230927001344-00796.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9721923470497131,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.65625,
"token_count": 691,
"url": "https://www.lagrangenews.com/2023/01/31/tures-did-a-person-or-a-computer-write-this-column/"
}
|
TURES: Did a person or a computer write this column?
Published 10:30 am Tuesday, January 31, 2023
From colleges to the comic strip Doonesbury to just about any area focusing on composition, the subject of artificial intelligence and enhanced writing tools possibly replacing human input is causing nervousness. Could you tell which part of this column were written by me, and which parts are computer-generated? The answer is at the end of this essay.
The concerns in academic are very obvious. A.I. could help students cheat on papers by providing them with pre-written or pre-generated
|
content for their assignments. This content can be generated through natural language processing techniques, such as text summarization or text generation, which can create essays, research papers, or other written work that is similar in style and content to the student’s own writing.
But others see the potential for artificial intelligence to be helpful when it comes to student assignments. AI can assist students in writing by providing feedback on grammar, sentence structure, and vocabulary. It can also assist in organizing and outlining a piece of writing, as well as providing suggestions for improving the overall quality of the writing.
Just as the technology might be used by students, it could also be adopted by professors as well. A.I. could be used to detect plagiarism by comparing a student’s work to existing content on the internet. However, it is important to note that cheating is unethical and can have serious consequences for students.
The concerns about the new directions of artificial intelligence go beyond colleges and universities.
AI has the potential to automate certain writing tasks, such as generating news articles or creating social media posts. However, it is unlikely to fully replace human writers as it lacks the creativity and emotional intelligence that humans possess. Additionally, AI-generated content may not have the same level of nuance and personal perspective that a human writer can provide. It is more likely that AI will augment the work of human writers, helping them to be more efficient and productive, rather than replacing them entirely.
What could be done about AI? Should it be banned? Would that even be legal? This is not so different from our history, where new technologies challenged the current role that humans played in the economy. After all, the steamboat replaced the men who worked the keel-boats, paddling their way across the river. But goods and passengers could be transported faster across longer distances. The humans had to adapt to changes, as they always have had to do.
As for academics who are fearful that students may use a computer to write their essays, this is not a new problem. In the past, a friend or parent could write the paper for the student, who would turn it in with their own name on it. In recent years, the student could go on the Internet and purchase a paper written by a site that generates such papers for a price. Constant vigilance is needed by teachers, whether AI tools exist or not. The solution should be to craft assignments and tasks in a way that would identify and even highlight or somehow value that individual contribution by humans, so that AI is more of a complement than a replacement of human-based writing, and even thoughts.
In case you are curious about which parts of this were AI-generated, they came from paragraphs 2, 3, 4 and 5, after the first sentence prompt.
|
When construction is complete, the new all-electric facility in Lakewood aims to be net-zero, releasing no new emissions into the atmosphere.
But the new Food and Drug Administration lab has a secondary mission: To prove that cost-effective and energy efficient buildings can house serious scientific activities without risk of losing crucial research. Like hospitals, labs run 24/7, 365 days a year.
“You can’t shut the power off and shut the experiments down or the testing that they’re doing. But you can be more efficient in the way that you use the energy,” said Daniel Nikolich, project manager for the new FDA lab at the Denver Federal Center.
Funded through $79 million from a federal climate change and health care law, the new lab is part of the U.S. General Service Administration’s first batch of projects that looks to boost clean energy innovation by using energy-saving technologies and materials that minimize carbon emissions in construction and renovation projects at federal facilities. The administration owns more than 411,000 buildings across the country, including research and judicial complexes in Boulder and Denver.
The GSA estimates that its first round of clean energy projects, totaling more than $300 million from the Inflation Reduction Act, will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 12,000 metric tons, which is equivalent to the emissions created by more than 25,000 cars in one year and reduce energy costs by $35 million over the next 20 years.
The project works toward President Joe Biden’s goal of reaching net-zero emissions from federal buildings by 2045.
“It’s great to see the federal government leading by example,” said Nissa Erickson, an associate at Boulder-based Southwest Energy Efficiency Project. “Using IRA funds to help pay for the state-of-the-art HVAC systems in this new lab makes a lot of sense. It’s important to demonstrate all-electric, net-zero energy buildings of many different types, commercial and residential. Moving to highly efficient, all-electric buildings will be essential to protect our climate — and it can save us money too.”
The new 70,000-square-foot Food and Drug Administration lab, which is set to open in 2026, will be decked with solar panels and other ways to offset power generated by coal or natural gas and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
The three-story building will replace a building that was built as a munitions factory during World War II. The FDA moved into the nearly windowless two-story building at the Denver Federal Center in 1987, after it was modified into a lab.
The new lab will be built with glass on the south and west sides of the building to bring in sunlight, Nikolich said. The north and east sides will have less glass to help provide for better thermal insulation, he said.
To offset the energy used in heating and cooling the building, the lab will recapture energy as it leaves the building and put it back, using runaround loops, ground-source heat pumps and other technologies.
The building design and construction, a combination of steel and concrete, will help the lab use half the amount of energy a typical lab uses, Nikolich said. For perspective, a typical lab uses about 10 times as much energy as an office building of a similar size.
The FDA lab in Denver performs tests on a wide range of food for humans and animals, cosmetics and dietary-supplements and specializes in testing for food allergies and DNA fish barcoding, among other analyses.
The lab will still rely on a generator in the case of a power outage, but due to “fairly stable” power in Denver, Nikolich said he doesn’t expect it to be used often.
☀ OUR RECOMMENDATIONS
“We’re proud of the fact that it is going to be our first net-zero lab in the country,” said G.W. Emge, director of design and construction for GSA’s Rocky Mountain region. The energy efficiency will save the FDA money that would otherwise be spent to heat, cool and light the building.
“Every dollar they have to spend on energy is a dollar they can’t spend on their research,” he said. “So it’s kind of a win-win in that respect.”
Construction on the lab is set to start within the next year. It will be built on what is now a parking lot, south of the existing building.
The project also falls in line with a lofty goal proposed by some Colorado lawmakers to remove all carbon emissions by 2050. Senate Bill 16, which would also set tough interim goals for greenhouse gas reduction and try again for a 30% tax credit for clean electric lawn and garden equipment, is on the table in the legislature this year.
Nonprofit clean energy analysis group RMI hopes the push to build an all-electric, net-zero lab serves as a model for other facilities to adopt.
“Facilities like the Denver Federal Center can be difficult to electrify and decarbonize due to their high process and ventilation loads,” said Lucas Toffoli, on the group’s Carbon-Free Building program. “So, we hope the integrated efficiency, energy recovery, and renewable energy strategies they’re using will provide a helpful model for high-performance lab build-outs across the U.S.”
|
<urn:uuid:655c2fc9-4037-4184-96ed-28b78f56c6c1>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233511717.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20231005012006-20231005042006-00574.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9431409239768982,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.5625,
"token_count": 1134,
"url": "https://coloradosun.com/2023/01/24/net-zero-fda-federal-lab-lakewood-colorado/"
}
|
When construction is complete, the new all-electric facility in Lakewood aims to be net-zero, releasing no new emissions into the atmosphere.
But the new Food and Drug Administration lab has a secondary mission: To prove that cost-effective and energy efficient buildings can house serious scientific activities without risk of losing crucial research. Like hospitals, labs run 24/7, 365 days a year.
“You can’t shut the power off and shut the experiments down or the testing that they’re doing. But you can be more efficient in the way that you use the energy,” said Daniel Nikolich, project manager for the new
|
FDA lab at the Denver Federal Center.
Funded through $79 million from a federal climate change and health care law, the new lab is part of the U.S. General Service Administration’s first batch of projects that looks to boost clean energy innovation by using energy-saving technologies and materials that minimize carbon emissions in construction and renovation projects at federal facilities. The administration owns more than 411,000 buildings across the country, including research and judicial complexes in Boulder and Denver.
The GSA estimates that its first round of clean energy projects, totaling more than $300 million from the Inflation Reduction Act, will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 12,000 metric tons, which is equivalent to the emissions created by more than 25,000 cars in one year and reduce energy costs by $35 million over the next 20 years.
The project works toward President Joe Biden’s goal of reaching net-zero emissions from federal buildings by 2045.
“It’s great to see the federal government leading by example,” said Nissa Erickson, an associate at Boulder-based Southwest Energy Efficiency Project. “Using IRA funds to help pay for the state-of-the-art HVAC systems in this new lab makes a lot of sense. It’s important to demonstrate all-electric, net-zero energy buildings of many different types, commercial and residential. Moving to highly efficient, all-electric buildings will be essential to protect our climate — and it can save us money too.”
The new 70,000-square-foot Food and Drug Administration lab, which is set to open in 2026, will be decked with solar panels and other ways to offset power generated by coal or natural gas and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
The three-story building will replace a building that was built as a munitions factory during World War II. The FDA moved into the nearly windowless two-story building at the Denver Federal Center in 1987, after it was modified into a lab.
The new lab will be built with glass on the south and west sides of the building to bring in sunlight, Nikolich said. The north and east sides will have less glass to help provide for better thermal insulation, he said.
To offset the energy used in heating and cooling the building, the lab will recapture energy as it leaves the building and put it back, using runaround loops, ground-source heat pumps and other technologies.
The building design and construction, a combination of steel and concrete, will help the lab use half the amount of energy a typical lab uses, Nikolich said. For perspective, a typical lab uses about 10 times as much energy as an office building of a similar size.
The FDA lab in Denver performs tests on a wide range of food for humans and animals, cosmetics and dietary-supplements and specializes in testing for food allergies and DNA fish barcoding, among other analyses.
The lab will still rely on a generator in the case of a power outage, but due to “fairly stable” power in Denver, Nikolich said he doesn’t expect it to be used often.
☀ OUR RECOMMENDATIONS
“We’re proud of the fact that it is going to be our first net-zero lab in the country,” said G.W. Emge, director of design and construction for GSA’s Rocky Mountain region. The energy efficiency will save the FDA money that would otherwise be spent to heat, cool and light the building.
“Every dollar they have to spend on energy is a dollar they can’t spend on their research,” he said. “So it’s kind of a win-win in that respect.”
Construction on the lab is set to start within the next year. It will be built on what is now a parking lot, south of the existing building.
The project also falls in line with a lofty goal proposed by some Colorado lawmakers to remove all carbon emissions by 2050. Senate Bill 16, which would also set tough interim goals for greenhouse gas reduction and try again for a 30% tax credit for clean electric lawn and garden equipment, is on the table in the legislature this year.
Nonprofit clean energy analysis group RMI hopes the push to build an all-electric, net-zero lab serves as a model for other facilities to adopt.
“Facilities like the Denver Federal Center can be difficult to electrify and decarbonize due to their high process and ventilation loads,” said Lucas Toffoli, on the group’s Carbon-Free Building program. “So, we hope the integrated efficiency, energy recovery, and renewable energy strategies they’re using will provide a helpful model for high-performance lab build-outs across the U.S.”
|
As we are about to enter the month of February which is not only celebrated as Black History Month but also as Reggae Month, there is the usual heightened awareness of culture here in Jamaica. The month is packed with cultural activities commemorating the respective themes. Discussions surrounding Marcus Garvey often focus on his political involvement, however he also contributed significantly to the cultural development of Jamaica.
Garvey and the Universal Improvement Negro Association (U.N.I.A) were very significant to cultural development in Jamaica because Black people were not given the opportunity to perform in the mainstream artistic community before Garvey came along. So, Garvey was a forerunner, in this regard, as he used his movement to not only train Black people as artistes, but to give them a sense of purpose and direction.
Garvey supported or launched the careers of several performers or artistes. These persons included:
- Ranny Williams – Dancer, actor, composer and singer
- Ernest Cupidon – Comedian and impersonator
- Miss Myrtle Bennett – Soprano
Garvey, himself, was quite talented. He wrote seven plays and directed several more. He wrote poetry; most of which were written while he was in prison in the U.S. He wrote songs; the most popular being Keep Cool which he also wrote while in prison in the U.S. Garvey was also an exceptional orator.
Long after his death in 1940, Garvey continues to influence the Arts. Artists use him as inspiration for art and craft pieces, likewise poets for their poetry. Musicians such as Peter Tosh, Burning Spear and Fred Locks, among others, compose lyrics about him or use his philosophies in their songs. One of the most popular musicians who was influenced by Garvey was Bob Marley. Many of his songs included Garvey’s views on Africa, unity and the upliftment of Black people. Songs like Africa Unite and Redemption Song with the popular lyrics, “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds.”
Finally, Garvey influenced the Rastafari Movement. The movement was founded on Garvey’s philosophy and opinions of a united Black race and repatriation to Africa. This was probably because the founders of Rastafari were Garveyites, Leonard Howell, Joseph Hibbert, Archibald Dunkley and Robert Hinds. Rastas revere Garvey as a prophet and the movement has become one of the most iconic representations of Jamaica’s culture, boasting worldwide recognition and influence.
Marcus Garvey was a cultured man who had great ideas to empower Black people and build their character, and, he used the Arts extensively to help achieve this.
|
<urn:uuid:cdb69e5e-fd27-4af9-bc46-eea125465bd0>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-14",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296945472.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20230326111045-20230326141045-00761.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9860326051712036,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.859375,
"token_count": 562,
"url": "https://garveylhkgn.wordpress.com/2023/01/27/garveys-cultural-impact/"
}
|
As we are about to enter the month of February which is not only celebrated as Black History Month but also as Reggae Month, there is the usual heightened awareness of culture here in Jamaica. The month is packed with cultural activities commemorating the respective themes. Discussions surrounding Marcus Garvey often focus on his political involvement, however he also contributed significantly to the cultural development of Jamaica.
Garvey and the Universal Improvement Negro Association (U.N.I.A) were very significant to cultural development in Jamaica because Black people were not given the opportunity to perform in the mainstream artistic community before Garvey came along. So, Garvey was a forerunner
|
, in this regard, as he used his movement to not only train Black people as artistes, but to give them a sense of purpose and direction.
Garvey supported or launched the careers of several performers or artistes. These persons included:
- Ranny Williams – Dancer, actor, composer and singer
- Ernest Cupidon – Comedian and impersonator
- Miss Myrtle Bennett – Soprano
Garvey, himself, was quite talented. He wrote seven plays and directed several more. He wrote poetry; most of which were written while he was in prison in the U.S. He wrote songs; the most popular being Keep Cool which he also wrote while in prison in the U.S. Garvey was also an exceptional orator.
Long after his death in 1940, Garvey continues to influence the Arts. Artists use him as inspiration for art and craft pieces, likewise poets for their poetry. Musicians such as Peter Tosh, Burning Spear and Fred Locks, among others, compose lyrics about him or use his philosophies in their songs. One of the most popular musicians who was influenced by Garvey was Bob Marley. Many of his songs included Garvey’s views on Africa, unity and the upliftment of Black people. Songs like Africa Unite and Redemption Song with the popular lyrics, “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds.”
Finally, Garvey influenced the Rastafari Movement. The movement was founded on Garvey’s philosophy and opinions of a united Black race and repatriation to Africa. This was probably because the founders of Rastafari were Garveyites, Leonard Howell, Joseph Hibbert, Archibald Dunkley and Robert Hinds. Rastas revere Garvey as a prophet and the movement has become one of the most iconic representations of Jamaica’s culture, boasting worldwide recognition and influence.
Marcus Garvey was a cultured man who had great ideas to empower Black people and build their character, and, he used the Arts extensively to help achieve this.
|
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.
When the Voyager probes lifted off weeks apart in 1977, no one expected that the twin spacecraft would have their missions extended from four years to 45 years and counting.
Now, the mission team is getting creative with its strategies for the power supply and instruments on both Voyager 1 and 2 to enable both probes to continue collecting valuable data as they explore uncharted interstellar territory.
Voyager 1 is currently the farthest spacecraft from Earth at about 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away, while Voyager 2 has traveled more than 12 billion miles (20 billion kilometers) from Earth. Both are in interstellar space and the only spacecraft to operate beyond the heliosphere, the sun’s bubble of magnetic fields and particles that extends well beyond the orbit of Pluto.
As the sole extensions of humanity outside the heliosphere’s protective bubble, the two probes are alone even on their cosmic treks as they travel in different directions.
Think of the planets of the solar system as existing in one plane. Voyager 1’s trajectory took it up and out of the plane of the planets after it passed Saturn, while Voyager 2 passed over the top of Neptune and moved down and out of the plane of planets, said Suzanne Dodd, Voyager’s project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
The information collected by these long-lived probes is helping scientists learn about the cometlike shape of the heliosphere and how it protects Earth from energized particles and radiation in interstellar space.
Voyager 2’s priceless data is captured and returned to Earth through its five science instruments, while Voyager 1 still has four operational instruments after one failed earlier in the mission.
But it has taken a lot of care and monitoring to keep the “senior citizens” operating, Dodd said.
“I kind of describe them as twin sisters,” Dodd told CNN. “One has lost its hearing and it needs some hearing aids, and another one has lost some sense of touch. So, they’ve failed differently over time. But in a general sense, they’re very healthy for how old they are.”
Instruments designed to look at the planets as the Voyager probes toured the solar system in the 1980s have been turned off to repurpose memory for the interstellar mission that began in 1990, Dodd said. Voyager 1 reached the heliosphere boundary in 2012, while the slower Voyager 2 crossed the boundary in 2018.
Both Voyager probes rely on radioisotope thermoelectric generators. The nuclear power supply loses 4 watts per year as the plutonium it relies on slowly decays and its heat is converted into electricity. Over time, the Voyager team has commanded the probes to turn off instrument heaters and other nonessential systems.
“But (Voyager) also gets very cold and we need to keep the propellant lines warm enough, about 2 degrees Celsius (35.6 degrees Fahrenheit). If they freeze, then we could lose our ability to point to Earth. So it’s a balancing act between power and thermal and how we operate the spacecraft,” Dodd said.
A delicate balance
The team was pleasantly surprised that the instruments recalibrated to become slightly more sensitive in their data collection because some of the Voyager detectors operate better when colder.
“One way to look at is maybe think about the two Voyagers as being like cabins at the top of a mountain, and it’s very cold there,” said Linda Spilker, Voyager’s project scientist at JPL.”Little by little you’re having to turn the lights out inside to conserve your power. And you’re also having to turn your thermostat down, and yet you’re still working just fine.”
Voyager 2 has begun using a small backup power reserve that was part of a safety mechanism, which will enable the spacecraft to keep from shutting down another science instrument until 2026, rather than this year. The safety mechanism, which protects the instruments in case the flow of electricity changes significantly on the spacecraft, contained a small amount of power that acted as a backup circuit.
Now, that power can be used to keep Voyager 2’s instruments up and running.
The spacecraft’s electrical systems remain largely stable, so the team determined it was a small risk for the larger reward of being able to collect science data. The team will continue to monitor Voyager 2’s voltage and act accordingly if there are fluctuations.
If this strategy works for Voyager 2, it may also be implemented on Voyager 1, since the team will have to consider shutting down another science instrument on the spacecraft in 2024.
“Instead of turning off a science instrument, we’d like to maybe do something very creative, engineering-wise, in order to get another year of science data,” Dodd said. “It’s operating the spacecraft in a way it was never designed to be operated.”
Voyager 2’s plasma science instrument is still functioning, so it can take direct measurements of the density of the plasma in interstellar space. Space plasma is matter made of charged particles, the movement of which is controlled by electric and magnetic forces, according to NASA.
“Picture it as an ocean of space with waves and turbulence and activity going on, and the Voyager instruments can measure what’s happening,” Spilker said. “Before you go to a new place, you make predictions of what you think you might find when you get there. With Voyager, we’ve learned to be surprised.”
Scientists expected that the density of plasma would go down as Voyager traveled further from the sun, but it has increased instead. And the probes can measure and see shocks as they propagate out from the sun, Spilker said.
As long as both Voyager 1 and 2 remain healthy, it’s likely the aging probes will continue their record-breaking missions for years to come.
|
<urn:uuid:0f5d1fc6-ce5c-4eb4-9737-6d9ba2535f27>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-23",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224652116.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20230605121635-20230605151635-00510.warc.gz",
"int_score": 4,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9476181864738464,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.765625,
"token_count": 1277,
"url": "https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/10/world/nasa-voyager-probes-power-scn/index.html"
}
|
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.
When the Voyager probes lifted off weeks apart in 1977, no one expected that the twin spacecraft would have their missions extended from four years to 45 years and counting.
Now, the mission team is getting creative with its strategies for the power supply and instruments on both Voyager 1 and 2 to enable both probes to continue collecting valuable data as they explore uncharted interstellar territory.
Voyager 1 is currently the farthest spacecraft from Earth at about 15
|
billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away, while Voyager 2 has traveled more than 12 billion miles (20 billion kilometers) from Earth. Both are in interstellar space and the only spacecraft to operate beyond the heliosphere, the sun’s bubble of magnetic fields and particles that extends well beyond the orbit of Pluto.
As the sole extensions of humanity outside the heliosphere’s protective bubble, the two probes are alone even on their cosmic treks as they travel in different directions.
Think of the planets of the solar system as existing in one plane. Voyager 1’s trajectory took it up and out of the plane of the planets after it passed Saturn, while Voyager 2 passed over the top of Neptune and moved down and out of the plane of planets, said Suzanne Dodd, Voyager’s project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
The information collected by these long-lived probes is helping scientists learn about the cometlike shape of the heliosphere and how it protects Earth from energized particles and radiation in interstellar space.
Voyager 2’s priceless data is captured and returned to Earth through its five science instruments, while Voyager 1 still has four operational instruments after one failed earlier in the mission.
But it has taken a lot of care and monitoring to keep the “senior citizens” operating, Dodd said.
“I kind of describe them as twin sisters,” Dodd told CNN. “One has lost its hearing and it needs some hearing aids, and another one has lost some sense of touch. So, they’ve failed differently over time. But in a general sense, they’re very healthy for how old they are.”
Instruments designed to look at the planets as the Voyager probes toured the solar system in the 1980s have been turned off to repurpose memory for the interstellar mission that began in 1990, Dodd said. Voyager 1 reached the heliosphere boundary in 2012, while the slower Voyager 2 crossed the boundary in 2018.
Both Voyager probes rely on radioisotope thermoelectric generators. The nuclear power supply loses 4 watts per year as the plutonium it relies on slowly decays and its heat is converted into electricity. Over time, the Voyager team has commanded the probes to turn off instrument heaters and other nonessential systems.
“But (Voyager) also gets very cold and we need to keep the propellant lines warm enough, about 2 degrees Celsius (35.6 degrees Fahrenheit). If they freeze, then we could lose our ability to point to Earth. So it’s a balancing act between power and thermal and how we operate the spacecraft,” Dodd said.
A delicate balance
The team was pleasantly surprised that the instruments recalibrated to become slightly more sensitive in their data collection because some of the Voyager detectors operate better when colder.
“One way to look at is maybe think about the two Voyagers as being like cabins at the top of a mountain, and it’s very cold there,” said Linda Spilker, Voyager’s project scientist at JPL.”Little by little you’re having to turn the lights out inside to conserve your power. And you’re also having to turn your thermostat down, and yet you’re still working just fine.”
Voyager 2 has begun using a small backup power reserve that was part of a safety mechanism, which will enable the spacecraft to keep from shutting down another science instrument until 2026, rather than this year. The safety mechanism, which protects the instruments in case the flow of electricity changes significantly on the spacecraft, contained a small amount of power that acted as a backup circuit.
Now, that power can be used to keep Voyager 2’s instruments up and running.
The spacecraft’s electrical systems remain largely stable, so the team determined it was a small risk for the larger reward of being able to collect science data. The team will continue to monitor Voyager 2’s voltage and act accordingly if there are fluctuations.
If this strategy works for Voyager 2, it may also be implemented on Voyager 1, since the team will have to consider shutting down another science instrument on the spacecraft in 2024.
“Instead of turning off a science instrument, we’d like to maybe do something very creative, engineering-wise, in order to get another year of science data,” Dodd said. “It’s operating the spacecraft in a way it was never designed to be operated.”
Voyager 2’s plasma science instrument is still functioning, so it can take direct measurements of the density of the plasma in interstellar space. Space plasma is matter made of charged particles, the movement of which is controlled by electric and magnetic forces, according to NASA.
“Picture it as an ocean of space with waves and turbulence and activity going on, and the Voyager instruments can measure what’s happening,” Spilker said. “Before you go to a new place, you make predictions of what you think you might find when you get there. With Voyager, we’ve learned to be surprised.”
Scientists expected that the density of plasma would go down as Voyager traveled further from the sun, but it has increased instead. And the probes can measure and see shocks as they propagate out from the sun, Spilker said.
As long as both Voyager 1 and 2 remain healthy, it’s likely the aging probes will continue their record-breaking missions for years to come.
|
Garden Guy column: Go green in the garden
What do I mean by “go green in the garden?” For me it is gardening in as environmentally friendly, sustainable, and economical way as I can. I have found that being environmentally friendly and sustainable automatically produces good economic results.
Being environmentally friendly goes beyond discontinuing the use of synthetic fertilizers, insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, and other “cides.” It means such things as recycling garden wastes through composting, watering deeply and infrequently, mowing high only when necessary, mulching, selecting proper plants for the landscape, and other practices that I have written about over the years.
Look for ways to minimize the use of precious natural resources like water. Look for ways to decrease the need for fertilizing. Look for ways to decrease the use of air-polluting machines. These are but a few things to think about to work toward going green.
Sustainability is a bit harder to wrap your arms around. When I think of sustainability, I think of using resources and practices that don’t compromise future generations’ ability to have or use the same. I don’t get too precise when addressing this issue because of its complexity. I simply try to use good practices that encourage my gardens to continue from year to year with minimal intervention and minimal use of finite resources.
The basic gardening practice that addresses all these issues and is the most important thing a gardener can do is that of building the soil, or more precisely, the soil food web. Good, healthy soil provides most of the nutrients and other needs of plants, resulting in healthy plants.
Strong, healthy plants resist disease, insects, and other pests. This reduces or eliminates the need for the “cides” and for fast food in the form of synthetic fertilizers. Healthy soil also decreases the need for more water since it retains water better and the healthy plants utilize the water better.
The healthier the soil, the less inputs (water, fertilizer, pesticides, labor) that are required to maintain lawns and gardens. This alone results in better economic results since less money is spent.
While my gardening is entirely ornamental, in recent years gardening has experienced a resurgence of interest in home food production. This has come both in traditional form, that is, home garden plots, as well as mixing edible plants in with ornamental plants, known as “the edible garden.”
Many people are learning more about gardening resulting from the desire to know where their food comes from and how it has been treated to have healthier, better tasting food. In the process, they learn that gardening is not only a healthy pursuit, but is a rewarding journey.
Why not vow to begin gardening in a greener way in 2023? It is not difficult. In the long run it is simpler, easier, and cheaper. It is just a mind-set that takes different thinking. In the process you will find many rewards while benefiting yourself and the environment. Your children and grandchildren will thank you.
|
<urn:uuid:941f7381-b519-4fa2-970c-734281527e8c>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-14",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296945315.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20230325033306-20230325063306-00148.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9501324892044067,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.75,
"token_count": 629,
"url": "https://www.amarillo.com/story/lifestyle/2023/02/12/garden-guy-column-go-green-in-the-garden/69886442007/"
}
|
Garden Guy column: Go green in the garden
What do I mean by “go green in the garden?” For me it is gardening in as environmentally friendly, sustainable, and economical way as I can. I have found that being environmentally friendly and sustainable automatically produces good economic results.
Being environmentally friendly goes beyond discontinuing the use of synthetic fertilizers, insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, and other “cides.” It means such things as recycling garden wastes through composting, watering deeply and infrequently, mowing high only when necessary, mulching, selecting proper plants for the landscape, and other practices that I
|
have written about over the years.
Look for ways to minimize the use of precious natural resources like water. Look for ways to decrease the need for fertilizing. Look for ways to decrease the use of air-polluting machines. These are but a few things to think about to work toward going green.
Sustainability is a bit harder to wrap your arms around. When I think of sustainability, I think of using resources and practices that don’t compromise future generations’ ability to have or use the same. I don’t get too precise when addressing this issue because of its complexity. I simply try to use good practices that encourage my gardens to continue from year to year with minimal intervention and minimal use of finite resources.
The basic gardening practice that addresses all these issues and is the most important thing a gardener can do is that of building the soil, or more precisely, the soil food web. Good, healthy soil provides most of the nutrients and other needs of plants, resulting in healthy plants.
Strong, healthy plants resist disease, insects, and other pests. This reduces or eliminates the need for the “cides” and for fast food in the form of synthetic fertilizers. Healthy soil also decreases the need for more water since it retains water better and the healthy plants utilize the water better.
The healthier the soil, the less inputs (water, fertilizer, pesticides, labor) that are required to maintain lawns and gardens. This alone results in better economic results since less money is spent.
While my gardening is entirely ornamental, in recent years gardening has experienced a resurgence of interest in home food production. This has come both in traditional form, that is, home garden plots, as well as mixing edible plants in with ornamental plants, known as “the edible garden.”
Many people are learning more about gardening resulting from the desire to know where their food comes from and how it has been treated to have healthier, better tasting food. In the process, they learn that gardening is not only a healthy pursuit, but is a rewarding journey.
Why not vow to begin gardening in a greener way in 2023? It is not difficult. In the long run it is simpler, easier, and cheaper. It is just a mind-set that takes different thinking. In the process you will find many rewards while benefiting yourself and the environment. Your children and grandchildren will thank you.
|
Aug. 19, 1958
Inspired by the success in Wichita, Kansas, the NAACP Youth Council in Oklahoma City, led by Clara Luper, a high school history teacher, began sit-ins to challenge the all-white lunch counters.
Luper had spent a lifetime fighting segregation. When she attended the University of Oklahoma, she encountered separate restrooms, separation in the classrooms, separate sections in the cafeteria.
“In one class a professor told me he had never taught a n—– and had never wanted to,” she recalled. “I moved that wall by staying in his class and working so hard that at the end of the school term, he confessed his sins.”
On that day in 1958, she led the students into the Katz drugstore, where they sat down and ordered Cokes. They were refused service, and white customers jeered at them and called them names. Some coughed in their faces, and one child was knocked to the ground.
Despite the abuse, they remained nonviolent, and days later, Katz desegregated lunch counters. The protests spread to other restaurants, theaters, hotels and churches. She went on to lead campaigns for Black Americans to have equal banking rights, voting rights, job opportunities and housing.
In 1965, she joined the march in Selma, where Alabama troopers attacked the protesters with tear gas and billy clubs. She received a deep cut in her leg from the attack. A year later, she led a march to Lawton, Oklahoma, that ended with the city vowing to eliminate racial discrimination in all public places. In 1969, she worked with the striking sanitation workers, leading to better pay. In all, she was arrested 26 times for her civil rights protests.
In 1972, she unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate. Asked by reporters if she could represent white people, she replied, “I can represent White People, Black People, Red People, Yellow People, Brown People, and Polka Dot People. You see, I have lived long enough to know that people are people.”
Oklahoma City University gives scholarships each year in her name, aiding financially needy students. She wrote a memoir on the civil rights campaigns titled, “Behold the Walls,” and when she died in 2011, flags flew at half-staff in her honor. She was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame, and a street in Oklahoma City now bears her name.
|
<urn:uuid:0d4469ea-cdd8-4e62-b523-2db1e2017cc9>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233506329.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20230922034112-20230922064112-00561.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9808610081672668,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.875,
"token_count": 506,
"url": "https://mississippitoday.org/2023/08/19/on-this-day-in-1958-clara-luper-led-sit-in-at-whites-only-lunch-counter/"
}
|
Aug. 19, 1958
Inspired by the success in Wichita, Kansas, the NAACP Youth Council in Oklahoma City, led by Clara Luper, a high school history teacher, began sit-ins to challenge the all-white lunch counters.
Luper had spent a lifetime fighting segregation. When she attended the University of Oklahoma, she encountered separate restrooms, separation in the classrooms, separate sections in the cafeteria.
“In one class a professor told me he had never taught a n—– and had never wanted to,” she recalled. “I moved that wall by staying in his class and
|
working so hard that at the end of the school term, he confessed his sins.”
On that day in 1958, she led the students into the Katz drugstore, where they sat down and ordered Cokes. They were refused service, and white customers jeered at them and called them names. Some coughed in their faces, and one child was knocked to the ground.
Despite the abuse, they remained nonviolent, and days later, Katz desegregated lunch counters. The protests spread to other restaurants, theaters, hotels and churches. She went on to lead campaigns for Black Americans to have equal banking rights, voting rights, job opportunities and housing.
In 1965, she joined the march in Selma, where Alabama troopers attacked the protesters with tear gas and billy clubs. She received a deep cut in her leg from the attack. A year later, she led a march to Lawton, Oklahoma, that ended with the city vowing to eliminate racial discrimination in all public places. In 1969, she worked with the striking sanitation workers, leading to better pay. In all, she was arrested 26 times for her civil rights protests.
In 1972, she unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate. Asked by reporters if she could represent white people, she replied, “I can represent White People, Black People, Red People, Yellow People, Brown People, and Polka Dot People. You see, I have lived long enough to know that people are people.”
Oklahoma City University gives scholarships each year in her name, aiding financially needy students. She wrote a memoir on the civil rights campaigns titled, “Behold the Walls,” and when she died in 2011, flags flew at half-staff in her honor. She was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame, and a street in Oklahoma City now bears her name.
|
As a young girl growing up in Cincinnati, Tiya Miles experienced the positive impact that being outdoors can have on a child. In a grassy meadow just beyond the edge of her neighborhood, she had a memorable encounter with some frolicking rabbits who “formed a kind of a circle and seemed to move in unison,” as if they were dancing. It felt to her as if she were being let in on some arcane secret. “In that instant,” she writes, “I knew wonder was possible… I learned that the unexpected, the impossible, and even the magical could occur outside.”
Miles, a professor of history at Harvard University and the author of the National Book Award-winning “All That She Carried,” which followed an heirloom cotton sack as it was passed down through three generations of Black women in the mid-nineteenth century, has carried the lesson of that magic childhood moment into adulthood.
In her latest book, “Wild Girls: How The Outdoors Shaped The Women Who Challenged A Nation,” Miles draws upon her experience as a historian and her passion for the outdoors to offer readers an engrossing series of essays detailing the profound influence that time spent in the wilderness had on some of America’s most notable nineteenth-century women, including Harriet Tubman, Louisa May Alcott and Laura Smith Haviland.
“I didn’t know at first that the book was going to be about the ways in which girls who ended up being very influential in American culture experienced a honing of their characters outdoors,” says Miles. But Miles’ argument is significantly informed by her past research, including her study of African-American history. “I’ve been interested in how enslaved people managed to survive the atrocity of slavery for a long time,” says Miles. “The relationship to the natural world, while complex and vexed, was a big part of this.” The story of Harriet Tubman in particular, for whom Miles says the outdoors was both “tormentor and teacher,” helped to clarify the path the book would follow.
“Wild Girls” was also inspired by Miles’ efforts to expand access to wilderness spaces for girls living in urban communities. In 2011, following an eye-opening environmental justice tour of Detroit, Miles founded ECO Girls, an organization that worked primarily with elementary and middle school girls from cities in southeastern Michigan. “I developed ECO Girls as a way to teach girls in our area about the place that they lived,” says Miles. “To try to introduce them to the wondrous aspects of that place and foster a sense of belonging and stewardship in the hopes that, as they grew, they could feel like they could be defenders and protectors of it.”
At the heart of “Wild Girls” is a stark dichotomy. On one side, there are the confining, constraining spaces that stifled the creativity, personal development and freedom of 19th-century women and girls — the Victorian domestic sphere, the Southern plantation house, the boarding schools founded to educate and “civilize” young Native Americans. On the other is the wilderness, a vast, unstructured space that inspired free thinking and helped the book’s subjects build the confidence necessary to challenge authority and effect change in American society.
“Girls who managed to reverse this condition of domestic confinement and get outside — to move, play, journey, explore, escape, and push themselves physically and mentally — were able to expand their minds, test their grit, develop their skills, and profoundly alter the course of their lives,” writes Miles. They became outsiders in the truest sense, and this helped them see the world in a new way. “It gave them the perspective of distance.”
In those confining spaces, women’s behavior was fiercely policed, sometimes by the very structure of the built environment itself. For Miles, the outdoors presents an opportunity for women and girls to exist in an unbound space in which, for a time, they do not need to be so conscious of their gender and its implications. “Outdoor play can shape kids,” says Miles. “Our interior spaces are often quite gendered. Once you’re in a space that’s not telling you what you should and shouldn’t like, you might realize new preferences.” And once you’re in a space that’s not telling you what you can and cannot do, you may learn to question the arbitrary nature of the rules that govern your behavior.
She cites Louisa May Alcott as someone who was able to see through the absurdity of restrictive Victorian social mores thanks to the lessons she learned by sneaking away to climb trees and wander around Walden Pond. In those journeys, she managed to find a way of escaping contemporary expectations of feminine modesty and self-control. As Laurel Thatcher Ulrich famously wrote, well-behaved women seldom make history.
Miles hopes that, as a culture, we are more willing to give children a long leash when it comes to exploring their environment. She imagines a world where every child has a chance to find themselves outside. “Being independent outdoors with kids your own age makes for the best learning experiences,” she says. “We should fight to open access to these spaces for anyone who doesn’t have access to them.”
“For me, this project was a joy,” says Miles. “Even though so much of what I write about is the struggle these girls faced, I felt so inspired revisiting their childhoods, seeing how they embraced their surroundings and, when their surroundings were a threat, stood up for other people.”
Tiya Miles will discuss her new book on Sept. 21 at the American Ancestors/New England Historic Genealogical Society and on Oct. 3 as part of "Beyond the Page."
|
<urn:uuid:4db44080-cf8c-4a4a-a801-6a5954d78758>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510528.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20230929190403-20230929220403-00879.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9736357927322388,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.421875,
"token_count": 1251,
"url": "https://www.wbur.org/news/2023/09/19/tiya-miles-essays-wild-girls"
}
|
As a young girl growing up in Cincinnati, Tiya Miles experienced the positive impact that being outdoors can have on a child. In a grassy meadow just beyond the edge of her neighborhood, she had a memorable encounter with some frolicking rabbits who “formed a kind of a circle and seemed to move in unison,” as if they were dancing. It felt to her as if she were being let in on some arcane secret. “In that instant,” she writes, “I knew wonder was possible… I learned that the unexpected, the impossible, and even the magical could occur outside.”
Miles, a professor of history at
|
Harvard University and the author of the National Book Award-winning “All That She Carried,” which followed an heirloom cotton sack as it was passed down through three generations of Black women in the mid-nineteenth century, has carried the lesson of that magic childhood moment into adulthood.
In her latest book, “Wild Girls: How The Outdoors Shaped The Women Who Challenged A Nation,” Miles draws upon her experience as a historian and her passion for the outdoors to offer readers an engrossing series of essays detailing the profound influence that time spent in the wilderness had on some of America’s most notable nineteenth-century women, including Harriet Tubman, Louisa May Alcott and Laura Smith Haviland.
“I didn’t know at first that the book was going to be about the ways in which girls who ended up being very influential in American culture experienced a honing of their characters outdoors,” says Miles. But Miles’ argument is significantly informed by her past research, including her study of African-American history. “I’ve been interested in how enslaved people managed to survive the atrocity of slavery for a long time,” says Miles. “The relationship to the natural world, while complex and vexed, was a big part of this.” The story of Harriet Tubman in particular, for whom Miles says the outdoors was both “tormentor and teacher,” helped to clarify the path the book would follow.
“Wild Girls” was also inspired by Miles’ efforts to expand access to wilderness spaces for girls living in urban communities. In 2011, following an eye-opening environmental justice tour of Detroit, Miles founded ECO Girls, an organization that worked primarily with elementary and middle school girls from cities in southeastern Michigan. “I developed ECO Girls as a way to teach girls in our area about the place that they lived,” says Miles. “To try to introduce them to the wondrous aspects of that place and foster a sense of belonging and stewardship in the hopes that, as they grew, they could feel like they could be defenders and protectors of it.”
At the heart of “Wild Girls” is a stark dichotomy. On one side, there are the confining, constraining spaces that stifled the creativity, personal development and freedom of 19th-century women and girls — the Victorian domestic sphere, the Southern plantation house, the boarding schools founded to educate and “civilize” young Native Americans. On the other is the wilderness, a vast, unstructured space that inspired free thinking and helped the book’s subjects build the confidence necessary to challenge authority and effect change in American society.
“Girls who managed to reverse this condition of domestic confinement and get outside — to move, play, journey, explore, escape, and push themselves physically and mentally — were able to expand their minds, test their grit, develop their skills, and profoundly alter the course of their lives,” writes Miles. They became outsiders in the truest sense, and this helped them see the world in a new way. “It gave them the perspective of distance.”
In those confining spaces, women’s behavior was fiercely policed, sometimes by the very structure of the built environment itself. For Miles, the outdoors presents an opportunity for women and girls to exist in an unbound space in which, for a time, they do not need to be so conscious of their gender and its implications. “Outdoor play can shape kids,” says Miles. “Our interior spaces are often quite gendered. Once you’re in a space that’s not telling you what you should and shouldn’t like, you might realize new preferences.” And once you’re in a space that’s not telling you what you can and cannot do, you may learn to question the arbitrary nature of the rules that govern your behavior.
She cites Louisa May Alcott as someone who was able to see through the absurdity of restrictive Victorian social mores thanks to the lessons she learned by sneaking away to climb trees and wander around Walden Pond. In those journeys, she managed to find a way of escaping contemporary expectations of feminine modesty and self-control. As Laurel Thatcher Ulrich famously wrote, well-behaved women seldom make history.
Miles hopes that, as a culture, we are more willing to give children a long leash when it comes to exploring their environment. She imagines a world where every child has a chance to find themselves outside. “Being independent outdoors with kids your own age makes for the best learning experiences,” she says. “We should fight to open access to these spaces for anyone who doesn’t have access to them.”
“For me, this project was a joy,” says Miles. “Even though so much of what I write about is the struggle these girls faced, I felt so inspired revisiting their childhoods, seeing how they embraced their surroundings and, when their surroundings were a threat, stood up for other people.”
Tiya Miles will discuss her new book on Sept. 21 at the American Ancestors/New England Historic Genealogical Society and on Oct. 3 as part of "Beyond the Page."
|
Editor Comment: The aftermath of WWII for every German around the world was profound; many millions suffered the horrors of sanctioned and premeditated starvation, rape, torture, execution, slavery and dispossession. Those Germans who did not suffer these horrors still became victims of an incredibly well orchestrated propaganda campaign demonizing them. Consider the sensational lie that Jews were turned into lampshades; it is one of approximately 6 million lies created to incite hatred towards Germans. This was necessary to ensure the sustained maltreatment of an entire ethnic population over many years that would otherwise have been deemed immoral and criminal.
In Operation Paperclip, every Allied nation (even Australia!) put their hand up and waved it madly for their share of the brightest German minds, as if they were each bidding against each other at a slave market on basement-bargain day. This article by John Wear takes you quietly into the post-war mental anguish of three brilliant and highly refined Anti-Nazi German scientists. We begin to realize the incredible loss Western Civilization has suffered. As we read how their spirits were deliberately broken through systematic demoralization an Orwellian feel emerges. One reminiscent of oppressive Communist regimes, like our Ally the USSR. You might even wonder who actually won WWII?
The Mentality of German Scientists After World War II
The end of World War II brought a crisis in Germany that is rarely mentioned in the history books. The Allied denazification program and extreme economic deprivations in Germany created bitter feelings among leading German scientists. Even vehemently anti-Nazi German scientists began to realize that the Allied occupation was a system of repression no better than what they had experienced under the National Socialist regime.
This article will focus primarily on the mental aftermath after the war of three of Germany’s greatest scientists: Max von Laue, Otto Hahn, and Werner Heisenberg.
Max von Laue
German Nobel-laureate physicist Max von Laue earned an international reputation for being courageously anti-Nazi. In a speech at an
annual Physicists Conference on September 18, 1933, von Laue unmistakably implied a comparison of the Nazi government’s attitude toward Einstein and relativity theory with the attitude of the Inquisition toward Galileo. When Jewish chemist Fritz Haber died in January 1934, von Laue published a tribute to his former colleague in two widely read and prestigious scientific journals. Von Laue’s speech and obituaries resulted in reprimands from the Prussian Ministry of Education.
Other similar actions made von Laue a symbol for refusal to cooperate with the Nazis. Von Laue indicated after the war that he stayed in Germany for a number of reasons, one of which was not to take away badly needed positions abroad from exiled Jewish physicists. However, his primary reason for staying in Germany was
“I wanted also to be there once the collapse of the ‘Third Reich’—which I always foresaw and hoped for—allowed the possibility of a cultural reconstruction upon the ruins this Reich created.”
Max von Laue was interned immediately after the war in England in a house named Farm Hall even though he never worked on the German atomic bomb project. Von Laue returned after his internment to a devastated Germany. Everywhere there were severe shortages of food, clothing and shelter. German children begged for food while their parents rummaged through garbage for whatever food they could find. Von Laue wrote to his son Theodore at Princeton in 1946:
“[The Germans] are immeasurably depressed. The complete suffering of war makes itself felt only now.”
Max von Laue also soon became disillusioned with the Allied denazification program. Von Laue wrote his son:
“More ‘denazification’ is going on here. My colleagues and I are now supposed to fill out our fourth questionnaire, a monster of 12 pages and with 133 questions! We declared that we are refusing to fill it out. The thing is beginning to get humiliating.”
Von Laue also angrily complained to his son that denazification as practiced by the Americans in particular made “every use of reason impossible.”
As a courageous anti-Nazi, von Laue was frequently called upon to defend German scientists after the war. Niels Bohr, the great Danish physicist, wrote to Otto Hahn in 1946 suggesting that German scientists should publicly apologize for the treatment of scientists in countries occupied by Nazi Germany. Max von Laue responded by writing:
I hardly believe that the Germans coming into consideration would find themselves ready to do so. In any event, I am against it. Such self-evidences are not said so specifically, least of all in formal declaration. If our colleagues abroad would like to hear such declarations documenting a distancing from the spirit of the Third Reich, they only need to take a look at the speeches that the presidents at German universities delivered at the inauguration of the new semester…
Von Laue also defended the motives of German scientists who had worked on the German atomic bomb during the war. In a review of Samuel Goudsmit’s book Alsos, American physicist Philip Morrison stated that the Germans
“worked for the cause of Himmler and Auschwitz, for the burners of books and the takers of hostages. The community of science will be long delayed in welcoming the armourers of the Nazis, even if their work was not successful.”
Von Laue wrote in reply that it was a “monstrous suggestion” that German scientists as a body worked for Himmler and Auschwitz. Von Laue also said he doubted whether Goudsmit could ever write objectively about the German atomic bomb program.
German chemist Otto Hahn was also strongly anti-Nazi. Hahn and nine other German 220px-Hahnfchscientists were interned in England for six months after the war in Farm Hall. On November 16, 1945, the Swedish Royal Academy announced that the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 1944 would be given to Otto Hahn for his discovery of fission.
On November 10, 1946, shortly before Hahn’s departure for Sweden to receive his Nobel Prize, Hahn stated to a Swiss visitor:
You see, I had hoped for years for the time when we would be rid of the heavy mental burden of National Socialism, and how much I looked forward to being able to work freely and without hindrance. But now I am sitting here, a head without a body; I am not allowed to return to my institute because it lies in the French zone, and I have little idea about the other institutes, and here come new people every day wanting a job or a political exonerating certificate or whatever else. I simply cannot help these people. Formerly, I really used to be a cheerful person and was actually never pessimistic, but if people just come with demands and one can hardly move for all the restrictions, I simply cannot go on. And imagine, ludicrous though it may sound, at the moment I don’t even have a sound pair of shoes to put on. So, what use is it to me if the Nobel Prize is waiting for me in Sweden, which I am not allowed to pick up because I don’t get a travel permit and meanwhile, I submit one application after the next for months on end in vain for a pair of shoe soles. If they would at least send me a pair of shoe soles against the Nobel Prize account, then I wouldn’t have to walk around with wet feet all the time.
Otto Hahn was initially favorably disposed to the denazification process. However, by 1947 he had completely changed his mind. Hahn stated that German scientists
“profoundly regret how the ‘denazification’ is flipping into its obverse through the many measures, pushing true peace further and further away.”
Hahn also criticized the blatant lack of equal treatment resulting from regional variations and the many alterations to the guidelines of the denazification process.
Otto Hahn also wrote bitterly about the export of German scientists to foreign countries:
Most of the older professors leave Germany very unwillingly, because they feel that their place is here. Necessity compels them, because their livelihoods and working opportunities in their country are taken away from them or else they are left in a constant state of fear of such an occurrence. All this, after our having experienced well enough what it means to replace competence with “politically irreproachable” dilettantes. But more depresses these men: the awareness that it is evidently not a matter of an honorable appointment to an independent research institution or university of some rank but
(at least according to the American press) forms a part of the “reparations.” Centuries ago, princes sent their countrymen away as plantation workers or soldiers. Today, scientists are exported.
Bitterness is a word that appears frequently in the writings of German scientists after the war. Otto Hahn wrote in 1949:
“It is certainly understandable that the factory dismantlings still taking place four years after the capitulation are being greeted with bitterness, particularly among the academic youth.”
Werner Heisenberg was one of the world’s leading physicists before World War II. Heisenberg was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1932, and he received several job offers from American universities in the summer of 1939. Despite his aversion to National Socialism and Adolf Hitler, Heisenberg decided to stay in Germany to help train Germany’s young physicists.
Heisenberg had exuded an air of delighted confidence and appetite for intellectual combat before World War II. Arnold Sommerfeld, his professor at Munich, called him healthy, eager, full of hope, uncomplicated. Wolfgang Pauli before the war called Heisenberg a Boy Scout. Heisenberg was completely changed after the war. Physicist Victor Weisskopf wrote in his memoirs,
“I saw Heisenberg after the war and he was completely changed from the man I had known…He visibly carried a load.”
Several of Heisenberg’s colleagues after the war also observed that he seemed to suffer from a perpetual depression.
Heisenberg suffered from his failure to explain his involvement in Germany’s atomic bomb program to his former friends. When Heisenberg met with Niels Bohr in August 1947, the two could not agree on even basic points of their last discussion in September 1941. Heisenberg had hoped in 1941 that he could obtain Bohr’s help in reaching an agreement among physicists not to build an atomic bomb during the war. Bohr had not wanted to pursue Heisenberg’s suggestion, and apparently did not trust Heisenberg’s motives. Germany had driven many of its leading scientists into exile before the war, and it seemed to Bohr that Heisenberg was seeking to negate this Allied advantage in the development of atomic bombs.
Although they had been the closest of friends, Bohr and Heisenberg were unable to communicate either in September 1941 or in August 1947. After a while the two great physicists felt it would be better to stop disturbing the spirits of the past. Their close friendship had been shattered.
An important point to make concerning Heisenberg’s meeting with Bohr in September 1941 is that Heisenberg had no official authority to tell Bohr anything about the German atomic bomb project. Heisenberg had committed an act of treason by attempting to obtain an international agreement among physicists not to build an atomic bomb during the war. Heisenberg had courageously risked his life in their meeting.
Heisenberg did not fare any better with his former friend Samuel Goudsmit. Goudsmit had written a book entitled Alsos that was highly critical of the German atomic bomb program. Heisenberg patiently tried to explain the factual misstatements in Alsos. Goudsmit grudgingly conceded some mistakes he had made in his book, but was infuriated by Heisenberg’s claim of “a sense of decency” and his insistence that a “moral decision” was involved in the question of whether German scientists would build a bomb for Germany.
The remarkable thing about Alsos is that Goudsmit claimed to see documentation that his parents had died in a Nazi gas chamber. Goudsmit states:
“The world has always admired the Germans for their orderliness. They are so systematic; they have such a sense of correctness. That is why they kept such precise records of their evil deeds, which we later found in their proper files in Germany. And that is why I know the precise date my father and my blind mother were put to death in the gas chamber. It was my father’s 70th birthday.”
Since Goudsmit spoke fluent German and no documentation concerning Nazi gas chambers has ever been found, Goudsmit is certainly lying about seeing records that his parents were put to death in a Nazi gas chamber. Yet Goudsmit hypocritically questioned the morality of the German scientists who worked on the atomic bomb. In his last letter to Heisenberg in June 1949, Goudsmit wrote he was ending their discussions because “I am afraid that we might lose our tempers.”
The subject of the German atomic bomb program continued to remain touchy. In the fall of 1949 Heisenberg made his first trip to the United States in over 10 years. Victor Weisskopf, who was then a physicist at MIT, held a reception for Heisenberg in Weisskopf’s home. Approximately half of the guests Weisskopf had invited failed to appear at the reception. They all gave Weisskopf similar explanations for staying away; they didn’t want to shake the hand of a man who had tried to build an atomic bomb for Hitler.
The cold reception continued for years. In the early 1950s, Heisenberg’s wife Elisabeth sat next to James Franck at a physics conference on Lake Como in Italy. Elisabeth Heisenberg told Franck that she and Werner felt terribly isolated; people treated them coldly and blamed them for things they hadn’t done. Franck unsympathetically replied:
“This is the way we Jews were always treated—now the Germans must live with it.”
Even Heisenberg’s appetite for competition became weakened by years of postwar humiliation. In a film made in 1965, for example, Heisenberg conceded a discussion point to Paul Dirac which 30 years before he would have vehemently contested.
German scientists were not allowed freedom of speech after the end of World War II. The physicists released from Farm Hall were told what they were allowed to say in public and initially were allowed only to reside within the British zone. One scientist wrote to Walther Gerlach:
“People are all so timid, perhaps justifiably so, for one can’t speak one’s mind as freely now anymore as during the Third Reich.”
German scientists were also filled with bitterness and cynicism after the war. The Allied denazification program was especially unpopular. One German wrote in his diary:
“These mindless dismissals of all former Nazis could drive one to desperation. The method only shows that the Americans are no smarter than their predecessors, the Nazis. What did a reasonable man say to me yesterday? From a mild dictatorship with its faults we have now arrived at a severe dictatorship.”
Ultimately, even anti-Nazi German scientists regarded the Allied postwar occupation of Germany as merely a substitution of one hated system of restrictions imposed by the Nazis with another. The Allied denazification program, the forced transfer of German scientists to other countries, the restrictions of free speech, and the poverty and starvation in postwar Germany created bitterness and depression among even the most anti-Nazi German scientists.
Beyerchen, Alan D., Scientists Under Hitler: Politics and the Physics Community in the Third Reich, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1979, pp. 64-65.
Ibid., p. 65.
Cassidy, David C., Beyond Uncertainty: Heisenberg, Quantum Physics, and the Bomb, New York: Bellevue Literary Press, 2010, p. 390.
Hentschel, Klaus, The Mental Aftermath: The Mentality of German Physicists, 1945-1949, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 105.
Cassidy, David C., Beyond Uncertainty: Heisenberg, Quantum Physics, and the Bomb, New York: Bellevue Literary Press, 2010, p. 395.
Hentschel, Klaus, The Mental Aftermath: The Mentality of German Physicists, 1945-1949, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 127.
Powers, Thomas, Heisenberg’s War: The Secret History of the German Bomb, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993, p. 457.
Bernstein, Jeremy, Hitler’s Uranium Club: The Secret Recordings at Farm Hall, 2nd edition, New York: Copernicus Books, 2001, p. 281.
Hentschel, Klaus, The Mental Aftermath: The Mentality of German Physicists, 1945-1949, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 129.
Ibid., p. 53.
Ibid., pp. 81-82.
Ibid., p. 81.
Powers, Thomas, Heisenberg’s War: The Secret History of the German Bomb, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993, pp. 3-12.
Ibid., pp. 460-461.
Cassidy, David C., Beyond Uncertainty: Heisenberg, Quantum Physics, and the Bomb, New York: Bellevue Literary Press, 2010, p. 394.
Powers, Thomas, Heisenberg’s War: The Secret History of the German Bomb, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993, pp. 454-455.
Ibid., p. 511.
Ibid., pp. 455-457.
Goudsmit, Samuel A., Alsos, Los Angeles and San Francisco: Tomash Publishers, 1986, pp. 48-49.
Powers, Thomas, Heisenberg’s War: The Secret History of the German Bomb, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993, p. 470.
Ibid., p. 458.
Farmelo, Graham, The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom, New York: Basic Books, 2009, pp. 377-378.
Hentschel, Klaus, The Mental Aftermath: The Mentality of German Physicists, 1945-1949, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, pp. 41-43.
Ibid., pp. 44-45.
Ibid., p. 64.
Originally found at https://wearswar.wordpress.com/2017/09/02/stealing-minds-breaking-spirits-the-life-of-anti-nazi-german-scientists-post-wwii/
Leave a Reply
|
<urn:uuid:8b033457-c842-43b3-ab8b-06f6ddbe8568>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-23",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224646257.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20230531022541-20230531052541-00728.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9636401534080505,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.4375,
"token_count": 4166,
"url": "https://twelveyearsnotaslave.wordpress.com/2023/02/13/stealing-minds-breaking-spirits-the-life-of-anti-nazi-german-scientists-post-wwii/"
}
|
Editor Comment: The aftermath of WWII for every German around the world was profound; many millions suffered the horrors of sanctioned and premeditated starvation, rape, torture, execution, slavery and dispossession. Those Germans who did not suffer these horrors still became victims of an incredibly well orchestrated propaganda campaign demonizing them. Consider the sensational lie that Jews were turned into lampshades; it is one of approximately 6 million lies created to incite hatred towards Germans. This was necessary to ensure the sustained maltreatment of an entire ethnic population over many years that would otherwise have been deemed immoral and criminal.
In Operation Paper
|
clip, every Allied nation (even Australia!) put their hand up and waved it madly for their share of the brightest German minds, as if they were each bidding against each other at a slave market on basement-bargain day. This article by John Wear takes you quietly into the post-war mental anguish of three brilliant and highly refined Anti-Nazi German scientists. We begin to realize the incredible loss Western Civilization has suffered. As we read how their spirits were deliberately broken through systematic demoralization an Orwellian feel emerges. One reminiscent of oppressive Communist regimes, like our Ally the USSR. You might even wonder who actually won WWII?
The Mentality of German Scientists After World War II
The end of World War II brought a crisis in Germany that is rarely mentioned in the history books. The Allied denazification program and extreme economic deprivations in Germany created bitter feelings among leading German scientists. Even vehemently anti-Nazi German scientists began to realize that the Allied occupation was a system of repression no better than what they had experienced under the National Socialist regime.
This article will focus primarily on the mental aftermath after the war of three of Germany’s greatest scientists: Max von Laue, Otto Hahn, and Werner Heisenberg.
Max von Laue
German Nobel-laureate physicist Max von Laue earned an international reputation for being courageously anti-Nazi. In a speech at an
annual Physicists Conference on September 18, 1933, von Laue unmistakably implied a comparison of the Nazi government’s attitude toward Einstein and relativity theory with the attitude of the Inquisition toward Galileo. When Jewish chemist Fritz Haber died in January 1934, von Laue published a tribute to his former colleague in two widely read and prestigious scientific journals. Von Laue’s speech and obituaries resulted in reprimands from the Prussian Ministry of Education.
Other similar actions made von Laue a symbol for refusal to cooperate with the Nazis. Von Laue indicated after the war that he stayed in Germany for a number of reasons, one of which was not to take away badly needed positions abroad from exiled Jewish physicists. However, his primary reason for staying in Germany was
“I wanted also to be there once the collapse of the ‘Third Reich’—which I always foresaw and hoped for—allowed the possibility of a cultural reconstruction upon the ruins this Reich created.”
Max von Laue was interned immediately after the war in England in a house named Farm Hall even though he never worked on the German atomic bomb project. Von Laue returned after his internment to a devastated Germany. Everywhere there were severe shortages of food, clothing and shelter. German children begged for food while their parents rummaged through garbage for whatever food they could find. Von Laue wrote to his son Theodore at Princeton in 1946:
“[The Germans] are immeasurably depressed. The complete suffering of war makes itself felt only now.”
Max von Laue also soon became disillusioned with the Allied denazification program. Von Laue wrote his son:
“More ‘denazification’ is going on here. My colleagues and I are now supposed to fill out our fourth questionnaire, a monster of 12 pages and with 133 questions! We declared that we are refusing to fill it out. The thing is beginning to get humiliating.”
Von Laue also angrily complained to his son that denazification as practiced by the Americans in particular made “every use of reason impossible.”
As a courageous anti-Nazi, von Laue was frequently called upon to defend German scientists after the war. Niels Bohr, the great Danish physicist, wrote to Otto Hahn in 1946 suggesting that German scientists should publicly apologize for the treatment of scientists in countries occupied by Nazi Germany. Max von Laue responded by writing:
I hardly believe that the Germans coming into consideration would find themselves ready to do so. In any event, I am against it. Such self-evidences are not said so specifically, least of all in formal declaration. If our colleagues abroad would like to hear such declarations documenting a distancing from the spirit of the Third Reich, they only need to take a look at the speeches that the presidents at German universities delivered at the inauguration of the new semester…
Von Laue also defended the motives of German scientists who had worked on the German atomic bomb during the war. In a review of Samuel Goudsmit’s book Alsos, American physicist Philip Morrison stated that the Germans
“worked for the cause of Himmler and Auschwitz, for the burners of books and the takers of hostages. The community of science will be long delayed in welcoming the armourers of the Nazis, even if their work was not successful.”
Von Laue wrote in reply that it was a “monstrous suggestion” that German scientists as a body worked for Himmler and Auschwitz. Von Laue also said he doubted whether Goudsmit could ever write objectively about the German atomic bomb program.
German chemist Otto Hahn was also strongly anti-Nazi. Hahn and nine other German 220px-Hahnfchscientists were interned in England for six months after the war in Farm Hall. On November 16, 1945, the Swedish Royal Academy announced that the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 1944 would be given to Otto Hahn for his discovery of fission.
On November 10, 1946, shortly before Hahn’s departure for Sweden to receive his Nobel Prize, Hahn stated to a Swiss visitor:
You see, I had hoped for years for the time when we would be rid of the heavy mental burden of National Socialism, and how much I looked forward to being able to work freely and without hindrance. But now I am sitting here, a head without a body; I am not allowed to return to my institute because it lies in the French zone, and I have little idea about the other institutes, and here come new people every day wanting a job or a political exonerating certificate or whatever else. I simply cannot help these people. Formerly, I really used to be a cheerful person and was actually never pessimistic, but if people just come with demands and one can hardly move for all the restrictions, I simply cannot go on. And imagine, ludicrous though it may sound, at the moment I don’t even have a sound pair of shoes to put on. So, what use is it to me if the Nobel Prize is waiting for me in Sweden, which I am not allowed to pick up because I don’t get a travel permit and meanwhile, I submit one application after the next for months on end in vain for a pair of shoe soles. If they would at least send me a pair of shoe soles against the Nobel Prize account, then I wouldn’t have to walk around with wet feet all the time.
Otto Hahn was initially favorably disposed to the denazification process. However, by 1947 he had completely changed his mind. Hahn stated that German scientists
“profoundly regret how the ‘denazification’ is flipping into its obverse through the many measures, pushing true peace further and further away.”
Hahn also criticized the blatant lack of equal treatment resulting from regional variations and the many alterations to the guidelines of the denazification process.
Otto Hahn also wrote bitterly about the export of German scientists to foreign countries:
Most of the older professors leave Germany very unwillingly, because they feel that their place is here. Necessity compels them, because their livelihoods and working opportunities in their country are taken away from them or else they are left in a constant state of fear of such an occurrence. All this, after our having experienced well enough what it means to replace competence with “politically irreproachable” dilettantes. But more depresses these men: the awareness that it is evidently not a matter of an honorable appointment to an independent research institution or university of some rank but
(at least according to the American press) forms a part of the “reparations.” Centuries ago, princes sent their countrymen away as plantation workers or soldiers. Today, scientists are exported.
Bitterness is a word that appears frequently in the writings of German scientists after the war. Otto Hahn wrote in 1949:
“It is certainly understandable that the factory dismantlings still taking place four years after the capitulation are being greeted with bitterness, particularly among the academic youth.”
Werner Heisenberg was one of the world’s leading physicists before World War II. Heisenberg was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1932, and he received several job offers from American universities in the summer of 1939. Despite his aversion to National Socialism and Adolf Hitler, Heisenberg decided to stay in Germany to help train Germany’s young physicists.
Heisenberg had exuded an air of delighted confidence and appetite for intellectual combat before World War II. Arnold Sommerfeld, his professor at Munich, called him healthy, eager, full of hope, uncomplicated. Wolfgang Pauli before the war called Heisenberg a Boy Scout. Heisenberg was completely changed after the war. Physicist Victor Weisskopf wrote in his memoirs,
“I saw Heisenberg after the war and he was completely changed from the man I had known…He visibly carried a load.”
Several of Heisenberg’s colleagues after the war also observed that he seemed to suffer from a perpetual depression.
Heisenberg suffered from his failure to explain his involvement in Germany’s atomic bomb program to his former friends. When Heisenberg met with Niels Bohr in August 1947, the two could not agree on even basic points of their last discussion in September 1941. Heisenberg had hoped in 1941 that he could obtain Bohr’s help in reaching an agreement among physicists not to build an atomic bomb during the war. Bohr had not wanted to pursue Heisenberg’s suggestion, and apparently did not trust Heisenberg’s motives. Germany had driven many of its leading scientists into exile before the war, and it seemed to Bohr that Heisenberg was seeking to negate this Allied advantage in the development of atomic bombs.
Although they had been the closest of friends, Bohr and Heisenberg were unable to communicate either in September 1941 or in August 1947. After a while the two great physicists felt it would be better to stop disturbing the spirits of the past. Their close friendship had been shattered.
An important point to make concerning Heisenberg’s meeting with Bohr in September 1941 is that Heisenberg had no official authority to tell Bohr anything about the German atomic bomb project. Heisenberg had committed an act of treason by attempting to obtain an international agreement among physicists not to build an atomic bomb during the war. Heisenberg had courageously risked his life in their meeting.
Heisenberg did not fare any better with his former friend Samuel Goudsmit. Goudsmit had written a book entitled Alsos that was highly critical of the German atomic bomb program. Heisenberg patiently tried to explain the factual misstatements in Alsos. Goudsmit grudgingly conceded some mistakes he had made in his book, but was infuriated by Heisenberg’s claim of “a sense of decency” and his insistence that a “moral decision” was involved in the question of whether German scientists would build a bomb for Germany.
The remarkable thing about Alsos is that Goudsmit claimed to see documentation that his parents had died in a Nazi gas chamber. Goudsmit states:
“The world has always admired the Germans for their orderliness. They are so systematic; they have such a sense of correctness. That is why they kept such precise records of their evil deeds, which we later found in their proper files in Germany. And that is why I know the precise date my father and my blind mother were put to death in the gas chamber. It was my father’s 70th birthday.”
Since Goudsmit spoke fluent German and no documentation concerning Nazi gas chambers has ever been found, Goudsmit is certainly lying about seeing records that his parents were put to death in a Nazi gas chamber. Yet Goudsmit hypocritically questioned the morality of the German scientists who worked on the atomic bomb. In his last letter to Heisenberg in June 1949, Goudsmit wrote he was ending their discussions because “I am afraid that we might lose our tempers.”
The subject of the German atomic bomb program continued to remain touchy. In the fall of 1949 Heisenberg made his first trip to the United States in over 10 years. Victor Weisskopf, who was then a physicist at MIT, held a reception for Heisenberg in Weisskopf’s home. Approximately half of the guests Weisskopf had invited failed to appear at the reception. They all gave Weisskopf similar explanations for staying away; they didn’t want to shake the hand of a man who had tried to build an atomic bomb for Hitler.
The cold reception continued for years. In the early 1950s, Heisenberg’s wife Elisabeth sat next to James Franck at a physics conference on Lake Como in Italy. Elisabeth Heisenberg told Franck that she and Werner felt terribly isolated; people treated them coldly and blamed them for things they hadn’t done. Franck unsympathetically replied:
“This is the way we Jews were always treated—now the Germans must live with it.”
Even Heisenberg’s appetite for competition became weakened by years of postwar humiliation. In a film made in 1965, for example, Heisenberg conceded a discussion point to Paul Dirac which 30 years before he would have vehemently contested.
German scientists were not allowed freedom of speech after the end of World War II. The physicists released from Farm Hall were told what they were allowed to say in public and initially were allowed only to reside within the British zone. One scientist wrote to Walther Gerlach:
“People are all so timid, perhaps justifiably so, for one can’t speak one’s mind as freely now anymore as during the Third Reich.”
German scientists were also filled with bitterness and cynicism after the war. The Allied denazification program was especially unpopular. One German wrote in his diary:
“These mindless dismissals of all former Nazis could drive one to desperation. The method only shows that the Americans are no smarter than their predecessors, the Nazis. What did a reasonable man say to me yesterday? From a mild dictatorship with its faults we have now arrived at a severe dictatorship.”
Ultimately, even anti-Nazi German scientists regarded the Allied postwar occupation of Germany as merely a substitution of one hated system of restrictions imposed by the Nazis with another. The Allied denazification program, the forced transfer of German scientists to other countries, the restrictions of free speech, and the poverty and starvation in postwar Germany created bitterness and depression among even the most anti-Nazi German scientists.
Beyerchen, Alan D., Scientists Under Hitler: Politics and the Physics Community in the Third Reich, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1979, pp. 64-65.
Ibid., p. 65.
Cassidy, David C., Beyond Uncertainty: Heisenberg, Quantum Physics, and the Bomb, New York: Bellevue Literary Press, 2010, p. 390.
Hentschel, Klaus, The Mental Aftermath: The Mentality of German Physicists, 1945-1949, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 105.
Cassidy, David C., Beyond Uncertainty: Heisenberg, Quantum Physics, and the Bomb, New York: Bellevue Literary Press, 2010, p. 395.
Hentschel, Klaus, The Mental Aftermath: The Mentality of German Physicists, 1945-1949, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 127.
Powers, Thomas, Heisenberg’s War: The Secret History of the German Bomb, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993, p. 457.
Bernstein, Jeremy, Hitler’s Uranium Club: The Secret Recordings at Farm Hall, 2nd edition, New York: Copernicus Books, 2001, p. 281.
Hentschel, Klaus, The Mental Aftermath: The Mentality of German Physicists, 1945-1949, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 129.
Ibid., p. 53.
Ibid., pp. 81-82.
Ibid., p. 81.
Powers, Thomas, Heisenberg’s War: The Secret History of the German Bomb, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993, pp. 3-12.
Ibid., pp. 460-461.
Cassidy, David C., Beyond Uncertainty: Heisenberg, Quantum Physics, and the Bomb, New York: Bellevue Literary Press, 2010, p. 394.
Powers, Thomas, Heisenberg’s War: The Secret History of the German Bomb, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993, pp. 454-455.
Ibid., p. 511.
Ibid., pp. 455-457.
Goudsmit, Samuel A., Alsos, Los Angeles and San Francisco: Tomash Publishers, 1986, pp. 48-49.
Powers, Thomas, Heisenberg’s War: The Secret History of the German Bomb, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993, p. 470.
Ibid., p. 458.
Farmelo, Graham, The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom, New York: Basic Books, 2009, pp. 377-378.
Hentschel, Klaus, The Mental Aftermath: The Mentality of German Physicists, 1945-1949, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, pp. 41-43.
Ibid., pp. 44-45.
Ibid., p. 64.
Originally found at https://wearswar.wordpress.com/2017/09/02/stealing-minds-breaking-spirits-the-life-of-anti-nazi-german-scientists-post-wwii/
Leave a Reply
|
Researchers uncovered what may be the earliest traces of brain surgery at an ancient archaeological site in Israel, details of which were published Wednesday.
The remains of two young adult brothers displaying uncommon morphological variants were uncovered beneath the floor of an elite early Late Bronze Age residence in the center of Tel Megiddo, in modern-day Israel, according to a study published in PLOS One. The relationship between the two boys was uncovered using DNA analysis, and the morphological issues appear to be related to development conditions and chronic infectious disease.
One brother had a healed fracture on his nose, but also had a large square of bone removed from his skull, assumed to be done through the practice of cranial trephination, the study authors argued. From a broader analysis of the region, the authors believe that both brothers had the financial means of treating and possibly surviving the wide-spread infectious diseases in the region.
History is having to be rewritten once again https://t.co/ErKVDMeXxV
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) February 6, 2023
As trephination is considered to be a rarity throughout archaeological finds in the region, it can be assumed that the societal makeup at the time only allowed for certain individuals to indulge in the surgery.
However, both brothers were buried with the same rites as others throughout the region, suggesting at least a shared religious or tradition-based practice. (RELATED: Ancient Fossil Unearthed Near Downtown Kansas City, Missouri)
The discovery comes amid a number of international finds that researchers argue to be the oldest of their kind. The oldest known hunting weapon in the Americas was uncovered in early February. A 1.2 million-year-old factory was found in Ethiopia in 2022, thought to be one of the first ever in our species history.
|
<urn:uuid:01c98384-d89b-424e-a03c-445f771ec660>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510781.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20231001041719-20231001071719-00164.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9676757454872131,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.28125,
"token_count": 368,
"url": "https://dailycaller.com/2023/02/27/3000-year-old-evidence-brain-surgery-discovered-in-tel-megiddo-israel/"
}
|
Researchers uncovered what may be the earliest traces of brain surgery at an ancient archaeological site in Israel, details of which were published Wednesday.
The remains of two young adult brothers displaying uncommon morphological variants were uncovered beneath the floor of an elite early Late Bronze Age residence in the center of Tel Megiddo, in modern-day Israel, according to a study published in PLOS One. The relationship between the two boys was uncovered using DNA analysis, and the morphological issues appear to be related to development conditions and chronic infectious disease.
One brother had a healed fracture on his nose, but also had a large square of bone removed from his skull, assumed to
|
be done through the practice of cranial trephination, the study authors argued. From a broader analysis of the region, the authors believe that both brothers had the financial means of treating and possibly surviving the wide-spread infectious diseases in the region.
History is having to be rewritten once again https://t.co/ErKVDMeXxV
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) February 6, 2023
As trephination is considered to be a rarity throughout archaeological finds in the region, it can be assumed that the societal makeup at the time only allowed for certain individuals to indulge in the surgery.
However, both brothers were buried with the same rites as others throughout the region, suggesting at least a shared religious or tradition-based practice. (RELATED: Ancient Fossil Unearthed Near Downtown Kansas City, Missouri)
The discovery comes amid a number of international finds that researchers argue to be the oldest of their kind. The oldest known hunting weapon in the Americas was uncovered in early February. A 1.2 million-year-old factory was found in Ethiopia in 2022, thought to be one of the first ever in our species history.
|
The Freudian concept known as “reaction formation” refers to a psychological defense mechanism against guilt. It occurs when an individual responds to a shame-inducing instinct with an overcorrection. Much of modern American history appears to be in the grip of reaction formation. Mortification at the developed West’s historical misdeeds has produced a utopian narrative of indigenous worlds typified by matriarchy, cooperation, pacifism, and gender fluidity. That no such world ever existed is beside the point; much of history is narrated to suit the proclivities of the audience, not to tell the truth about what actually happened.
This seems to be specifically true for our understanding of American Indian history. The violent migration of Europeans to the New World was very much like violent migrations throughout history and across cultures, most likely including successive waves of North American Indians (though the history there is murky). Yet instead of understanding these events in the context of larger historical patterns, the Indian Wars are cast as a morality tale in the manner of Howard Zinn, in which the actions of the European settlers are represented as uniquely reprehensible. This fantasy may be an inversion of past jingoistic and racist caricatures of American Indians as “savages,” but it is not more historically accurate.
I thought about this a lot as I read Pekka Hämäläinen’s fascinating and controversial new history of North American Indians, Indigenous Continent. Told largely from the perspective of the natives, Hämäläinen covers the centuries from the arrival of Europeans in North America through to the final subjugation of the last tribes in the late 19th century. It’s a gripping history, but watching the author attempt to come to terms with the history he is telling also makes for fascinating psychological analysis.
Hämäläinen is clearly sympathetic to the Indians. Indeed, the Europeans in his story tend to be portrayed as dirty, bumbling idiots who are repeatedly outwitted until, well, they’re not. Hämäläinen leans into this interpretation a bit much, and as a psychologist, I was as intrigued by how he grapples with history as much as the historical evidence. His sympathy for the Indians is evidently in tension with his unwillingness to distort the facts. For this, I admire him, since history is often distorted to suit the needs of political and academic elites of any given period. But the author’s attempts to square the historical facts with the moral lessons he hopes to impart leads him into contradiction and incoherence.
On one page, Hämäläinen assures the reader that Indians were egalitarian, only to follow that assurance with numerous examples of how that was not true. This inconsistency surfaces early in the book, when Hämäläinen informs us that the Taino Indians encountered by Columbus were “hierarchical” and “stratified.” Elsewhere, we are told that Native Americans were generally respectful of women (the word “matrilineal” is asked to do some heavy lifting here), but we are also provided with specific examples of tribes keeping women as sex slaves, some of whom were brutally abused by tribe members.
Indeed, although the word “captive” makes a lot of appearances in the book, it is selectively employed. When Europeans take people unwillingly to harsh work environments, or to be sold to others, these victims are called “slaves.” But when American Indians do the same thing, Hämäläinen euphemistically describes those victims as “captives.” In fact, a number of tribes were energetic participants in the trade of other indigenous people, selling slaves to other tribes and to Europeans. Although Hämäläinen shows an admirable willingness to discuss such practices, his discomfort is palpable.
Rather than revealing the cultural chasm between indigenous people and Europeans, the historical record teaches us just how similar they were. Each vied for status and power, kept slaves, engaged in genocide against neighboring groups, mistreated women, indulged ethnocentrism, and so on. Tribes or confederations such as the Iroquois, Sioux, or Comanche were violent warrior cultures that recall the Spartans. This observation isn’t intended to denigrate Native Americans, it is simply evidence of our shared (if profoundly flawed) humanity.
What Europeans did to American Indians was often terrible, but Indians gave as good as they got, both to Europeans and each other. These stories are similar to those the world over—we are all equally capable of great horrors and cruelty and history provides few examples of morally unambiguous heroes. Embracing this universalist truth can help us to move past the morality tales so often told in the guise of history and discard a misbegotten and ultimately selfish indulgence in self-flagellation.
This has always been the problem with the Howard Zinn school of history. Zinn’s history of the US resembles a biography written by a bitter former spouse. In lieu of a nuanced and accurate historical account it offers a deliberate slander of our own culture. The result is at once self-indulgent and self-pitying. A balanced account must not flinch from examining our historical mistakes and misdeeds and those of others, but the modern approach to history has too often become a neurotic wallowing in half-truths of our own failures. The corresponding utopian fantasies of other cultures more closely resemble the morality play of a Tolkien novel than the more complex experiences of people who actually lived on Earth.
As UK-based IEA economist Kristian Niemietz recently observed in a short Twitter thread about “anti-Britishness,” signalling disgust at our own culture and history has little to do with truth or helping marginalized communities. Rather, it is a way to advertise the superficial cleverness of radical self-criticism. By castigating the United States on social media or with our K12 or university students, we can flatter our moral egos without needing to donate money or time to communities in need. It fosters division and the main beneficiaries are not Native Americans or other marginalized groups, but whoever is collecting likes and followers online.
We can do better than this. US history should be clear and accurate about the US’s misdeeds, but we should also acknowledge that the US overcame its faults to become a beacon for progress. In the same way, we should highlight the wonderful culture, arts, religion, and so on of American Indians without turning them into pious exemplars of pastoral innocence and moral instruction. Our “ethnic studies” curricula too often lapse into propaganda designed to indict and shame the West and all its works. People and cultures are complex. If students were permitted to understand that human failings are universal but can be overcome, it might help to alleviate the depression and anxiety of those unjustly burdened by the sins of their ancestors.
Indigenous Continent strives to provide an honest and fascinating account of historical complexity at a time when progressive activism is tightening its grip on the search for disinterested truth. But it also helps us to see, firsthand, how uncomfortable historians working in this environment are with the inconvenient truth of the stories they have to tell.
|
<urn:uuid:2b01a539-0e9d-4691-8d5c-4cdc25563048>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510781.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20231001041719-20231001071719-00610.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9602099061012268,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.796875,
"token_count": 1512,
"url": "https://quillette.com/2023/04/27/uncomfortable-history/?fbclid=IwAR2NqYqshmole3wckYPw06CBhYqFc3zfrMkKZWrrDfBw4VuhH72sOFwJzmU"
}
|
The Freudian concept known as “reaction formation” refers to a psychological defense mechanism against guilt. It occurs when an individual responds to a shame-inducing instinct with an overcorrection. Much of modern American history appears to be in the grip of reaction formation. Mortification at the developed West’s historical misdeeds has produced a utopian narrative of indigenous worlds typified by matriarchy, cooperation, pacifism, and gender fluidity. That no such world ever existed is beside the point; much of history is narrated to suit the proclivities of the audience, not to tell the truth about what actually happened.
This
|
seems to be specifically true for our understanding of American Indian history. The violent migration of Europeans to the New World was very much like violent migrations throughout history and across cultures, most likely including successive waves of North American Indians (though the history there is murky). Yet instead of understanding these events in the context of larger historical patterns, the Indian Wars are cast as a morality tale in the manner of Howard Zinn, in which the actions of the European settlers are represented as uniquely reprehensible. This fantasy may be an inversion of past jingoistic and racist caricatures of American Indians as “savages,” but it is not more historically accurate.
I thought about this a lot as I read Pekka Hämäläinen’s fascinating and controversial new history of North American Indians, Indigenous Continent. Told largely from the perspective of the natives, Hämäläinen covers the centuries from the arrival of Europeans in North America through to the final subjugation of the last tribes in the late 19th century. It’s a gripping history, but watching the author attempt to come to terms with the history he is telling also makes for fascinating psychological analysis.
Hämäläinen is clearly sympathetic to the Indians. Indeed, the Europeans in his story tend to be portrayed as dirty, bumbling idiots who are repeatedly outwitted until, well, they’re not. Hämäläinen leans into this interpretation a bit much, and as a psychologist, I was as intrigued by how he grapples with history as much as the historical evidence. His sympathy for the Indians is evidently in tension with his unwillingness to distort the facts. For this, I admire him, since history is often distorted to suit the needs of political and academic elites of any given period. But the author’s attempts to square the historical facts with the moral lessons he hopes to impart leads him into contradiction and incoherence.
On one page, Hämäläinen assures the reader that Indians were egalitarian, only to follow that assurance with numerous examples of how that was not true. This inconsistency surfaces early in the book, when Hämäläinen informs us that the Taino Indians encountered by Columbus were “hierarchical” and “stratified.” Elsewhere, we are told that Native Americans were generally respectful of women (the word “matrilineal” is asked to do some heavy lifting here), but we are also provided with specific examples of tribes keeping women as sex slaves, some of whom were brutally abused by tribe members.
Indeed, although the word “captive” makes a lot of appearances in the book, it is selectively employed. When Europeans take people unwillingly to harsh work environments, or to be sold to others, these victims are called “slaves.” But when American Indians do the same thing, Hämäläinen euphemistically describes those victims as “captives.” In fact, a number of tribes were energetic participants in the trade of other indigenous people, selling slaves to other tribes and to Europeans. Although Hämäläinen shows an admirable willingness to discuss such practices, his discomfort is palpable.
Rather than revealing the cultural chasm between indigenous people and Europeans, the historical record teaches us just how similar they were. Each vied for status and power, kept slaves, engaged in genocide against neighboring groups, mistreated women, indulged ethnocentrism, and so on. Tribes or confederations such as the Iroquois, Sioux, or Comanche were violent warrior cultures that recall the Spartans. This observation isn’t intended to denigrate Native Americans, it is simply evidence of our shared (if profoundly flawed) humanity.
What Europeans did to American Indians was often terrible, but Indians gave as good as they got, both to Europeans and each other. These stories are similar to those the world over—we are all equally capable of great horrors and cruelty and history provides few examples of morally unambiguous heroes. Embracing this universalist truth can help us to move past the morality tales so often told in the guise of history and discard a misbegotten and ultimately selfish indulgence in self-flagellation.
This has always been the problem with the Howard Zinn school of history. Zinn’s history of the US resembles a biography written by a bitter former spouse. In lieu of a nuanced and accurate historical account it offers a deliberate slander of our own culture. The result is at once self-indulgent and self-pitying. A balanced account must not flinch from examining our historical mistakes and misdeeds and those of others, but the modern approach to history has too often become a neurotic wallowing in half-truths of our own failures. The corresponding utopian fantasies of other cultures more closely resemble the morality play of a Tolkien novel than the more complex experiences of people who actually lived on Earth.
As UK-based IEA economist Kristian Niemietz recently observed in a short Twitter thread about “anti-Britishness,” signalling disgust at our own culture and history has little to do with truth or helping marginalized communities. Rather, it is a way to advertise the superficial cleverness of radical self-criticism. By castigating the United States on social media or with our K12 or university students, we can flatter our moral egos without needing to donate money or time to communities in need. It fosters division and the main beneficiaries are not Native Americans or other marginalized groups, but whoever is collecting likes and followers online.
We can do better than this. US history should be clear and accurate about the US’s misdeeds, but we should also acknowledge that the US overcame its faults to become a beacon for progress. In the same way, we should highlight the wonderful culture, arts, religion, and so on of American Indians without turning them into pious exemplars of pastoral innocence and moral instruction. Our “ethnic studies” curricula too often lapse into propaganda designed to indict and shame the West and all its works. People and cultures are complex. If students were permitted to understand that human failings are universal but can be overcome, it might help to alleviate the depression and anxiety of those unjustly burdened by the sins of their ancestors.
Indigenous Continent strives to provide an honest and fascinating account of historical complexity at a time when progressive activism is tightening its grip on the search for disinterested truth. But it also helps us to see, firsthand, how uncomfortable historians working in this environment are with the inconvenient truth of the stories they have to tell.
|
In honor of Coretta Scott King and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Black History Month, YWCA Greenwich and 47 community partners sponsored a powerful panel discussion entitled Climate Justice In Connecticut.
Four outstanding female leaders and experts in their fields educated us about the disproportionate impacts of climate change on communities of color and how Connecticut can take steps to not only promote climate justice, but also achieve climate justice through a more inclusive and equitable process.
Our guest moderator Denise Savageau, environmental consultant and longtime Director of Conservation for the Town of Greenwich, began with a variety of data demonstrating the impacts of climate change and where these impacts are felt the most. For example, the data predict an increase in extreme heat days from four to 48 by the year 2050, and those impacted the most will be communities of color in cities such as Bridgeport and Hartford.
Similarly, communities of color and other vulnerable communities in the state will be more vulnerable to flood events going forward. Nationally we know that 70% of Black Americans live within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant, while three out of every five Black Americans live in areas with uncontrolled waste sites.
Sharon Lewis, the Executive Director of the Connecticut Coalition for Environmental and Economic Justice, clarified the meaning of climate and environmental justice: when all share equally in the benefits and the burdens of climate change and environmental impacts, and when those most impacted lead the efforts to develop solutions.
For example, climate shifts and underinvestment in infrastructure have caused chronic sewage backups and home displacement for Lewis and her neighbors in Hartford, and there is “no urgency” in finding solutions or including those affected in developing solutions. “Race, not income, remains the primary indicator” for the siting of landfills, industrial facilities, and mass transportation, putting families of color in close proximity to burning facilities, waste disposal plants and highways. This correlation has been well documented by data and research, including two landmark studies published by the United Church of Christ that coined the term “environmental racism.”
Brenda Watson, the Executive Director of Operation Fuel explained that 30% of all carbon emissions come from our homes, and 30% of our housing stock is old and needs to be weatherized properly. As part of the Governor’s Council on Climate Change, she is working toward solutions that will remediate mold and other issues that need to be addressed in connection with weatherization.
For example, we should mobilize for these purposes in the same way that the state mobilized for residents in Eastern Connecticut with crumbling foundations. Brenda also explained that rising energy bills are even harder to pay when people, especially renters, are living in substandard housing where the heat escapes easily.
State residents pay between 30% and 50% of household income on energy, when spending 6% or less on energy is considered “affordable.” Energy justice needs to be addressed holistically, with an understanding of the reliance on energy for medical devices, the vulnerability to heat-related death and the impact of energy loss on food insecurity. Policy and regulatory work should acknowledge access to electricity as a basic right.
Ashley Stewart, the Manager of Community Engagement for the Connecticut Green Bank stressed the importance of listening to the most vulnerable, who are experiencing climate impacts first and before most. She highlighted that these impacts are first experienced before they become “a metric to be measured”. Our environmental justice communities “are our canaries in a coal mine, letting us know there are more impacts of climate change coming”. The Connecticut Green Bank is the first green bank in the country and is leading the state’s private investment in clean energy, and has recently expanded their scope to include environmental infrastructure.
The Connecticut Green Bank is also integrating the voices and experiences of those most impacted by climate change through thoughtfully designing solutions and creating pathways for those most impacted to participate in the new green economy. The Green Bank has led the nation in clean energy investment and is aiming to continue that investment in areas of land conservation, parks, waste, agriculture and water. Much is needed in our most marginalized and disadvantaged communities, as Ashley explained, including remediation of existing brownfields, urban stormwater infrastructure in surrounding neighborhoods, and more equitable ways for citizens to provide public comment to policymakers and regulators that help to shape their communities.
Together the undersigned urge the state to promote climate justice and end environmental racism with updated public policy, regulatory reform for private and public utilities, and inclusive infrastructure siting and planning going forward.
Thanks to Sharon Lewis, we ended this critically important conversation with a powerful quote from Benjamin Franklin: “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.”
Sharon Lewis is the Executive Director, Connecticut Coalition for Economic and Environmental Justice. Ashley Stewart is the Manager of Community Relations, Connecticut Green Bank. Denise Savageau is an Environmental Consultant and Former Town of Greenwich Conservation Director. Brenda Watson is the Executive Director of Operation Fuel. Mary Lee Kiernan is President and CEO of the YWCA of Greenwich.
|
<urn:uuid:c5dcbc2c-500d-4df8-ae0d-bea29b639cb2>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-14",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296943484.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20230320144934-20230320174934-00533.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9467858672142029,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.015625,
"token_count": 1035,
"url": "https://ctmirror.org/2023/02/27/ct-must-do-more-achieve-climate-environmental-justice/"
}
|
In honor of Coretta Scott King and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Black History Month, YWCA Greenwich and 47 community partners sponsored a powerful panel discussion entitled Climate Justice In Connecticut.
Four outstanding female leaders and experts in their fields educated us about the disproportionate impacts of climate change on communities of color and how Connecticut can take steps to not only promote climate justice, but also achieve climate justice through a more inclusive and equitable process.
Our guest moderator Denise Savageau, environmental consultant and longtime Director of Conservation for the Town of Greenwich, began with a variety of data demonstrating the impacts of climate change and where these
|
impacts are felt the most. For example, the data predict an increase in extreme heat days from four to 48 by the year 2050, and those impacted the most will be communities of color in cities such as Bridgeport and Hartford.
Similarly, communities of color and other vulnerable communities in the state will be more vulnerable to flood events going forward. Nationally we know that 70% of Black Americans live within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant, while three out of every five Black Americans live in areas with uncontrolled waste sites.
Sharon Lewis, the Executive Director of the Connecticut Coalition for Environmental and Economic Justice, clarified the meaning of climate and environmental justice: when all share equally in the benefits and the burdens of climate change and environmental impacts, and when those most impacted lead the efforts to develop solutions.
For example, climate shifts and underinvestment in infrastructure have caused chronic sewage backups and home displacement for Lewis and her neighbors in Hartford, and there is “no urgency” in finding solutions or including those affected in developing solutions. “Race, not income, remains the primary indicator” for the siting of landfills, industrial facilities, and mass transportation, putting families of color in close proximity to burning facilities, waste disposal plants and highways. This correlation has been well documented by data and research, including two landmark studies published by the United Church of Christ that coined the term “environmental racism.”
Brenda Watson, the Executive Director of Operation Fuel explained that 30% of all carbon emissions come from our homes, and 30% of our housing stock is old and needs to be weatherized properly. As part of the Governor’s Council on Climate Change, she is working toward solutions that will remediate mold and other issues that need to be addressed in connection with weatherization.
For example, we should mobilize for these purposes in the same way that the state mobilized for residents in Eastern Connecticut with crumbling foundations. Brenda also explained that rising energy bills are even harder to pay when people, especially renters, are living in substandard housing where the heat escapes easily.
State residents pay between 30% and 50% of household income on energy, when spending 6% or less on energy is considered “affordable.” Energy justice needs to be addressed holistically, with an understanding of the reliance on energy for medical devices, the vulnerability to heat-related death and the impact of energy loss on food insecurity. Policy and regulatory work should acknowledge access to electricity as a basic right.
Ashley Stewart, the Manager of Community Engagement for the Connecticut Green Bank stressed the importance of listening to the most vulnerable, who are experiencing climate impacts first and before most. She highlighted that these impacts are first experienced before they become “a metric to be measured”. Our environmental justice communities “are our canaries in a coal mine, letting us know there are more impacts of climate change coming”. The Connecticut Green Bank is the first green bank in the country and is leading the state’s private investment in clean energy, and has recently expanded their scope to include environmental infrastructure.
The Connecticut Green Bank is also integrating the voices and experiences of those most impacted by climate change through thoughtfully designing solutions and creating pathways for those most impacted to participate in the new green economy. The Green Bank has led the nation in clean energy investment and is aiming to continue that investment in areas of land conservation, parks, waste, agriculture and water. Much is needed in our most marginalized and disadvantaged communities, as Ashley explained, including remediation of existing brownfields, urban stormwater infrastructure in surrounding neighborhoods, and more equitable ways for citizens to provide public comment to policymakers and regulators that help to shape their communities.
Together the undersigned urge the state to promote climate justice and end environmental racism with updated public policy, regulatory reform for private and public utilities, and inclusive infrastructure siting and planning going forward.
Thanks to Sharon Lewis, we ended this critically important conversation with a powerful quote from Benjamin Franklin: “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.”
Sharon Lewis is the Executive Director, Connecticut Coalition for Economic and Environmental Justice. Ashley Stewart is the Manager of Community Relations, Connecticut Green Bank. Denise Savageau is an Environmental Consultant and Former Town of Greenwich Conservation Director. Brenda Watson is the Executive Director of Operation Fuel. Mary Lee Kiernan is President and CEO of the YWCA of Greenwich.
|
By Marine Strauss
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Commission proposed measures on Monday to prevent microplastic pollution from the spillage of plastic pellets into the environment.
Measures proposed include prevention to avoid any spills of plastic pellets, which are small granules used in the plastics manufacturing process. Other suggested measures include containment of spilled pellets to make sure they do not pollute the environment and cleaning up afterwards, if a spill has occurred.
“Today’s proposal aims to ensure that all operators handling pellets in the EU take the necessary precautionary measures,” the EU Commission, the bloc’s executive, said in a statement.
“Currently, between 52,000 and 184,000 (metric) tons of pellets are released in the environment each year due to mishandling throughout the entire supply chain.”
The Commission expects to reduce pellet release by up to 74% with the new proposed precautionary measures.
It is now up to the EU’s 27 member states and the European Parliament to negotiate and approve draft measures.
(Reporting by Marine Strauss; Editing by Susan Fenton)
|
<urn:uuid:ed9c42e9-0cec-4c6b-8513-94da52e25492>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-50",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100568.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20231205204654-20231205234654-00209.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9389536380767822,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.671875,
"token_count": 233,
"url": "https://ec2-15-188-152-128.eu-west-3.compute.amazonaws.com/2023/10/16/eu-commission-proposes-measures/"
}
|
By Marine Strauss
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Commission proposed measures on Monday to prevent microplastic pollution from the spillage of plastic pellets into the environment.
Measures proposed include prevention to avoid any spills of plastic pellets, which are small granules used in the plastics manufacturing process. Other suggested measures include containment of spilled pellets to make sure they do not pollute the environment and cleaning up afterwards, if a spill has occurred.
“Today’s proposal aims to ensure that all operators handling pellets in the EU take the necessary precautionary measures,” the EU Commission, the bloc’s executive, said in a statement.
“
|
Currently, between 52,000 and 184,000 (metric) tons of pellets are released in the environment each year due to mishandling throughout the entire supply chain.”
The Commission expects to reduce pellet release by up to 74% with the new proposed precautionary measures.
It is now up to the EU’s 27 member states and the European Parliament to negotiate and approve draft measures.
(Reporting by Marine Strauss; Editing by Susan Fenton)
|
Is it rain or snow? Researchers enlist citizen scientists to see what satellites can't
Researchers have developed a snow and rain tracker that gathers data from citizen scientists in an effort to improve the accuracy of avalanche warnings, road conditions and water management. Now, NASA's providing additional funding to expand the project to more parts of the Mountain West.
We all know that the freezing point is 32 degrees Fahrenheit. But when it's slightly warmer, it can be hard to tell if it’s raining or snowing. That's because humidity and other factors affect the threshold between the two.
“You're driving in your car and you notice that it's 36, 37 Fahrenheit, but there's snow freezing,” said Meghan Collins, an associate research scientist in science communication at the Desert Research Institute. “Then you have a direct experience of the phenomenon that is so challenging for hydrologists and water managers and other forecasters.”
There are many satellite-based tools and computer algorithms that measure several different aspects of weather. Lots of people have inexpensive rain gauges and thermometers right in their backyard. But the tools that exist to measure when rain changes to snow – and vice versa – are expensive and not always accurate.
These complex conditions are why Collins and other researchers developed the Mountain Rain or Snow project in 2019. It relies on citizens to submit real-time weather observations. That data – which has largely focused on the Sierra Nevada region and the Colorado Rocky Mountains – is helping researchers learn more about the precipitation phase patterns in the West.
“Humans putting that down on a phone or writing it in a log book is really the only way we can reliably get this information over a large spatial extent sometimes,” said Keith Jennings, a water resources scientist who leads the project.
The accuracy of the data is crucial for rain- and snow-related forecasting – and Jennings said it will become even more so as the earth continues to heat up.
“(Snow) is very sensitive to climate warming,” he said. “So in some locations, you notch up that average temperature by a degree Fahrenheit or two degrees Fahrenheit, that means all of a sudden you're getting 10 to 15% less snow. Even if you had the same volume of precipitation falling as rain instead of snow, it still produces some pretty fundamental differences.”
In 2021, nearly 900 citizen scientists submitted more than 15,000 observations to the Mountain Rain or Snow project.
Its success convinced NASA’s Citizen Science for Earth Systems Program to fund an additional three years of research, allowing the project to expand to the Wasatch Range near Salt Lake City and Western Montana around Missoula, among other locations.
“The Mountain West is a place that has really diverse communities, highly urbanized communities and very rural [communities],” Collins said. “This is an opportunity to put your community, your area on the map for science, because all of these observations matter.”
Anyone interested in contributing observations can sign up via text. Visit the project's website for details. After signing up, observers will have access to an app to start tracking rain and snow, providing on-the-ground precipitation data satellites can't.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, the O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West in Montana, KUNC in Colorado, KUNM in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Copyright 2023 KUNC. To see more, visit KUNC.
|
<urn:uuid:fd767bf9-ea09-4b8f-8754-e68152e1291a>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-06",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764500094.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20230204044030-20230204074030-00435.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9351721405982971,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.484375,
"token_count": 772,
"url": "https://www.aspenpublicradio.org/environment/2023-01-04/is-it-rain-or-snow-researchers-enlist-citizen-scientists-to-see-what-satellites-cant"
}
|
Is it rain or snow? Researchers enlist citizen scientists to see what satellites can't
Researchers have developed a snow and rain tracker that gathers data from citizen scientists in an effort to improve the accuracy of avalanche warnings, road conditions and water management. Now, NASA's providing additional funding to expand the project to more parts of the Mountain West.
We all know that the freezing point is 32 degrees Fahrenheit. But when it's slightly warmer, it can be hard to tell if it’s raining or snowing. That's because humidity and other factors affect the threshold between the two.
“You're driving in
|
your car and you notice that it's 36, 37 Fahrenheit, but there's snow freezing,” said Meghan Collins, an associate research scientist in science communication at the Desert Research Institute. “Then you have a direct experience of the phenomenon that is so challenging for hydrologists and water managers and other forecasters.”
There are many satellite-based tools and computer algorithms that measure several different aspects of weather. Lots of people have inexpensive rain gauges and thermometers right in their backyard. But the tools that exist to measure when rain changes to snow – and vice versa – are expensive and not always accurate.
These complex conditions are why Collins and other researchers developed the Mountain Rain or Snow project in 2019. It relies on citizens to submit real-time weather observations. That data – which has largely focused on the Sierra Nevada region and the Colorado Rocky Mountains – is helping researchers learn more about the precipitation phase patterns in the West.
“Humans putting that down on a phone or writing it in a log book is really the only way we can reliably get this information over a large spatial extent sometimes,” said Keith Jennings, a water resources scientist who leads the project.
The accuracy of the data is crucial for rain- and snow-related forecasting – and Jennings said it will become even more so as the earth continues to heat up.
“(Snow) is very sensitive to climate warming,” he said. “So in some locations, you notch up that average temperature by a degree Fahrenheit or two degrees Fahrenheit, that means all of a sudden you're getting 10 to 15% less snow. Even if you had the same volume of precipitation falling as rain instead of snow, it still produces some pretty fundamental differences.”
In 2021, nearly 900 citizen scientists submitted more than 15,000 observations to the Mountain Rain or Snow project.
Its success convinced NASA’s Citizen Science for Earth Systems Program to fund an additional three years of research, allowing the project to expand to the Wasatch Range near Salt Lake City and Western Montana around Missoula, among other locations.
“The Mountain West is a place that has really diverse communities, highly urbanized communities and very rural [communities],” Collins said. “This is an opportunity to put your community, your area on the map for science, because all of these observations matter.”
Anyone interested in contributing observations can sign up via text. Visit the project's website for details. After signing up, observers will have access to an app to start tracking rain and snow, providing on-the-ground precipitation data satellites can't.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, the O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West in Montana, KUNC in Colorado, KUNM in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Copyright 2023 KUNC. To see more, visit KUNC.
|
A recent study published in the Journal Neurology investigated the relationship between physical activity in women and the development of Parkinson Disease, a longstanding debilitating disease that affects the nerves and one’s ability to move properly. Tracking over 95,000 women for nearly 3 decades, the study found that getting regular exercise could reduce a woman’s chance of developing Parkinson Disease by 25 percent.
Parkinson Disease is one of just many diseases and health ailments that can be mitigated or prevented by exercise. Regular exercise is most commonly linked to reducing two of the most common leading causes of death in America, heart disease and stroke. According to a study in PLOS Medicine, individuals who participated in moderate or vigorous intensity exercise had an average reduction in risk of heart disease between 48 and 57 percent. Even more striking was that there was no threshold for the amount of exercise and the benefits for cardiovascular health. In other words, those that exercised most had the lowest risk of heart disease in this study that examined data on more than 90,000 adults.
There is no ceiling on the benefits of exercise and we continue to learn each day about different diseases that can be mitigated through regular exercise. Regular physical activity can prevent the onset of Type II Diabetes, reduce blood pressure and cholesterol levels, strengthen bones and muscle, prevent falls in the elderly and lower your risk of developing many common cancers like breast, lung and colon.
So how much exercise is necessary to realize health benefits, and what is meant exactly by moderate intensity exercise? According to the American Heart Association, to be healthy, adults should participate in 150 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic exercise per week or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity aerobic activity per week. This equates to 30 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic exercise 5 days per week, or 15 minutes of vigorous intensity aerobic exercise 5 days per week. According to the American Heart Association, only 1 in 5 adults are getting enough exercise weekly to maintain good health.
Moderate intensity aerobic exercise may be easier than you think. Examples of such exercise would include walking briskly, playing badminton, gardening, or mowing the lawn. Examples of vigorous intensity aerobic exercise include jogging, running, weight-lifting, and playing competitive sports like tennis, basketball and soccer. All individuals can benefit from exercise, no matter what their weight, height, gender, ethnicity, race, or state of health.
An optimal and effective healthcare system must prioritize preventative measures in curbing the onset of serious health conditions to advance public health. Too often, diseases and conditions are addressed after diagnosis and when it is too late. Instead of focusing on developing treatments like Insulin to treat Type II Diabetes, a larger focus should be on education and lifestyle prevention measures like exercise in preventing the onset of the disease itself, which is largely preventable through regular exercise and a carbohydrate-restrictive diet. A reactionary health system that focuses on the treatment of diseases once diagnosed is at risk of becoming a “sick care” system, as opposed to a true “healthcare” system that optimizes the prevention of such ailments.
According to the CDC, nearly 110,000 deaths per year could be prevented if American adults aged 40 and above increased their physical activity by a small amount, even by just 10 minutes. 4 in 5 American adults not getting enough moderate intensity exercise per week to maintain good health should never be acceptable to us from a public health perspective. A very practical way to meet the American Heart Association guidelines is by increasing our daily steps, which can be tracked by most smart phones. Tomorrow (June 10) is Family Health and Fitness Day, so all of us should make a concerted and intentional effort to get up and exercise.
|
<urn:uuid:3bb22bc7-ab48-4ad0-ae6c-44e96e6551c1>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510529.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20230929222230-20230930012230-00414.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9561425447463989,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.0625,
"token_count": 747,
"url": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/omerawan/2023/06/09/why-exercise-could-be-the-key-to-your-health/?ss=style-design"
}
|
A recent study published in the Journal Neurology investigated the relationship between physical activity in women and the development of Parkinson Disease, a longstanding debilitating disease that affects the nerves and one’s ability to move properly. Tracking over 95,000 women for nearly 3 decades, the study found that getting regular exercise could reduce a woman’s chance of developing Parkinson Disease by 25 percent.
Parkinson Disease is one of just many diseases and health ailments that can be mitigated or prevented by exercise. Regular exercise is most commonly linked to reducing two of the most common leading causes of death in America, heart disease and stroke
|
. According to a study in PLOS Medicine, individuals who participated in moderate or vigorous intensity exercise had an average reduction in risk of heart disease between 48 and 57 percent. Even more striking was that there was no threshold for the amount of exercise and the benefits for cardiovascular health. In other words, those that exercised most had the lowest risk of heart disease in this study that examined data on more than 90,000 adults.
There is no ceiling on the benefits of exercise and we continue to learn each day about different diseases that can be mitigated through regular exercise. Regular physical activity can prevent the onset of Type II Diabetes, reduce blood pressure and cholesterol levels, strengthen bones and muscle, prevent falls in the elderly and lower your risk of developing many common cancers like breast, lung and colon.
So how much exercise is necessary to realize health benefits, and what is meant exactly by moderate intensity exercise? According to the American Heart Association, to be healthy, adults should participate in 150 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic exercise per week or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity aerobic activity per week. This equates to 30 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic exercise 5 days per week, or 15 minutes of vigorous intensity aerobic exercise 5 days per week. According to the American Heart Association, only 1 in 5 adults are getting enough exercise weekly to maintain good health.
Moderate intensity aerobic exercise may be easier than you think. Examples of such exercise would include walking briskly, playing badminton, gardening, or mowing the lawn. Examples of vigorous intensity aerobic exercise include jogging, running, weight-lifting, and playing competitive sports like tennis, basketball and soccer. All individuals can benefit from exercise, no matter what their weight, height, gender, ethnicity, race, or state of health.
An optimal and effective healthcare system must prioritize preventative measures in curbing the onset of serious health conditions to advance public health. Too often, diseases and conditions are addressed after diagnosis and when it is too late. Instead of focusing on developing treatments like Insulin to treat Type II Diabetes, a larger focus should be on education and lifestyle prevention measures like exercise in preventing the onset of the disease itself, which is largely preventable through regular exercise and a carbohydrate-restrictive diet. A reactionary health system that focuses on the treatment of diseases once diagnosed is at risk of becoming a “sick care” system, as opposed to a true “healthcare” system that optimizes the prevention of such ailments.
According to the CDC, nearly 110,000 deaths per year could be prevented if American adults aged 40 and above increased their physical activity by a small amount, even by just 10 minutes. 4 in 5 American adults not getting enough moderate intensity exercise per week to maintain good health should never be acceptable to us from a public health perspective. A very practical way to meet the American Heart Association guidelines is by increasing our daily steps, which can be tracked by most smart phones. Tomorrow (June 10) is Family Health and Fitness Day, so all of us should make a concerted and intentional effort to get up and exercise.
|
In the context in which Brazil may become the world leader in hydrogen generated from renewable sources, EDP Brasil kicks off the production of the first molecule in its new generation unit located in São Gonçalo do Amarante, Ceará. The plant is an R&D pilot project at the Complexo Termelétrico do Pecém (UTE Pecém), already in operation, and received an investment of R$42 million.
The unit includes a solar plant with a capacity of 3 megawatts and an electrolyzer — a device that produces hydrogen through a chemical process —for fuel production, with a capacity to produce 250 Nm3/h of gas.
The choice of Pecém as a production site is strategic, since the complex brings together unique features for the process of introducing the power source, such as the huge solar and wind power potential — fundamental for the production of gas — and a good location for distribution to the international market.
The plant is a few meters away from EDP’s coal-fired thermal power plant and is a decarbonization initiative in the plant’s process, since it will be used to replace heavy oils from thermal power plant engines.
The idea is that hydrogen is used in order to verify the impacts of gas injection (on an experimental scale) in co-firing with diesel oil and coal, acting as an increase in combustion energy efficiency in the boilers of UTE Pecém. CEO João Marques da Cruz says that Brazil has the ideal conditions to produce the energy that was missing to ease the transition to a low-carbon economy.
“It is an R&D project that was useful for us to learn, but we have an agenda to develop large-scale projects of 100 MW in several states in Brazil,” he said. “We are in talks and have signed confidentiality agreements to see if we can agree on price conditions because green hydrogen is more expensive than hydrogen produced by non-renewable sources and substantially more expensive than natural gas.”
The challenge now is to make production scalable and economically viable compared to fossil fuels. About 70% of the production cost is with electricity, which means that this is an electro-intensive industry. “And what if it were 100 MW in Pecém for our coal plant, would it have economic viability?” asks Mr. Cruz. “It wouldn’t,” the executive replied, pointing out that other investments would be needed.
In the expectation of meeting the future demand for power based on renewable and low-carbon energy, what EDP seeks now are customers who accept having a higher industrial cost in exchange for clean production. The Portuguese company says it is in talks with a large international company that operates in Brazil using furnaces in production and is interested in green hydrogen.
The environmental viability is granted, but the economic viability entered the horizon of entrepreneurs as the United States and Europe announced subsidies for the input, a fact that puts Brazil as a potential exporter. According to the German consulting firm Roland Berger, the capacity of the Brazilian domestic market to absorb all the generation potential they have is low, which places the country as a major hub for clean energy exports.
“We are looking at both markets. We are looking at the possibility of participating in an auction in Europe, namely in Germany, with projects coming from Brazil,” he said.
On the other hand, the costs of using the power grid and transporting the hydrogen are among the main limiting factors for the exploration of all its production potential. It is important to highlight that the first and simplest element of the periodic table — and also the most abundant in the entire universe — will have to use renewable sources, such as solar, wind, biomass, biogas, and ethanol, for example, to ease the transition to a low-carbon economy.
In EDP’s case, the focus is on the use of the solar photovoltaic source. Mr. Cruz believes that the unit cost of production may fall substantially in the short term, similar to the solar source, which in a decade stopped being the most expensive and today occupies the second position in Brazil’s power generation mix with very competitive costs.
|
<urn:uuid:b3ba2d8d-f4ac-4bc8-a39d-0a7659ff7988>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-06",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764499524.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20230128054815-20230128084815-00158.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9598114490509033,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 3.0625,
"token_count": 877,
"url": "https://valorinternational.globo.com/business/news/2023/01/22/edp-starts-first-green-hydrogen-pilot-project-in-brazil.ghtml"
}
|
In the context in which Brazil may become the world leader in hydrogen generated from renewable sources, EDP Brasil kicks off the production of the first molecule in its new generation unit located in São Gonçalo do Amarante, Ceará. The plant is an R&D pilot project at the Complexo Termelétrico do Pecém (UTE Pecém), already in operation, and received an investment of R$42 million.
The unit includes a solar plant with a capacity of 3 megawatts and an electrolyzer — a device that produces hydrogen through a chemical process —for fuel production, with a capacity to produce
|
250 Nm3/h of gas.
The choice of Pecém as a production site is strategic, since the complex brings together unique features for the process of introducing the power source, such as the huge solar and wind power potential — fundamental for the production of gas — and a good location for distribution to the international market.
The plant is a few meters away from EDP’s coal-fired thermal power plant and is a decarbonization initiative in the plant’s process, since it will be used to replace heavy oils from thermal power plant engines.
The idea is that hydrogen is used in order to verify the impacts of gas injection (on an experimental scale) in co-firing with diesel oil and coal, acting as an increase in combustion energy efficiency in the boilers of UTE Pecém. CEO João Marques da Cruz says that Brazil has the ideal conditions to produce the energy that was missing to ease the transition to a low-carbon economy.
“It is an R&D project that was useful for us to learn, but we have an agenda to develop large-scale projects of 100 MW in several states in Brazil,” he said. “We are in talks and have signed confidentiality agreements to see if we can agree on price conditions because green hydrogen is more expensive than hydrogen produced by non-renewable sources and substantially more expensive than natural gas.”
The challenge now is to make production scalable and economically viable compared to fossil fuels. About 70% of the production cost is with electricity, which means that this is an electro-intensive industry. “And what if it were 100 MW in Pecém for our coal plant, would it have economic viability?” asks Mr. Cruz. “It wouldn’t,” the executive replied, pointing out that other investments would be needed.
In the expectation of meeting the future demand for power based on renewable and low-carbon energy, what EDP seeks now are customers who accept having a higher industrial cost in exchange for clean production. The Portuguese company says it is in talks with a large international company that operates in Brazil using furnaces in production and is interested in green hydrogen.
The environmental viability is granted, but the economic viability entered the horizon of entrepreneurs as the United States and Europe announced subsidies for the input, a fact that puts Brazil as a potential exporter. According to the German consulting firm Roland Berger, the capacity of the Brazilian domestic market to absorb all the generation potential they have is low, which places the country as a major hub for clean energy exports.
“We are looking at both markets. We are looking at the possibility of participating in an auction in Europe, namely in Germany, with projects coming from Brazil,” he said.
On the other hand, the costs of using the power grid and transporting the hydrogen are among the main limiting factors for the exploration of all its production potential. It is important to highlight that the first and simplest element of the periodic table — and also the most abundant in the entire universe — will have to use renewable sources, such as solar, wind, biomass, biogas, and ethanol, for example, to ease the transition to a low-carbon economy.
In EDP’s case, the focus is on the use of the solar photovoltaic source. Mr. Cruz believes that the unit cost of production may fall substantially in the short term, similar to the solar source, which in a decade stopped being the most expensive and today occupies the second position in Brazil’s power generation mix with very competitive costs.
|
Friday 12th May comments: Another exciting milestone was reached yesterday on the island as we discovered our first Eider ducklings with their mother on the loch. These are the first ducklings to hatch and over the forthcoming weeks, we’ll be seeing plenty more!
Female Eiders nest all over the Isle of May (including along the paths and roads) and generally have a clutch of 4-6 eggs. The main nesting period is from late April-May and the first eggs were discovered on 17th April this season. The females will sit tight on the nest for the entire duration of the incubation period (which is approximately 26 days) and during this period, females can lose 40% of their body weight and as a result have to be in good condition before nesting.
Within 24 hours of the chicks hatching, the females will take the young to sea (or in some cases the island loch). Birds will form large crèches as young and adults from a multitude of nests will just mix as young grow bigger and stronger as they head towards independence. However eventually all adults and young will move off towards the nearby coastlines where chicks will be raised. Predation by large gulls is one of the main threats to the youngsters.
|
<urn:uuid:ba30ce4e-4742-41c3-81df-0501bff43720>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-23",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224652149.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20230605153700-20230605183700-00606.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9768341183662415,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.53125,
"token_count": 254,
"url": "https://isleofmaynnr.wordpress.com/2023/05/12/eider-ducklings-4/"
}
|
Friday 12th May comments: Another exciting milestone was reached yesterday on the island as we discovered our first Eider ducklings with their mother on the loch. These are the first ducklings to hatch and over the forthcoming weeks, we’ll be seeing plenty more!
Female Eiders nest all over the Isle of May (including along the paths and roads) and generally have a clutch of 4-6 eggs. The main nesting period is from late April-May and the first eggs were discovered on 17th April this season. The females will sit tight on the nest for the entire duration of the incubation period (which
|
is approximately 26 days) and during this period, females can lose 40% of their body weight and as a result have to be in good condition before nesting.
Within 24 hours of the chicks hatching, the females will take the young to sea (or in some cases the island loch). Birds will form large crèches as young and adults from a multitude of nests will just mix as young grow bigger and stronger as they head towards independence. However eventually all adults and young will move off towards the nearby coastlines where chicks will be raised. Predation by large gulls is one of the main threats to the youngsters.
|
The energy system’s transition away from coal will leave miners with the equivalent of 100 job cuts daily through 2035, mostly in China and India.
(Bloomberg) — The energy system’s transition away from coal will leave miners with the equivalent of 100 job cuts daily through 2035, mostly in China and India.
Mine closures will eliminate about 15% of global coal mining jobs by that year, about 400,000 in total, according to a new report published by Global Energy Monitor this week. The figure is likely to rise to nearly 1 million by 2050 as the world turns to cheaper wind and solar power generation.
The job losses highlight some of the social challenges that companies and governments face as they transition the world away from fossil fuels in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Mining jobs lost to automation, efficiency and commodity cycles have become thorny political issues from the US to Europe to Australia.
One way to ease the pain of layoffs is to give ex-miners priority for job opportunities triggered by mine shutdowns, such as work needed to rehabilitate land and mitigate environmental impacts after operations cease, according to the report.
China produces and uses more than half the world’s coal, and is home to more than 1.5 million mining jobs, according to Global Energy Monitor. Its Shanxi province alone is likely to shed more than 240,000 mining jobs through 2050. China’s government has been pushing firms to gradually replace underground workers with automated machines in part to ease the social cost of future mine closures.
Coal India Ltd., the state-owned miner that produces more coal than any other company, is likely to face the biggest corporate impact from layoffs, with potential cuts of nearly 74,000 workers by 2050, according to the report.
The firm has already seen its headcount dwindle from 310,000 in 2017 to 240,000 this year, according to company filings. Its staff count is falling by about 13,000 to 14,000 people a year, a pace that’s expected to accelerate due to retirements and outsourcing work that will limit new hiring, company officials have said.
–With assistance from Rajesh Kumar Singh.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.
|
<urn:uuid:8f7540b0-ab73-490c-82a5-48c68dc6e5ae>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-50",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679516047.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20231211174901-20231211204901-00099.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9533247351646423,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.53125,
"token_count": 469,
"url": "https://ec2-15-188-152-128.eu-west-3.compute.amazonaws.com/2023/10/11/coals-coming-decline-has-miners-facing-400000-layoffs-by-2035/"
}
|
The energy system’s transition away from coal will leave miners with the equivalent of 100 job cuts daily through 2035, mostly in China and India.
(Bloomberg) — The energy system’s transition away from coal will leave miners with the equivalent of 100 job cuts daily through 2035, mostly in China and India.
Mine closures will eliminate about 15% of global coal mining jobs by that year, about 400,000 in total, according to a new report published by Global Energy Monitor this week. The figure is likely to rise to nearly
|
1 million by 2050 as the world turns to cheaper wind and solar power generation.
The job losses highlight some of the social challenges that companies and governments face as they transition the world away from fossil fuels in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Mining jobs lost to automation, efficiency and commodity cycles have become thorny political issues from the US to Europe to Australia.
One way to ease the pain of layoffs is to give ex-miners priority for job opportunities triggered by mine shutdowns, such as work needed to rehabilitate land and mitigate environmental impacts after operations cease, according to the report.
China produces and uses more than half the world’s coal, and is home to more than 1.5 million mining jobs, according to Global Energy Monitor. Its Shanxi province alone is likely to shed more than 240,000 mining jobs through 2050. China’s government has been pushing firms to gradually replace underground workers with automated machines in part to ease the social cost of future mine closures.
Coal India Ltd., the state-owned miner that produces more coal than any other company, is likely to face the biggest corporate impact from layoffs, with potential cuts of nearly 74,000 workers by 2050, according to the report.
The firm has already seen its headcount dwindle from 310,000 in 2017 to 240,000 this year, according to company filings. Its staff count is falling by about 13,000 to 14,000 people a year, a pace that’s expected to accelerate due to retirements and outsourcing work that will limit new hiring, company officials have said.
–With assistance from Rajesh Kumar Singh.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.
|
How do you perceive water?
That was the question that fueled the latest collection of artwork to be featured in the Salt Lake City library system’s Day-Riverside Branch in Rose Park.
Teenagers from the Salt Lake Valley Youth Center, which offers educational programs for at-risk youths, were asked to use the Jordan River as inspiration for a series of self-portraits that will eventually make it to the walls of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts.
Every piece in the “We Are All Water” exhibit is anonymous to protect the privacy of the student who created it, but each picture tells a personal story.
“This is me and the river,” one of the descriptions reads.
The work shows a brown-haired girl with a halo and a black, red and orange checkered shirt. A dyed piece of paper representing the river flows across her face.
“Why I chose black, red and orange,” the description said, “is because it shows my day [and] how I was when or while I made it.”
A tie-dye cloth, made by students and shaped to look like the winding Jordan River that flows near the youth center in South Salt Lake, was also installed as part of the exhibit.
Most of the art the students create is introspective, said Kathryn Nelson, a science teacher at the youth center.
“Most of it,” she said, “has to do with sort of the way they see themselves in the environment.”
Often, these students have experienced hardship while trying to complete a regular public school curriculum, Nelson said. They’re also usually not involved in other parts of the community.
“They’re not on ballclubs. They don’t go to church,” Nelson said. “They’re just one of those [groups] that’s sort of moving ghostlike through our community.”
But works like “We Are All Water,” she said, give these students an opportunity to share their hopes, dreams and worries with the broader community.
The exhibit is a product of the STEM Community Alliance Program — a University of Utah and Utah State Board of Education initiative that provides science, technology, engineering and mathematics learning opportunities to at-risk youths.
After seeing the finished work, program organizers said the exhibit provided an important platform for the students to express themselves.
“Often, students in youth-in-custody settings feel that they’re being represented a certain way by other people,” said Laura George, associate director of STEM Community Alliance Program. “And so I think it’s powerful for them to be able to create an image of themselves that they get to put out into the community.”
It’s also a chance for students to have their voices heard on important issues, George said, and advocate positive changes on a topic they care deeply about: the environment.
“We can’t reverse the damage, but we can make change so we don’t cause more,” one student wrote under a drawing. “Hopefully, this gives you something to think about on the individual changes you can make. We can each make a difference.”
Nelson said the students are tuned in to how Utah is changing as relentless drought grips the state and the Great Salt Lake shrinks.
“They’re really, really worried about the way that the character of this place is going to change if we lose the lake,” Nelson said. “And they do understand the significance of having water close to our environments.”
STEM Community Alliance Program and the Day-Riverside Branch organized a reception Thursday to celebrate the exhibit with the general public. Attendees admired the beauty of the artwork and the depth of the message behind it.
“They want the community to care more about the water,” Megan Singleton said after reading the descriptions that accompany each piece. “And then they also said that about themselves, that they like this project because they just want to be seen, and they want others to see them and see the water.”
The library is only the first stop for the art installation. The collection will move to the Utah Cultural Celebration Center in March before heading to the Utah Museum of Fine Arts.
There are tentative plans to add more work from students in other programs who were inspired by different bodies of water, such as the Provo River and Ogden River.
Alixel Cabrera is a Report for America corps member and writes about the status of communities on the west side of the Salt Lake Valley for The Salt Lake Tribune. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by clicking here.
|
<urn:uuid:4b1480c7-34a8-4c6a-b17b-317777be61b2>
|
{
"dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-14",
"file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296943746.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20230321193811-20230321223811-00241.warc.gz",
"int_score": 3,
"language": "en",
"language_score": 0.9626666307449341,
"pii_count": 0,
"score": 2.546875,
"token_count": 1017,
"url": "https://www.sltrib.com/news/2023/01/23/exhibit-explores-identity/"
}
|
How do you perceive water?
That was the question that fueled the latest collection of artwork to be featured in the Salt Lake City library system’s Day-Riverside Branch in Rose Park.
Teenagers from the Salt Lake Valley Youth Center, which offers educational programs for at-risk youths, were asked to use the Jordan River as inspiration for a series of self-portraits that will eventually make it to the walls of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts.
Every piece in the “We Are All Water” exhibit is anonymous to protect the privacy of the student who created it, but each picture tells a personal story.
“This is me and the river
|
,” one of the descriptions reads.
The work shows a brown-haired girl with a halo and a black, red and orange checkered shirt. A dyed piece of paper representing the river flows across her face.
“Why I chose black, red and orange,” the description said, “is because it shows my day [and] how I was when or while I made it.”
A tie-dye cloth, made by students and shaped to look like the winding Jordan River that flows near the youth center in South Salt Lake, was also installed as part of the exhibit.
Most of the art the students create is introspective, said Kathryn Nelson, a science teacher at the youth center.
“Most of it,” she said, “has to do with sort of the way they see themselves in the environment.”
Often, these students have experienced hardship while trying to complete a regular public school curriculum, Nelson said. They’re also usually not involved in other parts of the community.
“They’re not on ballclubs. They don’t go to church,” Nelson said. “They’re just one of those [groups] that’s sort of moving ghostlike through our community.”
But works like “We Are All Water,” she said, give these students an opportunity to share their hopes, dreams and worries with the broader community.
The exhibit is a product of the STEM Community Alliance Program — a University of Utah and Utah State Board of Education initiative that provides science, technology, engineering and mathematics learning opportunities to at-risk youths.
After seeing the finished work, program organizers said the exhibit provided an important platform for the students to express themselves.
“Often, students in youth-in-custody settings feel that they’re being represented a certain way by other people,” said Laura George, associate director of STEM Community Alliance Program. “And so I think it’s powerful for them to be able to create an image of themselves that they get to put out into the community.”
It’s also a chance for students to have their voices heard on important issues, George said, and advocate positive changes on a topic they care deeply about: the environment.
“We can’t reverse the damage, but we can make change so we don’t cause more,” one student wrote under a drawing. “Hopefully, this gives you something to think about on the individual changes you can make. We can each make a difference.”
Nelson said the students are tuned in to how Utah is changing as relentless drought grips the state and the Great Salt Lake shrinks.
“They’re really, really worried about the way that the character of this place is going to change if we lose the lake,” Nelson said. “And they do understand the significance of having water close to our environments.”
STEM Community Alliance Program and the Day-Riverside Branch organized a reception Thursday to celebrate the exhibit with the general public. Attendees admired the beauty of the artwork and the depth of the message behind it.
“They want the community to care more about the water,” Megan Singleton said after reading the descriptions that accompany each piece. “And then they also said that about themselves, that they like this project because they just want to be seen, and they want others to see them and see the water.”
The library is only the first stop for the art installation. The collection will move to the Utah Cultural Celebration Center in March before heading to the Utah Museum of Fine Arts.
There are tentative plans to add more work from students in other programs who were inspired by different bodies of water, such as the Provo River and Ogden River.
Alixel Cabrera is a Report for America corps member and writes about the status of communities on the west side of the Salt Lake Valley for The Salt Lake Tribune. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by clicking here.
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.