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Electric vehicle charging infrastructure rollout has been unequal — most early EV adopters are homeowners who can afford or have space to install a charger at home. But as Massachusetts moves forward with electrification, one of its priorities has been to reach more communities, especially those that don’t currently have easy access to EVs and EV chargers.
Residents in the state's wealthier communities have claimed most of the electric vehicle rebates so far in Massachusetts, according to data from the Massachusetts MOE-EV program website. A separate study for the Massachusetts Energy Efficiency Advisory Council shows that renters, low-income, and non-English-speaking households are less likely to use energy efficiency incentives in general.
“The Commonwealth is investing a lot of money and attention into trying to serve environmental justice populations and disadvantaged communities and minority populations in a much broader way than has historically been done,” said Michael Judge, undersecretary of energy at the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs.
Impact Energy, a Black-owned company, aims to create a model on how to help those communities to transition to EV infrastructure and benefit from it at the same time. The company plans to identify locations for EV chargers in environmental justice communities, with a goal of using those chargers to bring tourists and shoppers to Black-owned businesses.
Cofounders Shonté Davidson and Pamela Fann named their project “The Massachusetts Black EV Motorist Green Book,” an homage to the original Green Book, a guide to help African Americans travel safely during segregation.
This year, the company received a $50,000 grant from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center to research underserved communities, particularly Black communities, and identify where EV chargers could most benefit them.
“We want to make sure that, specifically, Black people don't get left behind,” Davidson said.
She said the goal is to make sure that “as we are electrifying everything, specifically EVs, that we are ensuring that there is electric vehicle infrastructure in Black and brown communities.”
But the idea goes beyond just access to chargers, according to Davidson and Fann. They want to make sure communities of color benefit economically, too. They want those jobs to go to people in the community.
“We know that the energy industry is one of the fastest growing industries for jobs, but it's also one of the least diverse,” Fann said.
A 2021 report by advocacy groups found that six out of 10 workers in the clean energy industry in the U.S. are non-Hispanic white males.
Impact Energy is looking for businesses that might be interested in having an EV charger, particularly those that have parking spaces with electrical infrastructure and are near Black history landmarks. While people wait for their cars to charge, they can spend time and money at those shops.
Ultimately, Fann and Davidson want to publish a guide so drivers could not only find places to charge, but also visit original Green Book stops and other important Black history landmarks.
Britney Papile, one of the club's owners, is interested in hosting an EV charger.
“Slades being involved in green energy at this point, it really continues to cement its rich history,” she said. Slades is located near Charlie Sandwich Shoppe, another original Green Book stop in Boston that could be on the new guide.
Impact Energy is looking into other communities, too. In a recent visit to Brockton, Davidson and Fann looked into the parking lot near the Messiah Baptist Church, established in 1897.
“That was the first church that was in existence for the Black population in Brockton,” Davidson said. “The reason why that's really important is because there used to be laws in the books where Black folks couldn't congregate.”
“This particular project really has a level of empowerment ... for historically underserved communities where they can gain access to clean transportation,” said Lisa Dobbs, program manager with the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center. It also brings " a lot of co-benefits, including health and safety, air quality and also pairing with a direct pathway to wealth building.”
Impact Energy will compile their recommendations into a report for the state by next year — the plan is to include three communities among Roxbury, Springfield, Brockton, Lawrence and Lowell. Then the company can apply for an implementation grant for help financing the installation of the chargers.
The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center has awarded over $7.7 million in two years to 82 energy projects dedicated to boost clean energy transition in communities with low income, minority population and/or non-English speaking neighborhoods.
Last year, the state’s Department of Utilities approved $395 million dollars in state incentives for EV charger infrastructure. Nearly one-third of that money is required to go toward installing chargers in low income and minority communities. The state will also deploy a $50 million fund for EV charging infrastructure in the state through the Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Coordinating Council.
Undersecretary of Energy Judge said that programs like the grants ran by MassCEC can help inform the state as it is designing big clean transportation programs.
“MassCEC has historically been a really good testing ground for pilot projects,” Judge said. “I don't know if that's an opportunity here, but I think that's very possible that it could be,” he said.
This segment aired on November 14, 2023.
|
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Electric vehicle charging infrastructure rollout has been unequal — most early EV adopters are homeowners who can afford or have space to install a charger at home. But as Massachusetts moves forward with electrification, one of its priorities has been to reach more communities, especially those that don’t currently have easy access to EVs and EV chargers.
Residents in the state's wealthier communities have claimed most of the electric vehicle rebates so far in Massachusetts, according to data from the Massachusetts MOE-EV program website. A separate study for the Massachusetts Energy Efficiency Advisory Council shows that renters, low-income, and non-English-speaking households are
|
less likely to use energy efficiency incentives in general.
“The Commonwealth is investing a lot of money and attention into trying to serve environmental justice populations and disadvantaged communities and minority populations in a much broader way than has historically been done,” said Michael Judge, undersecretary of energy at the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs.
Impact Energy, a Black-owned company, aims to create a model on how to help those communities to transition to EV infrastructure and benefit from it at the same time. The company plans to identify locations for EV chargers in environmental justice communities, with a goal of using those chargers to bring tourists and shoppers to Black-owned businesses.
Cofounders Shonté Davidson and Pamela Fann named their project “The Massachusetts Black EV Motorist Green Book,” an homage to the original Green Book, a guide to help African Americans travel safely during segregation.
This year, the company received a $50,000 grant from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center to research underserved communities, particularly Black communities, and identify where EV chargers could most benefit them.
“We want to make sure that, specifically, Black people don't get left behind,” Davidson said.
She said the goal is to make sure that “as we are electrifying everything, specifically EVs, that we are ensuring that there is electric vehicle infrastructure in Black and brown communities.”
But the idea goes beyond just access to chargers, according to Davidson and Fann. They want to make sure communities of color benefit economically, too. They want those jobs to go to people in the community.
“We know that the energy industry is one of the fastest growing industries for jobs, but it's also one of the least diverse,” Fann said.
A 2021 report by advocacy groups found that six out of 10 workers in the clean energy industry in the U.S. are non-Hispanic white males.
Impact Energy is looking for businesses that might be interested in having an EV charger, particularly those that have parking spaces with electrical infrastructure and are near Black history landmarks. While people wait for their cars to charge, they can spend time and money at those shops.
Ultimately, Fann and Davidson want to publish a guide so drivers could not only find places to charge, but also visit original Green Book stops and other important Black history landmarks.
Britney Papile, one of the club's owners, is interested in hosting an EV charger.
“Slades being involved in green energy at this point, it really continues to cement its rich history,” she said. Slades is located near Charlie Sandwich Shoppe, another original Green Book stop in Boston that could be on the new guide.
Impact Energy is looking into other communities, too. In a recent visit to Brockton, Davidson and Fann looked into the parking lot near the Messiah Baptist Church, established in 1897.
“That was the first church that was in existence for the Black population in Brockton,” Davidson said. “The reason why that's really important is because there used to be laws in the books where Black folks couldn't congregate.”
“This particular project really has a level of empowerment ... for historically underserved communities where they can gain access to clean transportation,” said Lisa Dobbs, program manager with the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center. It also brings " a lot of co-benefits, including health and safety, air quality and also pairing with a direct pathway to wealth building.”
Impact Energy will compile their recommendations into a report for the state by next year — the plan is to include three communities among Roxbury, Springfield, Brockton, Lawrence and Lowell. Then the company can apply for an implementation grant for help financing the installation of the chargers.
The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center has awarded over $7.7 million in two years to 82 energy projects dedicated to boost clean energy transition in communities with low income, minority population and/or non-English speaking neighborhoods.
Last year, the state’s Department of Utilities approved $395 million dollars in state incentives for EV charger infrastructure. Nearly one-third of that money is required to go toward installing chargers in low income and minority communities. The state will also deploy a $50 million fund for EV charging infrastructure in the state through the Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Coordinating Council.
Undersecretary of Energy Judge said that programs like the grants ran by MassCEC can help inform the state as it is designing big clean transportation programs.
“MassCEC has historically been a really good testing ground for pilot projects,” Judge said. “I don't know if that's an opportunity here, but I think that's very possible that it could be,” he said.
This segment aired on November 14, 2023.
|
After a historic downturn due to the pandemic, childhood immunizations are improving
Fewer children around the world missed receiving routine vaccinations in 2022 compared to the year before, indicating a rebound in childhood immunizations following the COVID-19 pandemic, according to new statistics released by the World Health Organization and UNICEF.
Last year, 20.5 million children did not get one or more rounds of the DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis) vaccine, which is used as a global marker for immunization coverage, according to a joint statement released Tuesday by WHO and UNICEF. That's compared to the 24.4 million children who missed out on one ore more rounds of that vaccinate in 2021.
"These data are encouraging, and a tribute to those who have worked so hard to restore life-saving immunization services after two years of sustained decline in immunization coverage," Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, said in the statement. "But global and regional averages don't tell the whole story and mask severe and persistent inequities. When countries and regions lag, children pay the price."
The organizations note that the current numbers remain higher than the 18.4 million children who missed out on the DTaP vaccine in 2019.
A previous report released by UNICEF earlier this year found that 67 million children across the world missed out on some or all routine vaccinations between 2019 and 2021, and 48 million didn't receive any doses over the same period.
The numbers were a reflection of how disruptive the COVID-19 pandemic has been on basic health services, Brian Keeley, editor-in-chief of UNICEF's annual report, State of the World's Children, told NPR this spring.
Families were on lockdown, clinics were closed, travel was difficult and countries had to make difficult choices on how to prioritize resources, Keeley said.
Still, while the apparent rebound is a positive development, the WHO and UNICEF warn that the recovery is not happening equally and is concentrated "in a few countries."
"Progress in well-resourced countries with large infant populations, such as India and Indonesia, masks slower recovery or even continued declines in most low-income countries, especially for measles vaccination," their statement reads.
The groups note that measles vaccination efforts have not recovered as well the other vaccines, "putting an addition 35.2 million children at risk."
"Beneath the positive trend lies a grave warning," UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russellsaid."Until more countries mend the gaps in routine immunization coverage, children everywhere will remain at risk of contracting and dying from diseases we can prevent. Viruses like measles do not recognize borders. Efforts must urgently be strengthened to catch up children who missed their vaccination, while restoring and further improving immunization services from pre-pandemic levels."
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
|
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After a historic downturn due to the pandemic, childhood immunizations are improving
Fewer children around the world missed receiving routine vaccinations in 2022 compared to the year before, indicating a rebound in childhood immunizations following the COVID-19 pandemic, according to new statistics released by the World Health Organization and UNICEF.
Last year, 20.5 million children did not get one or more rounds of the DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis) vaccine, which is used as a global marker for immunization coverage, according to a joint statement released Tuesday by WHO and UN
|
ICEF. That's compared to the 24.4 million children who missed out on one ore more rounds of that vaccinate in 2021.
"These data are encouraging, and a tribute to those who have worked so hard to restore life-saving immunization services after two years of sustained decline in immunization coverage," Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, said in the statement. "But global and regional averages don't tell the whole story and mask severe and persistent inequities. When countries and regions lag, children pay the price."
The organizations note that the current numbers remain higher than the 18.4 million children who missed out on the DTaP vaccine in 2019.
A previous report released by UNICEF earlier this year found that 67 million children across the world missed out on some or all routine vaccinations between 2019 and 2021, and 48 million didn't receive any doses over the same period.
The numbers were a reflection of how disruptive the COVID-19 pandemic has been on basic health services, Brian Keeley, editor-in-chief of UNICEF's annual report, State of the World's Children, told NPR this spring.
Families were on lockdown, clinics were closed, travel was difficult and countries had to make difficult choices on how to prioritize resources, Keeley said.
Still, while the apparent rebound is a positive development, the WHO and UNICEF warn that the recovery is not happening equally and is concentrated "in a few countries."
"Progress in well-resourced countries with large infant populations, such as India and Indonesia, masks slower recovery or even continued declines in most low-income countries, especially for measles vaccination," their statement reads.
The groups note that measles vaccination efforts have not recovered as well the other vaccines, "putting an addition 35.2 million children at risk."
"Beneath the positive trend lies a grave warning," UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russellsaid."Until more countries mend the gaps in routine immunization coverage, children everywhere will remain at risk of contracting and dying from diseases we can prevent. Viruses like measles do not recognize borders. Efforts must urgently be strengthened to catch up children who missed their vaccination, while restoring and further improving immunization services from pre-pandemic levels."
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
|
Women's suffrage leader Munds to be honored with Bolin Plaza statue
The Arizona Women's History Alliance wants to put up a statue of suffragist leader Frances Willard Munds at Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza, which would be one of the few such monuments to women from the state's history.
State of play: The statue of Munds, created by local artist Stephanie Hunter, is completed and awaits a new home.
- The alliance needs to raise about $60,000 to reach its $280,000 goal, according to their website.
- It will also meet soon with the Legislative Council and the Arizona Department of Administration to determine the exact site for the statue.
What's next: Melanie Sturgeon, president of the alliance's board of directors, said they'd hoped to have the statue up by Nov. 5, the anniversary of women winning the right to vote in Arizona, but the process has taken longer than expected.
- Legislative Council executive director Mike Braun said they'll get a green light to proceed once fundraising is complete.
Flashback: Munds was a leader in the fight for women's suffrage in Arizona.
- After statehood in 1912, she became president of the Arizona Equal Suffrage Association and led the campaign to put a women's suffrage measure on the ballot, which voters overwhelmingly approved.
- Arizona granted women the right to vote eight years before the ratification of the 19th Amendment did the same nationwide, which, Sturgeon said, "might not sound like much, but these women didn't sit still. They got a lot of legislation through and they were able to help with a lot of changes."
- Munds became one of Arizona's first two female legislators in 1914 when she was elected to represent Yavapai County in the Senate.
What they're saying: "I would say 95% of the people in Arizona have no idea who Frances Willard Munds is," Sturgeon told Axios Phoenix.
- She added that Munds deserves the honor of a statue "because she was the one that really understood about building coalitions and that sort of thing."
Why it matters: There are few statues of women in Arizona and fewer still of individuals.
- The only monuments of individual women Sturgeon was aware of include Sandra Day O'Connor in the federal courthouse named after her in downtown Phoenix and Sedona Schnebly, after whom the town of Sedona is named.
- Other statues of women are intended to represent broader groups, such as the monument to Arizona pioneer women in Bolin Plaza and the Madonna of the Trail statue in Springerville.
- Only 6% of American monuments feature real women as their subjects, Axios' Chelsea Brasted reported.
You tell us: Which Arizona women do you believe should be honored with statues?
- We'll follow up next week with a story on the recommendations from readers and historians.
- The Arizona Women's Hall of Fame features many of the most notable women in our state's history.
- If there are statues of notable women in Arizona history, please let us know so we can give them their due!
More Phoenix stories
No stories could be found
Get a free daily digest of the most important news in your backyard with Axios Phoenix.
|
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Women's suffrage leader Munds to be honored with Bolin Plaza statue
The Arizona Women's History Alliance wants to put up a statue of suffragist leader Frances Willard Munds at Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza, which would be one of the few such monuments to women from the state's history.
State of play: The statue of Munds, created by local artist Stephanie Hunter, is completed and awaits a new home.
- The alliance needs to raise about $60,000 to reach its $280,000 goal, according to their website.
- It will also meet soon with the Legislative
|
Council and the Arizona Department of Administration to determine the exact site for the statue.
What's next: Melanie Sturgeon, president of the alliance's board of directors, said they'd hoped to have the statue up by Nov. 5, the anniversary of women winning the right to vote in Arizona, but the process has taken longer than expected.
- Legislative Council executive director Mike Braun said they'll get a green light to proceed once fundraising is complete.
Flashback: Munds was a leader in the fight for women's suffrage in Arizona.
- After statehood in 1912, she became president of the Arizona Equal Suffrage Association and led the campaign to put a women's suffrage measure on the ballot, which voters overwhelmingly approved.
- Arizona granted women the right to vote eight years before the ratification of the 19th Amendment did the same nationwide, which, Sturgeon said, "might not sound like much, but these women didn't sit still. They got a lot of legislation through and they were able to help with a lot of changes."
- Munds became one of Arizona's first two female legislators in 1914 when she was elected to represent Yavapai County in the Senate.
What they're saying: "I would say 95% of the people in Arizona have no idea who Frances Willard Munds is," Sturgeon told Axios Phoenix.
- She added that Munds deserves the honor of a statue "because she was the one that really understood about building coalitions and that sort of thing."
Why it matters: There are few statues of women in Arizona and fewer still of individuals.
- The only monuments of individual women Sturgeon was aware of include Sandra Day O'Connor in the federal courthouse named after her in downtown Phoenix and Sedona Schnebly, after whom the town of Sedona is named.
- Other statues of women are intended to represent broader groups, such as the monument to Arizona pioneer women in Bolin Plaza and the Madonna of the Trail statue in Springerville.
- Only 6% of American monuments feature real women as their subjects, Axios' Chelsea Brasted reported.
You tell us: Which Arizona women do you believe should be honored with statues?
- We'll follow up next week with a story on the recommendations from readers and historians.
- The Arizona Women's Hall of Fame features many of the most notable women in our state's history.
- If there are statues of notable women in Arizona history, please let us know so we can give them their due!
More Phoenix stories
No stories could be found
Get a free daily digest of the most important news in your backyard with Axios Phoenix.
|
Bushfires have long played a major role in the regeneration of native vegetation across WA’s vast Kimberley landscape.
- A new smoking method is being trialled on native seeds used to rehabilitate the Argyle diamond mine
- The smoking aims to emulate a bushfire to trigger seed germination
- Results from the trial will be known following the Kimberley wet season in 2023
Now, those trying to rehabilitate the region's most well-known mine site are hoping fire could be the key to their success, through a new seed smoking technique.
Gelganyem Group, which represents the site's traditional owners, has been involved in accumulating a bank of about 80 different native species, harvested from a 200km radius of the mine.
The group's seed operations manager Riley Shaw said a new smoking treatment was being trialled to encourage seed germination at the once bustling pink diamond mine.
"The idea is that we want to replicate a bushfire," he said.
"A lot of Australian natives need smoke to deactivate their dormancy mechanisms so it will make them wake up, so to speak, and germinate better once we spread them out on site."
The first round of seed smoking took place recently at Gelganyem's Kununurra seed collection hub.
"We need to seed when there's going to be imminent rains and continued wet season weather," Mr Shaw said.
To imitate a bushfire, a makeshift tunnel made of tarpaulin, star pickets and poly pipe was created and filled with the native collection.
A small fire was then lit in a contained drum, with smoke forced into the tunnel by a fan.
Gija man Andrew Daylight works for Top End Seeds, and is one of about 12 Indigenous men involved in the seed collection program.
Having seen many bushfires pass by his community of Warmun, Mr Daylight was optimistic the smoke treatment would have a similar effect at Argyle.
"When we got the fires ripping ... burning the trees and like when we get a bit of rain or something like that, it brings the leaves back and the seeds," he said.
"We need to put more seeds and trees in there to cover the holes and things like that.
"This my first time seeing something like this ... it's really good."
The smoked seeds have since been taken to the Argyle mine site where they will be replanted.
Since collection began in 2019, more than 5,000kg of seed has been gathered, with a target of 11,000kg for the mine's full revegetation program.
A Rio Tinto spokesperson said approximately 100 hectares of rehabilitation would be completed this wet season, using about 800kg of seed.
Trial results are expected to be clear by mid-2023.
|
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|
Bushfires have long played a major role in the regeneration of native vegetation across WA’s vast Kimberley landscape.
- A new smoking method is being trialled on native seeds used to rehabilitate the Argyle diamond mine
- The smoking aims to emulate a bushfire to trigger seed germination
- Results from the trial will be known following the Kimberley wet season in 2023
Now, those trying to rehabilitate the region's most well-known mine site are hoping fire could be the key to their success, through a new seed smoking technique.
Gelganyem Group, which represents the site's traditional owners
|
, has been involved in accumulating a bank of about 80 different native species, harvested from a 200km radius of the mine.
The group's seed operations manager Riley Shaw said a new smoking treatment was being trialled to encourage seed germination at the once bustling pink diamond mine.
"The idea is that we want to replicate a bushfire," he said.
"A lot of Australian natives need smoke to deactivate their dormancy mechanisms so it will make them wake up, so to speak, and germinate better once we spread them out on site."
The first round of seed smoking took place recently at Gelganyem's Kununurra seed collection hub.
"We need to seed when there's going to be imminent rains and continued wet season weather," Mr Shaw said.
To imitate a bushfire, a makeshift tunnel made of tarpaulin, star pickets and poly pipe was created and filled with the native collection.
A small fire was then lit in a contained drum, with smoke forced into the tunnel by a fan.
Gija man Andrew Daylight works for Top End Seeds, and is one of about 12 Indigenous men involved in the seed collection program.
Having seen many bushfires pass by his community of Warmun, Mr Daylight was optimistic the smoke treatment would have a similar effect at Argyle.
"When we got the fires ripping ... burning the trees and like when we get a bit of rain or something like that, it brings the leaves back and the seeds," he said.
"We need to put more seeds and trees in there to cover the holes and things like that.
"This my first time seeing something like this ... it's really good."
The smoked seeds have since been taken to the Argyle mine site where they will be replanted.
Since collection began in 2019, more than 5,000kg of seed has been gathered, with a target of 11,000kg for the mine's full revegetation program.
A Rio Tinto spokesperson said approximately 100 hectares of rehabilitation would be completed this wet season, using about 800kg of seed.
Trial results are expected to be clear by mid-2023.
|
It’s the middle of second period, 11 a.m. My students have settled into their writing workshop. I walk around and when I get to Kevin, his screen is white, empty.
“What’s up?’ I ask. He takes a breath and turns his gaze back to his blank screen. “I don’t know, Miss. I got nothing. Everytime I try to write my mind goes blank.”
“It’s because he’s depressed,” a kid jokes. “We’re all depressed,” another student adds. “Facts,” a student from another group chimes in.
“Why not just start typing something, anything, and see where it goes?” I ask. Kevin stares at me. “Nah, Miss. It’s not just this, and it’s not you. It’s everything. Don’t worry. I’ll get it done.”
But I worry. There is something different happening in the classroom today. Teachers who have been in the field long enough can feel it, even if we’re unable to name it. Students seem different: more tired, more apathetic, less engaged.
Many of my students are experiencing some type of post-pandemic trauma, on a varying scale. In fact, this past year, the 2021-2022 Healthy Colorado Kids survey concluded that while suicidal ideation in teens has slightly decreased since 2019, rates of depression and anxiety have increased.
The pandemic is not solely to blame for collective despair. Major social issues and institutional structures plague places of learning and inhibit large swaths of our children from receiving an adequate and equitable education. And while schools cannot solve all social problems, there is a lot that I can do as an educator.
First, I can examine my school’s current systems and practices, looking closely at structural or environmental barriers that cause unnecessary anxiety for students like Kevin and block his access to learning. One such structural barrier is grades.
A few years ago, I made a deliberate decision to de-emphasize grades as much as possible within my classroom. I was not the first educator to do this: two colleagues in my district had begun a similar project, and nationwide there are plenty of teachers hacking their gradebooks to remove numbers and letters and, instead, utilize feedback as evidence for learning.
Year after year, I found that this “ungrading” practice benefitted my students and their learning, decreasing the amount of stress in our learning environment. Moreover, by de-emphasizing grades, I was able to teach a more challenging curriculum to my students. Focusing less on grades gave me more time to support them through the learning process, and my students often felt more motivated to strive toward the learning outcome.
By the time they reach high school, many of my students have developed strong beliefs about the “type” of student they are. They have decided whether they are a “math” student or an “English” student, whether they are an “A,” “B,” “C,” or an “I just don’t care student.” Students like Kevin typically fit into the latter box.
The reality, however, is that they often do care. Many have simply become so disheartened by their “failed” attempts at doing well that it is safer to show up nonchalant and detached.
This is not a mere reflection of my students. A 2018 Pew research study suggests that most US teens experience more stress and anxiety over grades than “fitting in” socially or excelling athletically. Students have learned to see grades as an indicator of their intellectual identity and of their potential success beyond school. Grades, however, are not the sole indicator of success and are oftentimes a better indicator of compliance than achievement or learning.
The spring before I began ungrading practices, Taylor, a smart and successful 10th grader, had an anxiety attack in my classroom. Taylor had signed up to take an AP course the following school year and wanted me to assure her that she would “get an ‘A’” in the course. As I was explaining my inability to make such a promise, Taylor, who was already under a lot of stress, crouched down and began hyper-ventalating. By the time the nurse was in my classroom she was sobbing.
A few days later, she dropped the AP course. This was not the first time I had seen a heart-wrenching emotional response over grades, but this moment tipped the scales.
With Kevin, the ongoing support he received in my classroom through one-on-one conferences, peer reviewing, flexible due dates, robust and consistent feedback, and an uncapped ability for him to revise his work, allowed him the space to focus on growth and development over letters and numbers. By the end of the semester, he had written every major essay. In his final conference, with a wide grin, he shared that he was both “surprised” and “proud” of his work.
There is plenty of evidence that our current grading policies are inextricably linked to stress, anxiety, and other emotional problems in students. If we truly want to support students like Kevin, rethinking the way we assess and evaluate learning is a good starting place.
The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy and submit columns, suggested writers and more to <email-pii>. (Learn more about how to submit a column.)
|
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It’s the middle of second period, 11 a.m. My students have settled into their writing workshop. I walk around and when I get to Kevin, his screen is white, empty.
“What’s up?’ I ask. He takes a breath and turns his gaze back to his blank screen. “I don’t know, Miss. I got nothing. Everytime I try to write my mind goes blank.”
“It’s because he’s depressed,” a kid jokes. “We’re all depressed,” another student adds. “Facts,” a student from another group chimes in.
“Why not just start typing something,
|
anything, and see where it goes?” I ask. Kevin stares at me. “Nah, Miss. It’s not just this, and it’s not you. It’s everything. Don’t worry. I’ll get it done.”
But I worry. There is something different happening in the classroom today. Teachers who have been in the field long enough can feel it, even if we’re unable to name it. Students seem different: more tired, more apathetic, less engaged.
Many of my students are experiencing some type of post-pandemic trauma, on a varying scale. In fact, this past year, the 2021-2022 Healthy Colorado Kids survey concluded that while suicidal ideation in teens has slightly decreased since 2019, rates of depression and anxiety have increased.
The pandemic is not solely to blame for collective despair. Major social issues and institutional structures plague places of learning and inhibit large swaths of our children from receiving an adequate and equitable education. And while schools cannot solve all social problems, there is a lot that I can do as an educator.
First, I can examine my school’s current systems and practices, looking closely at structural or environmental barriers that cause unnecessary anxiety for students like Kevin and block his access to learning. One such structural barrier is grades.
A few years ago, I made a deliberate decision to de-emphasize grades as much as possible within my classroom. I was not the first educator to do this: two colleagues in my district had begun a similar project, and nationwide there are plenty of teachers hacking their gradebooks to remove numbers and letters and, instead, utilize feedback as evidence for learning.
Year after year, I found that this “ungrading” practice benefitted my students and their learning, decreasing the amount of stress in our learning environment. Moreover, by de-emphasizing grades, I was able to teach a more challenging curriculum to my students. Focusing less on grades gave me more time to support them through the learning process, and my students often felt more motivated to strive toward the learning outcome.
By the time they reach high school, many of my students have developed strong beliefs about the “type” of student they are. They have decided whether they are a “math” student or an “English” student, whether they are an “A,” “B,” “C,” or an “I just don’t care student.” Students like Kevin typically fit into the latter box.
The reality, however, is that they often do care. Many have simply become so disheartened by their “failed” attempts at doing well that it is safer to show up nonchalant and detached.
This is not a mere reflection of my students. A 2018 Pew research study suggests that most US teens experience more stress and anxiety over grades than “fitting in” socially or excelling athletically. Students have learned to see grades as an indicator of their intellectual identity and of their potential success beyond school. Grades, however, are not the sole indicator of success and are oftentimes a better indicator of compliance than achievement or learning.
The spring before I began ungrading practices, Taylor, a smart and successful 10th grader, had an anxiety attack in my classroom. Taylor had signed up to take an AP course the following school year and wanted me to assure her that she would “get an ‘A’” in the course. As I was explaining my inability to make such a promise, Taylor, who was already under a lot of stress, crouched down and began hyper-ventalating. By the time the nurse was in my classroom she was sobbing.
A few days later, she dropped the AP course. This was not the first time I had seen a heart-wrenching emotional response over grades, but this moment tipped the scales.
With Kevin, the ongoing support he received in my classroom through one-on-one conferences, peer reviewing, flexible due dates, robust and consistent feedback, and an uncapped ability for him to revise his work, allowed him the space to focus on growth and development over letters and numbers. By the end of the semester, he had written every major essay. In his final conference, with a wide grin, he shared that he was both “surprised” and “proud” of his work.
There is plenty of evidence that our current grading policies are inextricably linked to stress, anxiety, and other emotional problems in students. If we truly want to support students like Kevin, rethinking the way we assess and evaluate learning is a good starting place.
The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy and submit columns, suggested writers and more to <email-pii>. (Learn more about how to submit a column.)
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Beavers reclaim land in southeast Michigan
Over the past decade, beaver populations have returned to southeast Michigan in places such as Belle Isle, Stony Island, the Conner Creek Power Plant and other places along the Detroit River.
Why did beaver populations decline?
When settlers moved into metro Detroit, beaver trapping for the fur trade was plentiful, eliminating much of the population. The existence of this species was almost wiped out due to 300 years of trapping and trading. Along with trapping, industrialization and habitat loss pushed beavers out of the area and they were last reported in 1877 as a result, said Great Lakes Now.
When did beavers return to the area?
Beavers were first reported back in the area in 2008, according to Friends of the Rouge. For the first time in over 100 years, beavers gnawed away at trees and built damns near Conners Creek Power Plant. Since then, beaver sightings in the Detroit and Rouge Rivers aren't uncommon and continues to increase.
Why are they returning to the area?
According to Robert Burns, Detroit River Keeper with the Friends of Detroit River group, populations are increasing because areas are more habitable to the species.
“We’ve noticed in the last 10 to 15 years that there are more beavers starting to move to the area,” Burns said. “From a habitat perspective and an indicator perspective, it shows that things are changing in the river that are conducive for various populations to start to reform and increase.”
More:Detroit Tuskegee Airmen Museum receives a hefty grant to teach kids to fly
More:Comerica, other bank stocks take hit in wake of Silicon Valley Bank failure
Burns said beavers typically look for habitats that are secluded and accessible to water and food sources year-round, making spots along the Detroit River a now suitable home.
What are current population numbers in the area?
Zachary Cooley, the Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologist for Wayne, Monroe, and Lenawee counties, said they use various reports to estimate the current beaver population.
“We don’t have population numbers exactly, but we have trapping survey reports and those combined with sighting reports and nuisance beaver reports, we can get a good picture of a healthy population that is slowly increasing,” he wrote to the Detroit Free Press.
Fox 2 said numbers increased in the three counties from 2006 to 2020. From 2006 to 2010, there were typically only 50 to 100 beavers reported each year. By 2020, numbers reached 325 yearly.
Are beavers good for urbanized areas?
The DNR has beavers categorized as nuisance wildlife due to damage caused in urban and industrialized areas. They often gnaw on trees and their damns cause flooding and problems for homeowners. The DNR does offer trapping services and permits for those impacted in certain areas.
Cooley wrote the DNR is given a difficult hand because they want beavers around but not at the expense of someone’s property.
“Beaver in residential areas typically lead to problems, it’s their nature to back up and flood a waterway to create a pond,” he wrote. “Up North or out in the country, they can do that and it doesn’t impact anyone, most people would never even know it happened. However, down here in southeast Michigan if they back up a drain or a river, it is eventually going to flood someone’s yard and possibly impact their house.”
Burns said the return of beavers is a matter of perspective as they can cause significant damage. However, their return shows improvements in terms of pollution, environment, and climate.
“As we see more of them, it just tells us that things are getting better,” he said. “The environment is conducive for both habitats and food sources for them to start repopulating.”
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Beavers reclaim land in southeast Michigan
Over the past decade, beaver populations have returned to southeast Michigan in places such as Belle Isle, Stony Island, the Conner Creek Power Plant and other places along the Detroit River.
Why did beaver populations decline?
When settlers moved into metro Detroit, beaver trapping for the fur trade was plentiful, eliminating much of the population. The existence of this species was almost wiped out due to 300 years of trapping and trading. Along with trapping, industrialization and habitat loss pushed beavers out of the area and they were last reported in 1877 as a result
|
, said Great Lakes Now.
When did beavers return to the area?
Beavers were first reported back in the area in 2008, according to Friends of the Rouge. For the first time in over 100 years, beavers gnawed away at trees and built damns near Conners Creek Power Plant. Since then, beaver sightings in the Detroit and Rouge Rivers aren't uncommon and continues to increase.
Why are they returning to the area?
According to Robert Burns, Detroit River Keeper with the Friends of Detroit River group, populations are increasing because areas are more habitable to the species.
“We’ve noticed in the last 10 to 15 years that there are more beavers starting to move to the area,” Burns said. “From a habitat perspective and an indicator perspective, it shows that things are changing in the river that are conducive for various populations to start to reform and increase.”
More:Detroit Tuskegee Airmen Museum receives a hefty grant to teach kids to fly
More:Comerica, other bank stocks take hit in wake of Silicon Valley Bank failure
Burns said beavers typically look for habitats that are secluded and accessible to water and food sources year-round, making spots along the Detroit River a now suitable home.
What are current population numbers in the area?
Zachary Cooley, the Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologist for Wayne, Monroe, and Lenawee counties, said they use various reports to estimate the current beaver population.
“We don’t have population numbers exactly, but we have trapping survey reports and those combined with sighting reports and nuisance beaver reports, we can get a good picture of a healthy population that is slowly increasing,” he wrote to the Detroit Free Press.
Fox 2 said numbers increased in the three counties from 2006 to 2020. From 2006 to 2010, there were typically only 50 to 100 beavers reported each year. By 2020, numbers reached 325 yearly.
Are beavers good for urbanized areas?
The DNR has beavers categorized as nuisance wildlife due to damage caused in urban and industrialized areas. They often gnaw on trees and their damns cause flooding and problems for homeowners. The DNR does offer trapping services and permits for those impacted in certain areas.
Cooley wrote the DNR is given a difficult hand because they want beavers around but not at the expense of someone’s property.
“Beaver in residential areas typically lead to problems, it’s their nature to back up and flood a waterway to create a pond,” he wrote. “Up North or out in the country, they can do that and it doesn’t impact anyone, most people would never even know it happened. However, down here in southeast Michigan if they back up a drain or a river, it is eventually going to flood someone’s yard and possibly impact their house.”
Burns said the return of beavers is a matter of perspective as they can cause significant damage. However, their return shows improvements in terms of pollution, environment, and climate.
“As we see more of them, it just tells us that things are getting better,” he said. “The environment is conducive for both habitats and food sources for them to start repopulating.”
|
A little penguin expert says she is encouraged by results of a recent census that show a population increase of the species on Granite Island in Victor Harbor.
- Volunteers found 14 active burrows on Granite Island
- 28 adult birds were recorded
- Researchers will continue to use cameras to monitor birds and tourists
Flinders University lecturer Diane Colombelli-Negrel led a team of about 76 volunteers to the island last week in search of active burrows to record the numbers of penguins.
The volunteers found 14 active burrows and a population of 28 little penguins, a small increase on the 26 counted on the island last year.
The number of little penguins on the island fell drastically from more than 1,600 to less than 20 during the early 2000s.
"Hopefully, slowly and slowly we are going up," Dr Colombelli-Negrel said.
She said the team of citizen scientists had found a number of few new burrows.
"This is good news because we try to monitor as many as we can," she said.
"This is why the census is so important as it always highlights a few burrows we are not necessarily aware of."
Caught on camera
Cameras were also placed on the island to monitor the population.
Dr Colombelli-Negrel said the cameras were providing valuable data but also revealed a shocking number of disturbances the penguins were enduring each night.
She said footage taken in recent months indicated there had been a reduction in the number of dogs being brought to the island, despite being prohibited.
However, she said the activity over the coming busy summer tourist season would reveal whether the community would heed warnings to stay away from burrows and stop shining lights from torches and phones at the penguins inside.
A long-term study by Dr Colombelli-Negrel found a strong association between the little penguin numbers and the outflow of the nearby mouth of the River Murray which impacted on their food sources.
Dr Colombelli-Negrel said the move back to an El Nino climate pattern did raise questions about how the population would respond to another bout of drier conditions and reduced flows.
"Hopefully because there is less competition, they may be less impacted but that is obviously something we'll have to see," she said.
|
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|
A little penguin expert says she is encouraged by results of a recent census that show a population increase of the species on Granite Island in Victor Harbor.
- Volunteers found 14 active burrows on Granite Island
- 28 adult birds were recorded
- Researchers will continue to use cameras to monitor birds and tourists
Flinders University lecturer Diane Colombelli-Negrel led a team of about 76 volunteers to the island last week in search of active burrows to record the numbers of penguins.
The volunteers found 14 active burrows and a population of 28 little penguins, a small
|
increase on the 26 counted on the island last year.
The number of little penguins on the island fell drastically from more than 1,600 to less than 20 during the early 2000s.
"Hopefully, slowly and slowly we are going up," Dr Colombelli-Negrel said.
She said the team of citizen scientists had found a number of few new burrows.
"This is good news because we try to monitor as many as we can," she said.
"This is why the census is so important as it always highlights a few burrows we are not necessarily aware of."
Caught on camera
Cameras were also placed on the island to monitor the population.
Dr Colombelli-Negrel said the cameras were providing valuable data but also revealed a shocking number of disturbances the penguins were enduring each night.
She said footage taken in recent months indicated there had been a reduction in the number of dogs being brought to the island, despite being prohibited.
However, she said the activity over the coming busy summer tourist season would reveal whether the community would heed warnings to stay away from burrows and stop shining lights from torches and phones at the penguins inside.
A long-term study by Dr Colombelli-Negrel found a strong association between the little penguin numbers and the outflow of the nearby mouth of the River Murray which impacted on their food sources.
Dr Colombelli-Negrel said the move back to an El Nino climate pattern did raise questions about how the population would respond to another bout of drier conditions and reduced flows.
"Hopefully because there is less competition, they may be less impacted but that is obviously something we'll have to see," she said.
|
A large wildfire mitigation project in Teller County will help protect a source of drinking water for Colorado Springs. The 300-acre project is just northwest of North Catamount Reservoir, one of 25 water sources for the city.
Mike Till with the Colorado State Forest Service said mitigation efforts have been on-going on the northern slope of Pikes Peak for 30 years. He said this project will focus on removing some of the plants, brush and trees in the area in order to help prevent debris from entering the reservoir, if a fire were to happen.
"When a fire comes through and reduces the biomass by burning it up, it creates a hydrophobic soils and then all that material then drains into the water source and taints the water source for the population," he explained.
The $1 million dollar project is funded by a grant from the Colorado Department of Natural Resources Colorado Strategic Wildfire Action Program (COSWAP). The agency is the result of state legislation passed in 2021 that created a fund to better manage forests and reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires. Work should be done by 2025.
"A lot of what we're doing is maintenance of the forest. We're really trying to shift the risk of these wildfires," Till said. "We know it's going to happen. It just depends on where and when and how much damage they cause."
The work will be done with large machinery and by hand, depending on the terrain. Till said there are five mitigation projects planned for the area. The planned work near the reservoir will connect to other mitigated swaths of land with the goal of creating large fuel breaks.
"It's for the greater good of the population at large," Till said. "Whether that's Woodland Park, Green Mountain Falls, Colorado Springs, Divide, [or] Cripple Creek."
The Colorado State Forest Service will work alongside Colorado Springs Utilities Forest Management Division, U.S. Forest Service Pikes Peak Ranger District, Colorado Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and area governments to maintain the area.
- Fisher Canyon, Cedar Heights and others identified as priority areas to reduce wildfire risk in Colorado Springs
- The Waldo Canyon Fire was a catalyst for mitigation in Green Mountain Falls. Here’s what they’re doing
- Ten years after the Waldo Canyon Fire, Colorado Springs says it’s learned wildfire lessons they’re applying now
Southern Colorado is changing a lot these days. We can help you keep up. Sign up for the KRCC Weekly Digest here and get the stories that matter to Southern Colorado, delivered straight to your inbox.
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|
A large wildfire mitigation project in Teller County will help protect a source of drinking water for Colorado Springs. The 300-acre project is just northwest of North Catamount Reservoir, one of 25 water sources for the city.
Mike Till with the Colorado State Forest Service said mitigation efforts have been on-going on the northern slope of Pikes Peak for 30 years. He said this project will focus on removing some of the plants, brush and trees in the area in order to help prevent debris from entering the reservoir, if a fire were to happen.
"When a fire comes through and reduces the biomass by burning
|
it up, it creates a hydrophobic soils and then all that material then drains into the water source and taints the water source for the population," he explained.
The $1 million dollar project is funded by a grant from the Colorado Department of Natural Resources Colorado Strategic Wildfire Action Program (COSWAP). The agency is the result of state legislation passed in 2021 that created a fund to better manage forests and reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires. Work should be done by 2025.
"A lot of what we're doing is maintenance of the forest. We're really trying to shift the risk of these wildfires," Till said. "We know it's going to happen. It just depends on where and when and how much damage they cause."
The work will be done with large machinery and by hand, depending on the terrain. Till said there are five mitigation projects planned for the area. The planned work near the reservoir will connect to other mitigated swaths of land with the goal of creating large fuel breaks.
"It's for the greater good of the population at large," Till said. "Whether that's Woodland Park, Green Mountain Falls, Colorado Springs, Divide, [or] Cripple Creek."
The Colorado State Forest Service will work alongside Colorado Springs Utilities Forest Management Division, U.S. Forest Service Pikes Peak Ranger District, Colorado Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and area governments to maintain the area.
- Fisher Canyon, Cedar Heights and others identified as priority areas to reduce wildfire risk in Colorado Springs
- The Waldo Canyon Fire was a catalyst for mitigation in Green Mountain Falls. Here’s what they’re doing
- Ten years after the Waldo Canyon Fire, Colorado Springs says it’s learned wildfire lessons they’re applying now
Southern Colorado is changing a lot these days. We can help you keep up. Sign up for the KRCC Weekly Digest here and get the stories that matter to Southern Colorado, delivered straight to your inbox.
|
THEMBA KHOZA | Toilets, proper sanitation have socio-economic benefits
A toilet is one of the smallest rooms but it is also the most important and mighty place for humans.
A toilet is normally taken for granted but has the important responsibility of giving and preserving human dignity.
On November 19, annually, the world comes together to observe World Toilet Day to highlight the importance of toilets and proper sanitation, and also to raise the plight of those who do not have access to proper sanitation.
World Toilet Day inspires action to tackle the global sanitation crisis and help achieve the Sustainable Development Goal which calls sanitation for all by 2030. The goal has a target to eliminate open defecation and ensure everyone has access to sustainable sanitation services by 2030, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations.
World Toilet Day also raises awareness of the importance of a toilet and proper sanitation for human dignity, a safe and healthy environment.
This year, the World Toilet Day is celebrated under the theme “Accelerating Change” and uses the ancient tale of a hummingbird who does what she can to fire a great fire by carrying droplets of water in her beak.
Her actions, even though small, are helping solve a big problem. The story conveys a message that each of us can take action, however small, to help solve the big sanitation problem.
Access to proper sanitation and access to water are human rights, and these services are critical to people’s health and the integrity of the environment.
Lack of toilets and proper sanitation forces people to practise open defecation which takes away their human dignity and leads to the loss of self-confidence, especially among women and the girl child.
Open defecation also spreads diseases like diarrhoea which has serious health and socio-economic implications.
A toilet is not just a toilet, it’s a life saver.
Lack of toilets and proper sanitation also compromises human safety as people might be attacked by snakes and other animals when they use the veld to relieve themselves.
The lack of proper sanitation services also negatively affects women and children as it denies them privacy and makes them vulnerable to rape and abuse.
The lack of toilets and proper sanitation also negatively affects the environment.
It leads to pollution which negatively affects the quality of water in our water resources leading to waterborne diseases and loss of precious lives. The negative effect on water quality not only affects human, but also livestock, aquatic life and the environment at large.
Sanitation challenges are mostly experienced in rural and informal settlements, therefore it is critical that more focus is placed in these areas to ensure the elimination of inequalities in access and use which undermine progress.
Communities and law enforcement must work together to prevent activities which prevent people from receiving essential services and compromises their dignity, health and safety.
Lack of operations and maintenance has a negative impact on sanitation systems resulting in sewer spillages. Municipalities need to invest in operations and maintenance of their wastewater treatment plants and pipelines. Communities also have a role in preventing sewer blockages by not putting foreign objects on the sewer lines.
A toilet plays a very important role in creating a powerful economy as well as enhancing the health and preserving the dignity and safety of people. Toilets and proper sanitation systems have socio-economic benefits, therefore it is important that we all ensure that everyone has access to a safe and proper toilet and sanitation services because sanitation is dignity.
- Themba Khoza is a communicator in the department of water and sanitation
Would you like to comment on this article?
Register (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
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THEMBA KHOZA | Toilets, proper sanitation have socio-economic benefits
A toilet is one of the smallest rooms but it is also the most important and mighty place for humans.
A toilet is normally taken for granted but has the important responsibility of giving and preserving human dignity.
On November 19, annually, the world comes together to observe World Toilet Day to highlight the importance of toilets and proper sanitation, and also to raise the plight of those who do not have access to proper sanitation.
World Toilet Day inspires action to tackle the global sanitation crisis and help achieve the Sustainable Development Goal which calls sanitation
|
for all by 2030. The goal has a target to eliminate open defecation and ensure everyone has access to sustainable sanitation services by 2030, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations.
World Toilet Day also raises awareness of the importance of a toilet and proper sanitation for human dignity, a safe and healthy environment.
This year, the World Toilet Day is celebrated under the theme “Accelerating Change” and uses the ancient tale of a hummingbird who does what she can to fire a great fire by carrying droplets of water in her beak.
Her actions, even though small, are helping solve a big problem. The story conveys a message that each of us can take action, however small, to help solve the big sanitation problem.
Access to proper sanitation and access to water are human rights, and these services are critical to people’s health and the integrity of the environment.
Lack of toilets and proper sanitation forces people to practise open defecation which takes away their human dignity and leads to the loss of self-confidence, especially among women and the girl child.
Open defecation also spreads diseases like diarrhoea which has serious health and socio-economic implications.
A toilet is not just a toilet, it’s a life saver.
Lack of toilets and proper sanitation also compromises human safety as people might be attacked by snakes and other animals when they use the veld to relieve themselves.
The lack of proper sanitation services also negatively affects women and children as it denies them privacy and makes them vulnerable to rape and abuse.
The lack of toilets and proper sanitation also negatively affects the environment.
It leads to pollution which negatively affects the quality of water in our water resources leading to waterborne diseases and loss of precious lives. The negative effect on water quality not only affects human, but also livestock, aquatic life and the environment at large.
Sanitation challenges are mostly experienced in rural and informal settlements, therefore it is critical that more focus is placed in these areas to ensure the elimination of inequalities in access and use which undermine progress.
Communities and law enforcement must work together to prevent activities which prevent people from receiving essential services and compromises their dignity, health and safety.
Lack of operations and maintenance has a negative impact on sanitation systems resulting in sewer spillages. Municipalities need to invest in operations and maintenance of their wastewater treatment plants and pipelines. Communities also have a role in preventing sewer blockages by not putting foreign objects on the sewer lines.
A toilet plays a very important role in creating a powerful economy as well as enhancing the health and preserving the dignity and safety of people. Toilets and proper sanitation systems have socio-economic benefits, therefore it is important that we all ensure that everyone has access to a safe and proper toilet and sanitation services because sanitation is dignity.
- Themba Khoza is a communicator in the department of water and sanitation
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Bailey Placzek will never forget the look on one woman’s face — the first time she saw her grandfather as a young man.
“She just immediately broke down,” said Placzek, an associate curator at the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver. “It made me tear up because it was just such a human emotional response, seeing the face of your grandfather. She just said, ‘I'm sorry, it's just his face. Seeing him as a young man.’ It was such a touching moment.”
In the 1930s on the Colville Reservation in Washington, not many people had cameras.
“It was an era that everyone was in — the Great Depression at that time, and it was particularly challenging for tribal communities,” said Michael Holloman, an associate professor in the Department of Fine Arts at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. “When we think about that, it wasn't just tribal communities, but specifically for those individuals, not everyone had access or had a camera. So having images of your relatives from that period was something that was pretty remarkable.”
So in 1937, the artist Clyfford Still traveled to Nespelem, Washington and founded an artist colony on the homeland of the Colville Confederated Tribes. As part of Still’s work there, he created portraits of Native people who lived on the land.
Now, as part of the Clyfford Still Museum’s 10th anniversary, a special exhibition of the portraits and other works is forging a new relationship between the museum and tribal communities in Washington.
Clyfford Still was a major American painter best known as a leader of the Abstract Expressionist movement. Still's transition to entirely abstract painting in the middle of the 1940s preceded and impacted his contemporaries' transition to non-representational art. For some, his work using great fields of color may not hint that he had deep relationships with communities and individuals.
The current exhibition – You Select: A Community Curated Exhibition – endeavors to change that mindset.
Holloman, himself a member of the Colville Confederated tribes, worked with the museum curators to bring this part of the exhibition to life.
Holloman said it was known that Clyfford Still was in Nespelem, at the agency on the Colville Indian Reservation as part of the art colony. But it wasn't known that images of Clyfford Still’s work from that period were preserved.
“There were other portraits of the different individuals that had sat, for the people that painted there, but none of Clyfford Still's work was available,” Holloman said. “After they opened the Clyfford Still Museum there in Denver, and these drawings, portraits were revealed from his collections, … It was very wonderful, I think, because it placed him there with these individuals.”
The pieces show Still's bond with the community and the people he depicts. And of them, three portraits on display – graphite drawings – prompted a search for the subjects' descendants.
“So we had a name for each one of these individuals. And, um, we, you know, presented that to Michael and said, ‘You know, how would we go about getting in touch with these families?’” Placzek said.
Michael Holloman went to work, eventually connecting museum officials with representatives from the Colville Confederated Tribes.
Placzek — who is also the catalogue raisonné research and poject manager for the Clyfford Still Museum — and Erin Schafer, an associate archivist at the museum, traveled to meet the tribal community with Holloman in an open house setting. Eventually, the museum and the tribes’ representatives found descendents for the people in the portraits.
“I remember my grandpa sitting in his chair as I stood behind him watching our favorite show, Superman,” reads one quote on display at the exhibit from one of those family members. “It was one of those old black and white TVs with long antennas back then. We lived very modestly but wanted for nothing.”
“You Select: A Community-Curated Exhibition” is on view at the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver through February 12, 2023, and a recording of the live-streamed program “Critical Communities: Colville Confederated Tribes and the Museum” is available on the museum’s website.
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!
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Bailey Placzek will never forget the look on one woman’s face — the first time she saw her grandfather as a young man.
“She just immediately broke down,” said Placzek, an associate curator at the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver. “It made me tear up because it was just such a human emotional response, seeing the face of your grandfather. She just said, ‘I'm sorry, it's just his face. Seeing him as a young man.’ It was such a touching moment.”
In the 1930s on the Colville Reservation in Washington, not many people had cameras.
“It was
|
an era that everyone was in — the Great Depression at that time, and it was particularly challenging for tribal communities,” said Michael Holloman, an associate professor in the Department of Fine Arts at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. “When we think about that, it wasn't just tribal communities, but specifically for those individuals, not everyone had access or had a camera. So having images of your relatives from that period was something that was pretty remarkable.”
So in 1937, the artist Clyfford Still traveled to Nespelem, Washington and founded an artist colony on the homeland of the Colville Confederated Tribes. As part of Still’s work there, he created portraits of Native people who lived on the land.
Now, as part of the Clyfford Still Museum’s 10th anniversary, a special exhibition of the portraits and other works is forging a new relationship between the museum and tribal communities in Washington.
Clyfford Still was a major American painter best known as a leader of the Abstract Expressionist movement. Still's transition to entirely abstract painting in the middle of the 1940s preceded and impacted his contemporaries' transition to non-representational art. For some, his work using great fields of color may not hint that he had deep relationships with communities and individuals.
The current exhibition – You Select: A Community Curated Exhibition – endeavors to change that mindset.
Holloman, himself a member of the Colville Confederated tribes, worked with the museum curators to bring this part of the exhibition to life.
Holloman said it was known that Clyfford Still was in Nespelem, at the agency on the Colville Indian Reservation as part of the art colony. But it wasn't known that images of Clyfford Still’s work from that period were preserved.
“There were other portraits of the different individuals that had sat, for the people that painted there, but none of Clyfford Still's work was available,” Holloman said. “After they opened the Clyfford Still Museum there in Denver, and these drawings, portraits were revealed from his collections, … It was very wonderful, I think, because it placed him there with these individuals.”
The pieces show Still's bond with the community and the people he depicts. And of them, three portraits on display – graphite drawings – prompted a search for the subjects' descendants.
“So we had a name for each one of these individuals. And, um, we, you know, presented that to Michael and said, ‘You know, how would we go about getting in touch with these families?’” Placzek said.
Michael Holloman went to work, eventually connecting museum officials with representatives from the Colville Confederated Tribes.
Placzek — who is also the catalogue raisonné research and poject manager for the Clyfford Still Museum — and Erin Schafer, an associate archivist at the museum, traveled to meet the tribal community with Holloman in an open house setting. Eventually, the museum and the tribes’ representatives found descendents for the people in the portraits.
“I remember my grandpa sitting in his chair as I stood behind him watching our favorite show, Superman,” reads one quote on display at the exhibit from one of those family members. “It was one of those old black and white TVs with long antennas back then. We lived very modestly but wanted for nothing.”
“You Select: A Community-Curated Exhibition” is on view at the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver through February 12, 2023, and a recording of the live-streamed program “Critical Communities: Colville Confederated Tribes and the Museum” is available on the museum’s website.
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!
|
Why surge protectors are important for your equipment, especially your computer
Fluctuations in electricity supply due to rolling blackouts may not always immediately damage equipment, but without surge protection, they can gradually damage it over time.
To unplug or not to unplug? That’s just one of many questions that plague South Africans living in the era of rolling blackouts.
When the electricity supply suddenly returns after rolling blackouts, it can result in a power surge, which can potentially damage appliances. A power surge is a sudden and brief increase in the voltage of electricity, causing an increase in the current flowing to your appliances. The increase, as brief as three nanoseconds (billionth of a second), results in an electrical spike, also known as a power surge. During normal uninterrupted electricity supply, this can happen for a variety of reasons, such as lightning strikes, power company equipment failures, or the operation of power-hungry electrical devices such as air conditioners, refrigerators or elevators.
As per Eskom’s own fact sheet on surge protection, “[Power surges], after repeated load shedding, outages/interruptions or heavy industrial load fluctuations may eventually cause damages. While these surges are nowhere near the intensity of lightning surges, they can be severe enough to damage components, immediately or gradually, through regular occurrences.”
While unplugging one’s appliances may seem like the most straightforward solution, it is not exactly the most practical, especially during periods of rolling blackouts of up to three times a day, which are often exacerbated by further unplanned outages in many parts of the country. The next best solution for many, is to invest in power surge protectors, which work by diverting the extra electricity away from one’s appliances.
The right surge protector for you
As explained on Eskom’s fact sheet and on reputable platforms such as HowStuffWorks, the vast majority of surge protectors work by conducting the extra current to the ground before it reaches your appliances.
Others work by suppressing surges, slowing electricity down on its way through the live line. Others still have a built-in fuse that, should the mechanism fail to divert the surge, will overheat and cut off supply. This only works once, as the fuse will be destroyed when it overheats. Even more ideal for sensitive equipment such as computers, some surge protectors feature a “line-conditioning” system, which filters out smaller current fluctuations, referred to as “line noise”.
Which surge protector to choose?
However, besides the various features and the inner technical workings of different surge protectors, the main options to choose from range from whole-house surge protectors — which would be installed directly on the distribution board (DB) by an electrician — through to plug-in protectors, which can either be a single outlet plug adaptor or a power strip with multiple outlets. Some UPS battery backup systems also come with surge protection included. Then there are power surge stations which offer superior protection and line-conditioning for devices such as computers. Since telephone lines and data cables can also conduct high voltage, these power stations will often also feature inputs for phone lines, to protect routers, modems, and computers.
Single outlet plug-in adaptors and multiple outlet power strips with surge protection are often the most affordable, costing a couple to a few hundred rands. However, one would have to buy a number of these for various wall outlets. It is also important to take into consideration that they might not work for all equipment. For example, they might not work effectively for devices that draw a lot of power such as refrigerators.
Hence it is recommended to consider installing both a whole-house surge protector, as well as plug-in protectors to protect equipment from other surges within the house. For example, if a refrigerator and a computer are plugged into the same circuit, that could cause fluctuations within the home even with whole-house surge protection, hence an additional surge protector for the computer would protect your equipment and possibly extend its life.
Computers in particular have voltage-sensitive components that can be easily damaged by power surges, instantaneously or gradually over time, and therefore it is recommended that even in the absence of rolling blackouts, one should always use a surge protector with a computer in order to extend its life.
Warranties, joules, and rands: Keep an eye on the numbers
As per Eskom, “determining how good a particular surge protector is, can be difficult, and will take comparative research into each system to identify its effectiveness. As a general rule of thumb, the more expensive the surge protector, the higher the level of protection. However, the cheaper surge protectors commonly provide sufficient protection for single loads. It is important to select protection suitable to the risk level and value of equipment to be protected.”
Read in Daily Maverick: Pay less for electricity by getting your head around Eskom’s sometimes confusing block tariffs
In addition to cost considerations, a few other numbers are important to consider. First, the clamping voltage. This indicates what voltage will cause the surge protector to divert electricity to the ground. The lower the number the better. Eskom advises looking for a clamping voltage no higher than 400 volts. Second is the energy absorption rating, which is indicated in joules. This tells you how much energy the surge protector can absorb before it fails. In this case, the higher the better, and Eskom advises consumers to “look for a protector that is at least rated at 200 to 400 joules. For better protection, look for a rating of 600 joules or more.”
Third is the response time. They don’t necessarily kick in immediately in response to a power surge, hence it is recommended to look for a surge protector that responds in less than one nanosecond. Additionally, some surge protectors come with a repair or replacement warranty for your appliances, should they be damaged while using the surge protector. For example, Ellies famously offers between R20,000 and R30,000 appliance repair or replacement warranties on various surge protectors, should equipment be damaged while using their products.
Last, it is also recommended to look for surge protectors with indicator lights, which will tell you if your surge protector is functioning properly. Some surge protectors will continue to conduct current, even if not functioning properly.
What about lightning?
A number of manufacturers will clearly state that their surge protectors are not effective against lightning. However, some do not. Lightning produces far greater voltage fluctuations and will likely require a multi-component surge protection system to work effectively — one installed by experts. Hence, buying off-the-shelf items for lightning surge protection is not recommended. As per Eskom, “it is highly unlikely that surge protection will protect equipment against lightning and will certainly not do so for repeated lightning strikes… The best protection, with lightning, is to unplug your equipment.” DM/ML
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Why surge protectors are important for your equipment, especially your computer
Fluctuations in electricity supply due to rolling blackouts may not always immediately damage equipment, but without surge protection, they can gradually damage it over time.
To unplug or not to unplug? That’s just one of many questions that plague South Africans living in the era of rolling blackouts.
When the electricity supply suddenly returns after rolling blackouts, it can result in a power surge, which can potentially damage appliances. A power surge is a sudden and brief increase in the voltage of electricity, causing an increase in the current flowing to your appliances. The increase,
|
as brief as three nanoseconds (billionth of a second), results in an electrical spike, also known as a power surge. During normal uninterrupted electricity supply, this can happen for a variety of reasons, such as lightning strikes, power company equipment failures, or the operation of power-hungry electrical devices such as air conditioners, refrigerators or elevators.
As per Eskom’s own fact sheet on surge protection, “[Power surges], after repeated load shedding, outages/interruptions or heavy industrial load fluctuations may eventually cause damages. While these surges are nowhere near the intensity of lightning surges, they can be severe enough to damage components, immediately or gradually, through regular occurrences.”
While unplugging one’s appliances may seem like the most straightforward solution, it is not exactly the most practical, especially during periods of rolling blackouts of up to three times a day, which are often exacerbated by further unplanned outages in many parts of the country. The next best solution for many, is to invest in power surge protectors, which work by diverting the extra electricity away from one’s appliances.
The right surge protector for you
As explained on Eskom’s fact sheet and on reputable platforms such as HowStuffWorks, the vast majority of surge protectors work by conducting the extra current to the ground before it reaches your appliances.
Others work by suppressing surges, slowing electricity down on its way through the live line. Others still have a built-in fuse that, should the mechanism fail to divert the surge, will overheat and cut off supply. This only works once, as the fuse will be destroyed when it overheats. Even more ideal for sensitive equipment such as computers, some surge protectors feature a “line-conditioning” system, which filters out smaller current fluctuations, referred to as “line noise”.
Which surge protector to choose?
However, besides the various features and the inner technical workings of different surge protectors, the main options to choose from range from whole-house surge protectors — which would be installed directly on the distribution board (DB) by an electrician — through to plug-in protectors, which can either be a single outlet plug adaptor or a power strip with multiple outlets. Some UPS battery backup systems also come with surge protection included. Then there are power surge stations which offer superior protection and line-conditioning for devices such as computers. Since telephone lines and data cables can also conduct high voltage, these power stations will often also feature inputs for phone lines, to protect routers, modems, and computers.
Single outlet plug-in adaptors and multiple outlet power strips with surge protection are often the most affordable, costing a couple to a few hundred rands. However, one would have to buy a number of these for various wall outlets. It is also important to take into consideration that they might not work for all equipment. For example, they might not work effectively for devices that draw a lot of power such as refrigerators.
Hence it is recommended to consider installing both a whole-house surge protector, as well as plug-in protectors to protect equipment from other surges within the house. For example, if a refrigerator and a computer are plugged into the same circuit, that could cause fluctuations within the home even with whole-house surge protection, hence an additional surge protector for the computer would protect your equipment and possibly extend its life.
Computers in particular have voltage-sensitive components that can be easily damaged by power surges, instantaneously or gradually over time, and therefore it is recommended that even in the absence of rolling blackouts, one should always use a surge protector with a computer in order to extend its life.
Warranties, joules, and rands: Keep an eye on the numbers
As per Eskom, “determining how good a particular surge protector is, can be difficult, and will take comparative research into each system to identify its effectiveness. As a general rule of thumb, the more expensive the surge protector, the higher the level of protection. However, the cheaper surge protectors commonly provide sufficient protection for single loads. It is important to select protection suitable to the risk level and value of equipment to be protected.”
Read in Daily Maverick: Pay less for electricity by getting your head around Eskom’s sometimes confusing block tariffs
In addition to cost considerations, a few other numbers are important to consider. First, the clamping voltage. This indicates what voltage will cause the surge protector to divert electricity to the ground. The lower the number the better. Eskom advises looking for a clamping voltage no higher than 400 volts. Second is the energy absorption rating, which is indicated in joules. This tells you how much energy the surge protector can absorb before it fails. In this case, the higher the better, and Eskom advises consumers to “look for a protector that is at least rated at 200 to 400 joules. For better protection, look for a rating of 600 joules or more.”
Third is the response time. They don’t necessarily kick in immediately in response to a power surge, hence it is recommended to look for a surge protector that responds in less than one nanosecond. Additionally, some surge protectors come with a repair or replacement warranty for your appliances, should they be damaged while using the surge protector. For example, Ellies famously offers between R20,000 and R30,000 appliance repair or replacement warranties on various surge protectors, should equipment be damaged while using their products.
Last, it is also recommended to look for surge protectors with indicator lights, which will tell you if your surge protector is functioning properly. Some surge protectors will continue to conduct current, even if not functioning properly.
What about lightning?
A number of manufacturers will clearly state that their surge protectors are not effective against lightning. However, some do not. Lightning produces far greater voltage fluctuations and will likely require a multi-component surge protection system to work effectively — one installed by experts. Hence, buying off-the-shelf items for lightning surge protection is not recommended. As per Eskom, “it is highly unlikely that surge protection will protect equipment against lightning and will certainly not do so for repeated lightning strikes… The best protection, with lightning, is to unplug your equipment.” DM/ML
|
Columbus' Green Book history
When Black travelers visited Columbus in the mid-20th century, the Green Book showed them places where they'd be most welcome in what was still a heavily segregated society.
- One was the Macon Hotel, where legends Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie once played in its popular jazz club.
State of play: The Green Book travel guides, which have received renewed attention thanks to the 2019 Best Picture Oscar winner, ceased publication many decades ago.
- But the Macon and several other listed sites are still standing in Columbus' King-Lincoln Bronzeville neighborhood, a prominent commercial area for Black-owned businesses.
Why it matters: The sites are visible reminders that America's segregated past was not so long ago.
Flashback: Ohio enacted a public accommodations law in 1884 prohibiting public discrimination in places like stores and restaurants.
- But the law was not always enforced, and Columbus' Black community still suffered from discriminatory housing rules and segregated schools.
Driving the news: Axios Columbus reviewed county property records as well as nearly two-dozen Green Book editions printed between 1938-1967 to track the dozens of entries for local restaurants, shops, clubs and hotels.
- Most buildings listed were later demolished, against residents' wishes, via neighborhood development and highway construction.
- We found eight that have survived.
Zoom in: The Hotel St. Clair, one example, opened in the 1940s to house Black guests forbidden from staying at whites-only hotels.
- The building (now an apartment complex) still stands, as do a pair of former "tourist homes" on Monroe Avenue that are now private residences.
- Three other locations on Long Street and Mount Vernon Avenue that were beauty shops and a tavern now sit vacant.
- And a building once home to Jeters Restaurant was restored by the Columbus Urban League and now serves the community as the Huntington Empowerment Center.
Meanwhile, the derelict Macon Hotel, considered by preservation advocates to be an "endangered building," may also be getting a makeover.
- The city's Historic Resources Commission has greenlighted plans to conduct significant repair work in the hopes of someday reopening a hotel, bar and restaurant.
The bottom line: These rehab projects offer hope that other Green Book sites can also be restored to their former glory.
More Columbus stories
No stories could be found
Get a free daily digest of the most important news in your backyard with Axios Columbus.
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Columbus' Green Book history
When Black travelers visited Columbus in the mid-20th century, the Green Book showed them places where they'd be most welcome in what was still a heavily segregated society.
- One was the Macon Hotel, where legends Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie once played in its popular jazz club.
State of play: The Green Book travel guides, which have received renewed attention thanks to the 2019 Best Picture Oscar winner, ceased publication many decades ago.
- But the Macon and several other listed sites are still standing in Columbus' King-Lincoln Bronzeville neighborhood, a prominent commercial
|
area for Black-owned businesses.
Why it matters: The sites are visible reminders that America's segregated past was not so long ago.
Flashback: Ohio enacted a public accommodations law in 1884 prohibiting public discrimination in places like stores and restaurants.
- But the law was not always enforced, and Columbus' Black community still suffered from discriminatory housing rules and segregated schools.
Driving the news: Axios Columbus reviewed county property records as well as nearly two-dozen Green Book editions printed between 1938-1967 to track the dozens of entries for local restaurants, shops, clubs and hotels.
- Most buildings listed were later demolished, against residents' wishes, via neighborhood development and highway construction.
- We found eight that have survived.
Zoom in: The Hotel St. Clair, one example, opened in the 1940s to house Black guests forbidden from staying at whites-only hotels.
- The building (now an apartment complex) still stands, as do a pair of former "tourist homes" on Monroe Avenue that are now private residences.
- Three other locations on Long Street and Mount Vernon Avenue that were beauty shops and a tavern now sit vacant.
- And a building once home to Jeters Restaurant was restored by the Columbus Urban League and now serves the community as the Huntington Empowerment Center.
Meanwhile, the derelict Macon Hotel, considered by preservation advocates to be an "endangered building," may also be getting a makeover.
- The city's Historic Resources Commission has greenlighted plans to conduct significant repair work in the hopes of someday reopening a hotel, bar and restaurant.
The bottom line: These rehab projects offer hope that other Green Book sites can also be restored to their former glory.
More Columbus stories
No stories could be found
Get a free daily digest of the most important news in your backyard with Axios Columbus.
|
More than fifty years before it was isolated as a drug, Samuel Taylor Coleridge dreamed up cocaine. In the early years of the nineteenth century, the poet was increasingly dependent on opium, a “free-agency-annihilating Poison,” as he called it, which sapped his will and made him despondent. “A Gymnastic Medicine is wanting,” he wrote in his notebook during the winter of 1808-09, “a system of forcing the Will & motive faculties into action.” The medicine he envisaged would be a kind of anti-opium, a tonic to kick-start the nerves, restore the mind’s athletic powers, and repair the broken link between volition and accomplishment. It would be a second, health-giving “poison” to work on the first.
Coleridge’s hope was a characteristic expression of the drug culture he belonged to. He was intimately acquainted with how drugs shaped his inner life, and his habit of self-interrogation, the minute attention he paid to his states of mind, was shared by his friends and collaborators. Thomas De Quincey, his former secretary, turned his own, unconquerable opium addiction into a wildly popular autobiography, “Confessions of an English Opium-Eater” (1821), in which he mapped the buried palaces of the mind. The young chemist Humphry Davy, whom Coleridge befriended, experimented with the psychoactive properties of nitrous oxide, administering it to willing subjects and logging their descriptions of heightened imaginative capacities. And Charles Lamb, the poet’s former schoolmate, placed alcoholism under the microscope in “Confessions of a Drunkard” (1822), an essay in which he considered, under the guise of his alter ego, Elia, the perverse dependence of his reasoning abilities on intoxication. In each case, drugs figured not only as sensory agents, sources of pleasure or pain, but as a kind of education: tools you could think with, or try to think against.
Mind-altering substances were available in the West long before De Quincey’s opium voyages or Davy’s gas experiments. During the sixteenth century, the stimulants that arrived in Europe from other continents—coffee, tea, chocolate, tobacco—were valued chiefly for their physiological virtues: tea was believed to remove headaches, coffee to help the circulation of fluids. (Not everyone was convinced: a London pamphlet published in 1674, purporting to speak for “several Thousands of Buxome Good-Women,” complained that coffee, by “Drying up the Radical Moisture” of the body, had “Eunucht” their husbands.) But drugs were also known to affect the workings of the mind. In 1608, the philosopher Francis Bacon took purgative pills to address “a symptom of melancholy”; the scientist Robert Hooke, who, as the scholar Lisa Jardine has argued, developed a “regimen of regular drug-taking” to manage stress, observed in his diary how particular substances seemed to influence his intellect. (“Took Childs vomit [. . .] Slept little at night. My fantcy very cleer.”) Drugs with psychoactive properties were part of a larger quest to fine-tune the human condition, making the business of living more pleasurable or more bearable.
Read our reviews of notable new fiction and nonfiction, updated every Wednesday.
In “Psychonauts: Drugs and the Making of the Modern Mind” (Yale), the cultural historian Mike Jay argues that the post-1800 use of mind-altering drugs was nonetheless qualitatively different from the experiments of previous centuries. What set someone like De Quincey apart, Jay writes, was that he used opium “as a device for exploring the hidden recesses of his mind,” dosing not merely to self-medicate, or to escape the world, but to access mental spaces unreachable without it. De Quincey was a “psychonaut,” plumbing the depths of his consciousness, embarking on fantastic inner quests. His work, like Davy’s, “marked the beginning of the modern understanding of the drug experience”: a pattern of pioneering inquiry into novel states of mind and the limits of “objective” truth.
Jay is a leading expert on the history of Western drug use, and “Psychonauts” is the latest in a series of excellent studies in which he has investigated the roots of a kind of psychoactive exploration that we tend to associate with the nineteen-fifties and sixties. The upstarts of the counterculture, Jay notes in “Emperors of Dreams: Drugs in the Nineteenth Century” (2000), had their reasons for claiming to be “the first generation to discover drugs.” But, in doing so, they obscured a culture of psychological, philosophical, and aesthetic experimentation that predated the emergence of “drugs” as a problematic category, and of the “drug addict” as a pathologized type. Recovering that culture requires venturing inside the worlds that each substance opened up. When a psychonaut breathed ether or injected cocaine, where was he hoping to travel?
The technology of nineteenth-century drug exploration, in both professional scientific circles and amateur intellectual ones, was the self-experiment. Since the seventeenth century, scientists had considered this the best method to understand substances that affected moods and perceptions: trying them on other human subjects was a risk, and animal experiments could provide only external indications of mental changes. By the end of the eighteenth century, when Davy inhaled his first dose of nitrous oxide, the self-experiment was an established practice, with its own protocols and reporting conventions. Its Achilles’ heel, for some, was the way it mixed competing kinds of observation. As the young Sigmund Freud, investigating cocaine as a medical student in the eighteen-eighties, realized, it involved a self-splitting, an impossible assertion of two types of truth at once—that of the researcher and that of the experimental subject.
This tension defined the psychonauts’ project. Davy experimented under the aegis of Thomas Beddoes, a physician who believed that the new science of pneumatic chemistry—the study of gases—could supply a revolutionary cure for lung diseases such as tuberculosis. At Beddoes’s Pneumatic Institution, in Bristol, the pair administered nitrous oxide to consumptives and palsy sufferers, assessing the miraculous way in which one patient, who had been unable to walk without crutches, responded to the surging “muscular pressure” that the drug seemed to supply. But their experiments soon took a less therapeutic turn. Davy’s “highly pleasurable” experience of the gas, coupled with Beddoes’s own—under its influence, he felt “bathed all over with a bucket of good humour”— indicated that it might benefit healthy subjects as much as ill ones. It produced ecstatic sensations, but also seemed to stimulate the intellect and the imagination.
The team began to study healthy volunteers, among them Coleridge and the poet Robert Southey, who described their intoxications in a richly metaphorical style: a “language of feeling,” as Davy put it. One subject, a local doctor, compared the gas’s revelations to “reading a sublime passage in poetry when circumstances contribute to awaken the finest sympathies of the soul.” Davy himself enjoyed walking alone beside the river on summer nights, “sipping away” at a bag of nitrous oxide and occasionally losing consciousness. In late 1799, having exposed himself to huge quantities of the gas in an airtight chamber, he reported that he “lost all connection with external things,” which had ceased to possess their own reality. “Nothing exists but thoughts!” he blurted out, coming down from his high. In the chamber, for a brief moment, the gas had transported him to a place that was constructed entirely by his individual consciousness.
Such revelations, impossible to communicate, were easily mockable. In the early decades of the nineteenth century, Davy and his circle were satirized as a bunch of dreamy, self-important metaphysicians, “blown up” with their own pomposity. By mid-century, the mind-altering properties of nitrous oxide had been mostly forgotten; along with ether, a volatile compound with similar effects, it was firmly entrenched in the sphere of medicine, as a path to painless surgeries. Meanwhile, a fresh generation of scientists had begun to challenge the practice of self-experimentation, which they considered an unreliable, romantic approach to the study of the mind. “Subjective experience was being pushed to the margins,” Jay writes: the new, “objectivist” science distrusted personal observation. A true study of drugs, its exponents believed, would require precision instruments, stress the analysis of external data—dosage, symptoms, times of onset—and record the results exclusively in notebooks, not essays or poems. It would thereby avoid “introspection,” which, as Jay writes, risked shaping “mental phenomena into narratives pleasing to the self-observer.” Such creativity might inspire great art, but it produced bad science.
To a stubborn handful of psychonauts, though, the most “objective” data about drugs were precisely those culled from experience. Jay foregrounds Jacques-Joseph Moreau, a mid-nineteenth-century French psychiatrist who encountered hashish—the concentrated, hallucinogenic extract of the cannabis plant—while travelling in the Middle East. Hashish was then known to Westerners mostly secondhand, its effects filtered through the lens of fictions such as “The Arabian Nights.” When Moreau took a strong dose in 1840, however, he found that it was uniquely educative in the psychiatric context. Each of the effects he experienced could be read as a symptom of mental illness: the nervous excitement, the distortion of space and time, the hallucinatory perceptions. Hashish took him to a place that looked and felt like insanity, then led him, temporarily, inside it. It allowed him to understand his patients with greater nuance: he could now recognize what “the ravings of a madman” were like, having “raved himself.” “Personal experience,” he wrote, “is the criterion of truth here.”
The science of private experience inspired explorations beyond hashish. Benjamin Paul Blood, an American philosopher and mystic, observed that the revelations he received while on ether were impossible to achieve in the “normal sanity” of the mind. Like Moreau’s heightened grasp of mental illness, their profundity depended on a certain derangement. The Harvard philosopher William James, who read Blood’s work, was prompted to self-experiment with nitrous oxide in 1882, recording an “intense metaphysical illumination” akin to Blood’s own. The truth of this illumination, James believed, lay in its incommunicability. Like the mystical states of mind he described in his landmark study “The Varieties of Religious Experience” (1902), it had to be “directly experienced,” and this was what made it significant. That the rational mind could not access it proved that human consciousness was not singular but shifting, multiple, many-layered. “Rational consciousness is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different,” James wrote. He called this vision of reality the “multiverse.”
Moreau was careful to clarify that hashish, by generating the symptoms of mental illness, had not really driven him mad. During his intoxication, he had remained aware of himself and where he was, finding that he could “observe calmly,” Jay writes, “as a procession of impossible phenomena marched through his mind.” Other hashish users reported a similar feeling of self-splitting, of being both absorbed in the drug’s visions and conscious of their unreality. In his Middle Eastern travelogue “The Lands of the Saracen” (1855), the American writer Bayard Taylor recounted being transported, in his imagination, to the Great Pyramid of Cheops, which was constructed of “huge, square plugs of Cavendish tobacco.” Even at the height of the drug’s influence, Taylor wrote, he knew he was “really” in a Damascus hotel. Moreau called this form of double consciousness an état mixte, a strange commingling of waking life and dream. Using hashish to treat his mentally ill patients, he theorized that it might enable a form of constructive therapy, in which hallucinations could be understood in the light of reason.
This idea helped reframe the psychonaut as a rational, composed observer, not merely exploring new worlds but ferrying some benefit home. Later in the century, those associated with the occult revival sought to instrumentalize drug use in a different way. In 1855, the French mystic Louis-Alphonse Cahagnet, who maintained that hashish could act as a portal to parallel worlds, passed his secrets to a travelling American, Paschal Beverly Randolph: a “Black Rosicrucian sex magician,” Jay writes, who specialized in “marital problems,” and who found in hashish his “defining magical aid.” “Cahagnet, myself, and others, have been enabled to pass through eternal doors, forever closed to the embodied man save by this celestial key,” Randolph enthused. He believed that the drug’s état mixte allowed for insights that would “leap the world’s barriers.” He also believed that such insights could be bottled and sold. In 1862, when he returned to the U.S., he created a range of hashish-based elixirs promising clairvoyant powers, which he priced at four dollars each.
Spiritualists saw other possibilities in a drug-induced double consciousness. The London-based Society for Psychical Research, with which James was affiliated, was founded in 1882 to study questions “outside the boundaries of recognised science”: apparitions, mystical experiences, life after death. Two of its members, Edmund Gurney and Frederick Myers, developed theories of multiple consciousness related to James’s, proposing the existence of the “secondary self,” or “subliminal self”—buried strata of being that could be harnessed via hypnosis, séance, or drugs. Their fellow-spiritualist George Wyld, a physician, described inhaling chloroform for pain relief, only to see his soul, “clothed,” “standing about two yards” away. Wyld theorized that anesthetics eliminated pain by literally expelling the soul from the body. (In H. G. Wells’s short story “Under the Knife,” from 1896, a chloroformed patient feels his spirit drawn upward and outward, soaring into the stratosphere.) Maud Gonne, who undertook occult experiments with the poet W. B. Yeats, sought similar effects in hashish, hoping to free her spirit and have it travel, “quick as thought,” into astral dimensions.
Gonne, at the start of one trip, visualized a “tall shadow” at the foot of her bed. The apparition instructed her to go where she wished, but to remember the way back: “You must always keep the thought of your body as a thread by which to return.” Among psychonauts, getting back—holding on to the thread that connected them to the world—mattered because it was what separated the voluntary hallucinations of drug use from the involuntary ones of madness. The British poet Arthur Symons, a prodigious hashish user, published his major critical work, “The Symbolist Movement in Literature,” in 1899. Five of the French poets he discussed—Gérard de Nerval, Théophile Gautier, Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, and Paul Verlaine—were hashishins, and he used their work to sketch a vision of literature as numinous, immaterial, gesturing toward an “unseen reality apprehended by the consciousness.” De Nerval had eventually lapsed into madness, and Symons argued that this was because he had let go of the thread that anchored him: “Leaving the concrete world on these brief voyages, the fear is that we may not have the strength to return, or that we may lose the way back.”
In the last decades of the century, using mind-altering drugs wasn’t always about trying to escape the world. Sometimes it was a matter of adaptation, calibrating the brain to cope better with reality’s demands. Freud’s experiments with cocaine in the eighteen-eighties—first on himself, then on volunteers—centered on the possibility of a cure for neurasthenia, an increasingly diagnosed condition whose symptoms included headaches, anxiety, brain fog, and chronic fatigue. According to the disease’s first theorist, the American neurologist George Miller Beard, neurasthenia was a distinctively modern ailment, its effects caused by civilization itself: the rapid growth of business and industry, the punctuality demanded by pocket watches and train timetables.
Freud, who self-diagnosed as a neurasthenic, had been struck by the medical literature on coca, the South American plant from which cocaine had been isolated, in 1860. Early reports suggested that it might boost the nervous system’s energetic capacity; Paolo Mantegazza, an Italian neurologist who had consumed the drug, noted a sense of being “drenche[d]” in a “new strength,” “as a sponge soaks itself with water.” Freud began to take small doses, and reported feeling “more vigorous and capable of work.” (The tone of his accounts, Jay writes, flitted between fervid reflection and restrained appraisal: a “carefully modulated solution to the paradoxes of self-experiment.”) Cocaine, Freud thought, was a miracle drug that would help the mind keep pace with the world’s accelerations. Under its influence, neurasthenics might continue being neurasthenic, working harder and faster than was healthy, but with fewer obvious symptoms of breakdown.
And yet breakdown was increasingly apparent. Cocaine was soon available in pharmacies, and new, more efficient methods of consumption, such as subcutaneous injection, led to high-profile reports of wild behavior, excess, and dangerous metamorphosis. In 1887, the American neurologist William Hammond described injecting himself with a large dose of cocaine, “becoming an irresponsible agent,” and waking up to find his library trashed. (The year before, Robert Louis Stevenson had published “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” in which a mysterious white powder prompts a monstrous transformation.) In 1884, Freud prescribed a cocaine regimen to Ernst von Fleischl-Marxow, one of his senior colleagues at the Institute of Physiology in Vienna. Fleischl-Marxow was in the grip of an advanced morphine addiction; Freud hoped that the new drug would act as an antidote, lessening withdrawal symptoms. Within weeks, Fleischl-Marxow had a cocaine addiction to match his morphine one, developing insomnia and paranoia. He began using the drug self-destructively, lying to his friends, trying to hide his habit. It was as if, Jay writes, he “had been taken over by a second self, an alien or demonic force.”
The process by which drugs were stigmatized, at the end of the nineteenth century, is the subject of Jay’s final chapters. In his telling, it is a story of loss. In the eighteen-eighties, when Fleischl-Marxow was suffering, drug addiction was a new concept. The Society for the Study and Cure of Inebriety, led by members of the British medical profession, was founded in 1884; in 1885, cocaine addiction was identified as a novel condition. Gradually, even milder psychoactives were placed under the now ominous category of “drugs,” and assumptions about the people who used them hardened into orthodoxy. Drugs were reconceived as antisocial—a means by which egotists avoided shared responsibilities—or as the preserve of those believed to lack self-control: the poor, the “mentally unfit,” the criminal classes. Between 1914 and 1916, new laws were passed in the U.S., Britain, and France to ban or restrict the drug trade, turning psychonauts into delinquents, voyagers beyond the bounds of civil society.
If their work endures, it’s because it had less to do with substances than with the self. In the nineteen-fifties and sixties, the rediscovery of psychoactive experimentation involved new drugs and techniques, but it drew on older stories about human consciousness. William Burroughs praised the British engineer James Lee’s writings on morphine and cocaine, describing them as “conjured from the unpolluted air of the nineteenth century.” Both Aldous Huxley (experimenting with mescaline) and Robert Graves (mushrooms) quoted Wordsworth’s poetry to convey the tenor of their experiences. In one sense, their imitative approach echoed their predecessors’. Psychonauting, from Davy’s science of the sublime to Symons’s numinous readings, had always been referential, metaphorically framed. The quest was for narratives of self-actualization, rather than for scientific models. “From fountain to fountain I danced in graceful mazes with inimitable houris, whose foreheads were bound with fillets of jasmine,” the twenty-one-year-old American Fitz Hugh Ludlow wrote in 1857, weaving his hashish dreams into the familiar tapestry of “The Arabian Nights.” Telling their stories was partly what brought the psychonauts back down to earth. ♦
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More than fifty years before it was isolated as a drug, Samuel Taylor Coleridge dreamed up cocaine. In the early years of the nineteenth century, the poet was increasingly dependent on opium, a “free-agency-annihilating Poison,” as he called it, which sapped his will and made him despondent. “A Gymnastic Medicine is wanting,” he wrote in his notebook during the winter of 1808-09, “a system of forcing the Will & motive faculties into action.” The medicine he envisaged would be a kind of anti-opium, a tonic to kick-start
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the nerves, restore the mind’s athletic powers, and repair the broken link between volition and accomplishment. It would be a second, health-giving “poison” to work on the first.
Coleridge’s hope was a characteristic expression of the drug culture he belonged to. He was intimately acquainted with how drugs shaped his inner life, and his habit of self-interrogation, the minute attention he paid to his states of mind, was shared by his friends and collaborators. Thomas De Quincey, his former secretary, turned his own, unconquerable opium addiction into a wildly popular autobiography, “Confessions of an English Opium-Eater” (1821), in which he mapped the buried palaces of the mind. The young chemist Humphry Davy, whom Coleridge befriended, experimented with the psychoactive properties of nitrous oxide, administering it to willing subjects and logging their descriptions of heightened imaginative capacities. And Charles Lamb, the poet’s former schoolmate, placed alcoholism under the microscope in “Confessions of a Drunkard” (1822), an essay in which he considered, under the guise of his alter ego, Elia, the perverse dependence of his reasoning abilities on intoxication. In each case, drugs figured not only as sensory agents, sources of pleasure or pain, but as a kind of education: tools you could think with, or try to think against.
Mind-altering substances were available in the West long before De Quincey’s opium voyages or Davy’s gas experiments. During the sixteenth century, the stimulants that arrived in Europe from other continents—coffee, tea, chocolate, tobacco—were valued chiefly for their physiological virtues: tea was believed to remove headaches, coffee to help the circulation of fluids. (Not everyone was convinced: a London pamphlet published in 1674, purporting to speak for “several Thousands of Buxome Good-Women,” complained that coffee, by “Drying up the Radical Moisture” of the body, had “Eunucht” their husbands.) But drugs were also known to affect the workings of the mind. In 1608, the philosopher Francis Bacon took purgative pills to address “a symptom of melancholy”; the scientist Robert Hooke, who, as the scholar Lisa Jardine has argued, developed a “regimen of regular drug-taking” to manage stress, observed in his diary how particular substances seemed to influence his intellect. (“Took Childs vomit [. . .] Slept little at night. My fantcy very cleer.”) Drugs with psychoactive properties were part of a larger quest to fine-tune the human condition, making the business of living more pleasurable or more bearable.
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In “Psychonauts: Drugs and the Making of the Modern Mind” (Yale), the cultural historian Mike Jay argues that the post-1800 use of mind-altering drugs was nonetheless qualitatively different from the experiments of previous centuries. What set someone like De Quincey apart, Jay writes, was that he used opium “as a device for exploring the hidden recesses of his mind,” dosing not merely to self-medicate, or to escape the world, but to access mental spaces unreachable without it. De Quincey was a “psychonaut,” plumbing the depths of his consciousness, embarking on fantastic inner quests. His work, like Davy’s, “marked the beginning of the modern understanding of the drug experience”: a pattern of pioneering inquiry into novel states of mind and the limits of “objective” truth.
Jay is a leading expert on the history of Western drug use, and “Psychonauts” is the latest in a series of excellent studies in which he has investigated the roots of a kind of psychoactive exploration that we tend to associate with the nineteen-fifties and sixties. The upstarts of the counterculture, Jay notes in “Emperors of Dreams: Drugs in the Nineteenth Century” (2000), had their reasons for claiming to be “the first generation to discover drugs.” But, in doing so, they obscured a culture of psychological, philosophical, and aesthetic experimentation that predated the emergence of “drugs” as a problematic category, and of the “drug addict” as a pathologized type. Recovering that culture requires venturing inside the worlds that each substance opened up. When a psychonaut breathed ether or injected cocaine, where was he hoping to travel?
The technology of nineteenth-century drug exploration, in both professional scientific circles and amateur intellectual ones, was the self-experiment. Since the seventeenth century, scientists had considered this the best method to understand substances that affected moods and perceptions: trying them on other human subjects was a risk, and animal experiments could provide only external indications of mental changes. By the end of the eighteenth century, when Davy inhaled his first dose of nitrous oxide, the self-experiment was an established practice, with its own protocols and reporting conventions. Its Achilles’ heel, for some, was the way it mixed competing kinds of observation. As the young Sigmund Freud, investigating cocaine as a medical student in the eighteen-eighties, realized, it involved a self-splitting, an impossible assertion of two types of truth at once—that of the researcher and that of the experimental subject.
This tension defined the psychonauts’ project. Davy experimented under the aegis of Thomas Beddoes, a physician who believed that the new science of pneumatic chemistry—the study of gases—could supply a revolutionary cure for lung diseases such as tuberculosis. At Beddoes’s Pneumatic Institution, in Bristol, the pair administered nitrous oxide to consumptives and palsy sufferers, assessing the miraculous way in which one patient, who had been unable to walk without crutches, responded to the surging “muscular pressure” that the drug seemed to supply. But their experiments soon took a less therapeutic turn. Davy’s “highly pleasurable” experience of the gas, coupled with Beddoes’s own—under its influence, he felt “bathed all over with a bucket of good humour”— indicated that it might benefit healthy subjects as much as ill ones. It produced ecstatic sensations, but also seemed to stimulate the intellect and the imagination.
The team began to study healthy volunteers, among them Coleridge and the poet Robert Southey, who described their intoxications in a richly metaphorical style: a “language of feeling,” as Davy put it. One subject, a local doctor, compared the gas’s revelations to “reading a sublime passage in poetry when circumstances contribute to awaken the finest sympathies of the soul.” Davy himself enjoyed walking alone beside the river on summer nights, “sipping away” at a bag of nitrous oxide and occasionally losing consciousness. In late 1799, having exposed himself to huge quantities of the gas in an airtight chamber, he reported that he “lost all connection with external things,” which had ceased to possess their own reality. “Nothing exists but thoughts!” he blurted out, coming down from his high. In the chamber, for a brief moment, the gas had transported him to a place that was constructed entirely by his individual consciousness.
Such revelations, impossible to communicate, were easily mockable. In the early decades of the nineteenth century, Davy and his circle were satirized as a bunch of dreamy, self-important metaphysicians, “blown up” with their own pomposity. By mid-century, the mind-altering properties of nitrous oxide had been mostly forgotten; along with ether, a volatile compound with similar effects, it was firmly entrenched in the sphere of medicine, as a path to painless surgeries. Meanwhile, a fresh generation of scientists had begun to challenge the practice of self-experimentation, which they considered an unreliable, romantic approach to the study of the mind. “Subjective experience was being pushed to the margins,” Jay writes: the new, “objectivist” science distrusted personal observation. A true study of drugs, its exponents believed, would require precision instruments, stress the analysis of external data—dosage, symptoms, times of onset—and record the results exclusively in notebooks, not essays or poems. It would thereby avoid “introspection,” which, as Jay writes, risked shaping “mental phenomena into narratives pleasing to the self-observer.” Such creativity might inspire great art, but it produced bad science.
To a stubborn handful of psychonauts, though, the most “objective” data about drugs were precisely those culled from experience. Jay foregrounds Jacques-Joseph Moreau, a mid-nineteenth-century French psychiatrist who encountered hashish—the concentrated, hallucinogenic extract of the cannabis plant—while travelling in the Middle East. Hashish was then known to Westerners mostly secondhand, its effects filtered through the lens of fictions such as “The Arabian Nights.” When Moreau took a strong dose in 1840, however, he found that it was uniquely educative in the psychiatric context. Each of the effects he experienced could be read as a symptom of mental illness: the nervous excitement, the distortion of space and time, the hallucinatory perceptions. Hashish took him to a place that looked and felt like insanity, then led him, temporarily, inside it. It allowed him to understand his patients with greater nuance: he could now recognize what “the ravings of a madman” were like, having “raved himself.” “Personal experience,” he wrote, “is the criterion of truth here.”
The science of private experience inspired explorations beyond hashish. Benjamin Paul Blood, an American philosopher and mystic, observed that the revelations he received while on ether were impossible to achieve in the “normal sanity” of the mind. Like Moreau’s heightened grasp of mental illness, their profundity depended on a certain derangement. The Harvard philosopher William James, who read Blood’s work, was prompted to self-experiment with nitrous oxide in 1882, recording an “intense metaphysical illumination” akin to Blood’s own. The truth of this illumination, James believed, lay in its incommunicability. Like the mystical states of mind he described in his landmark study “The Varieties of Religious Experience” (1902), it had to be “directly experienced,” and this was what made it significant. That the rational mind could not access it proved that human consciousness was not singular but shifting, multiple, many-layered. “Rational consciousness is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different,” James wrote. He called this vision of reality the “multiverse.”
Moreau was careful to clarify that hashish, by generating the symptoms of mental illness, had not really driven him mad. During his intoxication, he had remained aware of himself and where he was, finding that he could “observe calmly,” Jay writes, “as a procession of impossible phenomena marched through his mind.” Other hashish users reported a similar feeling of self-splitting, of being both absorbed in the drug’s visions and conscious of their unreality. In his Middle Eastern travelogue “The Lands of the Saracen” (1855), the American writer Bayard Taylor recounted being transported, in his imagination, to the Great Pyramid of Cheops, which was constructed of “huge, square plugs of Cavendish tobacco.” Even at the height of the drug’s influence, Taylor wrote, he knew he was “really” in a Damascus hotel. Moreau called this form of double consciousness an état mixte, a strange commingling of waking life and dream. Using hashish to treat his mentally ill patients, he theorized that it might enable a form of constructive therapy, in which hallucinations could be understood in the light of reason.
This idea helped reframe the psychonaut as a rational, composed observer, not merely exploring new worlds but ferrying some benefit home. Later in the century, those associated with the occult revival sought to instrumentalize drug use in a different way. In 1855, the French mystic Louis-Alphonse Cahagnet, who maintained that hashish could act as a portal to parallel worlds, passed his secrets to a travelling American, Paschal Beverly Randolph: a “Black Rosicrucian sex magician,” Jay writes, who specialized in “marital problems,” and who found in hashish his “defining magical aid.” “Cahagnet, myself, and others, have been enabled to pass through eternal doors, forever closed to the embodied man save by this celestial key,” Randolph enthused. He believed that the drug’s état mixte allowed for insights that would “leap the world’s barriers.” He also believed that such insights could be bottled and sold. In 1862, when he returned to the U.S., he created a range of hashish-based elixirs promising clairvoyant powers, which he priced at four dollars each.
Spiritualists saw other possibilities in a drug-induced double consciousness. The London-based Society for Psychical Research, with which James was affiliated, was founded in 1882 to study questions “outside the boundaries of recognised science”: apparitions, mystical experiences, life after death. Two of its members, Edmund Gurney and Frederick Myers, developed theories of multiple consciousness related to James’s, proposing the existence of the “secondary self,” or “subliminal self”—buried strata of being that could be harnessed via hypnosis, séance, or drugs. Their fellow-spiritualist George Wyld, a physician, described inhaling chloroform for pain relief, only to see his soul, “clothed,” “standing about two yards” away. Wyld theorized that anesthetics eliminated pain by literally expelling the soul from the body. (In H. G. Wells’s short story “Under the Knife,” from 1896, a chloroformed patient feels his spirit drawn upward and outward, soaring into the stratosphere.) Maud Gonne, who undertook occult experiments with the poet W. B. Yeats, sought similar effects in hashish, hoping to free her spirit and have it travel, “quick as thought,” into astral dimensions.
Gonne, at the start of one trip, visualized a “tall shadow” at the foot of her bed. The apparition instructed her to go where she wished, but to remember the way back: “You must always keep the thought of your body as a thread by which to return.” Among psychonauts, getting back—holding on to the thread that connected them to the world—mattered because it was what separated the voluntary hallucinations of drug use from the involuntary ones of madness. The British poet Arthur Symons, a prodigious hashish user, published his major critical work, “The Symbolist Movement in Literature,” in 1899. Five of the French poets he discussed—Gérard de Nerval, Théophile Gautier, Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, and Paul Verlaine—were hashishins, and he used their work to sketch a vision of literature as numinous, immaterial, gesturing toward an “unseen reality apprehended by the consciousness.” De Nerval had eventually lapsed into madness, and Symons argued that this was because he had let go of the thread that anchored him: “Leaving the concrete world on these brief voyages, the fear is that we may not have the strength to return, or that we may lose the way back.”
In the last decades of the century, using mind-altering drugs wasn’t always about trying to escape the world. Sometimes it was a matter of adaptation, calibrating the brain to cope better with reality’s demands. Freud’s experiments with cocaine in the eighteen-eighties—first on himself, then on volunteers—centered on the possibility of a cure for neurasthenia, an increasingly diagnosed condition whose symptoms included headaches, anxiety, brain fog, and chronic fatigue. According to the disease’s first theorist, the American neurologist George Miller Beard, neurasthenia was a distinctively modern ailment, its effects caused by civilization itself: the rapid growth of business and industry, the punctuality demanded by pocket watches and train timetables.
Freud, who self-diagnosed as a neurasthenic, had been struck by the medical literature on coca, the South American plant from which cocaine had been isolated, in 1860. Early reports suggested that it might boost the nervous system’s energetic capacity; Paolo Mantegazza, an Italian neurologist who had consumed the drug, noted a sense of being “drenche[d]” in a “new strength,” “as a sponge soaks itself with water.” Freud began to take small doses, and reported feeling “more vigorous and capable of work.” (The tone of his accounts, Jay writes, flitted between fervid reflection and restrained appraisal: a “carefully modulated solution to the paradoxes of self-experiment.”) Cocaine, Freud thought, was a miracle drug that would help the mind keep pace with the world’s accelerations. Under its influence, neurasthenics might continue being neurasthenic, working harder and faster than was healthy, but with fewer obvious symptoms of breakdown.
And yet breakdown was increasingly apparent. Cocaine was soon available in pharmacies, and new, more efficient methods of consumption, such as subcutaneous injection, led to high-profile reports of wild behavior, excess, and dangerous metamorphosis. In 1887, the American neurologist William Hammond described injecting himself with a large dose of cocaine, “becoming an irresponsible agent,” and waking up to find his library trashed. (The year before, Robert Louis Stevenson had published “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” in which a mysterious white powder prompts a monstrous transformation.) In 1884, Freud prescribed a cocaine regimen to Ernst von Fleischl-Marxow, one of his senior colleagues at the Institute of Physiology in Vienna. Fleischl-Marxow was in the grip of an advanced morphine addiction; Freud hoped that the new drug would act as an antidote, lessening withdrawal symptoms. Within weeks, Fleischl-Marxow had a cocaine addiction to match his morphine one, developing insomnia and paranoia. He began using the drug self-destructively, lying to his friends, trying to hide his habit. It was as if, Jay writes, he “had been taken over by a second self, an alien or demonic force.”
The process by which drugs were stigmatized, at the end of the nineteenth century, is the subject of Jay’s final chapters. In his telling, it is a story of loss. In the eighteen-eighties, when Fleischl-Marxow was suffering, drug addiction was a new concept. The Society for the Study and Cure of Inebriety, led by members of the British medical profession, was founded in 1884; in
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This is the project we will do in Social Science classes. The idea is to create a climograph recording and checking the weather forecast every day. You have your A3 cards where you will record weather conditions.
This is the project we are doing these days in class. It’s a climograph. We are going to insert and write the different temperatures, information on it day by day.
It’s very important to get the information from the same source or website, and it’s also important to get the information at the same hour.
At school we use eltiempo.es and we get the information at 11:00 .
There is some information we are recording and writing every day on this panel.
- These are the days.
- This is the weather day by day. If it’s sunny, cloudy, foggy… There is some information over this line where you can see a percentage. This is the humidity and the windspeed. You can add this information below the sun o over the line of the days.
- It’s the temperature. Try to understand that it’s necessary to write 0º C and below. In winter we can get very low temperatures in Valladolid.
- You can decorate and color some weather icons like sunny, foggy, cloudy.. You can also create a nice a beautiful tittle.
- You can see on this picture two spaces to show you the weather. We record today and yesterday here at the school. Don’t write this information, this numbers must be on the corresponding day.
- It’s the weather conditions.
- Amount of precipitation in mm.
- Humidity measured in percentage.
You can record number 6, 7 and 8 in another line, below the days. The idea is to create a graphic to see weather conditions and changes in weather.
This is all the information we got since last wednesday.
You can see some examples:
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This is the project we will do in Social Science classes. The idea is to create a climograph recording and checking the weather forecast every day. You have your A3 cards where you will record weather conditions.
This is the project we are doing these days in class. It’s a climograph. We are going to insert and write the different temperatures, information on it day by day.
It’s very important to get the information from the same source or website, and it’s also important to get the information at the same hour.
At school we use eltiempo.es and we get the information at 11:00 .
|
There is some information we are recording and writing every day on this panel.
- These are the days.
- This is the weather day by day. If it’s sunny, cloudy, foggy… There is some information over this line where you can see a percentage. This is the humidity and the windspeed. You can add this information below the sun o over the line of the days.
- It’s the temperature. Try to understand that it’s necessary to write 0º C and below. In winter we can get very low temperatures in Valladolid.
- You can decorate and color some weather icons like sunny, foggy, cloudy.. You can also create a nice a beautiful tittle.
- You can see on this picture two spaces to show you the weather. We record today and yesterday here at the school. Don’t write this information, this numbers must be on the corresponding day.
- It’s the weather conditions.
- Amount of precipitation in mm.
- Humidity measured in percentage.
You can record number 6, 7 and 8 in another line, below the days. The idea is to create a graphic to see weather conditions and changes in weather.
This is all the information we got since last wednesday.
You can see some examples:
|
Daniel Boone was born in November 1734 and died around 85 years later in September 26, 1820. But in the intervening time period, he made a name for himself that still resonates throughout American history.
Boone the Pioneer
He was an all-American woodsman, pioneer, explorer, and frontiersman. As a matter of fact, his many exploits along the rugged American frontier have effectively gone on to make him one of the first American folk heroes.
Daniel Boone is most famous for the exploration as well as the settlement of the area that now comprises of the modern state of Kentucky. When he was born the area was still considered to be a part of the Virginia territory. However, it was considered to be too far away from the settled parts of the country as it was located on the less easily traveled western side of the Appalachian Mountains.
As a young man, Danial Boone used to supplement his meager farm income through the then popular occupation of hunting and trapping wild game birds and animals. He would then sell their pelts and skins in the bustling fur market.
As game animals became scarce, he went further away from the settled territories and thereby learned how to access even the roughest of areas. Not only did he cross over by himself, but also blazed a well-beaten path for many others to follow suit. He met with stiff resistance from native Indian tribes and especially the Shawnee nation, but he persevered over all struggles and hardships. He blazed his very own self-created wilderness road – a path that stretched from North Carolina and Tennessee and via the Cumberland Gap, into the very heart of the Cumberland Mountains, all the way into the greater Kentucky area.
Boone the Settler
Once he settled there, he went on to establish the pioneering village of Boones Borough, Kentucky. This was one of the very first all-American settlements that lay west of the Appalachian Mountains. It got established within a couple of decades just before the end of the 18th century. Literally hundreds of thousands of Americans pioneers had migrated to the Kentucky and Western Virginia region, by simply following the well-marked route, that had been created by Danial Boone. Getting caught up in the politics of the times, he had also fought in the American Revolutionary wars in the 1770s and the 1780s.
Boone has achieved an iconic status in 18th and early 19th American history. He was a living legend who was revered and respected in his own lifetime, especially since his adventures were published and embellished not just by writers but also though word of mouth.
In modern day American popular culture, he is remembered as one of the foremost early frontiersmen that made USA the great country it is today.
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Daniel Boone was born in November 1734 and died around 85 years later in September 26, 1820. But in the intervening time period, he made a name for himself that still resonates throughout American history.
Boone the Pioneer
He was an all-American woodsman, pioneer, explorer, and frontiersman. As a matter of fact, his many exploits along the rugged American frontier have effectively gone on to make him one of the first American folk heroes.
Daniel Boone is most famous for the exploration as well as the settlement of the area that now comprises of the modern state of Kentucky
|
. When he was born the area was still considered to be a part of the Virginia territory. However, it was considered to be too far away from the settled parts of the country as it was located on the less easily traveled western side of the Appalachian Mountains.
As a young man, Danial Boone used to supplement his meager farm income through the then popular occupation of hunting and trapping wild game birds and animals. He would then sell their pelts and skins in the bustling fur market.
As game animals became scarce, he went further away from the settled territories and thereby learned how to access even the roughest of areas. Not only did he cross over by himself, but also blazed a well-beaten path for many others to follow suit. He met with stiff resistance from native Indian tribes and especially the Shawnee nation, but he persevered over all struggles and hardships. He blazed his very own self-created wilderness road – a path that stretched from North Carolina and Tennessee and via the Cumberland Gap, into the very heart of the Cumberland Mountains, all the way into the greater Kentucky area.
Boone the Settler
Once he settled there, he went on to establish the pioneering village of Boones Borough, Kentucky. This was one of the very first all-American settlements that lay west of the Appalachian Mountains. It got established within a couple of decades just before the end of the 18th century. Literally hundreds of thousands of Americans pioneers had migrated to the Kentucky and Western Virginia region, by simply following the well-marked route, that had been created by Danial Boone. Getting caught up in the politics of the times, he had also fought in the American Revolutionary wars in the 1770s and the 1780s.
Boone has achieved an iconic status in 18th and early 19th American history. He was a living legend who was revered and respected in his own lifetime, especially since his adventures were published and embellished not just by writers but also though word of mouth.
In modern day American popular culture, he is remembered as one of the foremost early frontiersmen that made USA the great country it is today.
|
Back in 2015, California’s dry earth was crunching under a fourth year of drought. Then-Governor Jerry Brown ordered an unprecedented 25% reduction in home water use. Farmers, who use the most water, volunteered too to avoid deeper, mandatory cuts.
Brown also set a goal for the state to get half its energy from renewable sources, with climate change bearing down.
Yet when Jordan Harris and Robin Raj went knocking on doors with an idea that addresses both water loss and climate pollution — installing solar panels over irrigation canals — they couldn’t get anyone to commit.
Fast forward eight years. With devastating heat, record-breaking wildfire, looming crisis on the Colorado River, a growing commitment to fighting climate change, and a little bit of movement-building, their company Solar AquaGrid is preparing to break ground on the first solar-covered canal project in the United States.
“All of these coming together at this moment,” Harris said. “Is there a more pressing issue that we could apply our time to?”
The idea is simple: install solar panels over canals in sunny, water-scarce regions where they reduce evaporation and make electricity.
A study by the University of California, Merced gives a boost to the idea, estimating that 63 billion gallons of water could be saved by covering California’s 4,000 miles of canals with solar panels that could also generate 13 gigawatts of power. That’s enough for the entire city of Los Angeles from January through early October.
But that’s an estimate — neither it, nor other potential benefits have been tested scientifically. That’s about to change with Project Nexus in California’s Central Valley.
Solar on canals has long been discussed as a two-for-one solution in California, where affordable land for energy development is as scarce as water. But the grand idea was still hypothetical.
Harris, a former record label executive, co-founded “Rock the Vote,” the voter registration push in the early 1990s, and Raj organized socially responsible and sustainability campaigns for businesses. They knew that people needed a nudge – ideally one from a trusted source.
They thought research from a reputable institution might do the trick, and got funding for UC Merced to study the impact of solar-covered-canals in California.
The study’s results have taken off.
They reached Gov. Gavin Newsom, who called Wade Crowfoot, his secretary of natural resources.
“Let’s get this in the ground and see what’s possible,” Crowfoot recalled the governor saying.
Around the same time, the Turlock Irrigation District, an entity that also provides power, reached out to UC Merced. It was looking to build a solar project to comply with the state’s increased goal of 100% renewable energy by 2045. But land was very expensive. So building atop existing infrastructure was appealing. Then there was the prospect that shade from panels might reduce weeds growing in the canals — a problem that costs this utility $1 million annually.
UC Merced Plays Key Role
“Until this UC Merced paper came out, we never really saw what those co-benefits would be,” said Josh Weimer, external affairs manager for the district. “If somebody was going to pilot this concept, we wanted to make sure it was us.”
Then the state committed $20 million in public funds, turning the pilot into a three-party collaboration among the private, public, and academic sectors. About 1.6 miles of canals between 20 and 110 feet wide will be covered with solar panels between 5 and 15 feet off the ground.
The UC Merced team will study impacts ranging from evaporation to water quality, said Brandi McKuin, lead researcher on the study.
“We need to get to the heart of those questions before we make any recommendations about how to do this more widely,” she said.
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Back in 2015, California’s dry earth was crunching under a fourth year of drought. Then-Governor Jerry Brown ordered an unprecedented 25% reduction in home water use. Farmers, who use the most water, volunteered too to avoid deeper, mandatory cuts.
Brown also set a goal for the state to get half its energy from renewable sources, with climate change bearing down.
Yet when Jordan Harris and Robin Raj went knocking on doors with an idea that addresses both water loss and climate pollution — installing solar panels over irrigation canals — they couldn’t get anyone to commit.
Fast forward eight years. With devastating heat
|
, record-breaking wildfire, looming crisis on the Colorado River, a growing commitment to fighting climate change, and a little bit of movement-building, their company Solar AquaGrid is preparing to break ground on the first solar-covered canal project in the United States.
“All of these coming together at this moment,” Harris said. “Is there a more pressing issue that we could apply our time to?”
The idea is simple: install solar panels over canals in sunny, water-scarce regions where they reduce evaporation and make electricity.
A study by the University of California, Merced gives a boost to the idea, estimating that 63 billion gallons of water could be saved by covering California’s 4,000 miles of canals with solar panels that could also generate 13 gigawatts of power. That’s enough for the entire city of Los Angeles from January through early October.
But that’s an estimate — neither it, nor other potential benefits have been tested scientifically. That’s about to change with Project Nexus in California’s Central Valley.
Solar on canals has long been discussed as a two-for-one solution in California, where affordable land for energy development is as scarce as water. But the grand idea was still hypothetical.
Harris, a former record label executive, co-founded “Rock the Vote,” the voter registration push in the early 1990s, and Raj organized socially responsible and sustainability campaigns for businesses. They knew that people needed a nudge – ideally one from a trusted source.
They thought research from a reputable institution might do the trick, and got funding for UC Merced to study the impact of solar-covered-canals in California.
The study’s results have taken off.
They reached Gov. Gavin Newsom, who called Wade Crowfoot, his secretary of natural resources.
“Let’s get this in the ground and see what’s possible,” Crowfoot recalled the governor saying.
Around the same time, the Turlock Irrigation District, an entity that also provides power, reached out to UC Merced. It was looking to build a solar project to comply with the state’s increased goal of 100% renewable energy by 2045. But land was very expensive. So building atop existing infrastructure was appealing. Then there was the prospect that shade from panels might reduce weeds growing in the canals — a problem that costs this utility $1 million annually.
UC Merced Plays Key Role
“Until this UC Merced paper came out, we never really saw what those co-benefits would be,” said Josh Weimer, external affairs manager for the district. “If somebody was going to pilot this concept, we wanted to make sure it was us.”
Then the state committed $20 million in public funds, turning the pilot into a three-party collaboration among the private, public, and academic sectors. About 1.6 miles of canals between 20 and 110 feet wide will be covered with solar panels between 5 and 15 feet off the ground.
The UC Merced team will study impacts ranging from evaporation to water quality, said Brandi McKuin, lead researcher on the study.
“We need to get to the heart of those questions before we make any recommendations about how to do this more widely,” she said.
|
Deforestation in Amazon’s indigenous reserve is three times larger than previously acknowledged
New satellite images show that deforestation of the Yanomami reserve in the Amazon is three times larger than officially acknowledged, Repórter Brasil reported.
Tens of thousands of illegal miners cut down more than 3,000 acres of rainforest and poisoned the Yanomami Indigenous people’s water sources.
“The devastation accelerated in 2021, reaching areas of forest that had until then been preserved and directly impacting one out of every three Yanomami villages,” Repórter Brasil reported as part of a series for the Pulitzer Center's Amazon Mining Watch.
Brazilian special forces have been deployed to drive out illegal gold miners from the Yanomami territory — an area roughly the size of Portugal with a population of 30,000 — and destroy the mines that have led to mercury poisoning of local rivers.
“Illegal mining on Yanomami land is finished,” a special forces commander said.
“Our land is so sick. Our rivers are sick. The forest’s sick … the air we breathe is sick,” a Yanomami leader told The Guardian.
Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency — from 2019 to 2022 — has been described as “environmentally calamitous”.
Bolsonaro said his government was open to exploring partnerships for mining in the Amazon, and cut the budget of environmental protection agencies.
“You want the indigenous people to carry on like prehistoric men with no access to technology, science, information, and the wonders of modernity,” Bolsonaro said of his critics, according to The Guardian. “Indigenous people want to work, they want to produce and they can’t. They live isolated in their areas like cavemen. What most of the foreign press do to Brazil and against these human beings is a crime.”
During his administration, an area of the Amazon larger than Belgium was cut down as deforestation rates soared to levels not seen since 2008.
At least 570 Yanomami children reportedly died of curable diseases during Bolsonaro’s administration.
Bolsonaro's successor, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, called it a “genocide.”
The View From The U.S.
During a visit to Brazil to discuss funding for preservation efforts on Tuesday, U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said: “Unless the Amazon is protected … we cannot keep the temperature to 1.5 degrees,” referring to the target set out in the Paris Agreement.
Meeting with Brazil’s Environment Minister Marina Silva, Kerry added: “The reality is that the Amazon is the test of all of our humanity.”
He said the U.S. is still considering how much funding to give to Amazon preservation efforts.
The Amazon absorbs roughly 4% of the world’s fossil fuel emissions, making it an essential element in efforts to combat climate change.
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|
Deforestation in Amazon’s indigenous reserve is three times larger than previously acknowledged
New satellite images show that deforestation of the Yanomami reserve in the Amazon is three times larger than officially acknowledged, Repórter Brasil reported.
Tens of thousands of illegal miners cut down more than 3,000 acres of rainforest and poisoned the Yanomami Indigenous people’s water sources.
“The devastation accelerated in 2021, reaching areas of forest that had until then been preserved and directly impacting one out of every three Yanomami villages,” Repórter Brasil reported as part of a series for the Pulitzer
|
Center's Amazon Mining Watch.
Brazilian special forces have been deployed to drive out illegal gold miners from the Yanomami territory — an area roughly the size of Portugal with a population of 30,000 — and destroy the mines that have led to mercury poisoning of local rivers.
“Illegal mining on Yanomami land is finished,” a special forces commander said.
“Our land is so sick. Our rivers are sick. The forest’s sick … the air we breathe is sick,” a Yanomami leader told The Guardian.
Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency — from 2019 to 2022 — has been described as “environmentally calamitous”.
Bolsonaro said his government was open to exploring partnerships for mining in the Amazon, and cut the budget of environmental protection agencies.
“You want the indigenous people to carry on like prehistoric men with no access to technology, science, information, and the wonders of modernity,” Bolsonaro said of his critics, according to The Guardian. “Indigenous people want to work, they want to produce and they can’t. They live isolated in their areas like cavemen. What most of the foreign press do to Brazil and against these human beings is a crime.”
During his administration, an area of the Amazon larger than Belgium was cut down as deforestation rates soared to levels not seen since 2008.
At least 570 Yanomami children reportedly died of curable diseases during Bolsonaro’s administration.
Bolsonaro's successor, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, called it a “genocide.”
The View From The U.S.
During a visit to Brazil to discuss funding for preservation efforts on Tuesday, U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said: “Unless the Amazon is protected … we cannot keep the temperature to 1.5 degrees,” referring to the target set out in the Paris Agreement.
Meeting with Brazil’s Environment Minister Marina Silva, Kerry added: “The reality is that the Amazon is the test of all of our humanity.”
He said the U.S. is still considering how much funding to give to Amazon preservation efforts.
The Amazon absorbs roughly 4% of the world’s fossil fuel emissions, making it an essential element in efforts to combat climate change.
|
Sign up for the Morning Brief email newsletter to get weekday updates from The Weather Channel and our meteorologists.
Mother Nature is full of surprises every changing season. Check out these amazing phenomena best seen during the spring months, from the blooming of gorgeous flowers across the U.S. and Japan to awe-inspiring animal migrations.
(MORE: 10 Places You Have To See In March)
1. Wildflowers across the United States
Of course, the arrival of spring is most famously marked by the blooming of wildflowers across the country, from deserts to mountainscapes. Just 40 miles from Phoenix, the Superstition Mountains burst into color with multitudes of wild Mexican poppies and Lupine each year. Meanwhile, Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve in the Mojave Desert is home to one of the largest and most dependable bloom of orange California poppies. Central and southern Texas is an ideal place to see fields blooming with bluebonnets, Texas’ state flower, and from April 1-30, 2023, Ennis, Texas, showcases over 40 miles of mapped driving bluebonnet trails, the oldest such trails known in the state. Thousands of visitors make the trek to Ennis for the Bluebonnet Festival, this year's occurring on April 14-16. In late April, Tennessee's Great Smoky Mountains National Park also blooms with over 1,500 wildflower varieties, making the park a world-renowned hotspot for wildflower pilgrimages.
2. Aurora Australis, Mount Wellington, Tasmania
The southern hemisphere has its own aurora, the aurora australis. The best place to see it is as far south as you can go, so Tasmania's Mount Wellington is a great place for viewing this phenomenon. Like the aurora borealis, the southern lights are visible when electrically charged solar particles and atoms in Earth's atmosphere collide with oxygen and nitrogen. While this aurora does occur year-round, it's at its most spectacular from March through September, which is the southern hemisphere's fall and winter.
3. Gray Whale Migration, Pacific Coast of the United States
In early spring, gray whales and their calves can be seen migrating by the Big Sur coastline and past Oregon and Washington. These animals, which can grow up to 45 feet long and weigh as much as 33 tons, head north from Mexico to their summer feeding grounds in the Arctic in the Bering, Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, where they eat small crustaceans and tubeworms.
This season is a great time for animal-lovers to go whale-watching, since during the northern migration, the whales tend to swim close to shore.
4. Casa Rinconada Celestial Alignment, Chaco Culture National Historical Park, New Mexico
On the spring equinox (March 20 - 21), this southwestern park hosts a spectacular display. The ancient great kiva, or round structure, possibly used as a community gathering space, was built by the Chacoan people with two doors situated exactly on the north-south axis. The equinox sun rises in the center of the two doors. Casa Rinconada is the largest structure of its kind. Be sure to check in advance to see if the park is offering any ranger-led talks when you visit so that you can learn more about Chaco culture.
5. Cherry Blossoms, Japan
Cherry blossoms, or sakura, bloom across Japan between late March through early April. Millions of locals and international tourists turn out each year to admire these beautiful light pink and white flowers. The blooms begin in Okinawa and peak in Kyoto and Tokyo. Visitors can time their trips perfectly to see the blooms, which last about a week. This week's bloom is expected to begin earlier than average, around March 23, according to japan-guide.com
Some of the sakura trees are over a thousand years old, according to NPR, such as the 39-feet-tall Miharu Takizakura tree in the Fukushima prefecture, the Usuzumi Sakura tree in Moyosu that was planted by Japanese Emperor Keitai, and the sakura tree in Yamanashi Prefecture’s Jindaizakura, which is between 1,800 - 2,000 years old, making it Japan's oldest cherry tree, and perhaps the oldest in the world.
If you can't make it to Japan, Washington, D.C., is home to a spectacular cherry blossom display every spring as well. The trees were sent by Japan in 1912 as a gift of friendship.
6. Spring Surfing, Central America
Central America is one of the best places to go surfing in spring. The season marks the arrival of the first south swells of the year, and even slight southern swells can produce incredible surf that can be enjoyed in such places as El Salvador, Panama and Costa Rica.
Central America has coastline on both the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, making for more than 1,100 miles of shore. According to surfatlas.com, there's not a location in Central America that's more than 125 miles from a wave.
7. Synchronous Fireflies, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina and Tennessee
For a brief period of time from late May to mid-June, fireflies light up in unison rather than emitting the intermittent twinkle with which most people are familiar. The synchronized flashes are a mating signal, and according to the National Park Service, the males of synchronous fireflies (Photinus carolinus) flash in unison so that the females, who flash in response, can be sure they're responding to their kind, rather that another firefly species, some of which are predatory. These types of fireflies only exist in a few areas of the world, and one of those spots is Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The spectacle has become quite popular, so parking passes are given away by lottery, and entry to the park is limited during the firefly display. The lottery's estimated opening is April 28, 2023.
8. Baby Wild Animals, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Spring is a great time for wildlife viewing in Yellowstone National Park because visitors have a greater chance of spotting a range of new baby animals, including black bear cubs, bighorn lambs (usually born in May), elk and bison calves, baby pronghorn antelope and gray wolf cubs.
Visitors are advised to keep their distance from these animals as the animal mothers are defensive of their young. Still, the season’s little critters make for a great photo opportunity, even from afar.
9. Spring Butterfly Migration, Mexico and the United States
As warm temperatures arrive, monarch butterflies who flew south in the fall become more active and start to breed. This marks the start of their northern migration back to North America. Female monarchs leave their wintering sites and fly north and east in the search of milkweed plants on which to lay their eggs before they die, according to MonarchWatch. This usually occurs in the southern states.
Soon after, the first spring caterpillars hatch, then metamorphose into butterflies, then resume the northern migration.
10. Sandhill Crane Migration, Nebraska
The arrival of the cranes on Nebraska’s Platte River - along with millions of other migratory birds such as ducks and geese - is one of the country's greatest wildlife spectacles. About 80% of the world’s population of sandhill cranes descend on the area each spring, covering vast expanses of sky with millions of flapping wings.
The first birds arrive as early as late February or early March and leave in mid-April, after they have rested and restored their body weight.
11. See A Serpent Crawl Up The Pyramid At Chichen Itza, Mexico
Another spring equinox phenomenon exists at Mexico's Chichen Itza. During the morning and afternoon, the sunlight creates a shadow that looks like a serpent slithering up and down the the stairs of the Temple of the Pyramid Kukulkan, also known as El Castillo, or The Castle. This minutes-long display is one of the main attractions of this Mayan archaeological site, with more than 25,000 people attending each year, according to mayanpeninsula.com.
(MORE FROM WEATHER.COM: 50 Places Straight Out Of Fairy Tales)
The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.
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Sign up for the Morning Brief email newsletter to get weekday updates from The Weather Channel and our meteorologists.
Mother Nature is full of surprises every changing season. Check out these amazing phenomena best seen during the spring months, from the blooming of gorgeous flowers across the U.S. and Japan to awe-inspiring animal migrations.
(MORE: 10 Places You Have To See In March)
1. Wildflowers across the United States
Of course, the arrival of spring is most famously marked by the blooming of wildflowers across the country, from deserts to mountainscapes. Just 40 miles from Phoenix,
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the Superstition Mountains burst into color with multitudes of wild Mexican poppies and Lupine each year. Meanwhile, Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve in the Mojave Desert is home to one of the largest and most dependable bloom of orange California poppies. Central and southern Texas is an ideal place to see fields blooming with bluebonnets, Texas’ state flower, and from April 1-30, 2023, Ennis, Texas, showcases over 40 miles of mapped driving bluebonnet trails, the oldest such trails known in the state. Thousands of visitors make the trek to Ennis for the Bluebonnet Festival, this year's occurring on April 14-16. In late April, Tennessee's Great Smoky Mountains National Park also blooms with over 1,500 wildflower varieties, making the park a world-renowned hotspot for wildflower pilgrimages.
2. Aurora Australis, Mount Wellington, Tasmania
The southern hemisphere has its own aurora, the aurora australis. The best place to see it is as far south as you can go, so Tasmania's Mount Wellington is a great place for viewing this phenomenon. Like the aurora borealis, the southern lights are visible when electrically charged solar particles and atoms in Earth's atmosphere collide with oxygen and nitrogen. While this aurora does occur year-round, it's at its most spectacular from March through September, which is the southern hemisphere's fall and winter.
3. Gray Whale Migration, Pacific Coast of the United States
In early spring, gray whales and their calves can be seen migrating by the Big Sur coastline and past Oregon and Washington. These animals, which can grow up to 45 feet long and weigh as much as 33 tons, head north from Mexico to their summer feeding grounds in the Arctic in the Bering, Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, where they eat small crustaceans and tubeworms.
This season is a great time for animal-lovers to go whale-watching, since during the northern migration, the whales tend to swim close to shore.
4. Casa Rinconada Celestial Alignment, Chaco Culture National Historical Park, New Mexico
On the spring equinox (March 20 - 21), this southwestern park hosts a spectacular display. The ancient great kiva, or round structure, possibly used as a community gathering space, was built by the Chacoan people with two doors situated exactly on the north-south axis. The equinox sun rises in the center of the two doors. Casa Rinconada is the largest structure of its kind. Be sure to check in advance to see if the park is offering any ranger-led talks when you visit so that you can learn more about Chaco culture.
5. Cherry Blossoms, Japan
Cherry blossoms, or sakura, bloom across Japan between late March through early April. Millions of locals and international tourists turn out each year to admire these beautiful light pink and white flowers. The blooms begin in Okinawa and peak in Kyoto and Tokyo. Visitors can time their trips perfectly to see the blooms, which last about a week. This week's bloom is expected to begin earlier than average, around March 23, according to japan-guide.com
Some of the sakura trees are over a thousand years old, according to NPR, such as the 39-feet-tall Miharu Takizakura tree in the Fukushima prefecture, the Usuzumi Sakura tree in Moyosu that was planted by Japanese Emperor Keitai, and the sakura tree in Yamanashi Prefecture’s Jindaizakura, which is between 1,800 - 2,000 years old, making it Japan's oldest cherry tree, and perhaps the oldest in the world.
If you can't make it to Japan, Washington, D.C., is home to a spectacular cherry blossom display every spring as well. The trees were sent by Japan in 1912 as a gift of friendship.
6. Spring Surfing, Central America
Central America is one of the best places to go surfing in spring. The season marks the arrival of the first south swells of the year, and even slight southern swells can produce incredible surf that can be enjoyed in such places as El Salvador, Panama and Costa Rica.
Central America has coastline on both the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, making for more than 1,100 miles of shore. According to surfatlas.com, there's not a location in Central America that's more than 125 miles from a wave.
7. Synchronous Fireflies, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina and Tennessee
For a brief period of time from late May to mid-June, fireflies light up in unison rather than emitting the intermittent twinkle with which most people are familiar. The synchronized flashes are a mating signal, and according to the National Park Service, the males of synchronous fireflies (Photinus carolinus) flash in unison so that the females, who flash in response, can be sure they're responding to their kind, rather that another firefly species, some of which are predatory. These types of fireflies only exist in a few areas of the world, and one of those spots is Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The spectacle has become quite popular, so parking passes are given away by lottery, and entry to the park is limited during the firefly display. The lottery's estimated opening is April 28, 2023.
8. Baby Wild Animals, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Spring is a great time for wildlife viewing in Yellowstone National Park because visitors have a greater chance of spotting a range of new baby animals, including black bear cubs, bighorn lambs (usually born in May), elk and bison calves, baby pronghorn antelope and gray wolf cubs.
Visitors are advised to keep their distance from these animals as the animal mothers are defensive of their young. Still, the season’s little critters make for a great photo opportunity, even from afar.
9. Spring Butterfly Migration, Mexico and the United States
As warm temperatures arrive, monarch butterflies who flew south in the fall become more active and start to breed. This marks the start of their northern migration back to North America. Female monarchs leave their wintering sites and fly north and east in the search of milkweed plants on which to lay their eggs before they die, according to MonarchWatch. This usually occurs in the southern states.
Soon after, the first spring caterpillars hatch, then metamorphose into butterflies, then resume the northern migration.
10. Sandhill Crane Migration, Nebraska
The arrival of the cranes on Nebraska’s Platte River - along with millions of other migratory birds such as ducks and geese - is one of the country's greatest wildlife spectacles. About 80% of the world’s population of sandhill cranes descend on the area each spring, covering vast expanses of sky with millions of flapping wings.
The first birds arrive as early as late February or early March and leave in mid-April, after they have rested and restored their body weight.
11. See A Serpent Crawl Up The Pyramid At Chichen Itza, Mexico
Another spring equinox phenomenon exists at Mexico's Chichen Itza. During the morning and afternoon, the sunlight creates a shadow that looks like a serpent slithering up and down the the stairs of the Temple of the Pyramid Kukulkan, also known as El Castillo, or The Castle. This minutes-long display is one of the main attractions of this Mayan archaeological site, with more than 25,000 people attending each year, according to mayanpeninsula.com.
(MORE FROM WEATHER.COM: 50 Places Straight Out Of Fairy Tales)
The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.
|
A tropical island paradise off Queensland's Capricorn Coast is being completely powered by renewable energy, making it one of the first carbon negative islands in the Great Barrier Marine Park.
North Keppel (Konomie) Island is the first carbon negative island in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park
It is home to a centre used by Queensland schools for outdoor education camps
The centre is powered by the largest renewable energy system built on a state school site
North Keppel (Konomie) Island, is home to an environmental education centre run by the Queensland government.
About 2,500 students stay on the island for school camp each year, where they learn about climate change, First Nations culture and sustainable living.
The government has spent $1.4 million to build the largest renewable energy system on a state school site.
"We are now fully off the grid," Education Minister Grace Grace said.
Being carbon negative means the island removes more carbon dioxide emissions than the amount it puts out into the atmosphere.
Plenty of power
The system includes 258 solar panels, 36 lithium phosphate batteries, a wind turbine and back up generator.
Solar Hybrid head of engineering, Gino Fiocco, whose company built the system, said it would produce 450 kilowatt hours of energy on an average day.
"It's just shy of 100 kilowatts of peak solar power," Mr Fiocco said.
"The average Queensland home these days uses around 21 or 22 kilowatt hours… so that's a lot of homes that this system can provide energy for."
All the system's solar panels were all made in Australia.
Passion for sustainability
Konomie Island Environmental Education Centre principal Andrew Gill said he first experienced the paradise of the island when he was on grade seven school camp.
He said his love for the place led him to his job.
"Students usually come to us for either three or five day camps," Mr Gill said.
"Rather than being within four walls, students are out here on the Great Barrier Reef and Woppaburra country learning about climate change … collecting scientific data, we do cultural walks, kayaking, sustainable fishing."
Mr Gill said the new energy system would be used as an educational resource to teach students about renewables.
"We take them out snorkelling to a reef that has seen the impact of climate change … then we actually take them to a reef that is in really good health," Mr Gill said.
"So then they can then see the difference and from there, we learn about the renewable energies.
He said it was great the children were staying in a sustainable community.
"What we hope is when they go back to their community, they then become the teacher to enact some things within their lifestyles," he said.
Proud of progress
Woppraburra elder Aunty June Blair and Woppaburra tribal elders coordinator Aunty Warinkal Glenice Croft said they were optimistic about the island's future.
"It's wonderful here now and for the future … making it better for our beautiful island, which is paradise," Aunty Blair said.
"I think it's amazing … what the education department is doing to make it so sustainable and environmental," Aunty Croft said.
Editor’s note 12/09/2023: This article originally reported North Keppel (Konomie) Island was the first carbon-negative island on the Great Barrier Reef. It was amended to say it is one of the first as some other islands in the region are entirely powered by renewables and also meet carbon neutral and negative criteria.Loading
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A tropical island paradise off Queensland's Capricorn Coast is being completely powered by renewable energy, making it one of the first carbon negative islands in the Great Barrier Marine Park.
North Keppel (Konomie) Island is the first carbon negative island in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park
It is home to a centre used by Queensland schools for outdoor education camps
The centre is powered by the largest renewable energy system built on a state school site
North Keppel (Konomie) Island, is home to an environmental education centre run by the Queensland government.
About 2,500 students stay on the island for
|
school camp each year, where they learn about climate change, First Nations culture and sustainable living.
The government has spent $1.4 million to build the largest renewable energy system on a state school site.
"We are now fully off the grid," Education Minister Grace Grace said.
Being carbon negative means the island removes more carbon dioxide emissions than the amount it puts out into the atmosphere.
Plenty of power
The system includes 258 solar panels, 36 lithium phosphate batteries, a wind turbine and back up generator.
Solar Hybrid head of engineering, Gino Fiocco, whose company built the system, said it would produce 450 kilowatt hours of energy on an average day.
"It's just shy of 100 kilowatts of peak solar power," Mr Fiocco said.
"The average Queensland home these days uses around 21 or 22 kilowatt hours… so that's a lot of homes that this system can provide energy for."
All the system's solar panels were all made in Australia.
Passion for sustainability
Konomie Island Environmental Education Centre principal Andrew Gill said he first experienced the paradise of the island when he was on grade seven school camp.
He said his love for the place led him to his job.
"Students usually come to us for either three or five day camps," Mr Gill said.
"Rather than being within four walls, students are out here on the Great Barrier Reef and Woppaburra country learning about climate change … collecting scientific data, we do cultural walks, kayaking, sustainable fishing."
Mr Gill said the new energy system would be used as an educational resource to teach students about renewables.
"We take them out snorkelling to a reef that has seen the impact of climate change … then we actually take them to a reef that is in really good health," Mr Gill said.
"So then they can then see the difference and from there, we learn about the renewable energies.
He said it was great the children were staying in a sustainable community.
"What we hope is when they go back to their community, they then become the teacher to enact some things within their lifestyles," he said.
Proud of progress
Woppraburra elder Aunty June Blair and Woppaburra tribal elders coordinator Aunty Warinkal Glenice Croft said they were optimistic about the island's future.
"It's wonderful here now and for the future … making it better for our beautiful island, which is paradise," Aunty Blair said.
"I think it's amazing … what the education department is doing to make it so sustainable and environmental," Aunty Croft said.
Editor’s note 12/09/2023: This article originally reported North Keppel (Konomie) Island was the first carbon-negative island on the Great Barrier Reef. It was amended to say it is one of the first as some other islands in the region are entirely powered by renewables and also meet carbon neutral and negative criteria.Loading
|
Picture an AI that truly speaks your language — and not just your words and syntax. Imagine an AI that understands context, nuance, and even humor.
This is no longer just a futuristic concept — it's the reality of ChatGPT.
ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot built on top of OpenAI's foundational large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4 and its predecessors.
This chatbot has redefined the standards of artificial intelligence, proving that machines can indeed “learn” the complexities of human language and interaction.
Let’s delve into the fascinating history of ChatGPT, charting its evolution from its launch to its present-day capabilities.
The Genesis of ChatGPT
OpenAI released an early demo of ChatGPT on November 30, 2022, and the chatbot quickly went viral on social media as users shared examples of what it could do. Stories and samples included everything from travel planning to writing fables to code computer programs. Within five days, the chatbot had attracted over one million users.
OpenAI was founded in December 2015 by Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Elon Musk, Ilya Sutskever, Wojciech Zaremba, and John Schulman. The founding team combined their diverse expertise in technology entrepreneurship, machine learning, and software engineering to create an organization focused on advancing artificial intelligence in a way that benefits humanity.
Elon Musk is no longer involved in OpenAI, and Sam Altman is the current CEO of the organization.
OpenAI is currently valued at $29 billion, and the company has raised a total of $11.3B in funding over seven rounds so far. In January, Microsoft expanded its long-term partnership with Open AI and announced a multibillion-dollar investment to accelerate AI breakthroughs worldwide.
GPT’s Major Milestones
The journey of ChatGPT has been marked by continual advancements, each version building upon previous tools.
GPT-1, the model that was introduced in June 2018, was the first iteration of the GPT (generative pre-trained transformer) series and consisted of 117 million parameters. This set the foundational architecture for ChatGPT as we know it today. GPT-1 demonstrated the power of unsupervised learning in language understanding tasks, using books as training data to predict the next word in a sentence.
GPT-2, which was released in February 2019, represented a significant upgrade with 1.5 billion parameters. It showcased a dramatic improvement in text generation capabilities and produced coherent, multi-paragraph text. But due to its potential misuse, GPT-2 wasn't initially released to the public. The model was eventually launched in November 2019 after OpenAI conducted a staged rollout to study and mitigate potential risks.
GPT-3 was a huge leap forward in June 2020. This model was trained on a staggering 175 billion parameters. Its advanced text-generation capabilities led to widespread use in various applications, from drafting emails and writing articles to creating poetry and even generating programming code. It also demonstrated an ability to answer factual questions and translate between languages.
When GPT-3 launched, it marked a pivotal moment when the world started acknowledging this groundbreaking technology. Although the models had been in existence for a few years, it was with GPT-3 that individuals had the opportunity to interact with ChatGPT directly, ask it questions, and receive comprehensive and practical responses. When people were able to interact directly with the LLM like this, it became clear just how impactful this technology would become.
GPT-4, the latest iteration, continues this trend of exponential improvement, with changes like:
● Improved model alignment — the ability to follow user intention
● Lower likelihood of generating offensive or dangerous output
● Increased factual accuracy
● Better steerability — the ability to change behavior according to user requests
● Internet connectivity – the latest feature includes the ability to search the Internet in real-time
Each milestone brings us closer to a future where AI seamlessly integrates into our daily lives, enhancing our productivity, creativity, and communication.
The Wide-Ranging Influence of ChatGPT
ChatGPT has had a profound influence on the evolution of AI, paving the way for advancements in natural language understanding and generation. It has demonstrated the effectiveness of transformer-based models for language tasks, which has encouraged other AI researchers to adopt and refine this architecture.
The model's success has also stimulated interest in LLMs, leading to a wave of research and development in this area.
ChatGPT has had significant impacts across various industries, including:
● Customer service: Companies are leveraging ChatGPT to automate responses to common inquiries.
● Education: ChatGPT is being used to create intelligent tutoring systems capable of providing personalized assistance to students.
● Content creation: Journalists, copywriters, and content creators are using ChatGPT to generate creative ideas, draft articles, and even write poetry.
● Businesses: All kinds of professionals are using the chatbot to automate tasks like drafting emails or writing code.
● Healthcare: Providers and staff can leverage the chatbot for use cases like clinical decision support, medical recordkeeping, analyzing and interpreting medical literature, and disease surveillance.
● Entertainment: ChatGPT can be used to generate video game storylines and movie scripts, write dialogue, and improve gaming.
Other companies are taking note of ChatGPT’s tsunami of popularity and are looking for ways to incorporate LLMs and chatbots into their products and services.
Microsoft is in the process of integrating artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language understanding into its core products. GitHub Copilot uses OpenAI’s Codex engine to provide autocomplete features for developers. Bing, the search engine, is being enhanced with GPT technology to challenge Google's dominance. Microsoft is planning to integrate ChatGPT functionality into its productivity tools, including Word, Excel, and Outlook, in the near future.
Google just recently removed the waitlist for their own conversational chatbot, Bard, which is powered by LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications).
ChatGPT: A New Chapter in AI's Story
ChatGPT's journey from concept to influential AI model exemplifies the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence. This groundbreaking model has driven progress in AI development and spurred transformation across a wide range of industries. But the journey is far from over.
As we move forward, we can expect ChatGPT and similar AI-powered chatbots to continue shaping our world in unexpected and exciting ways. To stay on top of the latest on new and emerging business and tech trends, make sure to subscribe to my newsletter, follow me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube, and check out my books, Future Skills: The 20 Skills and Competencies Everyone Needs to Succeed in a Digital World and The Future Internet: How the Metaverse, Web 3.0, and Blockchain Will Transform Business and Society.
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Picture an AI that truly speaks your language — and not just your words and syntax. Imagine an AI that understands context, nuance, and even humor.
This is no longer just a futuristic concept — it's the reality of ChatGPT.
ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot built on top of OpenAI's foundational large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4 and its predecessors.
This chatbot has redefined the standards of artificial intelligence, proving that machines can indeed “learn” the complexities of human language and interaction.
Let’s delve into the fascinating history of ChatGPT,
|
charting its evolution from its launch to its present-day capabilities.
The Genesis of ChatGPT
OpenAI released an early demo of ChatGPT on November 30, 2022, and the chatbot quickly went viral on social media as users shared examples of what it could do. Stories and samples included everything from travel planning to writing fables to code computer programs. Within five days, the chatbot had attracted over one million users.
OpenAI was founded in December 2015 by Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Elon Musk, Ilya Sutskever, Wojciech Zaremba, and John Schulman. The founding team combined their diverse expertise in technology entrepreneurship, machine learning, and software engineering to create an organization focused on advancing artificial intelligence in a way that benefits humanity.
Elon Musk is no longer involved in OpenAI, and Sam Altman is the current CEO of the organization.
OpenAI is currently valued at $29 billion, and the company has raised a total of $11.3B in funding over seven rounds so far. In January, Microsoft expanded its long-term partnership with Open AI and announced a multibillion-dollar investment to accelerate AI breakthroughs worldwide.
GPT’s Major Milestones
The journey of ChatGPT has been marked by continual advancements, each version building upon previous tools.
GPT-1, the model that was introduced in June 2018, was the first iteration of the GPT (generative pre-trained transformer) series and consisted of 117 million parameters. This set the foundational architecture for ChatGPT as we know it today. GPT-1 demonstrated the power of unsupervised learning in language understanding tasks, using books as training data to predict the next word in a sentence.
GPT-2, which was released in February 2019, represented a significant upgrade with 1.5 billion parameters. It showcased a dramatic improvement in text generation capabilities and produced coherent, multi-paragraph text. But due to its potential misuse, GPT-2 wasn't initially released to the public. The model was eventually launched in November 2019 after OpenAI conducted a staged rollout to study and mitigate potential risks.
GPT-3 was a huge leap forward in June 2020. This model was trained on a staggering 175 billion parameters. Its advanced text-generation capabilities led to widespread use in various applications, from drafting emails and writing articles to creating poetry and even generating programming code. It also demonstrated an ability to answer factual questions and translate between languages.
When GPT-3 launched, it marked a pivotal moment when the world started acknowledging this groundbreaking technology. Although the models had been in existence for a few years, it was with GPT-3 that individuals had the opportunity to interact with ChatGPT directly, ask it questions, and receive comprehensive and practical responses. When people were able to interact directly with the LLM like this, it became clear just how impactful this technology would become.
GPT-4, the latest iteration, continues this trend of exponential improvement, with changes like:
● Improved model alignment — the ability to follow user intention
● Lower likelihood of generating offensive or dangerous output
● Increased factual accuracy
● Better steerability — the ability to change behavior according to user requests
● Internet connectivity – the latest feature includes the ability to search the Internet in real-time
Each milestone brings us closer to a future where AI seamlessly integrates into our daily lives, enhancing our productivity, creativity, and communication.
The Wide-Ranging Influence of ChatGPT
ChatGPT has had a profound influence on the evolution of AI, paving the way for advancements in natural language understanding and generation. It has demonstrated the effectiveness of transformer-based models for language tasks, which has encouraged other AI researchers to adopt and refine this architecture.
The model's success has also stimulated interest in LLMs, leading to a wave of research and development in this area.
ChatGPT has had significant impacts across various industries, including:
● Customer service: Companies are leveraging ChatGPT to automate responses to common inquiries.
● Education: ChatGPT is being used to create intelligent tutoring systems capable of providing personalized assistance to students.
● Content creation: Journalists, copywriters, and content creators are using ChatGPT to generate creative ideas, draft articles, and even write poetry.
● Businesses: All kinds of professionals are using the chatbot to automate tasks like drafting emails or writing code.
● Healthcare: Providers and staff can leverage the chatbot for use cases like clinical decision support, medical recordkeeping, analyzing and interpreting medical literature, and disease surveillance.
● Entertainment: ChatGPT can be used to generate video game storylines and movie scripts, write dialogue, and improve gaming.
Other companies are taking note of ChatGPT’s tsunami of popularity and are looking for ways to incorporate LLMs and chatbots into their products and services.
Microsoft is in the process of integrating artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language understanding into its core products. GitHub Copilot uses OpenAI’s Codex engine to provide autocomplete features for developers. Bing, the search engine, is being enhanced with GPT technology to challenge Google's dominance. Microsoft is planning to integrate ChatGPT functionality into its productivity tools, including Word, Excel, and Outlook, in the near future.
Google just recently removed the waitlist for their own conversational chatbot, Bard, which is powered by LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications).
ChatGPT: A New Chapter in AI's Story
ChatGPT's journey from concept to influential AI model exemplifies the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence. This groundbreaking model has driven progress in AI development and spurred transformation across a wide range of industries. But the journey is far from over.
As we move forward, we can expect ChatGPT and similar AI-powered chatbots to continue shaping our world in unexpected and exciting ways. To stay on top of the latest on new and emerging business and tech trends, make sure to subscribe to my newsletter, follow me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube, and check out my books, Future Skills: The 20 Skills and Competencies Everyone Needs to Succeed in a Digital World and The Future Internet: How the Metaverse, Web 3.0, and Blockchain Will Transform Business and Society.
|
The Junior Cycle religion paper was topical, with environmental concerns featuring prominently on the paper, according to Stephen O’Hara, TUI subject representative and a religious education teacher at Castlerea Community College in Roscommon.
The religious faith of footballer Mo Salah and boxer Katie Taylor featured alongside questions on how family and friends can influence religious faith, while another question asked students about the challenges of living according to the values of their religion.
“There was a question about Charlie Bird raising funds for motor neurone disease, which was very topical,” said Mr O’Hara. “It captured his well-publicised struggle [with motor neurone disease] and also included a reference to Croagh Patrick, which has a long tradition and history.
“It was a paper that would be accessible to students from different backgrounds, faith beliefs or secular backgrounds. There was enough choice within questions and across the various sections.”
Earlier in the year, students completed a classroom-based assessment on either the search for meaning or features of architectural, archaeological or artistic interest.
Try this one at home:
Junior Cycle religion, common level
Croagh Patrick is a place of religious importance for a community of faith in Ireland. Name another particular place in Ireland that has religious importance for a community of faith associated with one of the following religions: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism
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The Junior Cycle religion paper was topical, with environmental concerns featuring prominently on the paper, according to Stephen O’Hara, TUI subject representative and a religious education teacher at Castlerea Community College in Roscommon.
The religious faith of footballer Mo Salah and boxer Katie Taylor featured alongside questions on how family and friends can influence religious faith, while another question asked students about the challenges of living according to the values of their religion.
“There was a question about Charlie Bird raising funds for motor neurone disease, which was very topical,” said Mr O’Hara. “It captured his well-publicised struggle [with motor neurone disease
|
] and also included a reference to Croagh Patrick, which has a long tradition and history.
“It was a paper that would be accessible to students from different backgrounds, faith beliefs or secular backgrounds. There was enough choice within questions and across the various sections.”
Earlier in the year, students completed a classroom-based assessment on either the search for meaning or features of architectural, archaeological or artistic interest.
Try this one at home:
Junior Cycle religion, common level
Croagh Patrick is a place of religious importance for a community of faith in Ireland. Name another particular place in Ireland that has religious importance for a community of faith associated with one of the following religions: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism
|
Ireland’s famous 18th century philosopher, George Berkeley, was guilty of racial prejudice and slave – owning. He once described the Irish poor as “a lazy destitute race” and he bought a slave plantation on Rhode Island. Since the Irish today deplore both racism and slavery, shouldn’t they disown him? Trinity College Dublin’s legacies working group is currently weighing whether his name should be removed from one of the college libraries.
What’s wrong with “racism” is what’s wrong with any prejudice directed at other people – whether they are members of a race, a nation, a social class, a religion, or the body of Brexit supporters – namely, that it prejudges the individual by regarding him or her simply as a member of a group, automatically attributing to the individual that group’s supposed characteristics, which are stereotyped in unflattering terms.
The group is simplified pejoratively and the dignity of individuality is brushed aside. Racial prejudice is an ugly thing and Bishop Berkeley was guilty of it.
British and Irish slave-trading and slavery from about 1650 was nothing out of the ordinary
But let’s be frank: prejudice against other groups and their members is a widespread human phenomenon. Human individuals like to secure their own significance by being part of a larger tribe, and they like to inflate that significance by looking down upon other tribes. Even university-educated ‘progressives’ have their tribal prejudices.
Further, racism was neither invented by Europeans nor monopolised by them. In the medieval period Muslim Arabs compared their own cultural sophistication favourably to what seemed to them the primitive cultures of white northern Europeans and black Africans, attributing their natural inferiority to an intemperate climate, respectively too cold and too hot. In the nineteenth century the Qing emperors in China regarded the British – and other Westerners – as barbarians and natural vassals, without any embarrassment at all.
In the 1940s the Irish novelist, Gerald Hanley, then an officer in the British Army, found Somalis unshakeable in their prejudice against other black peoples: “I had once tried hard to get the Somalis to give up their contempt for Bantu people ... ‘We cannot obey slaves’, Somalis told me. ‘It is impossible for us to live under slave people even when they are in [British] uniform and have arms’. I could not change the memory [the Somalis] had of a time when these Bantu people were slave material for the Muslim world to the north”.
According to Dr Clare Moriarty, while “unquestionably a great metaphysical thinker and a brilliant writer”, Berkeley “was also extremely morally fallible”. Welcome to the common club of crooked humanity.
As for slavery, that was practiced from ancient times to the 20th century on every continent in a variety of forms. Long before Europeans became involved in the 1440s, Africans had been selling black slaves to Roman and Arab traders. In the mid-1600s Barbary corsairs raided the coasts of Co Cork and Cornwall and carted off whole villages into slavery on the Mediterranean coast of North Africa.
While the British were importing slaves into the Americas in the eighteenth-century, the indigenous Comanche were running a slave economy in the southwest of North America.
Berkeley has never been venerated for his racist views of the Irish poor and slave-ownership, to repudiate him would not be to repudiate them
In Jamaica the Maroons, slaves who had escaped into the mountainous forests of the interior, kept slaves of their own in the mid-1700s. And in North Carolina freed slaves were themselves slave-owners on the eve of the Civil War in 1860. British and Irish slave-trading and slavery from about 1650 was nothing out of the ordinary.
What was extraordinary was that from about 1770 – two decades after George Berkeley’s death – an anti-slavery movement began to grow in Britain. The result was that, through their united Parliament, the British and Irish were among the first peoples in the history of the world to repudiate the slave-trade and slavery in 1807 and 1833, respectively, and they were the leading people to devote themselves to the global suppression of slavery through the British Empire for the following century-and-a-half.
It follows that there is no direct causal line between the ugly racism that justified 18th century slavery and whatever racism persists among us today, because the highly popular abolition movement and its humanitarian successors were propelled by the Christian conviction that members of all races are equal in the sight of God.
Consequently, according to the historian of abolition, John Stauffer, “almost every United States black who travelled in the British Isles acknowledged the comparative dearth of racism there. [The famous black abolitionist] Frederick Douglass noted after arriving in England in 1845: ‘I saw in every man a recognition of my manhood, and an absence, a perfect absence, of everything like that disgusting hate with which we are pursued in [the United States]’”.
Therefore, to erase Berkeley’s name from TCD would do nothing to combat racial prejudice in Ireland today. Since he has never been venerated for his racist views of the Irish poor and slave-ownership, to repudiate him would not be to repudiate them. In celebrating people, we admire them only for some things they’ve done. We admire Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King as heroic examples of non-violent resistance – despite, respectively, their disparaging view of Africans and serial infidelity.
So, we should continue to celebrate George Berkeley as the outstanding philosopher he was. And when provoked by his name to reflect on his prejudices and obtuseness, we should lament them. But then we should spare some critical attention for our own moral flaws. That would make a difference.
Nigel Biggar is Regius Professor Emeritus of Moral Theology at the University of Oxford, former Professor of Theology at Trinity College Dublin, and the author of Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning, published by William Collins on February 2nd
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Ireland’s famous 18th century philosopher, George Berkeley, was guilty of racial prejudice and slave – owning. He once described the Irish poor as “a lazy destitute race” and he bought a slave plantation on Rhode Island. Since the Irish today deplore both racism and slavery, shouldn’t they disown him? Trinity College Dublin’s legacies working group is currently weighing whether his name should be removed from one of the college libraries.
What’s wrong with “racism” is what’s wrong with any prejudice directed at other people – whether they are members of a race, a nation, a social class, a
|
religion, or the body of Brexit supporters – namely, that it prejudges the individual by regarding him or her simply as a member of a group, automatically attributing to the individual that group’s supposed characteristics, which are stereotyped in unflattering terms.
The group is simplified pejoratively and the dignity of individuality is brushed aside. Racial prejudice is an ugly thing and Bishop Berkeley was guilty of it.
British and Irish slave-trading and slavery from about 1650 was nothing out of the ordinary
But let’s be frank: prejudice against other groups and their members is a widespread human phenomenon. Human individuals like to secure their own significance by being part of a larger tribe, and they like to inflate that significance by looking down upon other tribes. Even university-educated ‘progressives’ have their tribal prejudices.
Further, racism was neither invented by Europeans nor monopolised by them. In the medieval period Muslim Arabs compared their own cultural sophistication favourably to what seemed to them the primitive cultures of white northern Europeans and black Africans, attributing their natural inferiority to an intemperate climate, respectively too cold and too hot. In the nineteenth century the Qing emperors in China regarded the British – and other Westerners – as barbarians and natural vassals, without any embarrassment at all.
In the 1940s the Irish novelist, Gerald Hanley, then an officer in the British Army, found Somalis unshakeable in their prejudice against other black peoples: “I had once tried hard to get the Somalis to give up their contempt for Bantu people ... ‘We cannot obey slaves’, Somalis told me. ‘It is impossible for us to live under slave people even when they are in [British] uniform and have arms’. I could not change the memory [the Somalis] had of a time when these Bantu people were slave material for the Muslim world to the north”.
According to Dr Clare Moriarty, while “unquestionably a great metaphysical thinker and a brilliant writer”, Berkeley “was also extremely morally fallible”. Welcome to the common club of crooked humanity.
As for slavery, that was practiced from ancient times to the 20th century on every continent in a variety of forms. Long before Europeans became involved in the 1440s, Africans had been selling black slaves to Roman and Arab traders. In the mid-1600s Barbary corsairs raided the coasts of Co Cork and Cornwall and carted off whole villages into slavery on the Mediterranean coast of North Africa.
While the British were importing slaves into the Americas in the eighteenth-century, the indigenous Comanche were running a slave economy in the southwest of North America.
Berkeley has never been venerated for his racist views of the Irish poor and slave-ownership, to repudiate him would not be to repudiate them
In Jamaica the Maroons, slaves who had escaped into the mountainous forests of the interior, kept slaves of their own in the mid-1700s. And in North Carolina freed slaves were themselves slave-owners on the eve of the Civil War in 1860. British and Irish slave-trading and slavery from about 1650 was nothing out of the ordinary.
What was extraordinary was that from about 1770 – two decades after George Berkeley’s death – an anti-slavery movement began to grow in Britain. The result was that, through their united Parliament, the British and Irish were among the first peoples in the history of the world to repudiate the slave-trade and slavery in 1807 and 1833, respectively, and they were the leading people to devote themselves to the global suppression of slavery through the British Empire for the following century-and-a-half.
It follows that there is no direct causal line between the ugly racism that justified 18th century slavery and whatever racism persists among us today, because the highly popular abolition movement and its humanitarian successors were propelled by the Christian conviction that members of all races are equal in the sight of God.
Consequently, according to the historian of abolition, John Stauffer, “almost every United States black who travelled in the British Isles acknowledged the comparative dearth of racism there. [The famous black abolitionist] Frederick Douglass noted after arriving in England in 1845: ‘I saw in every man a recognition of my manhood, and an absence, a perfect absence, of everything like that disgusting hate with which we are pursued in [the United States]’”.
Therefore, to erase Berkeley’s name from TCD would do nothing to combat racial prejudice in Ireland today. Since he has never been venerated for his racist views of the Irish poor and slave-ownership, to repudiate him would not be to repudiate them. In celebrating people, we admire them only for some things they’ve done. We admire Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King as heroic examples of non-violent resistance – despite, respectively, their disparaging view of Africans and serial infidelity.
So, we should continue to celebrate George Berkeley as the outstanding philosopher he was. And when provoked by his name to reflect on his prejudices and obtuseness, we should lament them. But then we should spare some critical attention for our own moral flaws. That would make a difference.
Nigel Biggar is Regius Professor Emeritus of Moral Theology at the University of Oxford, former Professor of Theology at Trinity College Dublin, and the author of Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning, published by William Collins on February 2nd
|
Former postdoc Syuan-Jyun Sun has been writing up projects from his time in the lab, and had four papers come out recently!
First, Sun led an experiment that looked at how temperature modifies trait-mediated infection outcomes in the Daphnia-fungal parasite system that we focus on. This paper was recently published in the ‘Infectious disease ecology and evolution in a changing world’ theme issue of Philosophical Transactions, B that was compiled and edited by Kayla King, Matt Hall, and Justyna Wolinska. In this study, we found that Daphnia reared at warmer temperatures had more robust physical barriers to infection but decreased cellular immune responses during the initial infection process. Infected hosts at warmer temperatures also suffered greater reductions in fecundity and lifespan. Perhaps most interestingly, the relationship between a key trait—gut epithelium thickness, a physical barrier—and the likelihood of terminal infection reversed at warmer temperatures. These results highlight the complex ways that temperatures can modulate host–parasite interactions and show that different defense components can have qualitatively different responses to warmer temperatures. Postdoc Marcin Dziuba and undergrad Riley Jaye are coauthors on this study. The paper can be found here and the data and code from the study can be found here.
Sun followed up with two related studies, one looking at transgenerational effects on parasite fitness, the other looking at transgenerational impacts on host fitness. The study on the impact of transgenerational plasticity on parasite fitness was published in Parasitology (link to paper, link to data & code). In this experiment, we once again exposed Daphnia dentifera to its naturally co-occurring fungal parasite Metschnikowia bicuspidata, rearing the parasite at cooler (20°C) or warmer (24°C) temperatures and then, factorially, using those spores to infect at 20 and 24°C. We found that infections by parasites reared at warmer past temperatures produced more mature spores, but only when the current infections were at cooler temperatures. Moreover, the percentage of mature spores was impacted by both rearing and current temperatures, and was highest for infections with spores reared in a warmer environment that infected hosts in a cooler environment. In contrast, virulence was influenced only by current temperatures. These results highlight the potential for plasticity in parasite traits — something that we think is fascinating and wish more folks worked on! Postdocs Marcin Dziuba and Kris McIntire and undergrad Riley Jaye are coauthors on this paper.
Graphical abstract from Sun et al. Parasitology.
The follow up experiment that focused on transgenerational effects on host fitness recently appeared in Ecology and Evolution (link to paper, link to data & code). In this study, we tested the effects of biotic and abiotic environmental changes on within- and transgenerational plasticity in the Daphnia–Metschnikowia system. By exposing parents and their offspring consecutively to the single and combined effects of elevated temperature and parasite infection, we showed that transgenerational plasticity induced by temperature and parasite stress influenced host fecundity and lifespan; offsprings of mothers who were exposed to one of the stressors were better able to tolerate elevated temperature, compared with the offspring of mothers who were exposed to neither or both stressors. Yet, the negative effects caused by parasite infection were much stronger, and this greater reduction in host fitness was not mitigated by transgenerational plasticity. We also showed that elevated temperature led to a lower average immune response, and that the relationship between immune response and lifetime fecundity reversed under elevated temperature: the daughters of exposed mothers showed decreased fecundity with increased hemocyte production at ambient temperature but the opposite relationship at elevated temperature. Postdoc Marcin Dziuba and undergrad Riley Jaye are coauthors on this study.
Finally, Sun has a paper in press at Functional Ecology that explores the ways in which host and parasite functional morphology influence the outcomes of host-parasite interactions. This work uses the Metschnikowia system again, but in this case isolated Metsch from both Daphnia dentifera and Ceriodaphnia dubia, building on earlier work by Clara Shaw. We studied how host gut traits, parasite spore size and host immune responses influenced the infection process. We collected parasite spores from two host species, the larger Daphnia dentifera and the smaller Ceriodaphnia dubia, and exposed both host species to spores sourced from each host. The ability of a spore to embed in the host gut and to penetrate into the body cavity was influenced by the host species that was exposed to the parasite (‘exposure host species’) and the species from which the spores were sourced (‘source host species’). Spores sourced from D. dentifera were better able to attack both hosts, but were especially good at attacking D. dentifera. These differences likely resulted from morphological differences, with a striking correspondence between the diameter of host guts and the size of the parasite spores. Immune responses were also influenced by both exposure and source host. Interestingly, only 13.5% of hosts that had at least one parasite spore penetrate ended up with terminal infections; all but one of these infections occurred in D. dentifera hosts exposed to D. dentifera-sourced spores. Lab technician Siobhan Calhoun is a coauthor on this study; the paper can be found here and the data and code can be found here.
Photo (by Syuan-Jyun Sun): The much larger Daphnia dentifera and smaller Ceriodaphnia dubia. Fungal spores isolated from each host are strikingly similar in length to the width of the gut of the species from which they were isolated.
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Former postdoc Syuan-Jyun Sun has been writing up projects from his time in the lab, and had four papers come out recently!
First, Sun led an experiment that looked at how temperature modifies trait-mediated infection outcomes in the Daphnia-fungal parasite system that we focus on. This paper was recently published in the ‘Infectious disease ecology and evolution in a changing world’ theme issue of Philosophical Transactions, B that was compiled and edited by Kayla King, Matt Hall, and Justyna Wolinska. In this study, we found that Daphnia reared at warmer temperatures had more robust physical barriers to
|
infection but decreased cellular immune responses during the initial infection process. Infected hosts at warmer temperatures also suffered greater reductions in fecundity and lifespan. Perhaps most interestingly, the relationship between a key trait—gut epithelium thickness, a physical barrier—and the likelihood of terminal infection reversed at warmer temperatures. These results highlight the complex ways that temperatures can modulate host–parasite interactions and show that different defense components can have qualitatively different responses to warmer temperatures. Postdoc Marcin Dziuba and undergrad Riley Jaye are coauthors on this study. The paper can be found here and the data and code from the study can be found here.
Sun followed up with two related studies, one looking at transgenerational effects on parasite fitness, the other looking at transgenerational impacts on host fitness. The study on the impact of transgenerational plasticity on parasite fitness was published in Parasitology (link to paper, link to data & code). In this experiment, we once again exposed Daphnia dentifera to its naturally co-occurring fungal parasite Metschnikowia bicuspidata, rearing the parasite at cooler (20°C) or warmer (24°C) temperatures and then, factorially, using those spores to infect at 20 and 24°C. We found that infections by parasites reared at warmer past temperatures produced more mature spores, but only when the current infections were at cooler temperatures. Moreover, the percentage of mature spores was impacted by both rearing and current temperatures, and was highest for infections with spores reared in a warmer environment that infected hosts in a cooler environment. In contrast, virulence was influenced only by current temperatures. These results highlight the potential for plasticity in parasite traits — something that we think is fascinating and wish more folks worked on! Postdocs Marcin Dziuba and Kris McIntire and undergrad Riley Jaye are coauthors on this paper.
Graphical abstract from Sun et al. Parasitology.
The follow up experiment that focused on transgenerational effects on host fitness recently appeared in Ecology and Evolution (link to paper, link to data & code). In this study, we tested the effects of biotic and abiotic environmental changes on within- and transgenerational plasticity in the Daphnia–Metschnikowia system. By exposing parents and their offspring consecutively to the single and combined effects of elevated temperature and parasite infection, we showed that transgenerational plasticity induced by temperature and parasite stress influenced host fecundity and lifespan; offsprings of mothers who were exposed to one of the stressors were better able to tolerate elevated temperature, compared with the offspring of mothers who were exposed to neither or both stressors. Yet, the negative effects caused by parasite infection were much stronger, and this greater reduction in host fitness was not mitigated by transgenerational plasticity. We also showed that elevated temperature led to a lower average immune response, and that the relationship between immune response and lifetime fecundity reversed under elevated temperature: the daughters of exposed mothers showed decreased fecundity with increased hemocyte production at ambient temperature but the opposite relationship at elevated temperature. Postdoc Marcin Dziuba and undergrad Riley Jaye are coauthors on this study.
Finally, Sun has a paper in press at Functional Ecology that explores the ways in which host and parasite functional morphology influence the outcomes of host-parasite interactions. This work uses the Metschnikowia system again, but in this case isolated Metsch from both Daphnia dentifera and Ceriodaphnia dubia, building on earlier work by Clara Shaw. We studied how host gut traits, parasite spore size and host immune responses influenced the infection process. We collected parasite spores from two host species, the larger Daphnia dentifera and the smaller Ceriodaphnia dubia, and exposed both host species to spores sourced from each host. The ability of a spore to embed in the host gut and to penetrate into the body cavity was influenced by the host species that was exposed to the parasite (‘exposure host species’) and the species from which the spores were sourced (‘source host species’). Spores sourced from D. dentifera were better able to attack both hosts, but were especially good at attacking D. dentifera. These differences likely resulted from morphological differences, with a striking correspondence between the diameter of host guts and the size of the parasite spores. Immune responses were also influenced by both exposure and source host. Interestingly, only 13.5% of hosts that had at least one parasite spore penetrate ended up with terminal infections; all but one of these infections occurred in D. dentifera hosts exposed to D. dentifera-sourced spores. Lab technician Siobhan Calhoun is a coauthor on this study; the paper can be found here and the data and code can be found here.
Photo (by Syuan-Jyun Sun): The much larger Daphnia dentifera and smaller Ceriodaphnia dubia. Fungal spores isolated from each host are strikingly similar in length to the width of the gut of the species from which they were isolated.
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Farm Bureau advises vigilance as Spotted Lantern Flies lay eggs
The Delaware Farm Bureau urges the public to remain vigilant when it comes to the spotted lanternfly.
The spotted lanternfly has been found in all three Delaware counties and can do serious damage to a host of plants, trees and crops. Heavy populations of feeding lanternflies can cause branch dieback, wilting, or plant death.
The invasive species is particularly destructive to tree-of-heaven, grapes, apples, stone fruits, walnuts, willows, and maples.
September is usually when lanternflies start laying their eggs - and so the Farm Bureau says killing them before they do and destroying any eggs when found is critical to limiting their impact in the First State.
The Farm Bureau’s Jenn Antonik adds finding and reporting spotted lanternflies is critical to limiting their impact.
“When you find one or two now, you could find 50 at the end of the season - you could find 100 or 200 next year. All of those lantern flies could negatively impact not just Delaware agriculture, but forestry in Delaware - we’re talking about state parks, about anywhere you might go for a leisurely walk. The lantern flies suck the life out of our plants.”
“The state of Delaware has a reporting place - it’s online - and you can report when you see a sighting, and they also have more information on identification and what to do if you see them, that kind of thing.”
Lantern fly sightings can be reported online at Delaware’s Department of Agriculture website, which also offers tips of finding lanternflies and dealing with them.
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Farm Bureau advises vigilance as Spotted Lantern Flies lay eggs
The Delaware Farm Bureau urges the public to remain vigilant when it comes to the spotted lanternfly.
The spotted lanternfly has been found in all three Delaware counties and can do serious damage to a host of plants, trees and crops. Heavy populations of feeding lanternflies can cause branch dieback, wilting, or plant death.
The invasive species is particularly destructive to tree-of-heaven, grapes, apples, stone fruits, walnuts, willows, and maples.
September is usually when lanternflies start laying their eggs - and so the Farm
|
Bureau says killing them before they do and destroying any eggs when found is critical to limiting their impact in the First State.
The Farm Bureau’s Jenn Antonik adds finding and reporting spotted lanternflies is critical to limiting their impact.
“When you find one or two now, you could find 50 at the end of the season - you could find 100 or 200 next year. All of those lantern flies could negatively impact not just Delaware agriculture, but forestry in Delaware - we’re talking about state parks, about anywhere you might go for a leisurely walk. The lantern flies suck the life out of our plants.”
“The state of Delaware has a reporting place - it’s online - and you can report when you see a sighting, and they also have more information on identification and what to do if you see them, that kind of thing.”
Lantern fly sightings can be reported online at Delaware’s Department of Agriculture website, which also offers tips of finding lanternflies and dealing with them.
|
This summer’s historic heatwave is making life more expensive for American drivers. Even as inflation cools across most of the economy, gasoline prices have surged to nine-month highs this week. Extreme heat is contributing to this unwelcome price spike. The problem is that refineries, like humans, can’t handle persistently sweltering temperatures. When temperatures soar to 100 or even 110 degrees Fahrenheit, these complex facilities can’t churn out all the gasoline consumers want or need. And that loss of supply is occurring just as demand is at or near a peak this summer driving season. “Refineries break down in extreme heat. It’s like running an engine at very hot temperatures for a long time,” said Tom Kloza, president of the Oil Price Information Service. As refineries have suffered outages, pump prices have soared. The national average for regular gasoline has climbed by 30 cents over just the past month alone to $3.83 a gallon, according to AAA. Ironically, all of this shows that not even oil and gas companies — an industry that scientists blame in part for global warming — are immune from the consequences of the climate crisis. And consumers are suffering the consequences as gas prices rise, a development that threatens to undo some of the progress made on the inflation front across the economy. Saudi Arabia and Russia restrain supply Of course, extreme heat is not the sole factor behind the gas price jump. Oil prices continue to be the main driver of retail pump prices. And since mid-June, US oil prices have climbed by 22%, reflecting easing recession fears and promises by Saudi Arabia and Russia to restrain supply. Saudi Arabia on Thursday announced plans to extend a 1-million-barrel-per-day voluntary supply cut for another month and threatened to do even more this fall. Russia also announced plans to slash oil exports by 300,000 barrels per day in September. Still, high heat is clearly piling pressure on gas prices. In the Middle East, extreme temperatures are forcing some nations to burn oil to keep the lights on and meet demand for air conditioning. In Texas, Louisiana and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, some refineries have been forced to slow activity due to unscheduled maintenance. Why high heat matters In order to churn out gasoline, jet fuel and diesel, refineries heat crude oil, sometimes to 900 or 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, to break the molecules down, according to Andy Lipow, president of consulting firm Lipow Oil Associates. After heating the oil, it must be cooled to get the finished product. Normally, that is a standard process, but everything changes in triple-digit temperatures that persist. “As it gets hotter outside, the cooling back down gets more and more difficult,” said Lipow. High heat can also snarl maintenance efforts at refineries. From a pure profit standpoint, refineries have every incentive to go all out right now. Profit margins are high, making it lucrative to maximize the production of gasoline, jet fuel and diesel. “Refineries are doing very, very well — if they can keep their operations going. The profit potential and the motivation is there to run as hard as you can,” said Kloza. Diesel prices surge However, Kloza said most refiners that would like to run at 100% capacity are only able to run at 85% when it’s 100 degrees outside. This is a particular issue because refinery capacity has dropped in recent years, leaving little room for error. “There really is no slack in the system,” said Lipow. This situation has also helped drive up jet fuel and diesel prices. Diesel is a crucial fuel for the economy, powering trucks, boats and trains. Higher transportation costs will eventually get passed along to consumers. Retail diesel prices have surged by 31 cents a gallon over the past month, according to AAA. The futures market is signaling more gains to come for diesel. “Everyone gets really excited about high gas prices. But those fuels have an even more insidious impact on inflation,” Kloza said. The good news is there are signs the impact of high heat on gas prices may be easing. Even as retail prices continue to climb, wholesale prices for gasoline have flattened out. “I think we’re hitting a plateau,” said Kloza. Drivers should catch a break in the coming weeks as fuel demand typically drops in September when summer ends. Kloza said gas prices could just be pennies away from their peak of the summer. The one catch? If there’s a major hurricane, perhaps one strengthened by the unusually warm ocean temperatures, that threatens the Gulf Coast and its hub of refineries.
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This summer’s historic heatwave is making life more expensive for American drivers. Even as inflation cools across most of the economy, gasoline prices have surged to nine-month highs this week. Extreme heat is contributing to this unwelcome price spike. The problem is that refineries, like humans, can’t handle persistently sweltering temperatures. When temperatures soar to 100 or even 110 degrees Fahrenheit, these complex facilities can’t churn out all the gasoline consumers want or need. And that loss of supply is occurring just as demand is at or near a peak this summer driving season.
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“Refineries break down in extreme heat. It’s like running an engine at very hot temperatures for a long time,” said Tom Kloza, president of the Oil Price Information Service. As refineries have suffered outages, pump prices have soared. The national average for regular gasoline has climbed by 30 cents over just the past month alone to $3.83 a gallon, according to AAA. Ironically, all of this shows that not even oil and gas companies — an industry that scientists blame in part for global warming — are immune from the consequences of the climate crisis. And consumers are suffering the consequences as gas prices rise, a development that threatens to undo some of the progress made on the inflation front across the economy. Saudi Arabia and Russia restrain supply Of course, extreme heat is not the sole factor behind the gas price jump. Oil prices continue to be the main driver of retail pump prices. And since mid-June, US oil prices have climbed by 22%, reflecting easing recession fears and promises by Saudi Arabia and Russia to restrain supply. Saudi Arabia on Thursday announced plans to extend a 1-million-barrel-per-day voluntary supply cut for another month and threatened to do even more this fall. Russia also announced plans to slash oil exports by 300,000 barrels per day in September. Still, high heat is clearly piling pressure on gas prices. In the Middle East, extreme temperatures are forcing some nations to burn oil to keep the lights on and meet demand for air conditioning. In Texas, Louisiana and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, some refineries have been forced to slow activity due to unscheduled maintenance. Why high heat matters In order to churn out gasoline, jet fuel and diesel, refineries heat crude oil, sometimes to 900 or 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, to break the molecules down, according to Andy Lipow, president of consulting firm Lipow Oil Associates. After heating the oil, it must be cooled to get the finished product. Normally, that is a standard process, but everything changes in triple-digit temperatures that persist. “As it gets hotter outside, the cooling back down gets more and more difficult,” said Lipow. High heat can also snarl maintenance efforts at refineries. From a pure profit standpoint, refineries have every incentive to go all out right now. Profit margins are high, making it lucrative to maximize the production of gasoline, jet fuel and diesel. “Refineries are doing very, very well — if they can keep their operations going. The profit potential and the motivation is there to run as hard as you can,” said Kloza. Diesel prices surge However, Kloza said most refiners that would like to run at 100% capacity are only able to run at 85% when it’s 100 degrees outside. This is a particular issue because refinery capacity has dropped in recent years, leaving little room for error. “There really is no slack in the system,” said Lipow. This situation has also helped drive up jet fuel and diesel prices. Diesel is a crucial fuel for the economy, powering trucks, boats and trains. Higher transportation costs will eventually get passed along to consumers. Retail diesel prices have surged by 31 cents a gallon over the past month, according to AAA. The futures market is signaling more gains to come for diesel. “Everyone gets really excited about high gas prices. But those fuels have an even more insidious impact on inflation,” Kloza said. The good news is there are signs the impact of high heat on gas prices may be easing. Even as retail prices continue to climb, wholesale prices for gasoline have flattened out. “I think we’re hitting a plateau,” said Kloza. Drivers should catch a break in the coming weeks as fuel demand typically drops in September when summer ends. Kloza said gas prices could just be pennies away from their peak of the summer. The one catch? If there’s a major hurricane, perhaps one strengthened by the unusually warm ocean temperatures, that threatens the Gulf Coast and its hub of refineries.
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How Groundhog Day came to the U.S. — and why we still celebrate it 137 years later
Updated February 2, 2023 at 7:32 AM ET
On Thursday morning, thousands of early risers either tuned in or bundled up to watch Punxsutawney Phil emerge from a tree stump and predict the weather.
The groundhog — arguably the most famous member of his species and the most recognizable of all the country's animal prognosticators — did what he has done for the last 137 years: search for a sign of spring in front of a group of top hat-wearing handlers and adoring fans at Gobbler's Knob in Pennsylvania.
Unfortunately, on this blustery winter morning, he didn't find it.
"I see a shadow on my stage, and so no matter how you measure, it's six more weeks of winter weather," a handler read off the scroll he said Phil had chosen.
Tradition says that North America will get six more weeks of winter if Phil sees his shadow and an early spring if he does not. Statistics say not so much: Phil's accuracy rate is about 40% over the last decade.
Plus, human meteorologists have far more advanced methods for predicting the weather now than they did when Phil first got the gig in 1887.
Why, then, do we continue looking to creatures for answers on Feb. 2, year after year after year? (One could say it's almost like the 1993 comedy "Groundhog Day" ... or even exactly like that.)
There's still a lot we can learn from Groundhog Day, both about our climate and our culture, several experts told NPR.
Daniel Blumstein is a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCLA who studies marmots, the group of 15 species of large ground squirrels that includes groundhogs. His department always has a Groundhog Day party, even in perennially-sunny Los Angeles — but he says you don't have to be a "marmot enthusiast" (as he describes himself) to get something out of the day.
"I hope that people have some greater appreciation of marmots and nature, and I hope that people have a chuckle over the idea that it's the middle of the winter and we're hoping that a rodent will tell us what the future is," says Blumstein.
Groundhog Day has its roots in ancient midwinter ceremonies
How did the U.S. end up celebrating Groundhog Day in the first place?
It dates back to ancient traditions — first pagan, then Christian — marking the halfway point between the winter solstice and spring equinox, says Troy Harman, a history professor at Penn State University who also works as a ranger at Gettysburg National Military Park.
The Celtic tradition of Imbolc, which involves lighting candles at the start of February, goes as far back as the 10th century A.D.
The Christian church later expanded this idea into the festival of Candlemas, which commemorates the moment when the Virgin Mary went to the Temple in Jerusalem 40 days after Jesus' birth to be purified and present him to God as her firstborn.
On that feast day, clergy would bless and distribute all the candles needed for winter — and over time the focus of the day became increasingly about predicting how long winter would last. As one English folk song put it: "If Candlemas be fair and bright / Come, Winter, have another flight; If Candlemas brings clouds and rain / Go Winter, and come not again."
Germany went a step further by making animals — specifically hedgehogs — part of the proceedings. If a hedgehog saw its shadow, there would be a "second winter" or six more weeks of bad weather, according to German lore.
That was one of several traditions that German settlers in Pennsylvania brought to the U.S., Harman says, along with Christmas trees and the Easter bunny. And because hedgehogs aren't native to the U.S., they turned to groundhogs (which were plentiful in Pennsylvania) instead.
"And the first celebration that we know of was in the 1880s," Harman says. "But the idea of watching animals and whether they see their shadow out of hibernation had been going on before that, it just hadn't turned into a public festival until later in the 19th century."
The "Punxsutawney Groundhog Club" was founded in 1886 by a group of groundhog hunters, one of whom was the editor of the town's newspaper and quickly published a proclamation about its local weather prognosticating groundhog (though Phil didn't get his name until 1961). The first Gobbler's Knob ceremony took place the next year, and the rest is history.
The club says Groundhog Day is the same today as when it first started — if the old-timey garb and scrolls are any sign — just with far more participants. That's thanks in large part to the popularity of the eponymous movie and the ability to live-stream the festivities.
And there are more furry forecasters out there too. Many parts of the U.S. and Canada now have their own beloved animal prognosticators, with some of Phil's better-known contemporaries including New York's "Staten Island Chuck" (aka Charles G. Hogg) and Ontario's "Wiarton Willie."
"Any place that has a groundhog these days is trying to get some [cred] by it," Blumstein says.
It's not only groundhogs that are getting in on the fun. Take, for example: Pisgah Pete, a white squirrel in North Carolina, Connecticut's Scramble the Duck and a beaver at the Oregon Zoo named "Stumpton Fil."
There are things animals can teach us about the climate
There is some scientific basis for the Candlemas lore, according to Blumstein.
He says the thinking was that if there was a high-pressure system in early February, things likely weren't changing and it would probably continue to be cold, while a low-pressure system suggests the potential for better weather ahead. Plus, if it is sunny out, marmots are theoretically big enough to cast a shadow by standing up.
But that alone doesn't make them reliable forecasters.
"Whether or not there is a predictability of whether it's sunny on Groundhog Day and whether spring comes early or later, I don't know," Blumstein says, adding that Phil's predictions involve "him whispering into people who are wearing stovepipe hats and in front of a drunk crowd, so you can't really trust that."
Still, he says there's a lot humans can learn from groundhogs' behavior. He runs a long-term project that is about to begin its 62nd year of studying yellow-bellied marmots in Colorado, as a window into longevity and how flexible animals are in responding to a warming climate.
"Maybe it's a good thing for marmots in that you have a longer growing season, but then every day you're active, you also face some risk of predation," he explains. "And what we're finding is there's sort of an optimal period that you should be active. So there also could be evolutionary responses to this, and what we're really looking at is the evolutionary response to changes over time and the sort of within-generational plasticity, flexibility, if you will."
As part of that research, Blumstein spends time on skis, in the snow, waiting for the yellow-bellied marmots to come out from hibernation.
So he's able to confirm that while Groundhog Day is pegged to Candlemas, it also coincides with the time of year when groundhogs in the northeastern U.S. start to emerge. The males typically come out first and then begin looking for females with whom to mate.
"Groundhog Day is really a holiday about sex," he adds.
Blumstein says all animals, not just the prognosticators, deserve respect. While some people consider groundhogs a nuisance because they like to snack on garden produce, he thinks living with urban and suburban wildlife is a good thing as it brings people closer to nature.
"So I sort of see the ability to, if you're fortunate enough to have a groundhog living in your backyard, to sort of pay attention to it and enjoy it and learn from it and maybe give up some of your tomatoes or apples."
Technology improves, but people still look to Phil
Crowds as large as 30,000 have turned out to Punxsutawney for multi-day Groundhog Day festivities, which the state calls a significant tourism boost for the town of fewer than 6,000 people.
The ceremony itself — which returned to the stage last year after a COVID-19 hiatus — features dancers, music, speeches and visitors from around the world.
"That many nationalities being together all in one place to remember something from the medieval past and from a premodern period, and to bring in the music and to bring in the foods and the culture — it's a real uplifting event," Harman says.
He has a theory for why Groundhog Day became, and remains, so popular in the U.S.
"Throughout history, whenever there has been a real strong emphasis on science, its counterpart of intuition, instinct, emotion, imagination — the right side of our brain — pushes back a little bit," Harman says, explaining that Groundhog Day took off right around the time of the industrial revolution.
He says those massive societal and technological changes spurred a desire to return to what people imagined were simpler times, in the form of things like literary romanticism and gothic revival architecture.
Punxsutawney Phil's handlers, known as the "Inner Circle," continue to wear dark tuxedos, long tails and top hats even today, he points out. At the same time, technological advances have made us less in tune with the changing of the seasons: People once looked up to the stars and sun to determine the time of day or year; now they look down at their cell phone screens.
Holding onto culture is important, as is embracing new culture, Harman says. He thinks over time there will be "some happy ground" — and that may already be the case in Punxsutawney.
"I strongly suspect that the people that go to Gobbler's Knob are fully aware of the power of science, but at the same time want to hold on to traditions and a deeper vibe," he says. "There's the instincts and the intuition and the imagination that every human being has that has to come into balance with logic and reason."
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
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How Groundhog Day came to the U.S. — and why we still celebrate it 137 years later
Updated February 2, 2023 at 7:32 AM ET
On Thursday morning, thousands of early risers either tuned in or bundled up to watch Punxsutawney Phil emerge from a tree stump and predict the weather.
The groundhog — arguably the most famous member of his species and the most recognizable of all the country's animal prognosticators — did what he has done for the last 137 years: search for a sign of spring in front of a
|
group of top hat-wearing handlers and adoring fans at Gobbler's Knob in Pennsylvania.
Unfortunately, on this blustery winter morning, he didn't find it.
"I see a shadow on my stage, and so no matter how you measure, it's six more weeks of winter weather," a handler read off the scroll he said Phil had chosen.
Tradition says that North America will get six more weeks of winter if Phil sees his shadow and an early spring if he does not. Statistics say not so much: Phil's accuracy rate is about 40% over the last decade.
Plus, human meteorologists have far more advanced methods for predicting the weather now than they did when Phil first got the gig in 1887.
Why, then, do we continue looking to creatures for answers on Feb. 2, year after year after year? (One could say it's almost like the 1993 comedy "Groundhog Day" ... or even exactly like that.)
There's still a lot we can learn from Groundhog Day, both about our climate and our culture, several experts told NPR.
Daniel Blumstein is a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCLA who studies marmots, the group of 15 species of large ground squirrels that includes groundhogs. His department always has a Groundhog Day party, even in perennially-sunny Los Angeles — but he says you don't have to be a "marmot enthusiast" (as he describes himself) to get something out of the day.
"I hope that people have some greater appreciation of marmots and nature, and I hope that people have a chuckle over the idea that it's the middle of the winter and we're hoping that a rodent will tell us what the future is," says Blumstein.
Groundhog Day has its roots in ancient midwinter ceremonies
How did the U.S. end up celebrating Groundhog Day in the first place?
It dates back to ancient traditions — first pagan, then Christian — marking the halfway point between the winter solstice and spring equinox, says Troy Harman, a history professor at Penn State University who also works as a ranger at Gettysburg National Military Park.
The Celtic tradition of Imbolc, which involves lighting candles at the start of February, goes as far back as the 10th century A.D.
The Christian church later expanded this idea into the festival of Candlemas, which commemorates the moment when the Virgin Mary went to the Temple in Jerusalem 40 days after Jesus' birth to be purified and present him to God as her firstborn.
On that feast day, clergy would bless and distribute all the candles needed for winter — and over time the focus of the day became increasingly about predicting how long winter would last. As one English folk song put it: "If Candlemas be fair and bright / Come, Winter, have another flight; If Candlemas brings clouds and rain / Go Winter, and come not again."
Germany went a step further by making animals — specifically hedgehogs — part of the proceedings. If a hedgehog saw its shadow, there would be a "second winter" or six more weeks of bad weather, according to German lore.
That was one of several traditions that German settlers in Pennsylvania brought to the U.S., Harman says, along with Christmas trees and the Easter bunny. And because hedgehogs aren't native to the U.S., they turned to groundhogs (which were plentiful in Pennsylvania) instead.
"And the first celebration that we know of was in the 1880s," Harman says. "But the idea of watching animals and whether they see their shadow out of hibernation had been going on before that, it just hadn't turned into a public festival until later in the 19th century."
The "Punxsutawney Groundhog Club" was founded in 1886 by a group of groundhog hunters, one of whom was the editor of the town's newspaper and quickly published a proclamation about its local weather prognosticating groundhog (though Phil didn't get his name until 1961). The first Gobbler's Knob ceremony took place the next year, and the rest is history.
The club says Groundhog Day is the same today as when it first started — if the old-timey garb and scrolls are any sign — just with far more participants. That's thanks in large part to the popularity of the eponymous movie and the ability to live-stream the festivities.
And there are more furry forecasters out there too. Many parts of the U.S. and Canada now have their own beloved animal prognosticators, with some of Phil's better-known contemporaries including New York's "Staten Island Chuck" (aka Charles G. Hogg) and Ontario's "Wiarton Willie."
"Any place that has a groundhog these days is trying to get some [cred] by it," Blumstein says.
It's not only groundhogs that are getting in on the fun. Take, for example: Pisgah Pete, a white squirrel in North Carolina, Connecticut's Scramble the Duck and a beaver at the Oregon Zoo named "Stumpton Fil."
There are things animals can teach us about the climate
There is some scientific basis for the Candlemas lore, according to Blumstein.
He says the thinking was that if there was a high-pressure system in early February, things likely weren't changing and it would probably continue to be cold, while a low-pressure system suggests the potential for better weather ahead. Plus, if it is sunny out, marmots are theoretically big enough to cast a shadow by standing up.
But that alone doesn't make them reliable forecasters.
"Whether or not there is a predictability of whether it's sunny on Groundhog Day and whether spring comes early or later, I don't know," Blumstein says, adding that Phil's predictions involve "him whispering into people who are wearing stovepipe hats and in front of a drunk crowd, so you can't really trust that."
Still, he says there's a lot humans can learn from groundhogs' behavior. He runs a long-term project that is about to begin its 62nd year of studying yellow-bellied marmots in Colorado, as a window into longevity and how flexible animals are in responding to a warming climate.
"Maybe it's a good thing for marmots in that you have a longer growing season, but then every day you're active, you also face some risk of predation," he explains. "And what we're finding is there's sort of an optimal period that you should be active. So there also could be evolutionary responses to this, and what we're really looking at is the evolutionary response to changes over time and the sort of within-generational plasticity, flexibility, if you will."
As part of that research, Blumstein spends time on skis, in the snow, waiting for the yellow-bellied marmots to come out from hibernation.
So he's able to confirm that while Groundhog Day is pegged to Candlemas, it also coincides with the time of year when groundhogs in the northeastern U.S. start to emerge. The males typically come out first and then begin looking for females with whom to mate.
"Groundhog Day is really a holiday about sex," he adds.
Blumstein says all animals, not just the prognosticators, deserve respect. While some people consider groundhogs a nuisance because they like to snack on garden produce, he thinks living with urban and suburban wildlife is a good thing as it brings people closer to nature.
"So I sort of see the ability to, if you're fortunate enough to have a groundhog living in your backyard, to sort of pay attention to it and enjoy it and learn from it and maybe give up some of your tomatoes or apples."
Technology improves, but people still look to Phil
Crowds as large as 30,000 have turned out to Punxsutawney for multi-day Groundhog Day festivities, which the state calls a significant tourism boost for the town of fewer than 6,000 people.
The ceremony itself — which returned to the stage last year after a COVID-19 hiatus — features dancers, music, speeches and visitors from around the world.
"That many nationalities being together all in one place to remember something from the medieval past and from a premodern period, and to bring in the music and to bring in the foods and the culture — it's a real uplifting event," Harman says.
He has a theory for why Groundhog Day became, and remains, so popular in the U.S.
"Throughout history, whenever there has been a real strong emphasis on science, its counterpart of intuition, instinct, emotion, imagination — the right side of our brain — pushes back a little bit," Harman says, explaining that Groundhog Day took off right around the time of the industrial revolution.
He says those massive societal and technological changes spurred a desire to return to what people imagined were simpler times, in the form of things like literary romanticism and gothic revival architecture.
Punxsutawney Phil's handlers, known as the "Inner Circle," continue to wear dark tuxedos, long tails and top hats even today, he points out. At the same time, technological advances have made us less in tune with the changing of the seasons: People once looked up to the stars and sun to determine the time of day or year; now they look down at their cell phone screens.
Holding onto culture is important, as is embracing new culture, Harman says. He thinks over time there will be "some happy ground" — and that may already be the case in Punxsutawney.
"I strongly suspect that the people that go to Gobbler's Knob are fully aware of the power of science, but at the same time want to hold on to traditions and a deeper vibe," he says. "There's the instincts and the intuition and the imagination that every human being has that has to come into balance with logic and reason."
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
|
At Agave Festival Marfa, a cinematic journey into ancient Indigenous foodways
It's one of the planet's oldest agricultural traditions. The “Three Sisters” — corn, beans and squash — have been cultivated for more than 8,000 years. And these crops help sustain the world today.
Yet what are the roots of this enduring agricultural heritage? Why and how did ancient Native Americans domesticate these plants?
Biologists Patricia Colunga, Daniel Zizumbo and Alondra Flores have probed those questions, and their findings are featured in “Mesoamerican Diet: Origins.” A screening of the film is the kick-off event for Agave Festival Marfa, Thursday, June 1, at 2 p.m. at the Crowley Theater.
Three Sisters agriculture flourished across Indigenous North America, including in the Chihuahuan Desert. But it originated in central Mexico. The first people to arrive here found a rich diversity of edible plants — including the wild ancestors of corn, beans and squash. And, these researchers argue, they crafted a diet of that wild abundance. Only later, through selective breeding, did they transform the wild plants into crops.
To trace this deep story, Colunga and her colleagues traveled to the state of Jalisco, the likely birthplace of the Three Sisters. “Mesoamerican Diet: Origins” follows that journey.
“What we were looking for is if they know how to make these dishes with the wild ancestors,” Colunga said, “and without ceramics. And it was not difficult. They ate them when they were children.”
Archaic imprints endure here in traditional foodways. Corn, beans and squash are vital, but elders can also cook with wild foods. And they can prepare signature dishes with technologies used by their pre-agricultural forebears.
There is pinole, a flour made with toasted wild corn seeds and sweetened with wild anise plants. Seeds of the native elephant ear tree are roasted on hot coals, and mixed with chiles to make salsa. Rock hollows are used for fermentation, including for the fruit beverages called “tepaches.”
Such fermented drinks were central in the traditional diet. As Colunga's son, Geronimo Zizumbo, points out, there is growing recognition today of the probiotic qualities of such drinks.
“What we're talking about is a great example of how we have lost certain things,” Zizumbo said, “but then they have come back through other cultures — for example, kombucha. These fermented beverages with local plants are a great way to acquire microbiome and keep it healthy.”
Native peoples began slow-roasting agaves in the Ice Age, and in Jalisco, the researchers found that agave is key. It's used as a sweetener. Dried agave is eaten with atole, a hot corn-flour beverage. And agave is mixed with wild beans in tamales.
Indeed, tamales are a mainstay. While tortillas require a ceramic or metal comal, tamales can be cooked in earth ovens. It's a food that likely dates to the foraging past.
“Tamales — it's un platillo muy versatil,” Colunga said. “Tamales is one of the oldest dishes in the Mesoamerican diet, older than tortillas. Tamales has a great diversity, because you can mix it with anything you want — salty or sweet.”
It's compelling to consider that the roots of these dishes may lie in the hunter-gatherer past. But the implications for contemporary people are profound.
The microbiomes of those of Indigenous and mestizo descent are finely adapted to this 10,000-year-old cuisine. With the displacement of that diet by processed foods, diabetes and obesity have skyrocketed in Mexico and the borderlands. Colunga advocates an aggressive campaign to return to these ancient foodways.
“Mesoamerican Diet: Origins” is an intimate look at those foodways, and the people who've preserved them.
“The film is filled with amazing dishes,” Colunga said, “and the people who prepare them. It's almost like a cooking show. If you like food, and you like eating, you'll love this film.”
A Q and A with the researchers will follow the June 1 screening.
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At Agave Festival Marfa, a cinematic journey into ancient Indigenous foodways
It's one of the planet's oldest agricultural traditions. The “Three Sisters” — corn, beans and squash — have been cultivated for more than 8,000 years. And these crops help sustain the world today.
Yet what are the roots of this enduring agricultural heritage? Why and how did ancient Native Americans domesticate these plants?
Biologists Patricia Colunga, Daniel Zizumbo and Alondra Flores have probed those questions, and their findings are featured in “Mesoamerican Diet: Origins.” A screening of the film is
|
the kick-off event for Agave Festival Marfa, Thursday, June 1, at 2 p.m. at the Crowley Theater.
Three Sisters agriculture flourished across Indigenous North America, including in the Chihuahuan Desert. But it originated in central Mexico. The first people to arrive here found a rich diversity of edible plants — including the wild ancestors of corn, beans and squash. And, these researchers argue, they crafted a diet of that wild abundance. Only later, through selective breeding, did they transform the wild plants into crops.
To trace this deep story, Colunga and her colleagues traveled to the state of Jalisco, the likely birthplace of the Three Sisters. “Mesoamerican Diet: Origins” follows that journey.
“What we were looking for is if they know how to make these dishes with the wild ancestors,” Colunga said, “and without ceramics. And it was not difficult. They ate them when they were children.”
Archaic imprints endure here in traditional foodways. Corn, beans and squash are vital, but elders can also cook with wild foods. And they can prepare signature dishes with technologies used by their pre-agricultural forebears.
There is pinole, a flour made with toasted wild corn seeds and sweetened with wild anise plants. Seeds of the native elephant ear tree are roasted on hot coals, and mixed with chiles to make salsa. Rock hollows are used for fermentation, including for the fruit beverages called “tepaches.”
Such fermented drinks were central in the traditional diet. As Colunga's son, Geronimo Zizumbo, points out, there is growing recognition today of the probiotic qualities of such drinks.
“What we're talking about is a great example of how we have lost certain things,” Zizumbo said, “but then they have come back through other cultures — for example, kombucha. These fermented beverages with local plants are a great way to acquire microbiome and keep it healthy.”
Native peoples began slow-roasting agaves in the Ice Age, and in Jalisco, the researchers found that agave is key. It's used as a sweetener. Dried agave is eaten with atole, a hot corn-flour beverage. And agave is mixed with wild beans in tamales.
Indeed, tamales are a mainstay. While tortillas require a ceramic or metal comal, tamales can be cooked in earth ovens. It's a food that likely dates to the foraging past.
“Tamales — it's un platillo muy versatil,” Colunga said. “Tamales is one of the oldest dishes in the Mesoamerican diet, older than tortillas. Tamales has a great diversity, because you can mix it with anything you want — salty or sweet.”
It's compelling to consider that the roots of these dishes may lie in the hunter-gatherer past. But the implications for contemporary people are profound.
The microbiomes of those of Indigenous and mestizo descent are finely adapted to this 10,000-year-old cuisine. With the displacement of that diet by processed foods, diabetes and obesity have skyrocketed in Mexico and the borderlands. Colunga advocates an aggressive campaign to return to these ancient foodways.
“Mesoamerican Diet: Origins” is an intimate look at those foodways, and the people who've preserved them.
“The film is filled with amazing dishes,” Colunga said, “and the people who prepare them. It's almost like a cooking show. If you like food, and you like eating, you'll love this film.”
A Q and A with the researchers will follow the June 1 screening.
|
- A new study said Merck's widely used antiviral Covid pill can cause mutations in the virus that occasionally spread to other people.
- But there is no evidence that molnupiravir, sold under the brand name Lagevrio, has produced more transmissible or severe variants of Covid, according to the study.
- The findings may increase scrutiny about the usefulness of the treatment, which was one of the first Covid drugs available to doctors worldwide during the pandemic.
A new study released Monday said Merck's widely used antiviral Covid pill can cause mutations in the virus that occasionally spread to other people, raising questions about whether the drug has the potential to accelerate Covid's evolution.
The findings may increase scrutiny about the usefulness of the treatment, molnupiravir, which was one of the first Covid drugs available to doctors worldwide during the pandemic.
Molnupiravir works by causing mutations in Covid's genetic information, which weakens or destroys the virus and reduces the amount of Covid in the body. However, the study published Monday in the scientific journal Nature found that Covid can sometimes survive treatment with molnupiravir, leading to mutated versions of the virus that have been found to spread to other patients.
Researchers in the U.S. and U.K. specifically analyzed 15 million Covid genomes to see which mutations had occurred and when. They found that mutations increased in 2022 after molnupiravir was introduced in many countries.
There is no evidence that molnupiravir, sold under the brand name Lagevrio, has produced more transmissible or severe variants of Covid, according to the study.
But the findings are important for regulators who continue to assess the risks and benefits of molnupiravir, wrote Theo Sanderson, the lead author of the study and a researcher at the Francis Crick Institute in London, in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
A spokesperson for Merck pushed back on the new study, claiming the researchers assumed that the mutations they analyzed were associated with molnupiravir-treated patients "without documented evidence of that transmission."
"Instead, the authors rely on circumstantial associations between the region from which the sequence was identified and timeframe of sequence collection in countries where molnupiravir is available to draw their conclusion," the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson added that genomes with the mutations were "uncommon and were associated with sporadic cases."
The company in February also disputed an earlier study by the same team of researchers, which suggested that molnupiravir is giving rise to new mutations of the virus in some patients. Based on data at the time, a spokesperson for Merck said it didn't believe molnupiravir was likely to contribute to Covid mutations.
The new study comes as Covid once again gains a stronger foothold in the U.S., primarily driven by newer strains of the virus.
But the U.S. and other countries appear to be relying less on molnupiravir to fend off Covid this year: Sales of the drug dropped to around $200 million during Merck's third quarter, down 83% from the more than $1 billion reported during the same period a year ago.
Merck's molnupiravir has long been controversial because of its ability to cause genetic mutations.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration first approved the drug for emergency use in late 2021. But the FDA recommends against using Lagevrio during pregnancy because non-clinical studies suggest that it may cause fetal harm.
Molnupiravir also isn't authorized for use in patients under 18 because it may affect bone and cartilage growth.
|
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- A new study said Merck's widely used antiviral Covid pill can cause mutations in the virus that occasionally spread to other people.
- But there is no evidence that molnupiravir, sold under the brand name Lagevrio, has produced more transmissible or severe variants of Covid, according to the study.
- The findings may increase scrutiny about the usefulness of the treatment, which was one of the first Covid drugs available to doctors worldwide during the pandemic.
A new study released Monday said Merck's widely used antiviral Covid pill can cause mutations in the virus that occasionally spread to other people, raising questions about whether the drug has the potential to
|
accelerate Covid's evolution.
The findings may increase scrutiny about the usefulness of the treatment, molnupiravir, which was one of the first Covid drugs available to doctors worldwide during the pandemic.
Molnupiravir works by causing mutations in Covid's genetic information, which weakens or destroys the virus and reduces the amount of Covid in the body. However, the study published Monday in the scientific journal Nature found that Covid can sometimes survive treatment with molnupiravir, leading to mutated versions of the virus that have been found to spread to other patients.
Researchers in the U.S. and U.K. specifically analyzed 15 million Covid genomes to see which mutations had occurred and when. They found that mutations increased in 2022 after molnupiravir was introduced in many countries.
There is no evidence that molnupiravir, sold under the brand name Lagevrio, has produced more transmissible or severe variants of Covid, according to the study.
But the findings are important for regulators who continue to assess the risks and benefits of molnupiravir, wrote Theo Sanderson, the lead author of the study and a researcher at the Francis Crick Institute in London, in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
A spokesperson for Merck pushed back on the new study, claiming the researchers assumed that the mutations they analyzed were associated with molnupiravir-treated patients "without documented evidence of that transmission."
"Instead, the authors rely on circumstantial associations between the region from which the sequence was identified and timeframe of sequence collection in countries where molnupiravir is available to draw their conclusion," the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson added that genomes with the mutations were "uncommon and were associated with sporadic cases."
The company in February also disputed an earlier study by the same team of researchers, which suggested that molnupiravir is giving rise to new mutations of the virus in some patients. Based on data at the time, a spokesperson for Merck said it didn't believe molnupiravir was likely to contribute to Covid mutations.
The new study comes as Covid once again gains a stronger foothold in the U.S., primarily driven by newer strains of the virus.
But the U.S. and other countries appear to be relying less on molnupiravir to fend off Covid this year: Sales of the drug dropped to around $200 million during Merck's third quarter, down 83% from the more than $1 billion reported during the same period a year ago.
Merck's molnupiravir has long been controversial because of its ability to cause genetic mutations.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration first approved the drug for emergency use in late 2021. But the FDA recommends against using Lagevrio during pregnancy because non-clinical studies suggest that it may cause fetal harm.
Molnupiravir also isn't authorized for use in patients under 18 because it may affect bone and cartilage growth.
|
closing a hole
in the clouds
— Michael Buckingham Gray (Australia)
(published previously in Presence, 74, 2022)
In my first reading, the imagery spoke of a sense of completeness and union. With the circling osprey in a “hole,” the cloud gains back its full cover over the sky. This could symbolize the uniformity of us all ultimately or that the clouds and the ospreys are the same (and everything else as well).
Knowing that ospreys circle in the air during courtship, this haiku takes on new interpretations. The serendipity of the cloud’s hole being covered by the courting ospreys shows that random acts, and even intentional ones, sometimes change the things that surround it. I don’t know if there is any objective sense of “good” in the imagery, but with the word “hole,” I feel as if something is being resolved. It is a feeling of positivity that is more intuitive. Perhaps, the most favored type of haiku is felt and understood intuitively.
A lovely, succinct haiku that presents exacting imagery and a special feeling.
— Nicholas Klacsanzky
An osprey is a fish-eating bird of prey known for its migratory habit. The colour of its feathers and long-range flight makes it one of the most unique birds. A circling osprey is linked with the act of courtship, which is also called a sky dance. There may be other reasons for circling, though i.e. reducing energy for a flight, a balancing act of staying in the sky to stay within the thermals, or a way to prepare for migration. In any case, I can see it as a mode of survival that the bird has by having non-verbal communication with its surroundings and symbolically giving a message to its female partner or prey. This is how birds demonstrate how powerful every move or gesture they make is.
I can also see a whirlpool in the sky that is formed as a result of merging both the white features of the osprey and the clouds. It is a kind of beauty that fills the void in the sky, as the rest of this poem says. “Closing a hole in the clouds” is how powerfully and energetically a bird can fly in the sky so that one cannot see any flaws or blueness of the sky. It’s a beautiful, meditative image of covering what is yet to be completed. Life is full of such voids that need our ways of dealing with them by using our abilities and energies in the right direction.
This haiku seems to give a lesson on how one can turn things in their favour by using the right energies at the right time and by having faith in their unique potential.
The clouds in this haiku could depict autumn, winter, or spring. To visualize only one hole makes me think the clouds are thick. I do think kigo (seasonal references) in haiku are not always categorized rigidly by the four seasons but can depict transitions between the seasons throughout the year.
In terms of sound, the letter “c” takes precedence and amplifies the circling motion. Also, the “o” sound brings a sense of wholeness where even the hole is an important part of the bigger picture. A see the hole in the clouds as a kind of portal into another dimension. In that sense, perhaps the Ospreys could be the gatekeepers to another realm.
The movement of circling also reminds us of the cycles of life, and that even when we have apparent holes in our life, we are never alone. The clouds too are impermanent, as is the temporary hole.
There is no kireji or a hard break in this haiku. The poem can be read without any pauses at all, but the 3-line format allows us to read the haiku at a steady pace. I feel the lack of a hard kireji adds to the feeling of wholeness in this poem.
This is an excellent haiku that symbolizes the cycles of life and death while also leaving room for metaphors.
Japanese woodblock print from Pictorial Monograph of Birds (1885) by Numata Kashu (1838-1901).
|
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|
closing a hole
in the clouds
— Michael Buckingham Gray (Australia)
(published previously in Presence, 74, 2022)
In my first reading, the imagery spoke of a sense of completeness and union. With the circling osprey in a “hole,” the cloud gains back its full cover over the sky. This could symbolize the uniformity of us all ultimately or that the clouds and the ospreys are the same (and everything else as well).
Knowing that ospreys circle in the air during courtship, this haiku takes on new interpretations. The serendipity of the cloud
|
’s hole being covered by the courting ospreys shows that random acts, and even intentional ones, sometimes change the things that surround it. I don’t know if there is any objective sense of “good” in the imagery, but with the word “hole,” I feel as if something is being resolved. It is a feeling of positivity that is more intuitive. Perhaps, the most favored type of haiku is felt and understood intuitively.
A lovely, succinct haiku that presents exacting imagery and a special feeling.
— Nicholas Klacsanzky
An osprey is a fish-eating bird of prey known for its migratory habit. The colour of its feathers and long-range flight makes it one of the most unique birds. A circling osprey is linked with the act of courtship, which is also called a sky dance. There may be other reasons for circling, though i.e. reducing energy for a flight, a balancing act of staying in the sky to stay within the thermals, or a way to prepare for migration. In any case, I can see it as a mode of survival that the bird has by having non-verbal communication with its surroundings and symbolically giving a message to its female partner or prey. This is how birds demonstrate how powerful every move or gesture they make is.
I can also see a whirlpool in the sky that is formed as a result of merging both the white features of the osprey and the clouds. It is a kind of beauty that fills the void in the sky, as the rest of this poem says. “Closing a hole in the clouds” is how powerfully and energetically a bird can fly in the sky so that one cannot see any flaws or blueness of the sky. It’s a beautiful, meditative image of covering what is yet to be completed. Life is full of such voids that need our ways of dealing with them by using our abilities and energies in the right direction.
This haiku seems to give a lesson on how one can turn things in their favour by using the right energies at the right time and by having faith in their unique potential.
The clouds in this haiku could depict autumn, winter, or spring. To visualize only one hole makes me think the clouds are thick. I do think kigo (seasonal references) in haiku are not always categorized rigidly by the four seasons but can depict transitions between the seasons throughout the year.
In terms of sound, the letter “c” takes precedence and amplifies the circling motion. Also, the “o” sound brings a sense of wholeness where even the hole is an important part of the bigger picture. A see the hole in the clouds as a kind of portal into another dimension. In that sense, perhaps the Ospreys could be the gatekeepers to another realm.
The movement of circling also reminds us of the cycles of life, and that even when we have apparent holes in our life, we are never alone. The clouds too are impermanent, as is the temporary hole.
There is no kireji or a hard break in this haiku. The poem can be read without any pauses at all, but the 3-line format allows us to read the haiku at a steady pace. I feel the lack of a hard kireji adds to the feeling of wholeness in this poem.
This is an excellent haiku that symbolizes the cycles of life and death while also leaving room for metaphors.
Japanese woodblock print from Pictorial Monograph of Birds (1885) by Numata Kashu (1838-1901).
|
The Alaska Zoo is nearly at capacity for housing orphaned animals. In late May, the zoo welcomed a very talkative brown bear cub nicknamed Gator from Hood Bay, near Angoon. Six moose calves followed soon after, each nicknamed after Australian wildlife: Kangaroo, Mouse, Wombat, Echidna, Emu and Wallaby.
“From this time on up through July is when we’re usually busiest in receiving orphaned animals,” said the zoo’s executive director, Pat Lampi.
The zoo is also hosting Grubby the opossum, who hitched a ride from Washington to Homer in a shipping container this spring. Although she’s now out of the wild, biologists are still trying to catch a litter of her offspring born before her capture late last month.
Lampi said the number of orphans the zoo can foster is decided by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and depends on how many permanent homes are available that year.
The zoo doesn’t keep the orphans it takes in. The staff’s focus is on rehabilitating the animals, which often arrive emaciated or in poor health. Once they’re healthy the zoo works with Fish and Game to place them, usually at zoos in the Lower 48. Lampi said they’ve sent orphans to zoos all across the United States.
“It’s not the ideal situation because they’re not in the wild, but these animals can be saved,” he said. “They can be ambassadors for their species and do a lot of really good education and conservation work.”
But transporting animals can be tricky. They’re usually sent on cargo flights with multiple attendants. They need permits, medical records and health certificates.
In the meantime, the orphans are on public view at the Alaska Zoo – Gator the bear in the orphaned cub facility, and the moose calves right next door in the infirmary yard.
In the wild, Lampi said it’s important not to assume a young animal is orphaned just because it’s alone. Many species will leave their babies to go foraging.
“It’s best not to interfere,” he said. “You contact somebody with Fish and Game and let them know where it is and then let them make sure it’s really an orphan and that, out of the goodness of your heart, you’re not creating the orphan yourself.”
The zoo took in an orphaned polar bear cub named Kova in November, who was found living under a building by a dumpster in Prudhoe Bay. She was placed under rabies quarantine protocol for six months, which ended May 30. Kova made her first public appearance at the zoo on Sunday.
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The Alaska Zoo is nearly at capacity for housing orphaned animals. In late May, the zoo welcomed a very talkative brown bear cub nicknamed Gator from Hood Bay, near Angoon. Six moose calves followed soon after, each nicknamed after Australian wildlife: Kangaroo, Mouse, Wombat, Echidna, Emu and Wallaby.
“From this time on up through July is when we’re usually busiest in receiving orphaned animals,” said the zoo’s executive director, Pat Lampi.
The zoo is also hosting Grubby the opossum, who hitched a ride from Washington to Homer in a shipping
|
container this spring. Although she’s now out of the wild, biologists are still trying to catch a litter of her offspring born before her capture late last month.
Lampi said the number of orphans the zoo can foster is decided by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and depends on how many permanent homes are available that year.
The zoo doesn’t keep the orphans it takes in. The staff’s focus is on rehabilitating the animals, which often arrive emaciated or in poor health. Once they’re healthy the zoo works with Fish and Game to place them, usually at zoos in the Lower 48. Lampi said they’ve sent orphans to zoos all across the United States.
“It’s not the ideal situation because they’re not in the wild, but these animals can be saved,” he said. “They can be ambassadors for their species and do a lot of really good education and conservation work.”
But transporting animals can be tricky. They’re usually sent on cargo flights with multiple attendants. They need permits, medical records and health certificates.
In the meantime, the orphans are on public view at the Alaska Zoo – Gator the bear in the orphaned cub facility, and the moose calves right next door in the infirmary yard.
In the wild, Lampi said it’s important not to assume a young animal is orphaned just because it’s alone. Many species will leave their babies to go foraging.
“It’s best not to interfere,” he said. “You contact somebody with Fish and Game and let them know where it is and then let them make sure it’s really an orphan and that, out of the goodness of your heart, you’re not creating the orphan yourself.”
The zoo took in an orphaned polar bear cub named Kova in November, who was found living under a building by a dumpster in Prudhoe Bay. She was placed under rabies quarantine protocol for six months, which ended May 30. Kova made her first public appearance at the zoo on Sunday.
|
Battery-powered locomotives hit the rails
U.S. Steel Corp. and Australian mining company Roy Hill have each unveiled battery-powered locomotives to decarbonize their freight operations.
State of play: Battery-powered rail is a niche climate investment, but one drawing the attention — and checkbooks — of multinational giants.
Context: Freight trains largely rely on diesel engines, which are pretty efficient when it comes to overall emissions compared with alternatives like semitrucks.
- But the local impact from the fumes does leave a mark.
Driving the news: U.S. Steel last month unveiled two locomotives it converted to battery-powered models in a nearly $7 million effort.
- The engines will haul steel, coke and scrap metal around the company's Clairton Coke Works outside Pittsburgh.
- U.S. Steel invested $2.3 million in the project with Innovation Rail Technologies. Pennsylvania put up another $4.5 million.
Meanwhile, Roy Hill and Hancock Prospecting debuted their FLXdrive battery locomotive, which they say will be the first wholly battery-powered locomotive for mainline service.
- The engine, built by Pittsburgh-based Wabtec, will be paired with diesel locomotives hauling iron ore along a 1.5-mile route in Australia.
Be smart: "This is a special and unique case," Enrique Glotzer, a managing director in FTI Consulting's Power, Renewables & Energy Transition practice, tells Axios.
- Batteries just don't have the energy density for long-haul rail.
Yes, but: The tech can cut local pollution while achieving climate impacts at the margins — and perhaps help meet corporate decarbonization mandates.
- "I would suspect the route timing can be very predictable allowing the required charging to not be disruptive to the operations," Lucas Martin, a partner at Bain & Company, says.
|
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|
Battery-powered locomotives hit the rails
U.S. Steel Corp. and Australian mining company Roy Hill have each unveiled battery-powered locomotives to decarbonize their freight operations.
State of play: Battery-powered rail is a niche climate investment, but one drawing the attention — and checkbooks — of multinational giants.
Context: Freight trains largely rely on diesel engines, which are pretty efficient when it comes to overall emissions compared with alternatives like semitrucks.
- But the local impact from the fumes does leave a mark.
Driving the news: U.S. Steel last month unveiled two locomotives it converted to battery-powered models in
|
a nearly $7 million effort.
- The engines will haul steel, coke and scrap metal around the company's Clairton Coke Works outside Pittsburgh.
- U.S. Steel invested $2.3 million in the project with Innovation Rail Technologies. Pennsylvania put up another $4.5 million.
Meanwhile, Roy Hill and Hancock Prospecting debuted their FLXdrive battery locomotive, which they say will be the first wholly battery-powered locomotive for mainline service.
- The engine, built by Pittsburgh-based Wabtec, will be paired with diesel locomotives hauling iron ore along a 1.5-mile route in Australia.
Be smart: "This is a special and unique case," Enrique Glotzer, a managing director in FTI Consulting's Power, Renewables & Energy Transition practice, tells Axios.
- Batteries just don't have the energy density for long-haul rail.
Yes, but: The tech can cut local pollution while achieving climate impacts at the margins — and perhaps help meet corporate decarbonization mandates.
- "I would suspect the route timing can be very predictable allowing the required charging to not be disruptive to the operations," Lucas Martin, a partner at Bain & Company, says.
|
After a two-hour cross-country journey last week, four pregnant mares and three foals were carefully unloaded and led into Donkey Sanctuary Ireland in Cork. They would be the last.
Long neglected, the animals spent their first night on a straw bed under shelter. They had their hooves trimmed, received veterinary care and will eventually be given names. But for the foreseeable future they are the final intake at the sanctuary, which opened in the 1980s.
“That’s the really, really tough message,” says director Laura Foster. “It doesn’t mean that we won’t be as busy as ever. It doesn’t mean that we will be shutting our doors.”
Due to a complex build-up of Celtic Tiger-era donkey popularity, a general lack of welfare and depleting charity resources, space at the country’s largest donkey sanctuary has simply run out.
Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken: an extraordinary book that lands the punch where it is needed
The sanctuary introduced limitations on intake two years ago to the most vulnerable animals but now it has finally reached its limit. It currently cares for about 1,700 donkeys on its own lands and in guardian homes and employs 90 staff.
The final seven donkeys were rescued from a property in Galway last Thursday. They hope to rehome another eight that remained behind. Four had to be euthanised. The carcass of another lay nearby.
There was nothing particularly exceptional about the Galway rescue, other than it marks a milestone in the sanctuary’s increasing inability to address a deepening problem.
“We had a massive surge in relinquishments, really off the back of the Celtic Tiger collapse,” explains Foster. “When the economy was strong people decided to have donkeys and that popularity waned with the crash. We always say that when humans suffer, animals suffer.”
In 2015 alone, the sanctuary took in about 500 animals.
Data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) shows mules, jennets (a female donkey) and asses numbered 126,000 in 1847, rising steadily to a peak of about 278,000 by 1911 and dwindling thereafter to about 114,000 by the mid-20th century.
In a 2014 paper, Queen’s University Belfast academic Jim Smyth noted that, decades after their replacement by tractors, the donkey remained an Irish icon “flexible enough to serve a variety of interests”.
As the human population plummeted in the 19th century, donkey numbers went in the other direction.
“The rise in the donkey population can probably be attributed to economic and social changes brought about by the Great Famine,” Smyth noted.
In more recent times the image of donkeys has seen something of a boost in popular culture, notably through the lens of recent high-profile movies. Colin Farrell’s delight at seeing a donkey resembling his co-star Jenny led out at the recent Academy Awards was met with a note of caution from the donkey sanctuary, which disapproves of their use in live entertainment.
“As films like The Banshees of Inisherin and EO portray donkeys as beloved, kind, and deserving creatures, we hope that they will advocate for better donkey welfare for all donkeys worldwide,” it said in a statement issued after the ceremony.
Foster explains that current donkey numbers are difficult to determine, as many are not chipped, registered or counted. According to the central equine database operated by the Department of Agriculture, just 1,750 donkeys were listed as alive in 2023.
But, she says, there is a need for improved awareness and enforcement, particularly around breeding, that would help ensure charities were not faced with an insurmountable challenge.
“If we don’t see some really strong collaboration and decisive action by everybody in the equestrian system this is not a problem that is going to go away any time soon.”
|
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After a two-hour cross-country journey last week, four pregnant mares and three foals were carefully unloaded and led into Donkey Sanctuary Ireland in Cork. They would be the last.
Long neglected, the animals spent their first night on a straw bed under shelter. They had their hooves trimmed, received veterinary care and will eventually be given names. But for the foreseeable future they are the final intake at the sanctuary, which opened in the 1980s.
“That’s the really, really tough message,” says director Laura Foster. “It doesn’t mean that we won’t be as busy as ever. It
|
doesn’t mean that we will be shutting our doors.”
Due to a complex build-up of Celtic Tiger-era donkey popularity, a general lack of welfare and depleting charity resources, space at the country’s largest donkey sanctuary has simply run out.
Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken: an extraordinary book that lands the punch where it is needed
The sanctuary introduced limitations on intake two years ago to the most vulnerable animals but now it has finally reached its limit. It currently cares for about 1,700 donkeys on its own lands and in guardian homes and employs 90 staff.
The final seven donkeys were rescued from a property in Galway last Thursday. They hope to rehome another eight that remained behind. Four had to be euthanised. The carcass of another lay nearby.
There was nothing particularly exceptional about the Galway rescue, other than it marks a milestone in the sanctuary’s increasing inability to address a deepening problem.
“We had a massive surge in relinquishments, really off the back of the Celtic Tiger collapse,” explains Foster. “When the economy was strong people decided to have donkeys and that popularity waned with the crash. We always say that when humans suffer, animals suffer.”
In 2015 alone, the sanctuary took in about 500 animals.
Data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) shows mules, jennets (a female donkey) and asses numbered 126,000 in 1847, rising steadily to a peak of about 278,000 by 1911 and dwindling thereafter to about 114,000 by the mid-20th century.
In a 2014 paper, Queen’s University Belfast academic Jim Smyth noted that, decades after their replacement by tractors, the donkey remained an Irish icon “flexible enough to serve a variety of interests”.
As the human population plummeted in the 19th century, donkey numbers went in the other direction.
“The rise in the donkey population can probably be attributed to economic and social changes brought about by the Great Famine,” Smyth noted.
In more recent times the image of donkeys has seen something of a boost in popular culture, notably through the lens of recent high-profile movies. Colin Farrell’s delight at seeing a donkey resembling his co-star Jenny led out at the recent Academy Awards was met with a note of caution from the donkey sanctuary, which disapproves of their use in live entertainment.
“As films like The Banshees of Inisherin and EO portray donkeys as beloved, kind, and deserving creatures, we hope that they will advocate for better donkey welfare for all donkeys worldwide,” it said in a statement issued after the ceremony.
Foster explains that current donkey numbers are difficult to determine, as many are not chipped, registered or counted. According to the central equine database operated by the Department of Agriculture, just 1,750 donkeys were listed as alive in 2023.
But, she says, there is a need for improved awareness and enforcement, particularly around breeding, that would help ensure charities were not faced with an insurmountable challenge.
“If we don’t see some really strong collaboration and decisive action by everybody in the equestrian system this is not a problem that is going to go away any time soon.”
|
Why passkeys from Apple, Google, Microsoft may soon replace your passwords
- As the security of passwords continues to be threatened by hackers and phishing attempts, the use of passkeys is continuing to rise.
- Passkeys provide more security and are close to phishing resistant, according to internet security experts.
- Apple, Google and Microsoft are just some of the technology companies pushing more users towards using passkeys over passwords, which could become standard within a year.
The death of the internet password has been proclaimed many times, but this time, it may actually be coming sooner than you think. Its replacement? The passkey.
Passkeys are the way of the future in basic internet security as they're intrinsically more secure and phishing resistant, according to Kathleen Moriarty, the chief technology officer at the Center for Internet Security. As major companies including Apple, Google and Microsoft work with the standards developed by the FIDO Alliance and World Wide Web Consortium — two organizations that create password authentication standards — to provide support for passkeys on their platforms, the list of organizations offering passkeys as an alternative to passwords is continuing to grow.
"Passkeys are an example of what security should be: seamless and invisible to the end user," said Moriarty.
How passkeys work
Using a passkey allows an individual to gain access to an account by approving the login on an external device, with no password required.
When someone logs into an account with a passkey, a prompt, also called a challenge, is sent to an additional device owned by the user, such as their phone, that allows them to approve their login through entering some type of PIN or using biometrics like their fingerprint or a face scan. A mathematical relationship between the public key on the system the user is logging into as well as the private key on the user's personal device allows the system to verify that the only person logging into the account is the one with the private key.
Avoiding human error, and hackers
From a safety standpoint, passkeys are much more secure than passwords for a number of reasons.
They provide individual authentication for every user to every application — each challenge sent by the server is a new challenge, making the encryption different every time. The mutual authentication that occurs as the server authenticates the user makes them less prone to cybersecurity attacks. Gaining access to the key is much more difficult, since hackers need to access both the public key on the application as well as the private key on the user's device to be able to get into their account.
A major issue with passwords is that humans tend to use the same or very similar phrases for their passwords across multiple platforms to make them easier to remember, and they often contain personal information. Even worse, choosing simple passwords (think "abc123" or "password") creates the perfect target for hackers to easily access individuals' accounts. This means that a hacker may be able to get into multiple accounts owned by a user by just figuring out their password for a single website or platform.
Passkeys eliminate this issue since they remove the room for human errors that may become security issues. There is no reuse of passkeys, as each one is unique to each individual user as well as the application.
"You've been warned in the past, don't use passwords between different applications," Moriarty said. "Passkeys by design prevent any reuse, so that you're not going to get exposure if your key for one application is exposed for another because they're completely separate."
There have been some other efforts to have better security around passwords even when not using a passkey, such as using a password manager that securely keeps track of passwords and other sensitive information either in a browser or a separate app. But those applications aren't totally immune from security breaches, as shown in the August 2022 hack of LastPass, one of the world's largest password managers.
But regardless, users should be taking some sort of step to better secure their passwords. The volume of password attacks has soared to an estimated 921 attacks every second, a 74% rise in one year, according to the latest Microsoft Digital Defense Report.
Phishing-resistant authentication will soon be the norm
Most major operating services are now allowing passkey use. Apple's newest update, iOS 16 for iPhones as well as macOS Ventura for Macs, now supports passkeys. Google began rolling out passkey support for Chrome on Android, Windows and macOS in December 2022.
By the end of 2024, the federal government is expected to fully transition to phishing-resistant forms of authentication.
"Major operating systems now have full support where there was only partial support (previously)," Moriarty said. "So this turnaround and push for the support of passkeys is pretty fast now."
Internet service and device risks
Since passkeys are still a relatively new form of logging into personal accounts, not all services support them yet, though they are becoming a more common feature.
The only potential disadvantage to using passkeys happens if a user loses the secondary device they use to gain access to their accounts. If this occurs, the passkey must be reset, but it is also recommended to have a backup device handy to prevent this problem from occurring.
OpenAI-powered app from Microsoft will instantly transcribe patient notes during doctor visits
How to delete yourself from the internet
ChatGPT is being used to write emails: Microsoft, Salesforce and others are hopping on the trend
How the end of Netflix password sharing will change the way families watch
Microsoft will let companies create their own custom versions of ChatGPT, source says
|
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Why passkeys from Apple, Google, Microsoft may soon replace your passwords
- As the security of passwords continues to be threatened by hackers and phishing attempts, the use of passkeys is continuing to rise.
- Passkeys provide more security and are close to phishing resistant, according to internet security experts.
- Apple, Google and Microsoft are just some of the technology companies pushing more users towards using passkeys over passwords, which could become standard within a year.
The death of the internet password has been proclaimed many times, but this time, it may actually be coming sooner than you think. Its replacement? The passkey.
Pass
|
keys are the way of the future in basic internet security as they're intrinsically more secure and phishing resistant, according to Kathleen Moriarty, the chief technology officer at the Center for Internet Security. As major companies including Apple, Google and Microsoft work with the standards developed by the FIDO Alliance and World Wide Web Consortium — two organizations that create password authentication standards — to provide support for passkeys on their platforms, the list of organizations offering passkeys as an alternative to passwords is continuing to grow.
"Passkeys are an example of what security should be: seamless and invisible to the end user," said Moriarty.
How passkeys work
Using a passkey allows an individual to gain access to an account by approving the login on an external device, with no password required.
When someone logs into an account with a passkey, a prompt, also called a challenge, is sent to an additional device owned by the user, such as their phone, that allows them to approve their login through entering some type of PIN or using biometrics like their fingerprint or a face scan. A mathematical relationship between the public key on the system the user is logging into as well as the private key on the user's personal device allows the system to verify that the only person logging into the account is the one with the private key.
Avoiding human error, and hackers
From a safety standpoint, passkeys are much more secure than passwords for a number of reasons.
They provide individual authentication for every user to every application — each challenge sent by the server is a new challenge, making the encryption different every time. The mutual authentication that occurs as the server authenticates the user makes them less prone to cybersecurity attacks. Gaining access to the key is much more difficult, since hackers need to access both the public key on the application as well as the private key on the user's device to be able to get into their account.
A major issue with passwords is that humans tend to use the same or very similar phrases for their passwords across multiple platforms to make them easier to remember, and they often contain personal information. Even worse, choosing simple passwords (think "abc123" or "password") creates the perfect target for hackers to easily access individuals' accounts. This means that a hacker may be able to get into multiple accounts owned by a user by just figuring out their password for a single website or platform.
Passkeys eliminate this issue since they remove the room for human errors that may become security issues. There is no reuse of passkeys, as each one is unique to each individual user as well as the application.
"You've been warned in the past, don't use passwords between different applications," Moriarty said. "Passkeys by design prevent any reuse, so that you're not going to get exposure if your key for one application is exposed for another because they're completely separate."
There have been some other efforts to have better security around passwords even when not using a passkey, such as using a password manager that securely keeps track of passwords and other sensitive information either in a browser or a separate app. But those applications aren't totally immune from security breaches, as shown in the August 2022 hack of LastPass, one of the world's largest password managers.
But regardless, users should be taking some sort of step to better secure their passwords. The volume of password attacks has soared to an estimated 921 attacks every second, a 74% rise in one year, according to the latest Microsoft Digital Defense Report.
Phishing-resistant authentication will soon be the norm
Most major operating services are now allowing passkey use. Apple's newest update, iOS 16 for iPhones as well as macOS Ventura for Macs, now supports passkeys. Google began rolling out passkey support for Chrome on Android, Windows and macOS in December 2022.
By the end of 2024, the federal government is expected to fully transition to phishing-resistant forms of authentication.
"Major operating systems now have full support where there was only partial support (previously)," Moriarty said. "So this turnaround and push for the support of passkeys is pretty fast now."
Internet service and device risks
Since passkeys are still a relatively new form of logging into personal accounts, not all services support them yet, though they are becoming a more common feature.
The only potential disadvantage to using passkeys happens if a user loses the secondary device they use to gain access to their accounts. If this occurs, the passkey must be reset, but it is also recommended to have a backup device handy to prevent this problem from occurring.
OpenAI-powered app from Microsoft will instantly transcribe patient notes during doctor visits
How to delete yourself from the internet
ChatGPT is being used to write emails: Microsoft, Salesforce and others are hopping on the trend
How the end of Netflix password sharing will change the way families watch
Microsoft will let companies create their own custom versions of ChatGPT, source says
|
Today is: Pluto Day
Astronomer Clyde W. Tombaugh discovered Pluto on Feb. 18, 1930, at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. It appears Pluto Day sprang up naturally as an informal anniversary holiday, but it has been officially observed on some occasions.
In August 2006, the International Astronomical Union announced Pluto was no longer considered a planet, and instead was a dwarf planet, because of new rules that said a planet had to "clear the neighborhood around its orbit." Pluto doesn't do that because its orbit overlaps that of Neptune for about 20 years of its 248-year orbit. But this doesn't mean Pluto has become neglected. On the contrary, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew through Pluto's system in 2015, taking the first close-up images of Pluto and its moons.
|
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|
Today is: Pluto Day
Astronomer Clyde W. Tombaugh discovered Pluto on Feb. 18, 1930, at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. It appears Pluto Day sprang up naturally as an informal anniversary holiday, but it has been officially observed on some occasions.
In August 2006, the International Astronomical Union announced Pluto was no longer considered a planet, and instead was a dwarf planet, because of new rules that said a planet had to "clear the neighborhood around its orbit." Pluto doesn't do that because its orbit overlaps that of Neptune for about 20 years
|
of its 248-year orbit. But this doesn't mean Pluto has become neglected. On the contrary, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew through Pluto's system in 2015, taking the first close-up images of Pluto and its moons.
|
Human genetic engineering is the process of manipulating the genetic material of an individual in order to change or enhance their traits, characteristics, or predisposition to certain diseases. This technology has the potential to revolutionize healthcare and medicine, but also presents significant opportunities and risks that must be carefully considered.
One of the main opportunities offered by human genetic engineering is the ability to prevent, treat, or cure genetic disorders. By identifying and correcting specific genetic mutations that cause diseases, researchers and doctors may be able to develop new therapies and treatments that can eliminate or mitigate the effects of inherited conditions. This could have a profound impact on the lives of millions of people worldwide, providing new hope for individuals and families affected by genetic diseases.
Another opportunity offered by human genetic engineering is the ability to enhance human traits and capabilities. For example, scientists may be able to modify genes associated with intelligence, physical abilities, or emotional resilience in order to enhance these traits in individuals. This could potentially lead to a new era of human evolution, where humans are able to intentionally shape their own genetic makeup and achieve new heights of achievement and potential.
However, there are also significant risks associated with human genetic engineering that must be carefully considered. One of the primary concerns is the potential for unintended consequences, such as unforeseen health risks or unintended effects on future generations. The long-term effects of genetic manipulation are not yet fully understood, and there is a risk that unintended mutations or genetic changes could result in unforeseen health problems or other negative outcomes.
Another risk associated with human genetic engineering is the potential for ethical dilemmas and conflicts. For example, the ability to modify genes associated with physical appearance, intelligence, or other desirable traits could create a new era of genetic elitism, where those who can afford genetic enhancements are able to achieve greater success and status in society. This could exacerbate existing inequalities and create new forms of discrimination and social conflict.
Despite these risks, human genetic engineering holds enormous promise for the future of healthcare and medicine. As researchers continue to make breakthroughs in gene editing technology and our understanding of the human genome continues to advance, it is likely that new and exciting opportunities will emerge for treating and preventing genetic diseases, enhancing human traits and capabilities, and shaping the course of human evolution.
However, it is critical that these developments are approached with caution and care, and that ethical considerations are carefully weighed against the potential benefits and risks of human genetic engineering. By working together to develop responsible policies and guidelines for the use of gene editing and other genetic engineering technologies, we can ensure that these powerful tools are used in a safe and responsible manner that benefits all of humanity.
In conclusion, human genetic engineering holds enormous promise for the future of healthcare and medicine, but also presents significant opportunities and risks that must be carefully considered. By approaching these developments with caution and care, and working together to develop responsible policies and guidelines, we can ensure that genetic engineering technologies are used in a safe and responsible manner that benefits all of humanity.
|
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|
Human genetic engineering is the process of manipulating the genetic material of an individual in order to change or enhance their traits, characteristics, or predisposition to certain diseases. This technology has the potential to revolutionize healthcare and medicine, but also presents significant opportunities and risks that must be carefully considered.
One of the main opportunities offered by human genetic engineering is the ability to prevent, treat, or cure genetic disorders. By identifying and correcting specific genetic mutations that cause diseases, researchers and doctors may be able to develop new therapies and treatments that can eliminate or mitigate the effects of inherited conditions. This could have a profound impact on the lives of millions of people worldwide
|
, providing new hope for individuals and families affected by genetic diseases.
Another opportunity offered by human genetic engineering is the ability to enhance human traits and capabilities. For example, scientists may be able to modify genes associated with intelligence, physical abilities, or emotional resilience in order to enhance these traits in individuals. This could potentially lead to a new era of human evolution, where humans are able to intentionally shape their own genetic makeup and achieve new heights of achievement and potential.
However, there are also significant risks associated with human genetic engineering that must be carefully considered. One of the primary concerns is the potential for unintended consequences, such as unforeseen health risks or unintended effects on future generations. The long-term effects of genetic manipulation are not yet fully understood, and there is a risk that unintended mutations or genetic changes could result in unforeseen health problems or other negative outcomes.
Another risk associated with human genetic engineering is the potential for ethical dilemmas and conflicts. For example, the ability to modify genes associated with physical appearance, intelligence, or other desirable traits could create a new era of genetic elitism, where those who can afford genetic enhancements are able to achieve greater success and status in society. This could exacerbate existing inequalities and create new forms of discrimination and social conflict.
Despite these risks, human genetic engineering holds enormous promise for the future of healthcare and medicine. As researchers continue to make breakthroughs in gene editing technology and our understanding of the human genome continues to advance, it is likely that new and exciting opportunities will emerge for treating and preventing genetic diseases, enhancing human traits and capabilities, and shaping the course of human evolution.
However, it is critical that these developments are approached with caution and care, and that ethical considerations are carefully weighed against the potential benefits and risks of human genetic engineering. By working together to develop responsible policies and guidelines for the use of gene editing and other genetic engineering technologies, we can ensure that these powerful tools are used in a safe and responsible manner that benefits all of humanity.
In conclusion, human genetic engineering holds enormous promise for the future of healthcare and medicine, but also presents significant opportunities and risks that must be carefully considered. By approaching these developments with caution and care, and working together to develop responsible policies and guidelines, we can ensure that genetic engineering technologies are used in a safe and responsible manner that benefits all of humanity.
|
A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.
The human brain is unrivaled in its capacity to process information.
Sure, we have days where our minds don’t feel as sharp. But the extraordinary 3-pound organ is still capable of things that supercomputers and robots can’t do.
The human brain evolved to form billions of neurons, enabling us to learn and make complex logical decisions. We can look at two different animals, such as a cat and a dog, and tell them apart, while a computer struggles at the task.
Advances in artificial intelligence have caused some to wonder when computers will cross the line that divides humans from technology, like the sentient computer HAL 9000 from the sci-fi novel and film “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
So far, no form of AI has made such a leap toward humanity. But there may be a new game in town.
Back to the future
A new field called organoid intelligence could be the basis for computers powered by human brain cells.
Lab-grown brain organoids — nicknamed “intelligence in a dish” — are pen dot-size cell cultures that contain neurons capable of brainlike functions.
Researchers announced Tuesday their plan eventually to use brain organoids to create energy-efficient “biocomputers” that rival today’s supercomputers and may revolutionize pharmaceutical testing for diseases like Alzheimer’s.
But the biological hardware comes with a variety of ethical concerns, including whether organoids can achieve consciousness or sentience or feel pain.
A Russian rescue spacecraft intended to return cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio to Earth has successfully docked outside the International Space Station.
The trio traveled to the space station in September, but they became stranded without a way home after their original capsule sprang a coolant leak. The crew will head back to Earth later this year.
Meanwhile, Crew-6, including two NASA astronauts, a Russian cosmonaut and an astronaut from the United Arab Emirates, arrived at the orbiting lab on Friday.
Sultan Alneyadi, who will become the first Emirati astronaut to complete a long-duration stay in space, said he brought a special treat to share with his ISS crew members.
Camels reign supreme in Dubai, where they compete in beauty pageants and races.
The humped animals, long-standing cultural symbols of the Emirati way of life, are so prized that cloning camels has become a flourishing industry in the Gulf State city.
Dr. Nisar Ahmad Wani, who in 2009 created the world’s first camel clone, is the scientific director at the Reproductive Biotechnology Centre, where dozens of camel clones are produced each year.
The clones are replicated from camel “beauty queens,” known for their signature drooping lips and long necks, and elite racers. But scientists might also use technology to save a critically endangered species of wild camel.
Scientists stumbled upon an unusual hummingbird with shimmering gold throat feathers in Peru’s Cordillera Azul National Park. But what the researchers thought was a new species has a complicated family history.
It turned out the hummingbird was a hybrid produced when two pink-throated species came together. But how did two shades of pink create gold?
The unlikely chromatic evolution likely took place over millions of years — and the researchers happened to be in the right place at the right time to see it.
|
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|
A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.
The human brain is unrivaled in its capacity to process information.
Sure, we have days where our minds don’t feel as sharp. But the extraordinary 3-pound organ is still capable of things that supercomputers and robots can’t do.
The human brain evolved to form billions of neurons, enabling us to learn and make complex logical decisions. We can look at two different animals, such as a cat and a dog, and tell them apart, while a computer struggles at the
|
task.
Advances in artificial intelligence have caused some to wonder when computers will cross the line that divides humans from technology, like the sentient computer HAL 9000 from the sci-fi novel and film “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
So far, no form of AI has made such a leap toward humanity. But there may be a new game in town.
Back to the future
A new field called organoid intelligence could be the basis for computers powered by human brain cells.
Lab-grown brain organoids — nicknamed “intelligence in a dish” — are pen dot-size cell cultures that contain neurons capable of brainlike functions.
Researchers announced Tuesday their plan eventually to use brain organoids to create energy-efficient “biocomputers” that rival today’s supercomputers and may revolutionize pharmaceutical testing for diseases like Alzheimer’s.
But the biological hardware comes with a variety of ethical concerns, including whether organoids can achieve consciousness or sentience or feel pain.
A Russian rescue spacecraft intended to return cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio to Earth has successfully docked outside the International Space Station.
The trio traveled to the space station in September, but they became stranded without a way home after their original capsule sprang a coolant leak. The crew will head back to Earth later this year.
Meanwhile, Crew-6, including two NASA astronauts, a Russian cosmonaut and an astronaut from the United Arab Emirates, arrived at the orbiting lab on Friday.
Sultan Alneyadi, who will become the first Emirati astronaut to complete a long-duration stay in space, said he brought a special treat to share with his ISS crew members.
Camels reign supreme in Dubai, where they compete in beauty pageants and races.
The humped animals, long-standing cultural symbols of the Emirati way of life, are so prized that cloning camels has become a flourishing industry in the Gulf State city.
Dr. Nisar Ahmad Wani, who in 2009 created the world’s first camel clone, is the scientific director at the Reproductive Biotechnology Centre, where dozens of camel clones are produced each year.
The clones are replicated from camel “beauty queens,” known for their signature drooping lips and long necks, and elite racers. But scientists might also use technology to save a critically endangered species of wild camel.
Scientists stumbled upon an unusual hummingbird with shimmering gold throat feathers in Peru’s Cordillera Azul National Park. But what the researchers thought was a new species has a complicated family history.
It turned out the hummingbird was a hybrid produced when two pink-throated species came together. But how did two shades of pink create gold?
The unlikely chromatic evolution likely took place over millions of years — and the researchers happened to be in the right place at the right time to see it.
|
A group of explosives experts from Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson traveled to Cold Bay in the Eastern Aleutians Oct. 30 in response to a local hunter’s report of what appeared to be a large unexploded artillery munition. The ordnance was found in the middle of the federally protected Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, a key habitat for many migratory birds and other wildlife.
U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Tyrone Powell, the Explosives Ordnance Disposal team leader for the mission, confirmed the hunter did find an unexploded military round.
“It’s big artillery,” Powell said. “When we pulled it out of the ground, it weighed probably six or 700 pounds. It took four of us to pull it out.”
The shell was approximately 12 inches in diameter and four feet long. Powell said that particular type of round was first manufactured in 1943, during WWII but could have been built anytime up to the 1990s.
��What was interesting about the round, it was actually split open so there was no more explosive on the inside. It had to have been underneath the ground for a pretty long time for that to happen,” Powell said.
Photographs of the munition show that the surrounding area has several large divots in the tundra, which point to former military operations — the U.S. military built a base in the area during the 1940s.
“It looks like it used to be a demolition area for old ordnance,” Powell said. “What we think it was, was one of these old pieces of ordnance … got kicked out of where it was getting blown up. Those sorts of things get buried in the soil, and eventually, they work their way to the surface.”
The military team used explosives to dispose of the munition where it was found — in the middle of the 315,000 acre refuge, which contains one of the world’s largest eelgrass beds.
Noise pollution can have a negative effect on wildlife. But representatives from the refuge said they monitored the birds on nearby lakes before the detonation and that they were still there afterward with little reaction.
Izembek is a crucial habitat for a quarter million migratory birds. That includes the Pacific black brant, a rare type of goose whose entire population stops in the refuge at exactly this time of year during its fall migration.
The refuge said the detonation occurred away from the majority of migrating waterfowl and was not near the eelgrass beds where the brants feed.
|
<urn:uuid:28e1ce89-bd97-4454-b8a0-adc7d49b5ee3>
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|
A group of explosives experts from Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson traveled to Cold Bay in the Eastern Aleutians Oct. 30 in response to a local hunter’s report of what appeared to be a large unexploded artillery munition. The ordnance was found in the middle of the federally protected Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, a key habitat for many migratory birds and other wildlife.
U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Tyrone Powell, the Explosives Ordnance Disposal team leader for the mission, confirmed the hunter did find an unexploded military round.
“It’s big artillery,” Powell said. “
|
When we pulled it out of the ground, it weighed probably six or 700 pounds. It took four of us to pull it out.”
The shell was approximately 12 inches in diameter and four feet long. Powell said that particular type of round was first manufactured in 1943, during WWII but could have been built anytime up to the 1990s.
��What was interesting about the round, it was actually split open so there was no more explosive on the inside. It had to have been underneath the ground for a pretty long time for that to happen,” Powell said.
Photographs of the munition show that the surrounding area has several large divots in the tundra, which point to former military operations — the U.S. military built a base in the area during the 1940s.
“It looks like it used to be a demolition area for old ordnance,” Powell said. “What we think it was, was one of these old pieces of ordnance … got kicked out of where it was getting blown up. Those sorts of things get buried in the soil, and eventually, they work their way to the surface.”
The military team used explosives to dispose of the munition where it was found — in the middle of the 315,000 acre refuge, which contains one of the world’s largest eelgrass beds.
Noise pollution can have a negative effect on wildlife. But representatives from the refuge said they monitored the birds on nearby lakes before the detonation and that they were still there afterward with little reaction.
Izembek is a crucial habitat for a quarter million migratory birds. That includes the Pacific black brant, a rare type of goose whose entire population stops in the refuge at exactly this time of year during its fall migration.
The refuge said the detonation occurred away from the majority of migrating waterfowl and was not near the eelgrass beds where the brants feed.
|
Opinion: Banning ‘forever chemicals’ forever
By Ana Marie Rule and Bonnie Raindrop
Ana Marie Rule is a board member of the Maryland Pesticide Education Network. Bonnie Raindrop is the coordinator of the Smart on Pesticides Coalition, which consists of 112 organizations.
We are waking up to the dangers of toxic “forever chemicals” called PFAS (Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) and the sources of these dangerous compounds. A recent alarming discovery: common pesticides, which are sprayed across our communities, farms, health care facilities, playgrounds, and schools, contain high levels of PFAS.
“If the intent was to spread PFAS contamination across the globe, there would be few more effective methods than lacing pesticides with PFAS,” said Kayla Bennett, research director for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
The good news is we can take a simple step to turn off this tap. State Del. Dana Stein and Sen. Shelly Hettleman are sponsoring legislation, the Pesticide Registration — PFAS Testing — Requirements Bill (SB 158), to ban the use of pesticide products containing PFAS in Maryland. Manufacturers would have to test their products for PFAS as part of the current annual registration with the state.
The need for this legislation is clear: PFAS have been found in Maryland’s drinking water, rivers, and soil. Last June, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recognized that PFAS pose a health risk to humans even in minute, almost undetectable levels in drinking water.
It is also increasingly clear that the food we eat every day may pose our highest PFAS risk yet because of pesticides used on crops and entering our waterways. New research found extraordinarily high levels of PFAS in common pesticides used on food crops; the crops grown in these fields tested at 100 times EPA’s lifetime drinking water limit. Other research shows dangerous levels of toxic PFAS in freshwater fish: Eating just one fish could be equivalent to drinking PFAS-tainted water for a month. These numbers are for a single exposure; we may be eating contaminated food every day, so PFAS is accumulating in our bodies.
While this is a serious challenge, we can look to other complex environmental problems as a guide. For example, there is good news regarding the Earth’s fragile ozone layer: Phasing out harmful ozone-depleting chemicals has led to the partial recovery of the ozone hole. What once seemed insurmountable is now a success story. This achievement is a reminder of the power of action, including setting smart, common-sense regulations to protect the public from harmful chemicals.
Last year, Maryland legislators wisely banned PFAS in firefighting foam, food packaging, and rugs — a crucial first step. Now, we must stop PFAS exposure through widely used pesticides, which poses an insidious risk to Marylanders and our environment. Everyone is subjected to the 14,000 pesticides allowed in Maryland where we work and play. And to date, there is no research on the effects of combining pesticides, which are already known to have adverse health effects, with PFAS.
As a coalition of advocates that includes public health experts, we are very concerned about the implications of spreading PFAS when we apply pesticides. Continuous exposure to PFAS is linked to many long-term serious health concerns: kidney, testicular, and breast cancer; high cholesterol; developmental damage in infants; birth defects; thyroid disease; and obesity. PFAS levels also affect the severity of COVID-19 infection and have been correlated with vaccine failure.
Maryland’s current mosquito control program applies pesticides that may contain PFAS in 2,100 communities. Some communities receive weekly pesticide applications, and numerous private companies also provide these services to homeowners.
There are questions about how PFAS come to be in pesticides. Some may come from the pesticide chemically reacting with its plastic containers. But higher testing levels suggest that PFAS chemicals are contaminants of the manufacturing process that may be intentional or unintentional and end up as inert ingredients, which the EPA allows manufacturers to keep secret.
The proposed state legislation would require all mosquito control product manufacturers to provide annual independent lab testing to prove the pesticide is free of PFAS beginning in 2024. By 2026, manufacturers of all remaining pesticides must provide this same testing.
Pesticides do not require PFAS to be effective. Furthermore, PFAS testing in this bill will not require any money from state coffers; this bill places the financial burden of testing for PFAS contamination on the manufacturers who profit from pesticide sales.
Our state must act quickly and decisively to ensure immediate protection from unnecessary PFAS in pesticides. The health of all Marylanders depends on it. By taking these steps, we can hope to have another good news story to tell down the road about the health of our communities and our planet.
|
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Opinion: Banning ‘forever chemicals’ forever
By Ana Marie Rule and Bonnie Raindrop
Ana Marie Rule is a board member of the Maryland Pesticide Education Network. Bonnie Raindrop is the coordinator of the Smart on Pesticides Coalition, which consists of 112 organizations.
We are waking up to the dangers of toxic “forever chemicals” called PFAS (Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) and the sources of these dangerous compounds. A recent alarming discovery: common pesticides, which are sprayed across our communities, farms, health care facilities, playgrounds, and schools, contain high levels of PF
|
AS.
“If the intent was to spread PFAS contamination across the globe, there would be few more effective methods than lacing pesticides with PFAS,” said Kayla Bennett, research director for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
The good news is we can take a simple step to turn off this tap. State Del. Dana Stein and Sen. Shelly Hettleman are sponsoring legislation, the Pesticide Registration — PFAS Testing — Requirements Bill (SB 158), to ban the use of pesticide products containing PFAS in Maryland. Manufacturers would have to test their products for PFAS as part of the current annual registration with the state.
The need for this legislation is clear: PFAS have been found in Maryland’s drinking water, rivers, and soil. Last June, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recognized that PFAS pose a health risk to humans even in minute, almost undetectable levels in drinking water.
It is also increasingly clear that the food we eat every day may pose our highest PFAS risk yet because of pesticides used on crops and entering our waterways. New research found extraordinarily high levels of PFAS in common pesticides used on food crops; the crops grown in these fields tested at 100 times EPA’s lifetime drinking water limit. Other research shows dangerous levels of toxic PFAS in freshwater fish: Eating just one fish could be equivalent to drinking PFAS-tainted water for a month. These numbers are for a single exposure; we may be eating contaminated food every day, so PFAS is accumulating in our bodies.
While this is a serious challenge, we can look to other complex environmental problems as a guide. For example, there is good news regarding the Earth’s fragile ozone layer: Phasing out harmful ozone-depleting chemicals has led to the partial recovery of the ozone hole. What once seemed insurmountable is now a success story. This achievement is a reminder of the power of action, including setting smart, common-sense regulations to protect the public from harmful chemicals.
Last year, Maryland legislators wisely banned PFAS in firefighting foam, food packaging, and rugs — a crucial first step. Now, we must stop PFAS exposure through widely used pesticides, which poses an insidious risk to Marylanders and our environment. Everyone is subjected to the 14,000 pesticides allowed in Maryland where we work and play. And to date, there is no research on the effects of combining pesticides, which are already known to have adverse health effects, with PFAS.
As a coalition of advocates that includes public health experts, we are very concerned about the implications of spreading PFAS when we apply pesticides. Continuous exposure to PFAS is linked to many long-term serious health concerns: kidney, testicular, and breast cancer; high cholesterol; developmental damage in infants; birth defects; thyroid disease; and obesity. PFAS levels also affect the severity of COVID-19 infection and have been correlated with vaccine failure.
Maryland’s current mosquito control program applies pesticides that may contain PFAS in 2,100 communities. Some communities receive weekly pesticide applications, and numerous private companies also provide these services to homeowners.
There are questions about how PFAS come to be in pesticides. Some may come from the pesticide chemically reacting with its plastic containers. But higher testing levels suggest that PFAS chemicals are contaminants of the manufacturing process that may be intentional or unintentional and end up as inert ingredients, which the EPA allows manufacturers to keep secret.
The proposed state legislation would require all mosquito control product manufacturers to provide annual independent lab testing to prove the pesticide is free of PFAS beginning in 2024. By 2026, manufacturers of all remaining pesticides must provide this same testing.
Pesticides do not require PFAS to be effective. Furthermore, PFAS testing in this bill will not require any money from state coffers; this bill places the financial burden of testing for PFAS contamination on the manufacturers who profit from pesticide sales.
Our state must act quickly and decisively to ensure immediate protection from unnecessary PFAS in pesticides. The health of all Marylanders depends on it. By taking these steps, we can hope to have another good news story to tell down the road about the health of our communities and our planet.
|
A version of this story appears in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.
The US has been in debt and arguing about it for its entire existence.
The only two years in US history when there was no debt came as then-President Andrew Jackson was blowing up the banking system and immediately preceded the Panic of 1837 and a major depression.
In recent decades, disagreements over raising the debt ceiling (the maximum amount of money the Treasury is authorized to borrow to pay its bills) have grown along with the size of the national debt. The country reached its debt limit, which currently stands at $31.4 trillion, in January.
President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy are set to meet for the first time on Wednesday to discuss how to resolve the debt ceiling issue.
The current situation
There’s no denying the size of the debt is alarming, and not just because $31 trillion-plus is an eye-popping figure.
Economists like to assess the debt as a percentage of gross domestic product, or GDP, the broadest measure of the US economy. After pandemic recovery spending, the debt is about 120% of GDP, according to government figures. That’s historically high – higher than after World War II – but whether it’s a problem is the subject of much debate.
So-called “extraordinary measures” – the Treasury Department equivalent of moving money around to make interest payments – will give Congress and Biden until early June to come to an agreement on how to raise the debt ceiling.
RELATED: CNN’s Tami Luhby explains extraordinary measures
While there are clues to how this showdown will play out politically from other recent debt standoffs, there’s also reason to believe this time could be different – a larger portion of GOP lawmakers seem willing to allow the country to default and Biden seems unlikely to enact the kinds of spending cuts that would satisfy them.
Previous standoffs over debt
Recent major conflagrations over the debt and spending, in 1995 and 2011, occurred under Democratic presidents who lost control of the House to Republicans.
It just so happens that we are in exactly that situation right now, albeit with a barely-there GOP majority instead of the strong ones enjoyed by then-House Speakers Newt Gingrich (in 1995 and 1996) and John Boehner (in 2011 and 2012).
Those past examples offer a guide to what probably lies ahead as McCarthy tries to force spending cuts out of Biden.
Clinton v. Gingrich in 1995: $4.9 trillion
It was a relatively novel concept to use the debt ceiling as leverage when Republicans took control of the House in 1995. Back then, the debt was less than $5 trillion and a little less than 65% of the GDP.
The debt ceiling was at first wrapped up in a spending bill. There was ultimately a government shutdown but no default on the national debt during a yearlong saga in which Republicans ultimately blinked on using the debt.
Then-President Bill Clinton at one point accused Gingrich of blackmail over spending and vetoed debt ceiling increases. They ultimately agreed to raise the debt ceiling after a separate spending bill was enacted. They also shook hands on balancing the federal budget with help from cuts and a roaring US economy before the tech bubble burst.
Tax cuts and the post-9/11 wars enacted by Clinton’s successor, George W. Bush, ended the brief era of the balanced budget. The fact that the balanced budget barely affected the national debt at the time is the subject for another story.
During subsequent debt standoffs in the Obama years, Clinton suggested the president should invoke new power in the 14th Amendment and simply cut Congress out of the debt ceiling equation.
Boehner and Obama from 2011-2013: $16 trillion and growing
Boehner and then-President Barack Obama dueled over spending and the debt ceiling for years starting in 2011, when the debt was about $16 trillion, or around half of what it is today.
Boehner and Obama agreed to across-the-board spending cuts – the Budget Control Act of 2011 – as an incentive to reach a larger agreement to control deficit spending but failed to reach that larger agreement before Boehner was nudged out of the speakership and Obama left office. It was an unpopular solution, and it took lawmakers years to finally end the system of spending caps.
Meantime, the country came so close to a default in 2011 that Standard & Poor’s downgraded the US credit rating, where it continues to be AA+ rather than the top-level AAA. That signaled to the world that the US, long considered the safest place in the world to invest money, may not make good on its debt obligations (other major rating agencies warned about the debt ceiling crisis but never lowered the US credit rating). S&P’s action temporarily sent the stock market plunging.
Then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell got creative, suggesting the president be able to raise the debt unless both houses of Congress vote to override his decision. That method was utilized in 2013.
The era of suspending the debt ceiling
In 2013, lawmakers voted for the first time to suspend the debt ceiling rather than raise it.
These suspensions of the debt ceiling recurred every few years alongside separate spending fights that caused a series of partial government shutdowns during the Obama and Donald Trump years. When Biden took office in 2021, Republicans returned to insisting on raising the debt ceiling rather than suspending it.
Here’s a good timeline from the Bipartisan Policy Center.
This only happens with a Republican Congress and a Democratic president
Democrats have shown no interest in using the debt ceiling to enact changes, even with Republican presidents.
During the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush years, they utilized the Gephardt rule, named for former Rep. Richard Gephardt, to automatically tie the debt ceiling to spending bills.
In the more recent years when they’ve controlled the House (2007-2010 and 2019-2022), despite tax cuts and expensive wars that also drove deficit spending, Democrats worked to raise the debt ceiling when needed under then-Presidents George W. Bush and Trump.
And Republicans, when there’s a GOP president like Trump, have not made as much of an issue over the debt – although now Trump is encouraging fellow Republicans to use the debt to exact spending cuts from Biden.
If the 1995 and 2011 examples are a guide, there will ultimately be some kind of agreement for some kind of spending cuts. And this drama will continue for months as the Treasury Department exhausts extraordinary measures, which may last until June.
Annual government funding doesn’t expire until the end of September.
These two issues – the debt ceiling and government funding – have often been tackled together. In any event, 2023 is looking to be a year focused on debt and spending.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
|
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A version of this story appears in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.
The US has been in debt and arguing about it for its entire existence.
The only two years in US history when there was no debt came as then-President Andrew Jackson was blowing up the banking system and immediately preceded the Panic of 1837 and a major depression.
In recent decades, disagreements over raising the debt ceiling (the maximum amount of money the Treasury is authorized to borrow to pay its bills) have grown along with the size of the national debt. The country reached its debt
|
limit, which currently stands at $31.4 trillion, in January.
President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy are set to meet for the first time on Wednesday to discuss how to resolve the debt ceiling issue.
The current situation
There’s no denying the size of the debt is alarming, and not just because $31 trillion-plus is an eye-popping figure.
Economists like to assess the debt as a percentage of gross domestic product, or GDP, the broadest measure of the US economy. After pandemic recovery spending, the debt is about 120% of GDP, according to government figures. That’s historically high – higher than after World War II – but whether it’s a problem is the subject of much debate.
So-called “extraordinary measures” – the Treasury Department equivalent of moving money around to make interest payments – will give Congress and Biden until early June to come to an agreement on how to raise the debt ceiling.
RELATED: CNN’s Tami Luhby explains extraordinary measures
While there are clues to how this showdown will play out politically from other recent debt standoffs, there’s also reason to believe this time could be different – a larger portion of GOP lawmakers seem willing to allow the country to default and Biden seems unlikely to enact the kinds of spending cuts that would satisfy them.
Previous standoffs over debt
Recent major conflagrations over the debt and spending, in 1995 and 2011, occurred under Democratic presidents who lost control of the House to Republicans.
It just so happens that we are in exactly that situation right now, albeit with a barely-there GOP majority instead of the strong ones enjoyed by then-House Speakers Newt Gingrich (in 1995 and 1996) and John Boehner (in 2011 and 2012).
Those past examples offer a guide to what probably lies ahead as McCarthy tries to force spending cuts out of Biden.
Clinton v. Gingrich in 1995: $4.9 trillion
It was a relatively novel concept to use the debt ceiling as leverage when Republicans took control of the House in 1995. Back then, the debt was less than $5 trillion and a little less than 65% of the GDP.
The debt ceiling was at first wrapped up in a spending bill. There was ultimately a government shutdown but no default on the national debt during a yearlong saga in which Republicans ultimately blinked on using the debt.
Then-President Bill Clinton at one point accused Gingrich of blackmail over spending and vetoed debt ceiling increases. They ultimately agreed to raise the debt ceiling after a separate spending bill was enacted. They also shook hands on balancing the federal budget with help from cuts and a roaring US economy before the tech bubble burst.
Tax cuts and the post-9/11 wars enacted by Clinton’s successor, George W. Bush, ended the brief era of the balanced budget. The fact that the balanced budget barely affected the national debt at the time is the subject for another story.
During subsequent debt standoffs in the Obama years, Clinton suggested the president should invoke new power in the 14th Amendment and simply cut Congress out of the debt ceiling equation.
Boehner and Obama from 2011-2013: $16 trillion and growing
Boehner and then-President Barack Obama dueled over spending and the debt ceiling for years starting in 2011, when the debt was about $16 trillion, or around half of what it is today.
Boehner and Obama agreed to across-the-board spending cuts – the Budget Control Act of 2011 – as an incentive to reach a larger agreement to control deficit spending but failed to reach that larger agreement before Boehner was nudged out of the speakership and Obama left office. It was an unpopular solution, and it took lawmakers years to finally end the system of spending caps.
Meantime, the country came so close to a default in 2011 that Standard & Poor’s downgraded the US credit rating, where it continues to be AA+ rather than the top-level AAA. That signaled to the world that the US, long considered the safest place in the world to invest money, may not make good on its debt obligations (other major rating agencies warned about the debt ceiling crisis but never lowered the US credit rating). S&P’s action temporarily sent the stock market plunging.
Then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell got creative, suggesting the president be able to raise the debt unless both houses of Congress vote to override his decision. That method was utilized in 2013.
The era of suspending the debt ceiling
In 2013, lawmakers voted for the first time to suspend the debt ceiling rather than raise it.
These suspensions of the debt ceiling recurred every few years alongside separate spending fights that caused a series of partial government shutdowns during the Obama and Donald Trump years. When Biden took office in 2021, Republicans returned to insisting on raising the debt ceiling rather than suspending it.
Here’s a good timeline from the Bipartisan Policy Center.
This only happens with a Republican Congress and a Democratic president
Democrats have shown no interest in using the debt ceiling to enact changes, even with Republican presidents.
During the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush years, they utilized the Gephardt rule, named for former Rep. Richard Gephardt, to automatically tie the debt ceiling to spending bills.
In the more recent years when they’ve controlled the House (2007-2010 and 2019-2022), despite tax cuts and expensive wars that also drove deficit spending, Democrats worked to raise the debt ceiling when needed under then-Presidents George W. Bush and Trump.
And Republicans, when there’s a GOP president like Trump, have not made as much of an issue over the debt – although now Trump is encouraging fellow Republicans to use the debt to exact spending cuts from Biden.
If the 1995 and 2011 examples are a guide, there will ultimately be some kind of agreement for some kind of spending cuts. And this drama will continue for months as the Treasury Department exhausts extraordinary measures, which may last until June.
Annual government funding doesn’t expire until the end of September.
These two issues – the debt ceiling and government funding – have often been tackled together. In any event, 2023 is looking to be a year focused on debt and spending.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
|
“More than 1 in 10 [teenage girls] (14%) had ever been forced to have sex — up 27% since 2019 and the first increase since the CDC began monitoring this measure.”
The survey also suggested a dramatic increase in the percentage of girls who had been raped. But in a statement to The Fact Checker, a CDC spokesman acknowledged that the rate of growth highlighted in the news release — 27 percent — was the result of rounding the numbers from more precise decimal-point results. The revised figure when calculated with decimal points is 18.4 percent. In addition, some experts have questioned whether the results have been affected by many schools refusing to ask the question about rape.
After The Fact Checker’s inquiry, the CDC edited the news release and an accompanying page on its website to remove the reference to a 27 percent increase — a number that figured prominently in news reports at the time. The agency also removed a graphic that had highlighted a 20 percent increase in the girls reporting sexual violence in the previous four years; the figure using decimal points is 17.8 percent.
The revised news release removes all references to percentage changes in the data. The CDC’s 2019 user guide to interpreting YRBS trend data warns that “using the percent change can be misleading.”
The CDC’s focus on the challenges facing teenage girls — especially regarding mental health — is timely and important. But the CDC’s use of inflated figures on sexual violence could undermine its larger message.
CDC’s February presentation
Experts in violence against children had been surprised by the CDC’s February news release but have been stymied in understanding how it was developed because the full YRBS data set will not be released until April. Besides the CDC’s use of round numbers to calculate percentage changes in its news release and news conference, experts identified possible flaws in how the information was collected — particularly the fact that a significant number of schools surveyed refused to ask this question.
That could have biased the sample by possibly removing jurisdictions with lower rates of reporting rape and sexual violence, experts said. Other survey questions with more robust participation by schools — such as violence in dating and violence in bullying — indicated declines, not increases.
“They should have alerted readers of the release that many of the other indicators of violence exposure in the YRBS were flat or showed declines,” said David Finkelhor, a University of New Hampshire professor who is director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center. “The CDC publicity about mental health and suicide ideation among girls has a strong case that is supported by other sources of evidence. But the generalization about violence does not have such support.”
The CDC’s public presentation reported that in 2019, 11 percent of teenage girls said that sometime in their life, they had been forced into sex. By 2021, the number had grown to 14 percent. But, the spokesman acknowledged, the more precise figures were 11.4 percent in 2019 and 13.5 percent in 2021. That represents an 18.4 percent increase — lower than the initial figure, 27 percent.
Similar rounding also inflated the increase in the percentage of teen girls who reported they had experienced sexual violence in the past year, though not to the same extent. “CDC acknowledges the differences in these calculations and those made from whole numbers,” spokesman Paul Fulton Jr. said in a statement, adding that the agency used “whole numbers in the text to make the findings more accessible to a broader audience.”
Other surveys with conflicting results
Finkelhor said the CDC’s assertion that teenage girls faced “record high levels of violence” was undercut by other surveys.
For instance, the National Crime Victimization Survey, conducted by the Census Bureau for the Bureau of Justice Statistics, has indicated that rape and sexual assault of 12-to-17-year-olds has been declining for three decades.
“The NCVS data, which is well known and well regarded by violence epidemiologists, should have tempered their claims about record highs,” Finkelhor said. “There has been a remarkably large decline in crime and abuse over the last 30 years that has benefited children tremendously, but it has gotten little press attention. Perhaps it is reversing, but there are not enough data points over enough time to draw that conclusion.”
Another CDC tool, the Adolescent Behaviors and Experiences Survey (ABES), is conducted online and has a more robust response rate for the same questions on lifetime prevalence of rape and recent sexual violence. The most recent ABES also was conducted in 2021 — in the spring rather than the fall like the YRBS. In the ABES, 10.4 percent said they had once been raped (in contrast to 13.5 percent in the YRBS), and 15.3 percent said they had experienced sexual violence in the past year (in contrast to 17.9 percent in the YRBS).
Asked about the NCVS and the ABES, Fulton said: “We would not compare data across surveys that have very different methods. We do not believe those are reliable comparisons.”
Missing answers on key questions
David Stein, a mathematician who studies the rise of adolescent suicide, has dug deep into the available YRBS data and said there has been a sharp increase in the number of schools not giving students questions on sexual violence and rape. In 2017, 4 percent of the students did not answer the question on sexual violence by anyone, but in 2019, this portion rose to 25 percent. For rape, the frequency of missing answers rose from 2 percent in 2017 to 18 percent to 2019.
Fulton said the percentages of students not answering the question were similar in 2021 — 18 percent on the rape question and 23 percent on the sexual violence question. Deep in a report on the 2019 survey, the CDC acknowledged the spike in missing answers on these questions. “Most of these missing data can be attributed to some selected schools administering YRBS questionnaire versions that did not include these questions,” the report said.
Fulton said the CDC conducts a national survey and a scientific sample that is representative of all public and private school students in grades nine through 12 in the 50 states and D.C. Then it provides funding for state and local governments to do their own surveys. “These areas have wide discretion in choosing survey questions and are only required to use two-thirds of CDC’s standard questionnaire,” he said. He added that “the national data are weighted to adjust for school and student nonresponse and to make the data representative of the population of students from which the sample was drawn.”
Finkelhor and Stein said that, nonetheless, the large percentage of students not being asked these questions could have affected the results.
Stein’s analysis of the available 2019 data suggests girls who were not given the questions were considerably younger than those who had received the questions and thus less likely to have had sex and to be sexually active — two factors, he said, that are associated with a higher risk of being a victim of sexual violence.
Elizabeth L. Jeglic, a clinical psychologist who studies sexual violence prevention at John Jay College in New York, said she could not comment specifically on the CDC methodology, but she said sampling and response rate can affect findings. “If the question is asked about lifetime occurrence and younger girls are not being sampled (or less likely to be sampled) you will likely see a higher prevalence rate as older girls will have more years to experience sexual violence than younger girls,” she said in an email.
Stein noted that in 2019, there was a curious divergence in the results of two YRBS questions having to do with dating violence. The question concerning sexual dating violence — when someone was forced to kiss, touch or have intercourse — had a big jump in missing answers. The percentage of students reporting such violence increased substantially, reversing a previous decline. But the question on physical dating violence — when someone was physically hurt on purpose — had no change in missing answers and showed no reversal in trends.
The rape question asks whether a person had been forced into sex anytime in their life, as opposed to many other questions that ask about violence in the previous year. Another reason the increase reported by the CDC surprised researchers is that it is unusual for a lifetime measure to spike so much between biennial surveys because there is significant overlap in the students being surveyed two years apart — half of the high school population surveyed in 2019 would be in the 2021 survey. Stein said the best explanation is not a sharp increase in rapes but that the missing data affected the result.
Janet Lauritsen, former president of the American Society of Criminology, said the NCVS also has had a decline in youth participation since the introduction of the sexual orientation and gender identity questions in 2016.
“Until the CDC presents a thorough assessment of nonresponse and weighting in the YRBS, it is very difficult to say which data source presents a more accurate depiction of the changes in sexual violence among youth,” Lauritsen said. “No data source is without error, and my personal opinion at this time is that until the YRBS data are made public and such an assessment is done, I have more confidence in the youth trends presented in the NCVS.”
Not the first increase
The CDC also claimed that the jump in students reporting a rape in their lifetimes was the “the first increase since the CDC began monitoring this measure.”
But the figure had jumped previously in consecutive surveys, such as from 10.3 percent to 11.9 percent from 2001 to 2003 (a 15.5 percent increase).
Fulton said that the CDC was referring to a 10-year trend, 2011 to 2021, and that the agency was comparing that decade to the 2007-2017 period and the 2009-2019 period. “In that report and again for 2019 (2009-2019) there were no significant increases in forced sex across those time periods,” he said.
But his statement acknowledged there was an increase — just not a “significant” increase. The percentage of girls reporting a rape in their lifetimes did not change from 2007 to 2017 but rose from 10.5 percent in 2009 to 11.4 percent in 2019. That’s an increase of 8.6 percent.
The CDC’s website has not yet corrected this error.
The Pinocchio Test
In its public presentation, the CDC had a responsibility to use accurate statistics on the percentage change in sexual violence, given how those numbers were certain to appear in news reports. The CDC should also more clearly state that some of the results in recent years may be affected by these questions not being asked of a large percentage of students. Acknowledging limitations in some parts of the survey will give people more confidence in the rest of the data.
The CDC earns Two Pinocchios.
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“More than 1 in 10 [teenage girls] (14%) had ever been forced to have sex — up 27% since 2019 and the first increase since the CDC began monitoring this measure.”
The survey also suggested a dramatic increase in the percentage of girls who had been raped. But in a statement to The Fact Checker, a CDC spokesman acknowledged that the rate of growth highlighted in the news release — 27 percent — was the result of rounding the numbers from more precise decimal-point results. The revised figure when calculated with decimal points is 18.4 percent. In addition
|
, some experts have questioned whether the results have been affected by many schools refusing to ask the question about rape.
After The Fact Checker’s inquiry, the CDC edited the news release and an accompanying page on its website to remove the reference to a 27 percent increase — a number that figured prominently in news reports at the time. The agency also removed a graphic that had highlighted a 20 percent increase in the girls reporting sexual violence in the previous four years; the figure using decimal points is 17.8 percent.
The revised news release removes all references to percentage changes in the data. The CDC’s 2019 user guide to interpreting YRBS trend data warns that “using the percent change can be misleading.”
The CDC’s focus on the challenges facing teenage girls — especially regarding mental health — is timely and important. But the CDC’s use of inflated figures on sexual violence could undermine its larger message.
CDC’s February presentation
Experts in violence against children had been surprised by the CDC’s February news release but have been stymied in understanding how it was developed because the full YRBS data set will not be released until April. Besides the CDC’s use of round numbers to calculate percentage changes in its news release and news conference, experts identified possible flaws in how the information was collected — particularly the fact that a significant number of schools surveyed refused to ask this question.
That could have biased the sample by possibly removing jurisdictions with lower rates of reporting rape and sexual violence, experts said. Other survey questions with more robust participation by schools — such as violence in dating and violence in bullying — indicated declines, not increases.
“They should have alerted readers of the release that many of the other indicators of violence exposure in the YRBS were flat or showed declines,” said David Finkelhor, a University of New Hampshire professor who is director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center. “The CDC publicity about mental health and suicide ideation among girls has a strong case that is supported by other sources of evidence. But the generalization about violence does not have such support.”
The CDC’s public presentation reported that in 2019, 11 percent of teenage girls said that sometime in their life, they had been forced into sex. By 2021, the number had grown to 14 percent. But, the spokesman acknowledged, the more precise figures were 11.4 percent in 2019 and 13.5 percent in 2021. That represents an 18.4 percent increase — lower than the initial figure, 27 percent.
Similar rounding also inflated the increase in the percentage of teen girls who reported they had experienced sexual violence in the past year, though not to the same extent. “CDC acknowledges the differences in these calculations and those made from whole numbers,” spokesman Paul Fulton Jr. said in a statement, adding that the agency used “whole numbers in the text to make the findings more accessible to a broader audience.”
Other surveys with conflicting results
Finkelhor said the CDC’s assertion that teenage girls faced “record high levels of violence” was undercut by other surveys.
For instance, the National Crime Victimization Survey, conducted by the Census Bureau for the Bureau of Justice Statistics, has indicated that rape and sexual assault of 12-to-17-year-olds has been declining for three decades.
“The NCVS data, which is well known and well regarded by violence epidemiologists, should have tempered their claims about record highs,” Finkelhor said. “There has been a remarkably large decline in crime and abuse over the last 30 years that has benefited children tremendously, but it has gotten little press attention. Perhaps it is reversing, but there are not enough data points over enough time to draw that conclusion.”
Another CDC tool, the Adolescent Behaviors and Experiences Survey (ABES), is conducted online and has a more robust response rate for the same questions on lifetime prevalence of rape and recent sexual violence. The most recent ABES also was conducted in 2021 — in the spring rather than the fall like the YRBS. In the ABES, 10.4 percent said they had once been raped (in contrast to 13.5 percent in the YRBS), and 15.3 percent said they had experienced sexual violence in the past year (in contrast to 17.9 percent in the YRBS).
Asked about the NCVS and the ABES, Fulton said: “We would not compare data across surveys that have very different methods. We do not believe those are reliable comparisons.”
Missing answers on key questions
David Stein, a mathematician who studies the rise of adolescent suicide, has dug deep into the available YRBS data and said there has been a sharp increase in the number of schools not giving students questions on sexual violence and rape. In 2017, 4 percent of the students did not answer the question on sexual violence by anyone, but in 2019, this portion rose to 25 percent. For rape, the frequency of missing answers rose from 2 percent in 2017 to 18 percent to 2019.
Fulton said the percentages of students not answering the question were similar in 2021 — 18 percent on the rape question and 23 percent on the sexual violence question. Deep in a report on the 2019 survey, the CDC acknowledged the spike in missing answers on these questions. “Most of these missing data can be attributed to some selected schools administering YRBS questionnaire versions that did not include these questions,” the report said.
Fulton said the CDC conducts a national survey and a scientific sample that is representative of all public and private school students in grades nine through 12 in the 50 states and D.C. Then it provides funding for state and local governments to do their own surveys. “These areas have wide discretion in choosing survey questions and are only required to use two-thirds of CDC’s standard questionnaire,” he said. He added that “the national data are weighted to adjust for school and student nonresponse and to make the data representative of the population of students from which the sample was drawn.”
Finkelhor and Stein said that, nonetheless, the large percentage of students not being asked these questions could have affected the results.
Stein’s analysis of the available 2019 data suggests girls who were not given the questions were considerably younger than those who had received the questions and thus less likely to have had sex and to be sexually active — two factors, he said, that are associated with a higher risk of being a victim of sexual violence.
Elizabeth L. Jeglic, a clinical psychologist who studies sexual violence prevention at John Jay College in New York, said she could not comment specifically on the CDC methodology, but she said sampling and response rate can affect findings. “If the question is asked about lifetime occurrence and younger girls are not being sampled (or less likely to be sampled) you will likely see a higher prevalence rate as older girls will have more years to experience sexual violence than younger girls,” she said in an email.
Stein noted that in 2019, there was a curious divergence in the results of two YRBS questions having to do with dating violence. The question concerning sexual dating violence — when someone was forced to kiss, touch or have intercourse — had a big jump in missing answers. The percentage of students reporting such violence increased substantially, reversing a previous decline. But the question on physical dating violence — when someone was physically hurt on purpose — had no change in missing answers and showed no reversal in trends.
The rape question asks whether a person had been forced into sex anytime in their life, as opposed to many other questions that ask about violence in the previous year. Another reason the increase reported by the CDC surprised researchers is that it is unusual for a lifetime measure to spike so much between biennial surveys because there is significant overlap in the students being surveyed two years apart — half of the high school population surveyed in 2019 would be in the 2021 survey. Stein said the best explanation is not a sharp increase in rapes but that the missing data affected the result.
Janet Lauritsen, former president of the American Society of Criminology, said the NCVS also has had a decline in youth participation since the introduction of the sexual orientation and gender identity questions in 2016.
“Until the CDC presents a thorough assessment of nonresponse and weighting in the YRBS, it is very difficult to say which data source presents a more accurate depiction of the changes in sexual violence among youth,” Lauritsen said. “No data source is without error, and my personal opinion at this time is that until the YRBS data are made public and such an assessment is done, I have more confidence in the youth trends presented in the NCVS.”
Not the first increase
The CDC also claimed that the jump in students reporting a rape in their lifetimes was the “the first increase since the CDC began monitoring this measure.”
But the figure had jumped previously in consecutive surveys, such as from 10.3 percent to 11.9 percent from 2001 to 2003 (a 15.5 percent increase).
Fulton said that the CDC was referring to a 10-year trend, 2011 to 2021, and that the agency was comparing that decade to the 2007-2017 period and the 2009-2019 period. “In that report and again for 2019 (2009-2019) there were no significant increases in forced sex across those time periods,” he said.
But his statement acknowledged there was an increase — just not a “significant” increase. The percentage of girls reporting a rape in their lifetimes did not change from 2007 to 2017 but rose from 10.5 percent in 2009 to 11.4 percent in 2019. That’s an increase of 8.6 percent.
The CDC’s website has not yet corrected this error.
The Pinocchio Test
In its public presentation, the CDC had a responsibility to use accurate statistics on the percentage change in sexual violence, given how those numbers were certain to appear in news reports. The CDC should also more clearly state that some of the results in recent years may be affected by these questions not being asked of a large percentage of students. Acknowledging limitations in some parts of the survey will give people more confidence in the rest of the data.
The CDC earns Two Pinocchios.
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A stone tablet containing text from a long-lost Indo-European language was discovered in Turkey in early 2023.
The tablet was uncovered during an annual expedition to the Boğazköy-Hattuşa UNESCO World Heritage Site in north-central Turkey, LiveScience reported. It’s believed the language carved into the tablet is some 3,000-years-old, and is written in cuneiform, one of the most ancient known scripts created by Sumerians more than 5,000 years ago.
A majority of the tablets unearthed at the site were written by the Hittites, who built their capital city in the region around 1,600 to 1,200 B.C., the outlet continued. Due to the time between the tablets being written and today, they’re found all over the site, which may have been an archive or library, researchers told LiveScience.
They were building? https://t.co/GsbwYGkB97
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) September 27, 2023
“The Hittites were uniquely interested in recording rituals in foreign languages,” Julius-Maximilians-University professor Daniel Schwemer said in a statement on the discovery. The words on this new tablet only start in the Hittite language, and appear to be describing what’s on the ancient tablet. (RELATED: Ancient Climate Crisis That Ended An Empire Discovered In The Strangest Place)
Analysis of the words have yet to reveal the innermost details of the tablet. And researchers are refusing to release photographs of it until it has been comprehensively studied (which I find super weird). All that’s been determined thus far is that the tablet likely comes from an Anatolian group of languages.
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A stone tablet containing text from a long-lost Indo-European language was discovered in Turkey in early 2023.
The tablet was uncovered during an annual expedition to the Boğazköy-Hattuşa UNESCO World Heritage Site in north-central Turkey, LiveScience reported. It’s believed the language carved into the tablet is some 3,000-years-old, and is written in cuneiform, one of the most ancient known scripts created by Sumerians more than 5,000 years ago.
A majority of the tablets unearthed at the site were written by the Hittites, who
|
built their capital city in the region around 1,600 to 1,200 B.C., the outlet continued. Due to the time between the tablets being written and today, they’re found all over the site, which may have been an archive or library, researchers told LiveScience.
They were building? https://t.co/GsbwYGkB97
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) September 27, 2023
“The Hittites were uniquely interested in recording rituals in foreign languages,” Julius-Maximilians-University professor Daniel Schwemer said in a statement on the discovery. The words on this new tablet only start in the Hittite language, and appear to be describing what’s on the ancient tablet. (RELATED: Ancient Climate Crisis That Ended An Empire Discovered In The Strangest Place)
Analysis of the words have yet to reveal the innermost details of the tablet. And researchers are refusing to release photographs of it until it has been comprehensively studied (which I find super weird). All that’s been determined thus far is that the tablet likely comes from an Anatolian group of languages.
|
Just a short time back, artificial intelligence only existed in science fiction. Walking, talking robots that acted like us (although lacking in emotion) or super-powerful computers that may or may not have had our best interests at heart.
Today, AI is very much a reality and an increasingly integral part of everyday life. But how have we got here? Where are we heading? And what exactly do we mean when we talk about the importance of AI in 2024?
I’ll address some of these questions here as I examine how our understanding of AI continues to evolve. This is crucial for us to understand as AI touches more areas of our lives and impacts society in new ways.
How Did We Get Here?
The concept of AI has existed for far longer than the technology has. Ancient Greek philosophers theorized about “thinking machines” and saw the human brain as a complex mechanism that we would perhaps one day be able to recreate or simulate.
However, the concept was confined largely to academia and entertainment until computers powerful enough to perform problem-solving and statistical analysis emerged in the mid-20th century.
From the 1950s to the 1980s, progress continued in the field of machine learning, as it became apparent that teaching machines to find their own solutions using data was more effective than giving them explicit instructions when it came to getting them to perform complex tasks. Research often focused on the artificial neural network model, which attempted to mimic some of the learning mechanisms of the human brain.
Big leaps forward were made in the late 2000s and early 2010s with the development of deep learning and deep neural networks. Because computers were becoming increasingly powerful, it became feasible to build far bigger neural networks, enabling computers to carry out more complex reasoning and decision-making. This led to the emergence of technologies like computer vision and natural language processing.
The 2010s was the era of big data, when—thanks to everyone and everything going online and becoming connected—the volume of data in the world exploded. At this point, it became apparent that more data plus more processing power leads to neural networks and algorithms that become increasingly better at doing their jobs.
And perhaps the final pivotal moment (so far) has been the emergence of generative AI. This can be seen as a societal breakthrough as much as a technological one, with tools like ChatGPT and Dall-E making it possible for anyone to work with AI and put it to use in everyday life.
AI In 2024
AI in 2024 is at a similar stage of its evolution as the internet was just when it was starting to go mainstream—say in the mid to late 1990s. Most of us know what it is now and understand that in the future, it will change just about everything.
What we have today is clearly the culmination of the technological leaps we covered in the previous section. But thanks to those leaps, we’ve arrived at the point where we are starting to see profound and far-reaching societal and cultural change.
Today, AI is becoming increasingly accessible and user-friendly. But it’s more than that—it’s also making just about every other aspect of technology more accessible by breaking down communication barriers between humans and machines.
Intuitive, natural-language interfaces and image recognition technology mean just about anyone will find it easier to get machines to do what they want. A lack of technical know-how will no longer be an obstacle for those with ideas about how technology can change the world for the better.
Today, this is often described as “democratizing” the power of technology—a hugely important aspect of AI's role in 2024.
We continue to see AI integrated into more and more of the tools we use in our day-to-day lives, from apps to our home appliances and the cars we drive.
Another keyword today is “augmentation.” This relates to the trend of adopting AI technology to improve our efficiency at routine tasks, enabling us to dedicate more of our time and human capabilities to more creative, complex tasks.
And just as importantly, when we talk about AI today, the focus is likely to be on the ethical questions that it forces us to confront.
Hot topics of debate right now revolve around what is acceptable when it comes to issues such as privacy, AI bias, transparency and intellectual property rights. And the decisions we make about these issues today will likely have long-lasting consequences on how this world-changing technology is used tomorrow.
Here and now, in 2024, the discussion around AI is just as likely to revolve around regulatory frameworks, responsibility and security as it is around algorithms, neural networks and transformer models.
Where Do We Go From Here?
As we’ve explored, the immediate challenges around AI are likely to be ethical, regulatory, cultural and societal. But there will inevitably be more technological breakthroughs down the line—and these will probably turn everything upside-down once again!
Going back to the internet analogy, I believe that AI in 10 or 20 years will be as unrecognizable to us today as the early internet of the dial-up modem and Netscape Navigator would be to a kid born in the 2000s and raised on smartphones and TikTok.
It will become smarter, faster and more integrated with our lives in almost every way we can imagine. Partly, this will be because computers will continue to become faster and more powerful (taking into account emerging technologies like quantum computing).
But it will also be because solving today’s problems around societal acceptance will lead to greater trust in the ability of technology to improve our lives safely and ethically.
For many of those developing cutting-edge AI today, the aim is to bring us closer to achieving general (or “strong”) AI—capable of learning to carry out any task, much like a human can.
In 2024, however, it's becoming clear that to get there in a responsible way, we first have to solve the problems we’re facing today. And unlike the problems of the previous decade, these aren’t likely to be solved simply by throwing more processing power and data at them.
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Just a short time back, artificial intelligence only existed in science fiction. Walking, talking robots that acted like us (although lacking in emotion) or super-powerful computers that may or may not have had our best interests at heart.
Today, AI is very much a reality and an increasingly integral part of everyday life. But how have we got here? Where are we heading? And what exactly do we mean when we talk about the importance of AI in 2024?
I’ll address some of these questions here as I examine how our understanding of AI continues to evolve. This is crucial for us to understand as AI touches more areas
|
of our lives and impacts society in new ways.
How Did We Get Here?
The concept of AI has existed for far longer than the technology has. Ancient Greek philosophers theorized about “thinking machines” and saw the human brain as a complex mechanism that we would perhaps one day be able to recreate or simulate.
However, the concept was confined largely to academia and entertainment until computers powerful enough to perform problem-solving and statistical analysis emerged in the mid-20th century.
From the 1950s to the 1980s, progress continued in the field of machine learning, as it became apparent that teaching machines to find their own solutions using data was more effective than giving them explicit instructions when it came to getting them to perform complex tasks. Research often focused on the artificial neural network model, which attempted to mimic some of the learning mechanisms of the human brain.
Big leaps forward were made in the late 2000s and early 2010s with the development of deep learning and deep neural networks. Because computers were becoming increasingly powerful, it became feasible to build far bigger neural networks, enabling computers to carry out more complex reasoning and decision-making. This led to the emergence of technologies like computer vision and natural language processing.
The 2010s was the era of big data, when—thanks to everyone and everything going online and becoming connected—the volume of data in the world exploded. At this point, it became apparent that more data plus more processing power leads to neural networks and algorithms that become increasingly better at doing their jobs.
And perhaps the final pivotal moment (so far) has been the emergence of generative AI. This can be seen as a societal breakthrough as much as a technological one, with tools like ChatGPT and Dall-E making it possible for anyone to work with AI and put it to use in everyday life.
AI In 2024
AI in 2024 is at a similar stage of its evolution as the internet was just when it was starting to go mainstream—say in the mid to late 1990s. Most of us know what it is now and understand that in the future, it will change just about everything.
What we have today is clearly the culmination of the technological leaps we covered in the previous section. But thanks to those leaps, we’ve arrived at the point where we are starting to see profound and far-reaching societal and cultural change.
Today, AI is becoming increasingly accessible and user-friendly. But it’s more than that—it’s also making just about every other aspect of technology more accessible by breaking down communication barriers between humans and machines.
Intuitive, natural-language interfaces and image recognition technology mean just about anyone will find it easier to get machines to do what they want. A lack of technical know-how will no longer be an obstacle for those with ideas about how technology can change the world for the better.
Today, this is often described as “democratizing” the power of technology—a hugely important aspect of AI's role in 2024.
We continue to see AI integrated into more and more of the tools we use in our day-to-day lives, from apps to our home appliances and the cars we drive.
Another keyword today is “augmentation.” This relates to the trend of adopting AI technology to improve our efficiency at routine tasks, enabling us to dedicate more of our time and human capabilities to more creative, complex tasks.
And just as importantly, when we talk about AI today, the focus is likely to be on the ethical questions that it forces us to confront.
Hot topics of debate right now revolve around what is acceptable when it comes to issues such as privacy, AI bias, transparency and intellectual property rights. And the decisions we make about these issues today will likely have long-lasting consequences on how this world-changing technology is used tomorrow.
Here and now, in 2024, the discussion around AI is just as likely to revolve around regulatory frameworks, responsibility and security as it is around algorithms, neural networks and transformer models.
Where Do We Go From Here?
As we’ve explored, the immediate challenges around AI are likely to be ethical, regulatory, cultural and societal. But there will inevitably be more technological breakthroughs down the line—and these will probably turn everything upside-down once again!
Going back to the internet analogy, I believe that AI in 10 or 20 years will be as unrecognizable to us today as the early internet of the dial-up modem and Netscape Navigator would be to a kid born in the 2000s and raised on smartphones and TikTok.
It will become smarter, faster and more integrated with our lives in almost every way we can imagine. Partly, this will be because computers will continue to become faster and more powerful (taking into account emerging technologies like quantum computing).
But it will also be because solving today’s problems around societal acceptance will lead to greater trust in the ability of technology to improve our lives safely and ethically.
For many of those developing cutting-edge AI today, the aim is to bring us closer to achieving general (or “strong”) AI—capable of learning to carry out any task, much like a human can.
In 2024, however, it's becoming clear that to get there in a responsible way, we first have to solve the problems we’re facing today. And unlike the problems of the previous decade, these aren’t likely to be solved simply by throwing more processing power and data at them.
|
Vaccines for Covid-19 and influenza may slightly increase the risk of strokes caused by blood clots in the brains of seniors, particularly when the two vaccines are given at the same time and when they are given to adults who are age 85 and older, according to a new study.
The safety signal was detected by experts at the US Food and Drug Administration who analyzed data from Medicare claims.
It is the second study to find an elevated risk of stroke for seniors after Covid-19 and flu vaccinations given together. The US Centers for Disease Control and FDA issued a public communication in January explaining that one of their near real-time vaccine safety monitoring studies — called the Vaccine Safety Datalink — had picked up a small and uncertain risk of stroke for older adults who received a dose of Pfizer’s bivalent Covid-19 vaccine and a high-dose or adjuvanted flu shot on the same day. That study triggered the FDA’s broader look at strokes after vaccination noted in the medical records of seniors on Medicare.
That said, the risk identified in the FDA’s study appears to be very small — roughly 3 strokes or transient ischemic attacks for every 100,000 doses given — and the study found it may be primarily driven by the high-dose or adjuvanted flu vaccines, which are specially designed to rev up the immune system so it mounts a stronger response to the shot.
In additional analysis of the Medicare claims data, the FDA researchers found a very slightly increased risk of stroke in adults ages 65 and older who’d only gotten a high dose flu shot. In absolute terms, the extra risk from high-dose flu shots amounted to 1-2 strokes for every 100,000 doses.
“The absolute risk is miniscule,” said Dr. Steve Nissen, a cardiologist and researcher at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. “I mean it is trivial in comparison to the risk for people over 85 of dying from Covid.”
At least five other recent studies — many launched to try to tease out this link, have not found any additional risk of stroke after vaccination for Covid-19, influenza or both.
“Available data do not provide clear and consistent evidence of a safety problem for ischemic stroke with bivalent mRNA Covid-19 vaccines when given alone or given simultaneously with influenza vaccines,” said Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, director of the Immunization Safety Office at the CDC in a public presentation of the data on Wednesday to the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
Researchers say they are continuing to probe the possible link, but in the meantime, they say everyone should still get vaccinated since any tiny increase in risk of a stroke after vaccination is dwarfed by the increased risk of stroke or other serious outcomes following either a flu or Covid-19 infection.
“The risk of serious disease associated with both influenza and Covid for the population at highest risk, which is of course, older persons, is so much greater than the potential increased risk associated with a vaccine,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University.
“That’s a hard equation for the average person to do,” Schaffner said.
Spread out your shots?
Schaffner said people who are worried could consider getting each shot at different times rather than together.
“That’s a reasonable thing to do,” he said.
Schaffner, who is in his mid-80s, said he got both his Covid and flu vaccines at the same time, in the same arm, and had very little reaction afterwards.
A few weeks ago, however, Dr. Peter Marks, head of FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said he was planning to get his Covid-19 vaccine first, followed by his influenza vaccine about two weeks later.
“If you want to minimize the chance of interactions and minimize confusing the side effects from one with another, you wait about two weeks between the vaccines,” Marks said on an FDA stakeholder call in September.
Other experts said they hoped the information wouldn’t confuse people or deter them from getting their vaccines, since the benefits of getting them still greatly outweigh the risks.
“The bottom line is that these are small signals. We’re not entirely sure whether they are valid, and they certainly do not lead themselves to any change in the recommendations for people getting either Covid or influenza vaccines at the present time,” Schaffner said.
For the study, FDA investigators looked at the medical claims of more than 5.3 million adults ages 65 and older who were enrolled in Medicare and received a bivalent Covid-19 vaccine made by Pfizer or Moderna. They saw no increased risk of stroke in the overall group after Covid-19 vaccination.
When they looked at adults ages 85 and older, they found an elevated risk of strokes caused by blood clots in those who’d had Pfizer vaccines, but not in those who got Moderna shots.
Seniors age 65 and older who got a bivalent vaccine and high-dose or adjuvanted flu shot at the same time also had an increased risk of blood clots in their brains.
The study is observational, meaning it can only show associations, it can’t prove cause and effect. It was also posted as a preprint ahead of peer review by outside experts and publication in a medical journal.
Study sees link to seizures in young kids
A separate FDA investigation of more than 4 million records from three large commercial insurance databases, found a very small and tenuous link between seizures in children between the ages of 2 and 5 and Covid-19 vaccination. Children this age appeared to be slightly more likely to have seizures after Covid-19 vaccination compared with background seizure rates in the general population in 2020 — a year when infectious diseases were lower in kids because of masks and social distancing.
The signal disappeared, however, when researchers compared it with background rates of seizures reported in US children in 2022, a year when infections in kids rebounded.
That study was also posted as a preprint.
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The study authors said their findings should be interpreted with caution, since most were associated with fevers, which are common in kids. Vaccination can also cause kids to run fevers.
They said they hoped their findings would be investigated in a more robust epidemiological study.
About 4% of children experience seizures triggered by fevers, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
Dr. Phillip Yang, a cardiologist at Stanford Health Care, said the findings didn’t look particularly concerning.
“It’s not unusual after Covid vaccine that we have little bit of a fever that could trigger a seizure, and kids who are more susceptible to it. So again, it’s not a surprising finding,” Yang said.
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Vaccines for Covid-19 and influenza may slightly increase the risk of strokes caused by blood clots in the brains of seniors, particularly when the two vaccines are given at the same time and when they are given to adults who are age 85 and older, according to a new study.
The safety signal was detected by experts at the US Food and Drug Administration who analyzed data from Medicare claims.
It is the second study to find an elevated risk of stroke for seniors after Covid-19 and flu vaccinations given together. The US Centers for Disease Control and FDA issued a public communication in January explaining that one of their near
|
real-time vaccine safety monitoring studies — called the Vaccine Safety Datalink — had picked up a small and uncertain risk of stroke for older adults who received a dose of Pfizer’s bivalent Covid-19 vaccine and a high-dose or adjuvanted flu shot on the same day. That study triggered the FDA’s broader look at strokes after vaccination noted in the medical records of seniors on Medicare.
That said, the risk identified in the FDA’s study appears to be very small — roughly 3 strokes or transient ischemic attacks for every 100,000 doses given — and the study found it may be primarily driven by the high-dose or adjuvanted flu vaccines, which are specially designed to rev up the immune system so it mounts a stronger response to the shot.
In additional analysis of the Medicare claims data, the FDA researchers found a very slightly increased risk of stroke in adults ages 65 and older who’d only gotten a high dose flu shot. In absolute terms, the extra risk from high-dose flu shots amounted to 1-2 strokes for every 100,000 doses.
“The absolute risk is miniscule,” said Dr. Steve Nissen, a cardiologist and researcher at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. “I mean it is trivial in comparison to the risk for people over 85 of dying from Covid.”
At least five other recent studies — many launched to try to tease out this link, have not found any additional risk of stroke after vaccination for Covid-19, influenza or both.
“Available data do not provide clear and consistent evidence of a safety problem for ischemic stroke with bivalent mRNA Covid-19 vaccines when given alone or given simultaneously with influenza vaccines,” said Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, director of the Immunization Safety Office at the CDC in a public presentation of the data on Wednesday to the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
Researchers say they are continuing to probe the possible link, but in the meantime, they say everyone should still get vaccinated since any tiny increase in risk of a stroke after vaccination is dwarfed by the increased risk of stroke or other serious outcomes following either a flu or Covid-19 infection.
“The risk of serious disease associated with both influenza and Covid for the population at highest risk, which is of course, older persons, is so much greater than the potential increased risk associated with a vaccine,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University.
“That’s a hard equation for the average person to do,” Schaffner said.
Spread out your shots?
Schaffner said people who are worried could consider getting each shot at different times rather than together.
“That’s a reasonable thing to do,” he said.
Schaffner, who is in his mid-80s, said he got both his Covid and flu vaccines at the same time, in the same arm, and had very little reaction afterwards.
A few weeks ago, however, Dr. Peter Marks, head of FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said he was planning to get his Covid-19 vaccine first, followed by his influenza vaccine about two weeks later.
“If you want to minimize the chance of interactions and minimize confusing the side effects from one with another, you wait about two weeks between the vaccines,” Marks said on an FDA stakeholder call in September.
Other experts said they hoped the information wouldn’t confuse people or deter them from getting their vaccines, since the benefits of getting them still greatly outweigh the risks.
“The bottom line is that these are small signals. We’re not entirely sure whether they are valid, and they certainly do not lead themselves to any change in the recommendations for people getting either Covid or influenza vaccines at the present time,” Schaffner said.
For the study, FDA investigators looked at the medical claims of more than 5.3 million adults ages 65 and older who were enrolled in Medicare and received a bivalent Covid-19 vaccine made by Pfizer or Moderna. They saw no increased risk of stroke in the overall group after Covid-19 vaccination.
When they looked at adults ages 85 and older, they found an elevated risk of strokes caused by blood clots in those who’d had Pfizer vaccines, but not in those who got Moderna shots.
Seniors age 65 and older who got a bivalent vaccine and high-dose or adjuvanted flu shot at the same time also had an increased risk of blood clots in their brains.
The study is observational, meaning it can only show associations, it can’t prove cause and effect. It was also posted as a preprint ahead of peer review by outside experts and publication in a medical journal.
Study sees link to seizures in young kids
A separate FDA investigation of more than 4 million records from three large commercial insurance databases, found a very small and tenuous link between seizures in children between the ages of 2 and 5 and Covid-19 vaccination. Children this age appeared to be slightly more likely to have seizures after Covid-19 vaccination compared with background seizure rates in the general population in 2020 — a year when infectious diseases were lower in kids because of masks and social distancing.
The signal disappeared, however, when researchers compared it with background rates of seizures reported in US children in 2022, a year when infections in kids rebounded.
That study was also posted as a preprint.
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The study authors said their findings should be interpreted with caution, since most were associated with fevers, which are common in kids. Vaccination can also cause kids to run fevers.
They said they hoped their findings would be investigated in a more robust epidemiological study.
About 4% of children experience seizures triggered by fevers, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
Dr. Phillip Yang, a cardiologist at Stanford Health Care, said the findings didn’t look particularly concerning.
“It’s not unusual after Covid vaccine that we have little bit of a fever that could trigger a seizure, and kids who are more susceptible to it. So again, it’s not a surprising finding,” Yang said.
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For amateur astronomers, 'star parties' are the antidote to light-polluted skies
COUDERSPORT, Pa. — Up a winding road that cuts through the Allegheny Plateau, hundreds of amateur astronomers in campers and pickups stream into northern Pennsylvania each spring and summer in search of one thing: stars.
It's something they can't get enough of in the halo of light pollution that surrounds most cities. By contrast, Cherry Springs State Park, located about 135 miles northwest of Wilkes-Barre, is one of the very few truly dark sky sites in the entire eastern United States.
Twice a year, in June and September, park officials and local astronomy clubs team up to host "star parties" that draw people from as far away as Florida and Wisconsin. For these amateur astronomers, there's no replacement for the inky-black skies that reveal what they affectionately refer to as "faint fuzzies" — dim and distant galaxies, star clusters and nebulae.
The weather, however, is always a wild card. Only the third and final night of the June event this year, timed to coincide with the new moon, delivers clear skies. Molly Wakeling is betting that will be enough to capture LDN 1262, a wispy nebula in the constellation Cepheus. She's hoping to photograph it, something that would be impossible from her home in Dayton, Ohio.
"I do the objects from the dark skies that are hard for me to do from home," Wakeling says. A quick glance at a dark sky map makes clear why western Ohio is such a challenge for her, and why Cherry Springs is so inviting, even if it means waiting out clouds and rain.
Digital cameras have changed the game
Wakeling is part of a growing trend among amateur stargazers. Traditionally, "visual astronomers" have simply looked through an eyepiece to view objects that are often thousands — or even millions — of light-years away. In recent years, however, sensitive digital cameras have brought amateur astrophotography into its own. Long and multiple exposures collect much more light than the human eye and can then be "stacked" to assemble extraordinary images, as evidenced by Wakeling's online gallery.
Eric Roth, a past president of the Astronomical Society of Harrisburg, which organizes the annual star party, says 550 people registered for this year's event, with another 400 on a waitlist. That tops the previous record set in 2022. He says the switch from visual astronomy to astrophotography is "a big-time change" that seems to have really taken off around the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Roth considers himself an old-school, through-the-eyepiece "strictly visual astronomer." But today "it seems like everybody is going now for astrophotography."
He doesn't think that is a bad thing. It's helping pass the amateur astronomy baton to a new generation. "We're skewing younger than we used to, which is good," Roth says. He surmises that it's because the gadgetry of astrophotography appeals more to a younger demographic.
Trinna Cuellar, 41, lives in New Jersey and has also recently gotten into astrophotography. She talks about her telescope gear the way some people talk about a prized sports car — citing specs and rattling off lingo.
Cuellar has brought her son, Lev, who is almost 11, to Cherry Springs so he can get his first glimpse of "the galaxy we live in" — the Milky Way, she says.
She was first at Cherry Springs as a child and credits the experience with sparking her interest in astronomy. "My first time here, I think I was 7 or 8 years old," she says. "We came to see the stars, and I was just blown away."
A few years ago, at the start of the pandemic, she took the leap into astrophotography.
"I love the creative freedom," Cuellar says. "There's a lot of flexibility in how you put together that final image."
"I can actually create something that kind of resembles a Hubble image," she says, referencing NASA's famed Hubble Space Telescope.
An escape from light pollution
While the dark skies of Cherry Springs benefit all amateur astronomers, with filters and other workarounds, astrophotographers can mitigate some of the light pollution issues they experience at home. For visual astronomers such as 69-year-old Wayne Petko, though, dark skies are a must.
That's why he's been coming to Cherry Springs from his home in New Jersey for the past quarter-century — and not just for star parties but for new moons throughout the summer, when there's usually 50 to 100 other enthusiasts on the observing field with him, he says.
Petko belongs to the New Jersey Astronomical Association, whose observatory is at a state park situated west of New York City and about 40 miles north of Trenton, where "there's been a gradual upswing in light pollution."
In fact, Petko's observation about an upsurge in light pollution is backed by data. A study published earlier this year in the journal Science indicates that on average, the night sky has gotten nearly 10% brighter each year from 2011 to 2022.
That would probably come as no surprise to Stephen Alba, who lives "15 minutes from Newark Airport," where the stars are hidden by a hazy glow. He, his wife and young son arrived at the Cherry Springs party without a truck full of complicated astronomy gear — just a simple pair of binoculars.
"We want to see the Milky Way," Alba says, smiling. "We're just here to experience it."
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
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For amateur astronomers, 'star parties' are the antidote to light-polluted skies
COUDERSPORT, Pa. — Up a winding road that cuts through the Allegheny Plateau, hundreds of amateur astronomers in campers and pickups stream into northern Pennsylvania each spring and summer in search of one thing: stars.
It's something they can't get enough of in the halo of light pollution that surrounds most cities. By contrast, Cherry Springs State Park, located about 135 miles northwest of Wilkes-Barre, is one of the very few truly dark sky sites in the entire eastern United States.
|
Twice a year, in June and September, park officials and local astronomy clubs team up to host "star parties" that draw people from as far away as Florida and Wisconsin. For these amateur astronomers, there's no replacement for the inky-black skies that reveal what they affectionately refer to as "faint fuzzies" — dim and distant galaxies, star clusters and nebulae.
The weather, however, is always a wild card. Only the third and final night of the June event this year, timed to coincide with the new moon, delivers clear skies. Molly Wakeling is betting that will be enough to capture LDN 1262, a wispy nebula in the constellation Cepheus. She's hoping to photograph it, something that would be impossible from her home in Dayton, Ohio.
"I do the objects from the dark skies that are hard for me to do from home," Wakeling says. A quick glance at a dark sky map makes clear why western Ohio is such a challenge for her, and why Cherry Springs is so inviting, even if it means waiting out clouds and rain.
Digital cameras have changed the game
Wakeling is part of a growing trend among amateur stargazers. Traditionally, "visual astronomers" have simply looked through an eyepiece to view objects that are often thousands — or even millions — of light-years away. In recent years, however, sensitive digital cameras have brought amateur astrophotography into its own. Long and multiple exposures collect much more light than the human eye and can then be "stacked" to assemble extraordinary images, as evidenced by Wakeling's online gallery.
Eric Roth, a past president of the Astronomical Society of Harrisburg, which organizes the annual star party, says 550 people registered for this year's event, with another 400 on a waitlist. That tops the previous record set in 2022. He says the switch from visual astronomy to astrophotography is "a big-time change" that seems to have really taken off around the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Roth considers himself an old-school, through-the-eyepiece "strictly visual astronomer." But today "it seems like everybody is going now for astrophotography."
He doesn't think that is a bad thing. It's helping pass the amateur astronomy baton to a new generation. "We're skewing younger than we used to, which is good," Roth says. He surmises that it's because the gadgetry of astrophotography appeals more to a younger demographic.
Trinna Cuellar, 41, lives in New Jersey and has also recently gotten into astrophotography. She talks about her telescope gear the way some people talk about a prized sports car — citing specs and rattling off lingo.
Cuellar has brought her son, Lev, who is almost 11, to Cherry Springs so he can get his first glimpse of "the galaxy we live in" — the Milky Way, she says.
She was first at Cherry Springs as a child and credits the experience with sparking her interest in astronomy. "My first time here, I think I was 7 or 8 years old," she says. "We came to see the stars, and I was just blown away."
A few years ago, at the start of the pandemic, she took the leap into astrophotography.
"I love the creative freedom," Cuellar says. "There's a lot of flexibility in how you put together that final image."
"I can actually create something that kind of resembles a Hubble image," she says, referencing NASA's famed Hubble Space Telescope.
An escape from light pollution
While the dark skies of Cherry Springs benefit all amateur astronomers, with filters and other workarounds, astrophotographers can mitigate some of the light pollution issues they experience at home. For visual astronomers such as 69-year-old Wayne Petko, though, dark skies are a must.
That's why he's been coming to Cherry Springs from his home in New Jersey for the past quarter-century — and not just for star parties but for new moons throughout the summer, when there's usually 50 to 100 other enthusiasts on the observing field with him, he says.
Petko belongs to the New Jersey Astronomical Association, whose observatory is at a state park situated west of New York City and about 40 miles north of Trenton, where "there's been a gradual upswing in light pollution."
In fact, Petko's observation about an upsurge in light pollution is backed by data. A study published earlier this year in the journal Science indicates that on average, the night sky has gotten nearly 10% brighter each year from 2011 to 2022.
That would probably come as no surprise to Stephen Alba, who lives "15 minutes from Newark Airport," where the stars are hidden by a hazy glow. He, his wife and young son arrived at the Cherry Springs party without a truck full of complicated astronomy gear — just a simple pair of binoculars.
"We want to see the Milky Way," Alba says, smiling. "We're just here to experience it."
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
|
A couple of years ago I was listening to a travel podcast about Bulgaria. I was fascinated and one day I got the chance to visit Sofia. I loved the place. On the last day there, I went to the national museum which was quite some distance to go. But then I spent a lot of time there to explore everything.
I found some very interesting horns made of gold which are called Rhytons. As per wikipedia “a rhyton a roughly conical container from which fluids were intended to be drunk. It is typically formed in the shape of an animal’s head. Items were produced over large areas of ancient Eurasia, especially from Persia to the Balkans”
These vessels were part of Thracian treasure. Before listening to that podcast, I didn’t even know the word Thracian.The Thracians were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Eastern and Southeastern Europe in ancient history. I wondered what’s the difference between Greeks and Thracians because the pottery looked like Greek pottery to me. But then I found on the internet that they influenced the Greek civilization, which can explain the similarities, although the Greeks later used that term to denote barbaric, uneducated, wild people!! I wonder.
Whatever the story, I found these gold horns to be fascinating and hence, they are the subject of today’s post.
Would be great if you would join the “Only in Museum” series by posting something you found catching your eye in one of your visits to the museum. Then create a pingback to this post by including the link to my post in yours. You can also give the link to your post in the comments section below. Also, tagging the post with “Only in Museum” and “OiM” would help all readers find these posts easily.
2 thoughts on “Only in Museum #11”
Wonderful pieces, PR.
Here is mine:
LikeLiked by 1 person
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A couple of years ago I was listening to a travel podcast about Bulgaria. I was fascinated and one day I got the chance to visit Sofia. I loved the place. On the last day there, I went to the national museum which was quite some distance to go. But then I spent a lot of time there to explore everything.
I found some very interesting horns made of gold which are called Rhytons. As per wikipedia “a rhyton a roughly conical container from which fluids were intended to be drunk. It is typically formed in the shape of an animal’s head. Items were produced over large areas of ancient Eurasia
|
, especially from Persia to the Balkans”
These vessels were part of Thracian treasure. Before listening to that podcast, I didn’t even know the word Thracian.The Thracians were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Eastern and Southeastern Europe in ancient history. I wondered what’s the difference between Greeks and Thracians because the pottery looked like Greek pottery to me. But then I found on the internet that they influenced the Greek civilization, which can explain the similarities, although the Greeks later used that term to denote barbaric, uneducated, wild people!! I wonder.
Whatever the story, I found these gold horns to be fascinating and hence, they are the subject of today’s post.
Would be great if you would join the “Only in Museum” series by posting something you found catching your eye in one of your visits to the museum. Then create a pingback to this post by including the link to my post in yours. You can also give the link to your post in the comments section below. Also, tagging the post with “Only in Museum” and “OiM” would help all readers find these posts easily.
2 thoughts on “Only in Museum #11”
Wonderful pieces, PR.
Here is mine:
LikeLiked by 1 person
|
In an era of rapidly advancing technology and development, it has become more important than ever to keep ourselves updated on environmental news. Our planet is facing numerous challenges, including climate change, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, and pollution, which require immediate attention and action. Fortunately, there is also a growing awareness of these issues, leading to significant strides in conservation and sustainable living practices worldwide. In this article, we will delve into some of the latest updates on conservation efforts and sustainable living initiatives that are making a positive impact on the environment.
1. Ocean Cleanup Efforts
Plastic pollution has been a major concern for marine ecosystems worldwide. In recent years, several organizations and governments have come together to tackle this issue. Advanced technologies, like autonomous drones and floating trash collectors, have been deployed to clean up plastic waste in the oceans. These efforts have led to the successful removal of millions of tons of plastic debris, preventing harm to marine life and reducing the accumulation of plastic in vast ocean gyres. Additionally, more countries are implementing bans on single-use plastics, encouraging the adoption of sustainable alternatives, and promoting a circular economy.
2. Renewable Energy Revolution
The transition to renewable energy sources has gained significant momentum. In 2023, we witnessed a notable increase in the installation of solar, wind, and hydroelectric power systems worldwide. These clean energy sources have reduced the dependence on fossil fuels, thereby curbing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating the impacts of climate change. Several countries have set ambitious targets to become carbon-neutral in the coming decades, and investments in renewable energy technologies continue to rise, making sustainable energy production more affordable and accessible.
3. Biodiversity Conservation and Protected Areas
Efforts to conserve biodiversity and protect natural habitats have been on the rise. Many nations have established new protected areas and expanded existing ones to safeguard critical ecosystems and endangered species. These protected areas not only provide sanctuary for wildlife but also serve as valuable carbon sinks, helping in the fight against climate change. Collaborative projects involving local communities, governments, and conservation organizations have shown promising results in safeguarding biodiversity while promoting sustainable development.
4. Sustainable Urban Development
As urbanization continues to accelerate, cities are increasingly adopting sustainable practices to reduce their ecological footprint. Sustainable urban planning includes initiatives such as eco-friendly public transportation systems, green building designs, and the development of urban green spaces. These efforts are enhancing the overall quality of life for city dwellers, reducing air and water pollution, and conserving resources.
While there is no denying that the challenges facing our environment are immense, the progress being made in conservation and sustainable living efforts is encouraging. Individuals, organizations, and governments worldwide are taking action to protect our planet and ensure a sustainable future for generations to come. However, it is crucial to maintain this momentum and strive for continuous improvement in our environmental practices. By staying informed and actively participating in conservation initiatives and sustainable living choices, each of us can contribute to the collective effort to safeguard our precious planet. Together, we can make a significant difference and leave a positive legacy for future generations.
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In an era of rapidly advancing technology and development, it has become more important than ever to keep ourselves updated on environmental news. Our planet is facing numerous challenges, including climate change, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, and pollution, which require immediate attention and action. Fortunately, there is also a growing awareness of these issues, leading to significant strides in conservation and sustainable living practices worldwide. In this article, we will delve into some of the latest updates on conservation efforts and sustainable living initiatives that are making a positive impact on the environment.
1. Ocean Cleanup Efforts
Plastic pollution has been a major concern for marine ecosystems
|
worldwide. In recent years, several organizations and governments have come together to tackle this issue. Advanced technologies, like autonomous drones and floating trash collectors, have been deployed to clean up plastic waste in the oceans. These efforts have led to the successful removal of millions of tons of plastic debris, preventing harm to marine life and reducing the accumulation of plastic in vast ocean gyres. Additionally, more countries are implementing bans on single-use plastics, encouraging the adoption of sustainable alternatives, and promoting a circular economy.
2. Renewable Energy Revolution
The transition to renewable energy sources has gained significant momentum. In 2023, we witnessed a notable increase in the installation of solar, wind, and hydroelectric power systems worldwide. These clean energy sources have reduced the dependence on fossil fuels, thereby curbing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating the impacts of climate change. Several countries have set ambitious targets to become carbon-neutral in the coming decades, and investments in renewable energy technologies continue to rise, making sustainable energy production more affordable and accessible.
3. Biodiversity Conservation and Protected Areas
Efforts to conserve biodiversity and protect natural habitats have been on the rise. Many nations have established new protected areas and expanded existing ones to safeguard critical ecosystems and endangered species. These protected areas not only provide sanctuary for wildlife but also serve as valuable carbon sinks, helping in the fight against climate change. Collaborative projects involving local communities, governments, and conservation organizations have shown promising results in safeguarding biodiversity while promoting sustainable development.
4. Sustainable Urban Development
As urbanization continues to accelerate, cities are increasingly adopting sustainable practices to reduce their ecological footprint. Sustainable urban planning includes initiatives such as eco-friendly public transportation systems, green building designs, and the development of urban green spaces. These efforts are enhancing the overall quality of life for city dwellers, reducing air and water pollution, and conserving resources.
While there is no denying that the challenges facing our environment are immense, the progress being made in conservation and sustainable living efforts is encouraging. Individuals, organizations, and governments worldwide are taking action to protect our planet and ensure a sustainable future for generations to come. However, it is crucial to maintain this momentum and strive for continuous improvement in our environmental practices. By staying informed and actively participating in conservation initiatives and sustainable living choices, each of us can contribute to the collective effort to safeguard our precious planet. Together, we can make a significant difference and leave a positive legacy for future generations.
|
Burning wood this winter? Here's how to use the ashes to help your garden
If you have been burning wood for heat this winter, you likely have several buckets of wood ashes remaining.
Gardeners can take advantage of the nutrient value of these ashes in their landscapes. Since wood ash is derived from plant materials, it contains many of the essential nutrients plants need to survive.
Burning wood releases gases like nitrogen and sulfur and leaves behind other nutrients as trace elements. The actual fertilizer value of your ash depends on the type of wood you burn. Ashes from hardwoods, such as oak, typically contain a higher percentage of nutrients than ash from softwoods such as pine.
Generally speaking, hardwoods produce three times as much ash per cord and five times as many nutrients per cord as softwoods. To put it another way, the ash from a cord of oak could meet the potassium needs of a garden 60 by 70 feet and contains enough calcium and magnesium to reduce soil acidity by slightly increasing the soil pH.
Compared to neutralizing power of traditional lime, wood ash is less effective per pound of product; however, since it also contains many water-soluble nutrients, research has shown it can actually increase plant growth up to 45% over traditional limestone.
More:Vines add quality to your landscaping, but it's important to choose the right type
Each pound of wood ash is the equivalent of one-third to one-half pound of agricultural limestone. Under normal conditions, five to 10 pounds of wood ash per 100 square feet of garden area will neutralize excess soil acids and increase the soil pH to a favorable level.
This liming action of ash is important because it promotes better soil structure development over time, making garden sites more aerated and easier to till.
Soils low in organic matter, soils needing lime, and soils that become unusually hard during drought conditions are ideal sites to make use of wood ashes. Wood ash is used effectively in the following situations:
- Where soils are acid and low in potassium, wood ash is beneficial to most garden plants except acid-loving plants such as blueberries, rhododendrons and azaleas. Use wood ash on flower beds, lawns and shrub beds.
- One-half to one pound of wood ash per year is recommended for each shrub and rose bush. Spread ash evenly on the soil around perennial plants. Rake the ash into the soil lightly, being careful not to damage the roots. Never leave ash in lumps or piles, because if it is concentrated in one place, excessive salt will leach into the soil, creating a harmful environment for plants.
- Lawns needing some lime and potassium can also benefit from wood ash. Apply no more than 10 to 15 pounds of ash per 1,000 square feet of lawn, as at high levels, ash makes the soil less suitable for plant growth. Do not use ash if your soil pH is more than 7.0.
- In your compost pile, wood ash can be used to help maintain a neutral condition, the best environment to help microorganisms break down organic materials. Sprinkle ash on each layer of compost material as the pile is built up. Ash will also add nutrients to your compost.
In addition to promoting good structural development in the soil, the supply of calcium from the ashes can also be helpful in correcting nutritional problems in plants, such as blossom-end rot of tomatoes and peppers. Although it is acceptable to apply ashes any time of the year, fall is ideal since soils will have the winter to adjust pH levels before spring planting. Do not apply ash immediately before planting or during early emergence since it could cause short term concentrated alkaline conditions that could interfere with plant growth.
More:Here are two methods for multiplying your plants
Even with all the benefits you receive from applying wood ash to your garden, you should still plan to soil test to ensure that a liming material is needed. A soil test will also give you an indication of how much of the wood ashes may be appropriate for your garden site. Not all crops will benefit from wood ashes. They should not be used on acid-loving plants like blueberries or azaleas. Other garden plants like beans, brambles, potatoes and strawberries should only receive wood ashes when your soil test shows that the soil pH has fallen below 5.6.
Wood ash contains few elements that pose environmental problems. However, care should be taken to prevent ash from entering any surface or ground water.
Also, avoid applying ash just after or prior to heavy rains.
Since ash is an alkaline material it could irritate the skin. Wear long sleeves, gloves, and a dust mask when making applications.
It is also important to remember that fresh ash can still retain hot coals which are both a health risk and a fire hazard.
In the end, don’t pitch those ashes. Use them properly in your garden and landscape.
P. Andrew Rideout is the UK Extension Agent for Horticulture and can be reached at <email-pii>.
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Burning wood this winter? Here's how to use the ashes to help your garden
If you have been burning wood for heat this winter, you likely have several buckets of wood ashes remaining.
Gardeners can take advantage of the nutrient value of these ashes in their landscapes. Since wood ash is derived from plant materials, it contains many of the essential nutrients plants need to survive.
Burning wood releases gases like nitrogen and sulfur and leaves behind other nutrients as trace elements. The actual fertilizer value of your ash depends on the type of wood you burn. Ashes from hardwoods, such as oak, typically contain a higher percentage of
|
nutrients than ash from softwoods such as pine.
Generally speaking, hardwoods produce three times as much ash per cord and five times as many nutrients per cord as softwoods. To put it another way, the ash from a cord of oak could meet the potassium needs of a garden 60 by 70 feet and contains enough calcium and magnesium to reduce soil acidity by slightly increasing the soil pH.
Compared to neutralizing power of traditional lime, wood ash is less effective per pound of product; however, since it also contains many water-soluble nutrients, research has shown it can actually increase plant growth up to 45% over traditional limestone.
More:Vines add quality to your landscaping, but it's important to choose the right type
Each pound of wood ash is the equivalent of one-third to one-half pound of agricultural limestone. Under normal conditions, five to 10 pounds of wood ash per 100 square feet of garden area will neutralize excess soil acids and increase the soil pH to a favorable level.
This liming action of ash is important because it promotes better soil structure development over time, making garden sites more aerated and easier to till.
Soils low in organic matter, soils needing lime, and soils that become unusually hard during drought conditions are ideal sites to make use of wood ashes. Wood ash is used effectively in the following situations:
- Where soils are acid and low in potassium, wood ash is beneficial to most garden plants except acid-loving plants such as blueberries, rhododendrons and azaleas. Use wood ash on flower beds, lawns and shrub beds.
- One-half to one pound of wood ash per year is recommended for each shrub and rose bush. Spread ash evenly on the soil around perennial plants. Rake the ash into the soil lightly, being careful not to damage the roots. Never leave ash in lumps or piles, because if it is concentrated in one place, excessive salt will leach into the soil, creating a harmful environment for plants.
- Lawns needing some lime and potassium can also benefit from wood ash. Apply no more than 10 to 15 pounds of ash per 1,000 square feet of lawn, as at high levels, ash makes the soil less suitable for plant growth. Do not use ash if your soil pH is more than 7.0.
- In your compost pile, wood ash can be used to help maintain a neutral condition, the best environment to help microorganisms break down organic materials. Sprinkle ash on each layer of compost material as the pile is built up. Ash will also add nutrients to your compost.
In addition to promoting good structural development in the soil, the supply of calcium from the ashes can also be helpful in correcting nutritional problems in plants, such as blossom-end rot of tomatoes and peppers. Although it is acceptable to apply ashes any time of the year, fall is ideal since soils will have the winter to adjust pH levels before spring planting. Do not apply ash immediately before planting or during early emergence since it could cause short term concentrated alkaline conditions that could interfere with plant growth.
More:Here are two methods for multiplying your plants
Even with all the benefits you receive from applying wood ash to your garden, you should still plan to soil test to ensure that a liming material is needed. A soil test will also give you an indication of how much of the wood ashes may be appropriate for your garden site. Not all crops will benefit from wood ashes. They should not be used on acid-loving plants like blueberries or azaleas. Other garden plants like beans, brambles, potatoes and strawberries should only receive wood ashes when your soil test shows that the soil pH has fallen below 5.6.
Wood ash contains few elements that pose environmental problems. However, care should be taken to prevent ash from entering any surface or ground water.
Also, avoid applying ash just after or prior to heavy rains.
Since ash is an alkaline material it could irritate the skin. Wear long sleeves, gloves, and a dust mask when making applications.
It is also important to remember that fresh ash can still retain hot coals which are both a health risk and a fire hazard.
In the end, don’t pitch those ashes. Use them properly in your garden and landscape.
P. Andrew Rideout is the UK Extension Agent for Horticulture and can be reached at <email-pii>.
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Pink diamonds are extremely rare and coveted — a now-closed mine in Australia has been the source of 90% of the colored gemstones. Polished pink specimens of the highest grade can sell for tens of millions of dollars. But a discovery made in the same area may help reveal new deposits of the jewels, researchers say.
Scientists studying Western Australia’s Argyle diamond deposit, where the mine was located, said they now have a better understanding of the geological conditions necessary for pink diamonds and other color varieties to form, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.
Using lasers to analyze minerals and rocks extracted from the Argyle deposit, the researchers found that the pink diamond-rich site formed during the breakup of an ancient supercontinent, called Nuna, about 1.3 billion years ago.
“While the continent that would become Australia didn’t break up, the area where Argyle is situated was stretched, including along the scar, which created gaps in the Earth’s crust for magma to shoot up through to the surface, bringing with it pink diamonds,” said lead study author Dr. Hugo Olierook, a research fellow at Curtin University’s John de Laeter Centre in Perth, Australia, in a news release.
Unearthing pink diamonds
Most diamond deposits are found in the middle of ancient continents — within volcanic rocks that have rapidly transported diamonds from deep inside Earth’s interior to the surface.
However, for diamonds to turn pink or red, they must be subjected to intense forces from colliding tectonic plates, which twist and bend their crystal lattices. Most brown diamonds are also formed in this manner.
At Argyle, this process occurred around 1.8 billion years ago when Western Australia and Northern Australia collided, turning the once-colorless diamonds pink hundreds of miles below Earth’s crust.
But how did these colored diamonds make their way toward the surface? The research team found that the Argyle deposits were 1.3 billion years old, from a time when an ancient supercontinent, known as Nuna, was breaking up into fragments.
Supercontinents, which form when several continents come together to form a single landmass, have emerged several times in Earth’s geological history.
“By using laser beams smaller than the width of a human hair on rocks supplied by Rio Tinto (the company that owned the mine), we found Argyle to be 1.3 billion years old, which is 100 million years older than previously thought, meaning it would likely have formed as a result of an ancient supercontinent breaking apart,” Olierook said.
The authors proposed that the breakup of Nuna may have reopened the old juncture that the collided continents left behind, allowing diamond-bearing rocks to travel through this region to form the large diamond deposit.
This chain of events, according to the study, suggested that the junctures of ancient continents may be important for finding pink diamonds — and may guide exploration for other deposits.
“Most diamond deposits have been found in the middle of ancient continents because their host volcanoes tend to be exposed at the surface for explorers to find,” Olierook said.
“Argyle is at the suture of two of these ancient continents, and these edges are often covered by sand and soil, leaving the possibility that similar pink diamond-bearing volcanoes still sit undiscovered, including in Australia.”
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Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.
Pink diamonds are extremely rare and coveted — a now-closed mine in Australia has been the source of 90% of the colored gemstones. Polished pink specimens of the highest grade can sell for tens of millions of dollars. But a discovery made in the same area may help reveal new deposits of the jewels, researchers say.
Scientists studying Western Australia’s Argyle diamond deposit, where the mine was located, said they now have a better understanding of the geological conditions necessary for pink diamonds
|
and other color varieties to form, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.
Using lasers to analyze minerals and rocks extracted from the Argyle deposit, the researchers found that the pink diamond-rich site formed during the breakup of an ancient supercontinent, called Nuna, about 1.3 billion years ago.
“While the continent that would become Australia didn’t break up, the area where Argyle is situated was stretched, including along the scar, which created gaps in the Earth’s crust for magma to shoot up through to the surface, bringing with it pink diamonds,” said lead study author Dr. Hugo Olierook, a research fellow at Curtin University’s John de Laeter Centre in Perth, Australia, in a news release.
Unearthing pink diamonds
Most diamond deposits are found in the middle of ancient continents — within volcanic rocks that have rapidly transported diamonds from deep inside Earth’s interior to the surface.
However, for diamonds to turn pink or red, they must be subjected to intense forces from colliding tectonic plates, which twist and bend their crystal lattices. Most brown diamonds are also formed in this manner.
At Argyle, this process occurred around 1.8 billion years ago when Western Australia and Northern Australia collided, turning the once-colorless diamonds pink hundreds of miles below Earth’s crust.
But how did these colored diamonds make their way toward the surface? The research team found that the Argyle deposits were 1.3 billion years old, from a time when an ancient supercontinent, known as Nuna, was breaking up into fragments.
Supercontinents, which form when several continents come together to form a single landmass, have emerged several times in Earth’s geological history.
“By using laser beams smaller than the width of a human hair on rocks supplied by Rio Tinto (the company that owned the mine), we found Argyle to be 1.3 billion years old, which is 100 million years older than previously thought, meaning it would likely have formed as a result of an ancient supercontinent breaking apart,” Olierook said.
The authors proposed that the breakup of Nuna may have reopened the old juncture that the collided continents left behind, allowing diamond-bearing rocks to travel through this region to form the large diamond deposit.
This chain of events, according to the study, suggested that the junctures of ancient continents may be important for finding pink diamonds — and may guide exploration for other deposits.
“Most diamond deposits have been found in the middle of ancient continents because their host volcanoes tend to be exposed at the surface for explorers to find,” Olierook said.
“Argyle is at the suture of two of these ancient continents, and these edges are often covered by sand and soil, leaving the possibility that similar pink diamond-bearing volcanoes still sit undiscovered, including in Australia.”
|
Download Linux TED DAWSON free PDF notes. Linux is an open source, community-developed operating system for computers, servers, mainframes, mobile devices, and embedded devices that is Unix-like. It is one of the most widely supported operating systems, as it is supported on almost every major computer platform, including x86, ARM, and SPARC. This notes is an accurate and consistent and still comprehensive manual that contains all of the suggestions, secrets, and procedures that will assist you in learning Linux in a fun, quick, and easy manner. It is a step-by-step guide that provides a comprehensive analysis of current and proven steps to help you understand Linux.
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Download Linux TED DAWSON free PDF notes. Linux is an open source, community-developed operating system for computers, servers, mainframes, mobile devices, and embedded devices that is Unix-like. It is one of the most widely supported operating systems, as it is supported on almost every major computer platform, including x86, ARM, and SPARC. This notes is an accurate and consistent and still comprehensive manual that contains all of the suggestions, secrets, and procedures that will assist you in learning Linux in a fun, quick, and easy manner. It is a step-by-step guide that provides a comprehensive analysis of current and proven
|
steps to help you understand Linux.
Deixe um comentário
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Wearing red raises awareness of heart disease among women
People around the country and in the Southern Tier will don something red on Friday, Feb.3, to call attention to heart disease among women, as the nation observes “Wear Red Day,” part of the “Go Red for Women” awareness campaign.
UHS will join with the American Heart Association to mark the event, featuring a ribbon-cutting ceremony starting at 10 a.m. in the main lobby of UHS Vestal. Red sweaters, dresses, scarves and ties will be in abundance.
The public is welcome to attend.
Although, in years past, heart disease was sometimes thought of as “a man’s disease,” we now know that almost as many women as men die each year of heart disease in the United States.
Despite increases in awareness over the past decades, only about 56 percent of women recognize that heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women. It is responsible for about one in every five female deaths. About one in 16 women age 20 and older have coronary artery disease, the most common type of heart disease.
Much of heart disease can be prevented. It’s important for every woman to take these important steps:
- Schedule an appointment with your healthcare professional to learn your risk for heart disease,
- Quit smoking; just one year after you quit, you’ll cut your risk of coronary heart disease by 50 percent,
- Aim for at least 150 minutes a week of moderate-intensity aerobic activity (such as brisk walking) or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity (such as jogging), or a combination of both, preferably spread throughout the week,
- It’s also good to include moderate- to high-intensity muscle-strengthening activity (such as resistance or weight training) at least twice a week. Naturally you must consult your provider first before starting any exercise program, and
- Modify your family’s diet if needed—today it is easy to find smart substitutions, healthy snacking ideas and better prep methods.
If you do have any kind of heart symptoms, it’s important to act quickly. Call 911 and get to an Emergency Department right away if you experience:
- Uncomfortable pressure, squeezing, fullness or pain in the center of your chest, especially if it lasts more than a few minutes, or goes away and comes back.
- Pain or discomfort in one or both arms, the back, neck, jaw or stomach.
- Shortness of breath with or without chest discomfort.
- Other signs, such as breaking out in a cold sweat, nausea or lightheadedness.
- As with men, women’s most common heart attack symptom is chest pain or discomfort. But women may experience those other symptoms instead.
Good heart health begins with a rising awareness of your risks and ensuring that you get the right diagnosis and follow the right treatment plan. Never look the other way when symptoms present themselves. Seek care immediately. Wear Red Day is one of the most useful and valuable events for increasing heart-health awareness among women across the country. The American Heart Association and UHS are pleased to keep the day an important observance every year.
To learn more about UHS Heart and Vascular services, click here.
|
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Wearing red raises awareness of heart disease among women
People around the country and in the Southern Tier will don something red on Friday, Feb.3, to call attention to heart disease among women, as the nation observes “Wear Red Day,” part of the “Go Red for Women” awareness campaign.
UHS will join with the American Heart Association to mark the event, featuring a ribbon-cutting ceremony starting at 10 a.m. in the main lobby of UHS Vestal. Red sweaters, dresses, scarves and ties will be in abundance.
The public is welcome to attend.
Although, in years past,
|
heart disease was sometimes thought of as “a man’s disease,” we now know that almost as many women as men die each year of heart disease in the United States.
Despite increases in awareness over the past decades, only about 56 percent of women recognize that heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women. It is responsible for about one in every five female deaths. About one in 16 women age 20 and older have coronary artery disease, the most common type of heart disease.
Much of heart disease can be prevented. It’s important for every woman to take these important steps:
- Schedule an appointment with your healthcare professional to learn your risk for heart disease,
- Quit smoking; just one year after you quit, you’ll cut your risk of coronary heart disease by 50 percent,
- Aim for at least 150 minutes a week of moderate-intensity aerobic activity (such as brisk walking) or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity (such as jogging), or a combination of both, preferably spread throughout the week,
- It’s also good to include moderate- to high-intensity muscle-strengthening activity (such as resistance or weight training) at least twice a week. Naturally you must consult your provider first before starting any exercise program, and
- Modify your family’s diet if needed—today it is easy to find smart substitutions, healthy snacking ideas and better prep methods.
If you do have any kind of heart symptoms, it’s important to act quickly. Call 911 and get to an Emergency Department right away if you experience:
- Uncomfortable pressure, squeezing, fullness or pain in the center of your chest, especially if it lasts more than a few minutes, or goes away and comes back.
- Pain or discomfort in one or both arms, the back, neck, jaw or stomach.
- Shortness of breath with or without chest discomfort.
- Other signs, such as breaking out in a cold sweat, nausea or lightheadedness.
- As with men, women’s most common heart attack symptom is chest pain or discomfort. But women may experience those other symptoms instead.
Good heart health begins with a rising awareness of your risks and ensuring that you get the right diagnosis and follow the right treatment plan. Never look the other way when symptoms present themselves. Seek care immediately. Wear Red Day is one of the most useful and valuable events for increasing heart-health awareness among women across the country. The American Heart Association and UHS are pleased to keep the day an important observance every year.
To learn more about UHS Heart and Vascular services, click here.
|
What follows is the tenth instalment of The Nations of Canada, a serialized project adapted from transcripts of Greg Koabel’s ongoing podcast of the same name, which began airing in 2020.
By the end of the sixteenth century, conditions for the European colonization of Canada had become ideal—as there was, by now, both a motive and an opportunity for the creation of permanent year-round settlements along the St. Lawrence River.
The motive was the increasing reach and sophistication of the Indigenous fur-trading networks that had been expanded during the fur boom of the 1580s (as discussed in the ninth instalment of this series). The land we now call Canada was no longer a byword for fool’s gold, as it had been in Jacques Cartier’s day (see instalment number eight). Here was a commodity of real value.
The European window of opportunity, meanwhile, arose from the Indigenous depopulation of much of the St. Lawrence River region during the latter sixteenth century, a process that most historians now believe was largely (and perhaps entirely) unrelated to the European newcomers. Generations of turmoil in the Indigenous geopolitical milieu, which had resulted from disruptions caused by the introduction of corn as a major agricultural crop, culminated in the dispersal of the Iroquoian-speaking villages that Cartier had encountered on his original voyages (most notably Hochelaga, the site of modern Montreal).
Ever since the Norse explorations almost 600 years earlier (instalment number two), Europeans had been hesitant to settle in locations where they’d be outnumbered by the local Indigenous population. But now, there was good land, strategically located on a major trade route, that seemed to be abandoned. Even better, some Indigenous groups were actually encouraging European settlement, in hopes of turning the newcomers’ presence to their advantage.
As we shall see, the first to respond to this opportunity were the French, who, by the beginning of the seventeenth century, would be in a position to become Canada’s first true colonizers. And it’s worth pausing our main narrative for a few paragraphs to discuss why. Why not England, or (more obviously) Spain?
Why not Spain or England?
By the middle of the sixteenth century, the Spanish had made a conscious effort to develop the Basque whalers operating in the Strait of Belle Isle, which separates the Labrador Peninsula from Newfoundland, as a kind of naval reserve. This served the dual purposes of blocking any French repeat of Cartier’s voyages up the St. Lawrence, and supplementing Spain’s war-time naval power. It also opened the possibility of Spain further developing its presence in the region by establishing a permanent settlement on the St. Lawrence. But two factors worked against that outcome.
First of all, the Basques who’d set up shop on Île aux Basques—near the strategically located fur-trading centre of Tadoussac, which sits at the junction of the St. Lawrence and Saguenay Rivers—came from Saint-Jean-de-Luz, on the French side of the Pyrenees. (The fishing town is part of France to this day, sitting about a half day’s walk from the Spanish border.) Basques with links to the French may have been in a better position to exploit the fur trade than their Spanish-affiliated counterparts, as it would have been easier for them to move their pelts down the Seine toward the many buyers in Paris.
More importantly, though, by the 1580s, Spain’s attempt to develop the Basque whalers as a naval auxiliary had run its course. War with England broke out in 1585, and culminated in the disastrous (for the Spanish) Armada campaign three years later. From that point onward, Spanish naval resources were stretched thin. The priority was the flow of gold and silver from southern areas of the Americas, on which Spanish power depended. North Atlantic waters were largely conceded to the English. And any Spanish colonial enterprise in Canada would have been dangerously exposed to the Elizabethan raiders who plied the shores of Newfoundland.
Which invites the question: If not Spain, why not England?
Part of the answer is that English fishermen tended to work the Atlantic side of Newfoundland, almost a thousand kilometers east of Tadoussac, where the catch was more plentiful. As a result, English sailors were far less familiar with the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
It’s also helpful to examine the English experience with trans-Atlantic colonization up to this point in history. Martin Frobisher’s voyages into the Arctic in the 1570s had taken place amid a larger strategic debate within England about how to get in on the riches of empire that the Spanish were enjoying. Looming Hapsburg power made this an existential problem for Protestant England. The option pursued by Frobisher and his financial backer, Michael Lok, had been to find a quicker route to the Orient, bypassing the Spanish- and Portuguese-controlled routes around America and Africa. When this proved too difficult, the project shifted gears, and an attempt was made to extract (imaginary) gold from the Canadian Arctic—a story that ended in failure and scandal.
But England had a second option. Just as Frobisher’s grand adventure was coming to its dishonourable end, Francis Drake was setting out on his famous circumnavigation of the world. Rather than building a global English empire, Drake and his backers thought it would be more efficient to simply plunder the existing Spanish network.
The contrast between Frobisher’s costly failure and Drake’s highly profitable global piracy tour had a tremendous impact on English thinking. While England didn’t imagine itself as a perpetual pirate state, the emerging view was that the English future was in naval power rather than colony-building.
Moreover, even for Englishmen who dreamed of creating permanent colonies, there was plenty of more attractive real estate south of Canada—a lesson that would be reinforced by a disastrous English attempt to create a Newfoundland colony at a place called Cuper’s Cove in the early 1610s. The English concluded that the northern climate was too harsh to support year-round habitation. England’s adventurers looked to the mid-Atlantic shore, and Chesapeake Bay in particular.
So as neither the Spanish nor the English were in a position to establish a formal, state-regulated fur trade on the St. Lawrence coupled with permanently settled colonies, that left France as the obvious candidate.
French explorers had been further up the St. Lawrence than any other group of Europeans; they were better represented among the independent traders at Tadoussac; and, as noted above, Paris was a major market for feltable beaver.
There was one problem, though: the lengthy Wars of Religion that had first engulfed France in the middle of the sixteenth century. Thirty years later, when the St. Lawrence fur boom was at its height, those conflicts, which pitted Catholics against Protestant Huguenots, were still raging. France would need to restore order in its own house—something that wouldn’t happen before the end of the century—before it could build a colonial empire. As it turned out, the way France’s emerging leadership restored order would have important consequences for the Canadian story.
France’s Religious Crisis
For our purposes, the key theatre of action was France’s southwestern region, which encompassed several active players in the Canadian story: the Basques nestled in among the Pyrenees mountains, and the merchants of La Rochelle (who’d been involved in the Newfoundland fisheries for decades).
This quadrant of France also played a decisive role in the French Wars of Religion. Especially important in this regard were Bearn and Navarre, two quasi-states that sat in a Basque-speaking region between France and Spain. From 1479 onward, Bearn and Navarre had been jointly ruled by the same dynasty. The political situation was too complex to fully summarize here. But suffice it to say that the Kingdom of Navarre lay within the orbit of the Spanish Hapsburgs, while the county of Bearn fell under the vassalage of the King of France.
This situation was upended upon the outbreak of the French Wars of Religion by the Queen-Regent of Navarre and Countess of Bearn, Jeanne III (or, if you prefer, Jeanne d’Albret). Jeanne responded to the chaos by officially converting to Calvinism (a particularly radical form of Protestantism) and suppressing the Catholics under her rule. This aligned her with the various Huguenot factions fighting for control of France. Jeanne was also aligned (through her husband’s ancestry) to the Bourbons—one of the junior branches of the Capetian dynasty that had ruled France since the tenth century.
Jeanne of Navarre emerged as a major player in the French Civil Wars when a fresh round of fighting started in the late 1560s (a period sometimes referred to as the Second War of Religion). The leading Bourbon, Louis I, Prince of Condé, had been killed in battle. That left the Bourbons with two teenaged Henris: Condé’s 15-year-old son Henri, and Jeanne’s 16-year-old son of the same name.
The story of how Jeanne’s son would eventually become Henri IV, King of France, in 1589, is long and complex—and involves countless plots, assassinations, and massacres. It also involves Henri converting to Catholicism at gunpoint following the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre in Paris (an event I covered glancingly in the seventh instalment), then back to Protestantism once he’d escaped captivity, and then back to Catholicism (this time voluntarily) as a means to help heal France’s religious rifts. We don’t have time to cover these events in detail. But suffice it to say that Henri IV’s ascendancy to the throne helped finally end France’s Wars of Religion in the late sixteenth century, whereupon Spain was forced to recognize his royal legitimacy.
In 1598, Henri IV signed two documents that formalized the new state of affairs. The first was the Edict of Nantes, which laid out a new religious settlement between French Catholics and Protestants. The goal for Henri and his influential advisor, Maximilien de Béthune, Duke of Sully, was the creation of a stable and powerful central state. Officially, France would be a Catholic kingdom, but the Protestant Huguenot minority would be allowed to practice its faith, too. These rights were given practical force through political and military concessions to Huguenot regions, including urban centres such as La Rochelle. Protestant minority rights would be guaranteed not just by the word of the King; they would be protected by the Huguenots themselves, who were allowed to organize into quasi-autonomous states within the French state.
The second important document Henri IV signed was a peace with France’s old enemy, Spain. The mighty Spanish Empire, led until 1598 by Philip II, had committed itself to war on too many fronts. It could not continue involving itself in France’s civil wars, while at the same time defending vulnerable sea routes against English raids and battling implacable Dutch rebels. Forced to choose a priority, the Spanish concentrated on the Dutch, and did their best to mend fences with both France and England.
The Canadian connection to all of this—and I promised you there’d be one—came as a by-product of these European geopolitical adjustments. As part of the peace negotiations, Henri sought a relaxation of Spain’s claim of a monopoly on New World colonization. The old Pope-Alexander-VI-blessed Treaty of Tordesillas, which had divided the Americas between Spain and Portugal in 1494, was still official Spanish policy—which meant that, under its terms, Madrid would view any French settlement in Canada as illegal. Henri now received informal assurances from the Spanish that they would not dispute a French presence, as Spain was becoming more realistic about its global ambitions.
Like the English, Henri dreamed of finding an alternate route to the Orient, and encouraged expeditions to find a northeastern passage around Russia. These voyages failed to deliver results. But they did manage to plant a French presence at Spitsbergen, an island in the high Arctic, east of Greenland. Spitsbergen would soon become the new whaling capital of the world, as the old Newfoundland sites declined in importance due to climate change and (possibly) over-hunting.
Henri also encouraged French traders to try the old Portuguese route around Africa. And one voyage even managed to get to Madagascar before running aground. Another got as far as modern day Sri Lanka before Dutch pirates intervened. Ultimately, the French failed to break into the Asian market, as the Portuguese were too well entrenched with local governments, and Dutch raiders made the East Indies too dangerous for any small-time European start-up.
Although Henri threw his moral support behind the intrepid Frenchmen leading these adventures, the French treasury was less forthcoming. The King’s chief advisor, the aforementioned Duke of Sully, saw a global French empire as a bottomless money pit. The example of Spain had been illuminating in this respect. Throughout much of the sixteenth century, the earth-spanning Spanish holdings had seemed to make Spain the most powerful empire in the world. But now, they’d become a source of vulnerability, as the life-blood of the empire was carried along sea routes that were vulnerable to Dutch and English attack. Would defending a French global empire cost more than it was worth?
Under Sully’s watchful eye, the royal treasury contributed little or nothing to the French voyages of exploration and commerce in the 1590s. France’s priorities were in Europe, so that’s where the kingdom’s resources would be directed. And so any would-be empire builders would have to get creative with their financing.
New France, 1.0
And that is where our story returns to Canada in earnest—because there was now an opportunity on the St. Lawrence to build a colonial enterprise on a shoestring budget. There was a profitable fur trade already going on. And if the French Crown could succeed in regulating that trade, it could start generating tax revenue almost immediately. The cost of setting up a colony could be covered out of the proceeds.
Moreover, as already noted, the French were now discovering that the St. Lawrence valley had been depopulated. And so colonization need not be a matter of conquest (which would be costly). If the French played their cards right, they would not even need a large presence in the region: Such locals as remained in the area could be played off one another. Rather than paying European soldiers to protect French interests, Indigenous allies might do it for free.
In fact, the Innu at Tadoussac, and the Mik’maq in Nova Scotia were even urging the French to set up permanent settlements. Both groups hoped to strengthen their links to the Europeans.
The basic model that evolved was as follows. A group of French merchants and investors would pool their resources, and pay the Crown a regular fee. In exchange, Henri would grant them a monopoly in the Canadian fur trade. They would have the exclusive right to trade in the region and the legal authority to enforce the monopoly against any interlopers trying to trade on the sly. It was also possible for these investors to raise additional funds by allowing non-members to trade—for a fee.
The King expected the monopoly-holders to re-invest their profits in a permanent colonial settlement, as Henri wanted to extend France’s influence across the Atlantic. Colonization made sense for the investors, too, since a permanent military presence was the only way to enforce any monopoly against foreign rivals such as the English and Dutch.
In theory, it was a win-win proposition. In practice, however, there would be many hard lessons to learn when it came to setting up a permanent colony in Canada.
The first to try under Henri IV was a Breton nobleman, Troilus de Mesqouez, Marquis de La Roche-Helgomarche. La Roche (as we will call him) had been interested in Canada for quite some time. He had been the governor of Brittany since 1565, and during that time had become personally invested in the annual fishing fleets that went out to Newfoundland from the ports under his authority. In 1577, La Roche convinced the King (Henri III at that time) to name him viceroy of New France. At the time, the whole thing was theoretical, since “New France” did not yet exist. But La Roche was determined to make it a reality.
He met with fellow Breton investors and organized a small fleet to bring over the seeds of what La Roche hoped would become a permanent base in Canada. But the whole enterprise was snuffed out by the English. Suspecting La Roche of conniving with Irish rebels (a charge of which he was not entirely innocent), English ships attacked and seized the French fleet soon after it set out.
La Roche had trouble drumming up any interest in a repeat voyage. The investment had already been viewed as risky enough, even without throwing in the danger of English raids.
When the fur trade started booming a few years later, the mood shifted sufficiently for La Roche to try his luck again. The promise of fur drew an even larger contingent of investors—this time, from both St. Malo in Brittany, and from among the Basques in Saint-Jean-de-Luz. In 1584, a colonial fleet composed of over 300 men set out. But when a storm wrecked some of the ships before they’d even left the French coastal area, the others turned back.
A third attempt was delayed by the wars raging within France. La Roche, who supported Henri IV, ended up in an enemy prison for several years. And it was only in 1596, near the end of the conflict, that he was released. Looking to confirm his old position, La Roche pressed Henri IV for permission to once again try to establish a French colony in Canada. He had financial backers, so didn’t need money, just the royal imprimatur. Henri agreed to provide it.
The official papers were drawn up in early 1598, just a few days before Henri proclaimed the Edict of Nantes. La Roche was granted a monopoly on the fur trade and the authority to arrest any captains caught trading without permission. The King also granted La Roche the authority to scour France’s dungeons for recruits (the cheapest way to raise manpower for any such project).
In the spring of 1598, La Roche personally led 40 criminals and a handful of soldiers across the Atlantic. Their destination was Sable Island, a small isolated slip of land located about 200 km off the coast of Nova Scotia. As was the French habit, La Roche had picked a terrible place to set up a colony.
His primary motivation was probably familiarity. La Roche had sponsored a fishing voyage to Sable Island the previous year, and things had gone well. The 42-km-long island was out in the Atlantic, but it was on the edge of the Grand Banks fisheries, so it wasn’t too far removed from the economic action (when it came to fishing, at least). And La Roche may have been prioritizing security: The Mik’maq and other Indigenous populations didn’t really have the seafaring technology to pose a threat that far out from the mainland.
But whatever La Roche’s reasons, Sable Island proved to be entirely unsuited for colonial settlement. The island is a giant crescent of sand, with no trees and limited stocks of game (though wild cattle did roam the island, a legacy of Portuguese attempts to settle the place decades earlier). More importantly, the island was surrounded by sand bars, invisible from the surface of the ocean. Shipwrecks were a common occurrence.
Initially, La Roche ignored these problems, and dropped off his convict colonists with a few officials to supervise them. He himself spent the summer touring around the region, spreading news of his monopoly. Those trading in furs, he insisted, were to hand over one third of their profits, which would be applied to supporting the colony.
By the time La Roche returned to France in September, the operation was up and running—in theory, anyway. But a few problems were already apparent. First, the colony’s influence was insignificant: Sable Island was simply too far away from the mainland to exert oversight on the main fur-trading site at Tadoussac.
The second problem, which would become a consistent theme in the early days of New France, was that colonial authorities were being undermined back in France.
Almost as soon as the Sable Island colony had been established, some of the traders who were supposed to hand over a third of their profits started lobbying the Crown to limit La Roche’s authority. And this campaign received support in the highest corridors of power, where the Duke of Sully remained skeptical of the whole New France endeavour.
One influential dissident merchant was a Huguenot based out of Dieppe named Pierre de Chauvin—a soldier who’d fought for Henri IV in the wars of the 1590s while developing commercial interests across the Atlantic. Chauvin owned four ships, and did a brisk business in both fishing and fur trading. As Chauvin saw it, the flaw in La Roche’s colonial plan was obvious: The French needed to set up shop right in the middle of the action—at Tadoussac.
Together with influential allies (some of whom will get a proper introduction in a future instalment), Chauvin pitched the King a more ambitious model for France’s presence in Canada. They proposed to take a direct role in developing and controlling the centre of the fur trade, something La Roche’s piddling convict colony on Sable Island could never hope to achieve.
By the beginning of 1600, King Henri was convinced. Possibly, he was swayed by the fact that La Roche’s confident predictions of financial success had so far gone unfulfilled. During its first two years of existence, Sable Island had received several supply ships from France, but sent precious little back in the other direction.
Chauvin and his colleagues were granted a ten-year monopoly on the fur trade on the St. Lawrence. When La Roche complained that having two monopolies was a contradiction in terms, Henri clarified the situation. Chauvin was but one of his lieutenants in Canada, the King explained. It would not be the last time that mixed messages from home complicated the work of French colonial administrators.
In the spring of 1600, Chauvin arrived at Tadoussac and spent the summer trading furs and enforcing his monopoly. He also established friendly relations with the Innu, who saw the French as useful allies (and their presence in Tadoussac as an opportunity to form an exclusive Franco-Innu trading relationship). In the end, Chauvin’s first season was far more successful than La Roche’s, and he and his partners returned to France that fall with their ships full of cargo.
But if Tadoussac was the perfect place for a trading post, it was a poor site for an all-season settlement. Eleven of the sixteen men whom Chauvin had left behind for the winter paid for this mistake with their lives. The weather turned far colder than the French had envisioned. And the five survivors managed to get through the winter only by abandoning their settlement and seeking refuge among the neighbouring Innu.
Tadoussac sits at roughly the same line of latitude as the temperate southwest coast of France, a fact that had led many French explorers to expect a similar temperature profile (as noted in instalment number six). What the French of this period didn’t know is that western Europe is warmed by the Gulf Stream, and so enjoys warmer temperatures than lands sitting at equivalent latitude on the other side of the Atlantic.
Chauvin returned again for the trading seasons of 1601 and 1602, but he abandoned any thought of rebuilding a permanent settlement at Tadoussac. Indeed, the horror stories related by the survivors discouraged anyone from volunteering to spend the winter on the St. Lawrence. And without a permanent base from which to enforce his monopoly, there was little to separate Chauvin from all the other independent traders who came to Tadoussac every summer. After some initial promise, the dream of a French colony at Tadoussac faded away.
Meanwhile, La Roche had little opportunity to celebrate his rival’s failure. Sable Island was hardly more hospitable than Tadoussac. And by 1602, the situation there was made worse by a lack of supply runs from France. It was clear the project would not be turning profitable any time soon, and so La Roche had difficulty convincing investors to pay for annual shipments of food and supplies.
During the winter of 1602-1603, things got ugly—Lord of the Flies ugly: The men rose up and murdered the deputies La Roche had left in charge of the colony. They then turned on each other. And by the time a ship arrived to restore order in 1603, there were only 11 men left out of an original population of 60. These survivors were packed on board and the colony was abandoned. (Sable Island would not support a continuous human presence until the construction of maritime life-saving stations by the governor of Nova Scotia in the early nineteenth century.)
By the time the Sable Island rebels arrived back in France, it was clear that the French colonial project in Canada needed a serious overhaul if it was to continue. Yes, there was great economic potential in the fur trade. At any given time in the summer, there were as many as 50 European ships anchored off Tadoussac. The problem was establishing an official presence there that was capable of regulating and taxing that trade (not to mention excluding France’s rivals).
What France needed more than anything was a good defensible location where a base could be set up—somewhere closer to the trading activity than Sable Island, but not nearly so cold and exposed to the elements as Tadoussac. Unfortunately, despite the fact that Europeans had been present in the region for generations, knowledge of the land was limited: Fishermen and fur traders weren’t generally interested in scouting out good locations for year-round colonies, tasks that were irrelevant to their strictly seasonal priorities.
French colonial enthusiasts therefore decided to take a step back. They had been too hasty in rushing to settle the land before they even understood it. The next major voyage would have to be a mapping expedition, rather than a colonizing mission.
It is fitting then, that the driving force in this next phase of France’s Canadian project would not be a professional soldier or a powerful aristocrat, but rather a humble cartographer. In time, this man— Samuel de Champlain—would become known as the true founder of French Canada.
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What follows is the tenth instalment of The Nations of Canada, a serialized project adapted from transcripts of Greg Koabel’s ongoing podcast of the same name, which began airing in 2020.
By the end of the sixteenth century, conditions for the European colonization of Canada had become ideal—as there was, by now, both a motive and an opportunity for the creation of permanent year-round settlements along the St. Lawrence River.
The motive was the increasing reach and sophistication of the Indigenous fur-trading networks that had been expanded during the fur boom of the 1580s (as discussed in the ninth instalment of
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this series). The land we now call Canada was no longer a byword for fool’s gold, as it had been in Jacques Cartier’s day (see instalment number eight). Here was a commodity of real value.
The European window of opportunity, meanwhile, arose from the Indigenous depopulation of much of the St. Lawrence River region during the latter sixteenth century, a process that most historians now believe was largely (and perhaps entirely) unrelated to the European newcomers. Generations of turmoil in the Indigenous geopolitical milieu, which had resulted from disruptions caused by the introduction of corn as a major agricultural crop, culminated in the dispersal of the Iroquoian-speaking villages that Cartier had encountered on his original voyages (most notably Hochelaga, the site of modern Montreal).
Ever since the Norse explorations almost 600 years earlier (instalment number two), Europeans had been hesitant to settle in locations where they’d be outnumbered by the local Indigenous population. But now, there was good land, strategically located on a major trade route, that seemed to be abandoned. Even better, some Indigenous groups were actually encouraging European settlement, in hopes of turning the newcomers’ presence to their advantage.
As we shall see, the first to respond to this opportunity were the French, who, by the beginning of the seventeenth century, would be in a position to become Canada’s first true colonizers. And it’s worth pausing our main narrative for a few paragraphs to discuss why. Why not England, or (more obviously) Spain?
Why not Spain or England?
By the middle of the sixteenth century, the Spanish had made a conscious effort to develop the Basque whalers operating in the Strait of Belle Isle, which separates the Labrador Peninsula from Newfoundland, as a kind of naval reserve. This served the dual purposes of blocking any French repeat of Cartier’s voyages up the St. Lawrence, and supplementing Spain’s war-time naval power. It also opened the possibility of Spain further developing its presence in the region by establishing a permanent settlement on the St. Lawrence. But two factors worked against that outcome.
First of all, the Basques who’d set up shop on Île aux Basques—near the strategically located fur-trading centre of Tadoussac, which sits at the junction of the St. Lawrence and Saguenay Rivers—came from Saint-Jean-de-Luz, on the French side of the Pyrenees. (The fishing town is part of France to this day, sitting about a half day’s walk from the Spanish border.) Basques with links to the French may have been in a better position to exploit the fur trade than their Spanish-affiliated counterparts, as it would have been easier for them to move their pelts down the Seine toward the many buyers in Paris.
More importantly, though, by the 1580s, Spain’s attempt to develop the Basque whalers as a naval auxiliary had run its course. War with England broke out in 1585, and culminated in the disastrous (for the Spanish) Armada campaign three years later. From that point onward, Spanish naval resources were stretched thin. The priority was the flow of gold and silver from southern areas of the Americas, on which Spanish power depended. North Atlantic waters were largely conceded to the English. And any Spanish colonial enterprise in Canada would have been dangerously exposed to the Elizabethan raiders who plied the shores of Newfoundland.
Which invites the question: If not Spain, why not England?
Part of the answer is that English fishermen tended to work the Atlantic side of Newfoundland, almost a thousand kilometers east of Tadoussac, where the catch was more plentiful. As a result, English sailors were far less familiar with the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
It’s also helpful to examine the English experience with trans-Atlantic colonization up to this point in history. Martin Frobisher’s voyages into the Arctic in the 1570s had taken place amid a larger strategic debate within England about how to get in on the riches of empire that the Spanish were enjoying. Looming Hapsburg power made this an existential problem for Protestant England. The option pursued by Frobisher and his financial backer, Michael Lok, had been to find a quicker route to the Orient, bypassing the Spanish- and Portuguese-controlled routes around America and Africa. When this proved too difficult, the project shifted gears, and an attempt was made to extract (imaginary) gold from the Canadian Arctic—a story that ended in failure and scandal.
But England had a second option. Just as Frobisher’s grand adventure was coming to its dishonourable end, Francis Drake was setting out on his famous circumnavigation of the world. Rather than building a global English empire, Drake and his backers thought it would be more efficient to simply plunder the existing Spanish network.
The contrast between Frobisher’s costly failure and Drake’s highly profitable global piracy tour had a tremendous impact on English thinking. While England didn’t imagine itself as a perpetual pirate state, the emerging view was that the English future was in naval power rather than colony-building.
Moreover, even for Englishmen who dreamed of creating permanent colonies, there was plenty of more attractive real estate south of Canada—a lesson that would be reinforced by a disastrous English attempt to create a Newfoundland colony at a place called Cuper’s Cove in the early 1610s. The English concluded that the northern climate was too harsh to support year-round habitation. England’s adventurers looked to the mid-Atlantic shore, and Chesapeake Bay in particular.
So as neither the Spanish nor the English were in a position to establish a formal, state-regulated fur trade on the St. Lawrence coupled with permanently settled colonies, that left France as the obvious candidate.
French explorers had been further up the St. Lawrence than any other group of Europeans; they were better represented among the independent traders at Tadoussac; and, as noted above, Paris was a major market for feltable beaver.
There was one problem, though: the lengthy Wars of Religion that had first engulfed France in the middle of the sixteenth century. Thirty years later, when the St. Lawrence fur boom was at its height, those conflicts, which pitted Catholics against Protestant Huguenots, were still raging. France would need to restore order in its own house—something that wouldn’t happen before the end of the century—before it could build a colonial empire. As it turned out, the way France’s emerging leadership restored order would have important consequences for the Canadian story.
France’s Religious Crisis
For our purposes, the key theatre of action was France’s southwestern region, which encompassed several active players in the Canadian story: the Basques nestled in among the Pyrenees mountains, and the merchants of La Rochelle (who’d been involved in the Newfoundland fisheries for decades).
This quadrant of France also played a decisive role in the French Wars of Religion. Especially important in this regard were Bearn and Navarre, two quasi-states that sat in a Basque-speaking region between France and Spain. From 1479 onward, Bearn and Navarre had been jointly ruled by the same dynasty. The political situation was too complex to fully summarize here. But suffice it to say that the Kingdom of Navarre lay within the orbit of the Spanish Hapsburgs, while the county of Bearn fell under the vassalage of the King of France.
This situation was upended upon the outbreak of the French Wars of Religion by the Queen-Regent of Navarre and Countess of Bearn, Jeanne III (or, if you prefer, Jeanne d’Albret). Jeanne responded to the chaos by officially converting to Calvinism (a particularly radical form of Protestantism) and suppressing the Catholics under her rule. This aligned her with the various Huguenot factions fighting for control of France. Jeanne was also aligned (through her husband’s ancestry) to the Bourbons—one of the junior branches of the Capetian dynasty that had ruled France since the tenth century.
Jeanne of Navarre emerged as a major player in the French Civil Wars when a fresh round of fighting started in the late 1560s (a period sometimes referred to as the Second War of Religion). The leading Bourbon, Louis I, Prince of Condé, had been killed in battle. That left the Bourbons with two teenaged Henris: Condé’s 15-year-old son Henri, and Jeanne’s 16-year-old son of the same name.
The story of how Jeanne’s son would eventually become Henri IV, King of France, in 1589, is long and complex—and involves countless plots, assassinations, and massacres. It also involves Henri converting to Catholicism at gunpoint following the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre in Paris (an event I covered glancingly in the seventh instalment), then back to Protestantism once he’d escaped captivity, and then back to Catholicism (this time voluntarily) as a means to help heal France’s religious rifts. We don’t have time to cover these events in detail. But suffice it to say that Henri IV’s ascendancy to the throne helped finally end France’s Wars of Religion in the late sixteenth century, whereupon Spain was forced to recognize his royal legitimacy.
In 1598, Henri IV signed two documents that formalized the new state of affairs. The first was the Edict of Nantes, which laid out a new religious settlement between French Catholics and Protestants. The goal for Henri and his influential advisor, Maximilien de Béthune, Duke of Sully, was the creation of a stable and powerful central state. Officially, France would be a Catholic kingdom, but the Protestant Huguenot minority would be allowed to practice its faith, too. These rights were given practical force through political and military concessions to Huguenot regions, including urban centres such as La Rochelle. Protestant minority rights would be guaranteed not just by the word of the King; they would be protected by the Huguenots themselves, who were allowed to organize into quasi-autonomous states within the French state.
The second important document Henri IV signed was a peace with France’s old enemy, Spain. The mighty Spanish Empire, led until 1598 by Philip II, had committed itself to war on too many fronts. It could not continue involving itself in France’s civil wars, while at the same time defending vulnerable sea routes against English raids and battling implacable Dutch rebels. Forced to choose a priority, the Spanish concentrated on the Dutch, and did their best to mend fences with both France and England.
The Canadian connection to all of this—and I promised you there’d be one—came as a by-product of these European geopolitical adjustments. As part of the peace negotiations, Henri sought a relaxation of Spain’s claim of a monopoly on New World colonization. The old Pope-Alexander-VI-blessed Treaty of Tordesillas, which had divided the Americas between Spain and Portugal in 1494, was still official Spanish policy—which meant that, under its terms, Madrid would view any French settlement in Canada as illegal. Henri now received informal assurances from the Spanish that they would not dispute a French presence, as Spain was becoming more realistic about its global ambitions.
Like the English, Henri dreamed of finding an alternate route to the Orient, and encouraged expeditions to find a northeastern passage around Russia. These voyages failed to deliver results. But they did manage to plant a French presence at Spitsbergen, an island in the high Arctic, east of Greenland. Spitsbergen would soon become the new whaling capital of the world, as the old Newfoundland sites declined in importance due to climate change and (possibly) over-hunting.
Henri also encouraged French traders to try the old Portuguese route around Africa. And one voyage even managed to get to Madagascar before running aground. Another got as far as modern day Sri Lanka before Dutch pirates intervened. Ultimately, the French failed to break into the Asian market, as the Portuguese were too well entrenched with local governments, and Dutch raiders made the East Indies too dangerous for any small-time European start-up.
Although Henri threw his moral support behind the intrepid Frenchmen leading these adventures, the French treasury was less forthcoming. The King’s chief advisor, the aforementioned Duke of Sully, saw a global French empire as a bottomless money pit. The example of Spain had been illuminating in this respect. Throughout much of the sixteenth century, the earth-spanning Spanish holdings had seemed to make Spain the most powerful empire in the world. But now, they’d become a source of vulnerability, as the life-blood of the empire was carried along sea routes that were vulnerable to Dutch and English attack. Would defending a French global empire cost more than it was worth?
Under Sully’s watchful eye, the royal treasury contributed little or nothing to the French voyages of exploration and commerce in the 1590s. France’s priorities were in Europe, so that’s where the kingdom’s resources would be directed. And so any would-be empire builders would have to get creative with their financing.
New France, 1.0
And that is where our story returns to Canada in earnest—because there was now an opportunity on the St. Lawrence to build a colonial enterprise on a shoestring budget. There was a profitable fur trade already going on. And if the French Crown could succeed in regulating that trade, it could start generating tax revenue almost immediately. The cost of setting up a colony could be covered out of the proceeds.
Moreover, as already noted, the French were now discovering that the St. Lawrence valley had been depopulated. And so colonization need not be a matter of conquest (which would be costly). If the French played their cards right, they would not even need a large presence in the region: Such locals as remained in the area could be played off one another. Rather than paying European soldiers to protect French interests, Indigenous allies might do it for free.
In fact, the Innu at Tadoussac, and the Mik’maq in Nova Scotia were even urging the French to set up permanent settlements. Both groups hoped to strengthen their links to the Europeans.
The basic model that evolved was as follows. A group of French merchants and investors would pool their resources, and pay the Crown a regular fee. In exchange, Henri would grant them a monopoly in the Canadian fur trade. They would have the exclusive right to trade in the region and the legal authority to enforce the monopoly against any interlopers trying to trade on the sly. It was also possible for these investors to raise additional funds by allowing non-members to trade—for a fee.
The King expected the monopoly-holders to re-invest their profits in a permanent colonial settlement, as Henri wanted to extend France’s influence across the Atlantic. Colonization made sense for the investors, too, since a permanent military presence was the only way to enforce any monopoly against foreign rivals such as the English and Dutch.
In theory, it was a win-win proposition. In practice, however, there would be many hard lessons to learn when it came to setting up a permanent colony in Canada.
The first to try under Henri IV was a Breton nobleman, Troilus de Mesqouez, Marquis de La Roche-Helgomarche. La Roche (as we will call him) had been interested in Canada for quite some time. He had been the governor of Brittany since 1565, and during that time had become personally invested in the annual fishing fleets that went out to Newfoundland from the ports under his authority. In 1577, La Roche convinced the King (Henri III at that time) to name him viceroy of New France. At the time, the whole thing was theoretical, since “New France” did not yet exist. But La Roche was determined to make it a reality.
He met with fellow Breton investors and organized a small fleet to bring over the seeds of what La Roche hoped would become a permanent base in Canada. But the whole enterprise was snuffed out by the English. Suspecting La Roche of conniving with Irish rebels (a charge of which he was not entirely innocent), English ships attacked and seized the French fleet soon after it set out.
La Roche had trouble drumming up any interest in a repeat voyage. The investment had already been viewed as risky enough, even without throwing in the danger of English raids.
When the fur trade started booming a few years later, the mood shifted sufficiently for La Roche to try his luck again. The promise of fur drew an even larger contingent of investors—this time, from both St. Malo in Brittany, and from among the Basques in Saint-Jean-de-Luz. In 1584, a colonial fleet composed of over 300 men set out. But when a storm wrecked some of the ships before they’d even left the French coastal area, the others turned back.
A third attempt was delayed by the wars raging within France. La Roche, who supported Henri IV, ended up in an enemy prison for several years. And it was only in 1596, near the end of the conflict, that he was released. Looking to confirm his old position, La Roche pressed Henri IV for permission to once again try to establish a French colony in Canada. He had financial backers, so didn’t need money, just the royal imprimatur. Henri agreed to provide it.
The official papers were drawn up in early 1598, just a few days before Henri proclaimed the Edict of Nantes. La Roche was granted a monopoly on the fur trade and the authority to arrest any captains caught trading without permission. The King also granted La Roche the authority to scour France’s dungeons for recruits (the cheapest way to raise manpower for any such project).
In the spring of 1598, La Roche personally led 40 criminals and a handful of soldiers across the Atlantic. Their destination was Sable Island, a small isolated slip of land located about 200 km off the coast of Nova Scotia. As was the French habit, La Roche had picked a terrible place to set up a colony.
His primary motivation was probably familiarity. La Roche had sponsored a fishing voyage to Sable Island the previous year, and things had gone well. The 42-km-long island was out in the Atlantic, but it was on the edge of the Grand Banks fisheries, so it wasn’t too far removed from the economic action (when it came to fishing, at least). And La Roche may have been prioritizing security: The Mik’maq and other Indigenous populations didn’t really have the seafaring technology to pose a threat that far out from the mainland.
But whatever La Roche’s reasons, Sable Island proved to be entirely unsuited for colonial settlement. The island is a giant crescent of sand, with no trees and limited stocks of game (though wild cattle did roam the island, a legacy of Portuguese attempts to settle the place decades earlier). More importantly, the island was surrounded by sand bars, invisible from the surface of the ocean. Shipwrecks were a common occurrence.
Initially, La Roche ignored these problems, and dropped off his convict colonists with a few officials to super
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Those changes are exposing more people and properties to hurricanes’ damaging winds, according to a new report from nonprofit organization First Street Foundation – with the potential to cause millions of dollars in damage in the coming decades.
Importantly, the report lays out how homeowners’ financial loss from hurricane damage is likely to increase significantly in surprising new places, including the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast.
The First Street analysis, which covers the next 30 years – or the typical life of a home mortgage – shows Florida and the Gulf Coast will continue to have the largest magnitude of financial loss from hurricane damage. But the future holds a significant uptick in damage for regions that previously have tended to be safer from the most devastating storms.
For instance, First Street found the top 20 US cities with the highest likelihood of being hit with a major hurricane in 2023 are all in Florida. Over the next 30 years, though, New York City would see the largest percentage increase in average annual loss due to strong hurricanes, followed by Newport News, Virginia, and other coastal communities in the Mid-Atlantic. The report also highlights Southeast cities like Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia, as notable future hot spots.
“Hurricanes are making their way northward. They’re making it latitudinally up to places they haven’t before,” said Matthew Eby, founder and CEO of the First Street Foundation. “The second thing that comes along with that is they’re stronger.”
First Street is known for analyzing flood risk that comes from more rainfall, rising seas and higher storm surge, but Eby said the group also wanted to capture how many properties were at risk to increased wind damage from stronger storms fueled by climate change – and where in the US they were.
“We had half the story that comes from hurricanes with our flood model,” Eby said. “The other half of the story with hurricanes is the tremendous amount of wind force they have.”
Storms moving farther north and inland
Human-caused climate change – which is warming the oceans and atmosphere – isn’t producing more hurricanes. But scientists have long said that it provides more fuel for stronger storms.
The probability of a hurricane in the North Atlantic strengthening into a major storm – a category 3 or higher – has increased from 10% in the 1980s to 40% today, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“The odds of it being a major hurricane when it makes landfall are almost 50-50 now,” Eby told CNN. Even after it makes initial landfall, stronger and more-intact storms can persist longer over land, where they can dump incredible amounts of rain and bring high wind speeds to areas that aren’t prepared for them.
First Street’s report also finds it more likely that hurricanes can form farther north, where communities are typically less resilient to hurricane-force winds than Miami or other Florida cities who are no stranger to these dangerous storms.
“The South Carolina and Georgia border is where you’ll see the largest increase in wind speeds over the next 30 years,” Eby said.
Charleston was hit hard by Hurricane Matthew in 2016; though the storm was just a category 1, its storm surge was significant for the South Carolina coast, pushing water levels 3 to 5 feet above normal. But it hasn’t had a truly devastating storm since Hurricane Hugo slammed into the city in 1989 as a category 4 with 140-mph winds and became the costliest disaster on record at the time.
The area around the Georgia-South Carolina border has largely been spared from the worst hurricane landfalls because of the way the coastline bends inward. Most major hurricanes that strengthen in the Gulf of Mexico or warm waters of the Caribbean will hit another coast first – usually Florida.
But that could change as storms strengthen farther north in the Atlantic.
Hurricane models from prominent meteorologist and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Kerry Emanuel, which First Street used in its report, also show current and future hurricanes having a “tendency to form a little bit north in the Atlantic,” Emanuel told CNN.
The problem, Emanuel and Eby said, is that stronger and more northward storms could be slamming into areas that haven’t yet established resiliency to hurricanes.
The increase in hurricane wind speeds for Florida “will be fairly mild compared to the increases in the mid-Atlantic states and New England,” Emanuel told CNN. “In Miami, 100 mph wind is serious but not devastating because they’re used to it.”
The problem with many hurricane models used by the government, insurance companies and banks to assess risk is that they’re out of date and lack sufficient historical data, according to Emanuel.
“The bottom line is the models that are being used by the existing [catastrophe] modeling industry are based strictly on historical statistics,” Emanuel told CNN. “The historical record isn’t very long, and it isn’t very good when you get back to before 1970.”
The other issue is that hurricane models aren’t good at taking climate change into account. Emanuel developed his own physics-based model of present and future hurricanes that has tracked recent major storms accurately and which First Street used to create its report.
“This is a big deal for the insurance companies, and they’ve woken up recently to this,” Emanuel said. “The estimates of risk they use to price properties and premiums are 50 years out of date, and the climate has changed enough to make their data useless.”
Part of First Street’s design is to provide this data for individual homeowners to help make their homes safer and more resilient to storms. But Eby and Emanuel said they hope it is also used by the government and financial and insurance companies to either make communities more resilient or move them to areas that are safer.
“We’re really hopeful that our data can do that, to have the risk illuminated for them to make the right decisions,” Eby said. “Now they’re armed with that data, they can make those smart decisions. That’s really the hope.”
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Those changes are exposing more people and properties to hurricanes’ damaging winds, according to a new report from nonprofit organization First Street Foundation – with the potential to cause millions of dollars in damage in the coming decades.
Importantly, the report lays out how homeowners’ financial loss from hurricane damage is likely to increase significantly in surprising new places, including the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast.
The First Street analysis, which covers the next 30 years – or the typical life of a home mortgage – shows Florida and the Gulf Coast will continue to have the largest magnitude of financial loss from hurricane damage. But the future holds a significant uptick in
|
damage for regions that previously have tended to be safer from the most devastating storms.
For instance, First Street found the top 20 US cities with the highest likelihood of being hit with a major hurricane in 2023 are all in Florida. Over the next 30 years, though, New York City would see the largest percentage increase in average annual loss due to strong hurricanes, followed by Newport News, Virginia, and other coastal communities in the Mid-Atlantic. The report also highlights Southeast cities like Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia, as notable future hot spots.
“Hurricanes are making their way northward. They’re making it latitudinally up to places they haven’t before,” said Matthew Eby, founder and CEO of the First Street Foundation. “The second thing that comes along with that is they’re stronger.”
First Street is known for analyzing flood risk that comes from more rainfall, rising seas and higher storm surge, but Eby said the group also wanted to capture how many properties were at risk to increased wind damage from stronger storms fueled by climate change – and where in the US they were.
“We had half the story that comes from hurricanes with our flood model,” Eby said. “The other half of the story with hurricanes is the tremendous amount of wind force they have.”
Storms moving farther north and inland
Human-caused climate change – which is warming the oceans and atmosphere – isn’t producing more hurricanes. But scientists have long said that it provides more fuel for stronger storms.
The probability of a hurricane in the North Atlantic strengthening into a major storm – a category 3 or higher – has increased from 10% in the 1980s to 40% today, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“The odds of it being a major hurricane when it makes landfall are almost 50-50 now,” Eby told CNN. Even after it makes initial landfall, stronger and more-intact storms can persist longer over land, where they can dump incredible amounts of rain and bring high wind speeds to areas that aren’t prepared for them.
First Street’s report also finds it more likely that hurricanes can form farther north, where communities are typically less resilient to hurricane-force winds than Miami or other Florida cities who are no stranger to these dangerous storms.
“The South Carolina and Georgia border is where you’ll see the largest increase in wind speeds over the next 30 years,” Eby said.
Charleston was hit hard by Hurricane Matthew in 2016; though the storm was just a category 1, its storm surge was significant for the South Carolina coast, pushing water levels 3 to 5 feet above normal. But it hasn’t had a truly devastating storm since Hurricane Hugo slammed into the city in 1989 as a category 4 with 140-mph winds and became the costliest disaster on record at the time.
The area around the Georgia-South Carolina border has largely been spared from the worst hurricane landfalls because of the way the coastline bends inward. Most major hurricanes that strengthen in the Gulf of Mexico or warm waters of the Caribbean will hit another coast first – usually Florida.
But that could change as storms strengthen farther north in the Atlantic.
Hurricane models from prominent meteorologist and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Kerry Emanuel, which First Street used in its report, also show current and future hurricanes having a “tendency to form a little bit north in the Atlantic,” Emanuel told CNN.
The problem, Emanuel and Eby said, is that stronger and more northward storms could be slamming into areas that haven’t yet established resiliency to hurricanes.
The increase in hurricane wind speeds for Florida “will be fairly mild compared to the increases in the mid-Atlantic states and New England,” Emanuel told CNN. “In Miami, 100 mph wind is serious but not devastating because they’re used to it.”
The problem with many hurricane models used by the government, insurance companies and banks to assess risk is that they’re out of date and lack sufficient historical data, according to Emanuel.
“The bottom line is the models that are being used by the existing [catastrophe] modeling industry are based strictly on historical statistics,” Emanuel told CNN. “The historical record isn’t very long, and it isn’t very good when you get back to before 1970.”
The other issue is that hurricane models aren’t good at taking climate change into account. Emanuel developed his own physics-based model of present and future hurricanes that has tracked recent major storms accurately and which First Street used to create its report.
“This is a big deal for the insurance companies, and they’ve woken up recently to this,” Emanuel said. “The estimates of risk they use to price properties and premiums are 50 years out of date, and the climate has changed enough to make their data useless.”
Part of First Street’s design is to provide this data for individual homeowners to help make their homes safer and more resilient to storms. But Eby and Emanuel said they hope it is also used by the government and financial and insurance companies to either make communities more resilient or move them to areas that are safer.
“We’re really hopeful that our data can do that, to have the risk illuminated for them to make the right decisions,” Eby said. “Now they’re armed with that data, they can make those smart decisions. That’s really the hope.”
|
New drug to protect young children from common respiratory infection in short supply
A newly approved drug to prevent a common respiratory virus that can be fatal to young children is in short supply. (Getty Images)
A medication approved this summer to protect infants from a common respiratory virus is in short supply, prompting Oregon health officials to advise parents on Wednesday to take other precautions to prevent an infection.
The medication, called nirsevimab and sold under the brand name Beyfortus, is the first approved to protect young children from RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus. The Food and Drug Administration approved it in July. In August, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended it for children younger than eight months and some others but dialed that back in October to infants younger than 6 months and those with underlying conditions that put them at high risk for the disease.
“There has been greater-than-expected demand for this new immunization against RSV,” Dr. Dean Sidelinger, state epidemiologist and Oregon Health Authority’s health officer, said in a news release.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends nirsevimab, or Beyfortus, for: The CDC recommends another drug, palivizumab, for children who are 8 to 19 months old and at high risk from RSV. Check with your provider for other options as well.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends nirsevimab, or Beyfortus, for:
The CDC recommends another drug, palivizumab, for children who are 8 to 19 months old and at high risk from RSV.
Check with your provider for other options as well.
The drug is a monoclonal antibody, like those used to treat COVID, that boosts the body’s immune system. The manufacturer, Sanofi, did not produce enough of it to meet the demand.
In mid-October, the CDC put a hold on new orders – after Oregon had ordered 80% of its allocation. That means the state is in better shape than those that hadn’t ordered yet. Still, Oregon providers that serve children only have 7,000 doses, and 41,000 babies are born in Oregon each year, Jonathan Modie, the agency’s public health spokesman, told the Capital Chronicle.
Although anyone can catch RSV, it can be deadly to very young children and old people. Dr. Melissa Sutton, the authority’s medical director for respiratory viruses, said in the release that up to 3% of Oregon infants are hospitalized every year with RSV. Nationwide, RSV annually kills up to 300 children younger than 5 and up to 10,000 people over 65, according to the CDC.
Modie said the RSV season has yet to start in Oregon.
“RSV transmission is just beginning to increase, and infection levels remain low,” Modie told the Capital Chronicle.
Officials said this is a good time to take precautions.
“As the holiday season approaches and we gather with family and friends, RSV is expected to increase in our communities. Now is the time to plan how you will protect newborns and other young children you might be around as you gather with friends and family members,” Sutton said.
That means doing some of the things that people did against COVID or have long done to limit spread of the flu – staying home, limiting contact with others when sick, wearing a mask, covering coughs and sneezes, washing hands and cleaning frequently touched surfaces.
“We know it’s protective to wear a mask around a newborn, especially for family members meeting that baby for the first time,” Sutton said. “Masks are very effective at reducing transmission risk and keeping that child safe.”
There are also RSV vaccines for adults. One, Abrysvo, is approved for women who are 32 to 36 weeks pregnant and for those 60 and older. A second vaccine, Arexvy, is also approved for those 60 and older. Health authority officials said Oregon currently has a sufficient supply of both.
“We understand parents are frustrated over nirsevimab’s limited availability, but this shortage will not be permanent and access to the RSV immunizations will improve,” Sidelinger said.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site.
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New drug to protect young children from common respiratory infection in short supply
A newly approved drug to prevent a common respiratory virus that can be fatal to young children is in short supply. (Getty Images)
A medication approved this summer to protect infants from a common respiratory virus is in short supply, prompting Oregon health officials to advise parents on Wednesday to take other precautions to prevent an infection.
The medication, called nirsevimab and sold under the brand name Beyfortus, is the first approved to protect young children from RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus. The Food and Drug Administration approved it in July. In August, the Centers
|
for Disease Control and Prevention recommended it for children younger than eight months and some others but dialed that back in October to infants younger than 6 months and those with underlying conditions that put them at high risk for the disease.
“There has been greater-than-expected demand for this new immunization against RSV,” Dr. Dean Sidelinger, state epidemiologist and Oregon Health Authority’s health officer, said in a news release.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends nirsevimab, or Beyfortus, for: The CDC recommends another drug, palivizumab, for children who are 8 to 19 months old and at high risk from RSV. Check with your provider for other options as well.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends nirsevimab, or Beyfortus, for:
The CDC recommends another drug, palivizumab, for children who are 8 to 19 months old and at high risk from RSV.
Check with your provider for other options as well.
The drug is a monoclonal antibody, like those used to treat COVID, that boosts the body’s immune system. The manufacturer, Sanofi, did not produce enough of it to meet the demand.
In mid-October, the CDC put a hold on new orders – after Oregon had ordered 80% of its allocation. That means the state is in better shape than those that hadn’t ordered yet. Still, Oregon providers that serve children only have 7,000 doses, and 41,000 babies are born in Oregon each year, Jonathan Modie, the agency’s public health spokesman, told the Capital Chronicle.
Although anyone can catch RSV, it can be deadly to very young children and old people. Dr. Melissa Sutton, the authority’s medical director for respiratory viruses, said in the release that up to 3% of Oregon infants are hospitalized every year with RSV. Nationwide, RSV annually kills up to 300 children younger than 5 and up to 10,000 people over 65, according to the CDC.
Modie said the RSV season has yet to start in Oregon.
“RSV transmission is just beginning to increase, and infection levels remain low,” Modie told the Capital Chronicle.
Officials said this is a good time to take precautions.
“As the holiday season approaches and we gather with family and friends, RSV is expected to increase in our communities. Now is the time to plan how you will protect newborns and other young children you might be around as you gather with friends and family members,” Sutton said.
That means doing some of the things that people did against COVID or have long done to limit spread of the flu – staying home, limiting contact with others when sick, wearing a mask, covering coughs and sneezes, washing hands and cleaning frequently touched surfaces.
“We know it’s protective to wear a mask around a newborn, especially for family members meeting that baby for the first time,” Sutton said. “Masks are very effective at reducing transmission risk and keeping that child safe.”
There are also RSV vaccines for adults. One, Abrysvo, is approved for women who are 32 to 36 weeks pregnant and for those 60 and older. A second vaccine, Arexvy, is also approved for those 60 and older. Health authority officials said Oregon currently has a sufficient supply of both.
“We understand parents are frustrated over nirsevimab’s limited availability, but this shortage will not be permanent and access to the RSV immunizations will improve,” Sidelinger said.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site.
|
The world had its warmest August in at least 174 years, increasing the odds that 2023 will go down as one of the hottest years on record.
(Bloomberg) — The world had its warmest August in at least 174 years, increasing the odds that 2023 will go down as one of the hottest years on record.
Asia, Africa, North America and South America each had their warmest August in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s data. Last month also set a new benchmark for the highest monthly sea-surface temperatures, extending a string of record highs for the world’s oceans to five months, the US agency said Thursday in a statement. Widespread heat meant 13% of the Earth’s surface sweltered in record warmth in August, the highest percentage going back to 1951.
Global surface temperatures from January to August rank as the second-warmest on record for the period, and NOAA now predicts a 95% chance that 2023 will rank among the two warmest years on record.
The heat has taxed power grids and agriculture the world over and led to deadly heat waves. Higher temperatures fueled extreme weather events, including a spate of hurricanes and typhoons that ravaged China and the US in recent weeks. Eight of the 19 storms that formed in August had winds that touched 111 miles (179 kilometers) per hour or more, matching 2015 for the most on record for the month.
This year’s heat is getting a boost from a growing El Niño in the Pacific, but the long-term trend has seen the last 44 years post temperatures higher than the 20th-century average.
“As long as emissions continue driving a steady march of background warming, we expect further records to be broken in years to come,” said Sarah Kapnick, one of NOAA’s chief scientists.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.
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The world had its warmest August in at least 174 years, increasing the odds that 2023 will go down as one of the hottest years on record.
(Bloomberg) — The world had its warmest August in at least 174 years, increasing the odds that 2023 will go down as one of the hottest years on record.
Asia, Africa, North America and South America each had their warmest August in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s data. Last month also set a new benchmark for the highest monthly sea-surface temperatures, extending a
|
string of record highs for the world’s oceans to five months, the US agency said Thursday in a statement. Widespread heat meant 13% of the Earth’s surface sweltered in record warmth in August, the highest percentage going back to 1951.
Global surface temperatures from January to August rank as the second-warmest on record for the period, and NOAA now predicts a 95% chance that 2023 will rank among the two warmest years on record.
The heat has taxed power grids and agriculture the world over and led to deadly heat waves. Higher temperatures fueled extreme weather events, including a spate of hurricanes and typhoons that ravaged China and the US in recent weeks. Eight of the 19 storms that formed in August had winds that touched 111 miles (179 kilometers) per hour or more, matching 2015 for the most on record for the month.
This year’s heat is getting a boost from a growing El Niño in the Pacific, but the long-term trend has seen the last 44 years post temperatures higher than the 20th-century average.
“As long as emissions continue driving a steady march of background warming, we expect further records to be broken in years to come,” said Sarah Kapnick, one of NOAA’s chief scientists.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.
|
Limited access to clean water and sanitation amid Israel’s relentless bombardment pose a grave risk to children in Gaza, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned.
Huge masses of displaced people herded into the southern Gaza Strip by the war are accessing only 1.5 to 2 litres of water per day, well below the recommended requirement for survival, the UN agency stated on Wednesday. The crisis, antagonised by limited aid deliveries and the destruction of infrastructure, puts huge numbers of vulnerable children at risk of disease, it added.
Keep readinglist of 4 items
Pushed by Israel’s continued onslaught across the enclave, hundreds of thousands of people, around half of them estimated to be children, have been pushed into the city of Rafah since early December, and are in desperate need of food, water, shelter, medicines and protection, UNICEF said. As demand continues to rise, water and sanitation systems in the city are in an extremely critical state.
UNICEF says that 3 litres are required daily for survival. The amount rises to 15 litres if water required for washing and cooking is also counted.
“Access to sufficient amounts of clean water is a matter of life and death, and children in Gaza have barely a drop to drink,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.
“Children and their families are having to use water from unsafe sources that are highly salinated or polluted. Without safe water, many more children will die from deprivation and disease in the coming days.”
Using unsafe water and lack of hygiene is a “dramatic” risk factor for children, who are more vulnerable to waterborne disease, dehydration and malnutrition, according to UNICEF.
Humanitarian aid deliveries simply do not meet the needs of the population for basic survival. This causes a shortage in water and hygiene products that is further compounded by the fact that a large percentage of sanitation facilities have been either destroyed or simply cannot accommodate the large number of displaced Palestinians congregating in specific locations.
“We are doing everything we can to meet the needs of the people in Gaza, but the equipment and supplies we’ve managed to provide are far from enough,” said Russell.
“The constant bombing, along with the restrictions on materials and fuel allowed into the territory, are preventing critical progress. We urgently need these supplies to repair damaged water systems.”
According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), from November 29 to December 10, cases of diarrhoea in children under five jumped 66 percent to 59,895, and increased by 55 percent for the rest of the population.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said last week that the WHO has reported cases of meningitis, chickenpox, jaundice and upper respiratory tract infections as well.
The UN health agency cautioned that the figures likely did not provide the full picture because of a lack of complete information with the health system and other services in Gaza near collapse.
|
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Limited access to clean water and sanitation amid Israel’s relentless bombardment pose a grave risk to children in Gaza, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned.
Huge masses of displaced people herded into the southern Gaza Strip by the war are accessing only 1.5 to 2 litres of water per day, well below the recommended requirement for survival, the UN agency stated on Wednesday. The crisis, antagonised by limited aid deliveries and the destruction of infrastructure, puts huge numbers of vulnerable children at risk of disease, it added.
Keep readinglist of 4 items
Pushed by Israel’s continued onsl
|
aught across the enclave, hundreds of thousands of people, around half of them estimated to be children, have been pushed into the city of Rafah since early December, and are in desperate need of food, water, shelter, medicines and protection, UNICEF said. As demand continues to rise, water and sanitation systems in the city are in an extremely critical state.
UNICEF says that 3 litres are required daily for survival. The amount rises to 15 litres if water required for washing and cooking is also counted.
“Access to sufficient amounts of clean water is a matter of life and death, and children in Gaza have barely a drop to drink,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.
“Children and their families are having to use water from unsafe sources that are highly salinated or polluted. Without safe water, many more children will die from deprivation and disease in the coming days.”
Using unsafe water and lack of hygiene is a “dramatic” risk factor for children, who are more vulnerable to waterborne disease, dehydration and malnutrition, according to UNICEF.
Humanitarian aid deliveries simply do not meet the needs of the population for basic survival. This causes a shortage in water and hygiene products that is further compounded by the fact that a large percentage of sanitation facilities have been either destroyed or simply cannot accommodate the large number of displaced Palestinians congregating in specific locations.
“We are doing everything we can to meet the needs of the people in Gaza, but the equipment and supplies we’ve managed to provide are far from enough,” said Russell.
“The constant bombing, along with the restrictions on materials and fuel allowed into the territory, are preventing critical progress. We urgently need these supplies to repair damaged water systems.”
According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), from November 29 to December 10, cases of diarrhoea in children under five jumped 66 percent to 59,895, and increased by 55 percent for the rest of the population.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said last week that the WHO has reported cases of meningitis, chickenpox, jaundice and upper respiratory tract infections as well.
The UN health agency cautioned that the figures likely did not provide the full picture because of a lack of complete information with the health system and other services in Gaza near collapse.
|
Parents often look to martial arts like karate to help their children through difficult challenges or situations. Martial arts instructors, some well-meaning, may encourage parents to enroll their children by overselling or irresponsibly marketing the benefits of their schools.
As wonderful as martial arts are, as real as their benefits are, you can quickly find outrageous claims about them. You can just as quickly find many more logical fallacies about the benefits of martial arts training—they seem legitimate, but science doesn’t (yet) back up these claims. For instance, an authoritative, trustworthy site like WebMD offers rhetorical arguments but scant scientific evidence touting the mental health benefits of martial arts.
We cannot responsibly present martial arts as a panacea for the challenges people face, especially children.
Sending your child into martial arts training without realistic expectations can leave you and them badly discouraged and disappointed, not healthier, happier, safer, and more productive at school or elsewhere.
Let’s look, clear-eyed, at attributes parents often hope that martial arts will instill, and a serious challenge they hope martial arts will help their children overcome.
Focus and Discipline
Martial arts require these qualities—without focus and discipline, students will fail to learn and increase the likelihood that they will injure themselves and others when training. But can martial arts develop these qualities?
In part, this depends on whether a teacher can inspire a student to fulfill their potential. It may depend on the classroom atmosphere. You may need to visit several schools to find the right martial arts program for your child.
But it also depends on the child. The ability to concentrate doesn’t come from martial arts training per se. Children focus on what interests them. If martial arts intrigue them, they may begin to focus on martial arts. Eventually, they may apply this focus to schoolwork—at least in the subjects they enjoy. But if they lack interest in martial arts, martial arts won’t help them concentrate.
We must also consider the cause of a child’s inattention. A child struggling with bipolar disorder, depression, or ADHD may derive many benefits from martial arts training, but parents should not substitute martial arts for medical treatment or psychological counseling. Most martial arts instructors are not therapists, and while their students may find classes therapeutic, they don’t constitute therapy.
Instead, parents should see their child’s martial arts training as a healthy activity that could augment other interventions.
If you have questions about whether martial arts could help your child, discuss it first with your child’s counselor or physician.
When enrolling your child in a martial arts program, talk to the instructor about your and your child’s goals and any challenges they face. That can help you and the instructor develop appropriate strategies to address any issues that arise in class and look for ways to apply martial arts lessons outside it.
The term bullying trivializes dangerous, illegal behavior. Adult perpetrators committing the same acts could face legal action, from civil lawsuits for creating a hostile workplace to felony assault and battery charges. We should not tolerate that behavior in children any more than we would in adults.
Parents of children who contend with such degradations or violence, often in school, may see enrolling their children in a local martial arts program as an answer.
Martial arts training is no substitute for swift, decisive, direct adult intervention in harassment or violent assaults. It is no substitute for school teachers and administrators doing their jobs and creating a safe environment for the children in their care.
Understandably, parents and their children may grow frustrated with a school’s inaction or insensitivity to their complaints and start thinking about alternative solutions.
Here, you must consider the legal and school disciplinary implications of your child using martial arts to defend themselves against an attack by another child—subjects that exceed the scope of this blog and its author’s qualifications to address. We urge you to consult an experienced lawyer so you understand all of the consequences. A lawyer may identify a better solution than self-defense training.
In addition to addressing the physical threat, parents should not neglect their child’s mental health, as they may need help recovering from the trauma of violence.
Beyond that, again, you and your child need to enter the martial arts with realistic expectations.
To the extent that martial arts training can contribute to your child’s safety from physical violence, understand that it is an imperfect, long-term solution. In most cases, your child will need time to develop the skills needed to fight off a bigger, stronger opponent. They will need to work hard in class and practice diligently outside it to perfect their skills enough to apply them effectively.
Your child may require more immediate help than a martial arts class can provide. You, or they, might feel that the ongoing, immediate threats they face make time and patience into unaffordable luxuries.
But without adequate training, fighting back can leave your child badly hurt, humiliated, and worse off than before. They may feel you or their martial arts instructor betrayed or misled them.
In fact, an assailant may have forced your child to defend themselves before they developed sufficient martial arts skills to face the threat.
We must endeavor to choose the battle space and not allow our assailants to force the time and place of a violent encounter on us. Moreover, we should avoid conflict whenever possible and only use force to defend ourselves after we have exhausted all realistic, non-violent options.
“He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight,” writes Sun Tzu in his martial arts literary classic, The Art of War. Sun Tzu repeatedly makes this point throughout his treatise. It bears reading and re-reading.
How Parents Can Help Their Child Martial Artists
None of this should discourage you from enrolling your child in a martial arts class—quite the opposite. The sooner your child begins, the sooner they can reap the many benefits of training, including discipline, focus, and proficiency in the skills and strategies they need to defend themselves.
From their vantage points, children may not accurately chart their progress. They may think they’re improving faster than they are and deserve promotions they haven’t yet earned. Alternately, they may not feel they’ve advanced as much as they have. Either way, encourage your child to work out at home so they can improve faster.
Encourage your child to persevere when classes get hard and help them understand what those difficult experiences can teach them about their ability to overcome other challenges. Keep them grounded and tell them where they need to do better, but tell your child when you see genuine progress. Let them know when you see their hard work paying off.
If you can keep your child on the way, they may come to enjoy the martial arts enough to discipline themselves to their practice. They may learn to apply the same level of concentration to other areas of their life. They may develop the ability to remain calm and focus under pressure.
Your child might learn to avoid unnecessary confrontations when possible, control the battle space in inevitable conflicts, and effectively defend themselves from violent assailants.
With time and effort, your child may find that martial arts have made them physically and mentally stronger, more secure, better adjusted to the stress of school, and happier.
Just don’t expect too much too fast. Don’t let your child do so, either.
|
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Parents often look to martial arts like karate to help their children through difficult challenges or situations. Martial arts instructors, some well-meaning, may encourage parents to enroll their children by overselling or irresponsibly marketing the benefits of their schools.
As wonderful as martial arts are, as real as their benefits are, you can quickly find outrageous claims about them. You can just as quickly find many more logical fallacies about the benefits of martial arts training—they seem legitimate, but science doesn’t (yet) back up these claims. For instance, an authoritative, trustworthy site like WebMD offers rhetorical arguments but scant scientific
|
evidence touting the mental health benefits of martial arts.
We cannot responsibly present martial arts as a panacea for the challenges people face, especially children.
Sending your child into martial arts training without realistic expectations can leave you and them badly discouraged and disappointed, not healthier, happier, safer, and more productive at school or elsewhere.
Let’s look, clear-eyed, at attributes parents often hope that martial arts will instill, and a serious challenge they hope martial arts will help their children overcome.
Focus and Discipline
Martial arts require these qualities—without focus and discipline, students will fail to learn and increase the likelihood that they will injure themselves and others when training. But can martial arts develop these qualities?
In part, this depends on whether a teacher can inspire a student to fulfill their potential. It may depend on the classroom atmosphere. You may need to visit several schools to find the right martial arts program for your child.
But it also depends on the child. The ability to concentrate doesn’t come from martial arts training per se. Children focus on what interests them. If martial arts intrigue them, they may begin to focus on martial arts. Eventually, they may apply this focus to schoolwork—at least in the subjects they enjoy. But if they lack interest in martial arts, martial arts won’t help them concentrate.
We must also consider the cause of a child’s inattention. A child struggling with bipolar disorder, depression, or ADHD may derive many benefits from martial arts training, but parents should not substitute martial arts for medical treatment or psychological counseling. Most martial arts instructors are not therapists, and while their students may find classes therapeutic, they don’t constitute therapy.
Instead, parents should see their child’s martial arts training as a healthy activity that could augment other interventions.
If you have questions about whether martial arts could help your child, discuss it first with your child’s counselor or physician.
When enrolling your child in a martial arts program, talk to the instructor about your and your child’s goals and any challenges they face. That can help you and the instructor develop appropriate strategies to address any issues that arise in class and look for ways to apply martial arts lessons outside it.
The term bullying trivializes dangerous, illegal behavior. Adult perpetrators committing the same acts could face legal action, from civil lawsuits for creating a hostile workplace to felony assault and battery charges. We should not tolerate that behavior in children any more than we would in adults.
Parents of children who contend with such degradations or violence, often in school, may see enrolling their children in a local martial arts program as an answer.
Martial arts training is no substitute for swift, decisive, direct adult intervention in harassment or violent assaults. It is no substitute for school teachers and administrators doing their jobs and creating a safe environment for the children in their care.
Understandably, parents and their children may grow frustrated with a school’s inaction or insensitivity to their complaints and start thinking about alternative solutions.
Here, you must consider the legal and school disciplinary implications of your child using martial arts to defend themselves against an attack by another child—subjects that exceed the scope of this blog and its author’s qualifications to address. We urge you to consult an experienced lawyer so you understand all of the consequences. A lawyer may identify a better solution than self-defense training.
In addition to addressing the physical threat, parents should not neglect their child’s mental health, as they may need help recovering from the trauma of violence.
Beyond that, again, you and your child need to enter the martial arts with realistic expectations.
To the extent that martial arts training can contribute to your child’s safety from physical violence, understand that it is an imperfect, long-term solution. In most cases, your child will need time to develop the skills needed to fight off a bigger, stronger opponent. They will need to work hard in class and practice diligently outside it to perfect their skills enough to apply them effectively.
Your child may require more immediate help than a martial arts class can provide. You, or they, might feel that the ongoing, immediate threats they face make time and patience into unaffordable luxuries.
But without adequate training, fighting back can leave your child badly hurt, humiliated, and worse off than before. They may feel you or their martial arts instructor betrayed or misled them.
In fact, an assailant may have forced your child to defend themselves before they developed sufficient martial arts skills to face the threat.
We must endeavor to choose the battle space and not allow our assailants to force the time and place of a violent encounter on us. Moreover, we should avoid conflict whenever possible and only use force to defend ourselves after we have exhausted all realistic, non-violent options.
“He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight,” writes Sun Tzu in his martial arts literary classic, The Art of War. Sun Tzu repeatedly makes this point throughout his treatise. It bears reading and re-reading.
How Parents Can Help Their Child Martial Artists
None of this should discourage you from enrolling your child in a martial arts class—quite the opposite. The sooner your child begins, the sooner they can reap the many benefits of training, including discipline, focus, and proficiency in the skills and strategies they need to defend themselves.
From their vantage points, children may not accurately chart their progress. They may think they’re improving faster than they are and deserve promotions they haven’t yet earned. Alternately, they may not feel they’ve advanced as much as they have. Either way, encourage your child to work out at home so they can improve faster.
Encourage your child to persevere when classes get hard and help them understand what those difficult experiences can teach them about their ability to overcome other challenges. Keep them grounded and tell them where they need to do better, but tell your child when you see genuine progress. Let them know when you see their hard work paying off.
If you can keep your child on the way, they may come to enjoy the martial arts enough to discipline themselves to their practice. They may learn to apply the same level of concentration to other areas of their life. They may develop the ability to remain calm and focus under pressure.
Your child might learn to avoid unnecessary confrontations when possible, control the battle space in inevitable conflicts, and effectively defend themselves from violent assailants.
With time and effort, your child may find that martial arts have made them physically and mentally stronger, more secure, better adjusted to the stress of school, and happier.
Just don’t expect too much too fast. Don’t let your child do so, either.
|
A Black and Japanese teenager in Japan was pulled away from his classmates during his graduation ceremony because he showed up with cornrows, according to local reports.
The unnamed 18-year-old, who has black and curly hair, wore braids because his high school graduation was a special occasion, Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun reported on Tuesday. He wanted to show up with “neat hair” to the February ceremony, so he asked his father—a Black researcher from New York—about the hairstyle.
But his public high school, located in the western prefecture of Hyogo, said his cornrows were against the rules. Administrators made him sit on the second floor, segregated from his classmates. Teachers also told him he wasn’t allowed to respond to his name when it was called.
The episode has prompted a debate about Japan’s notoriously strict school rules, known as burakku kousoku, as well as discriminatory actions against racial minorities in a country with a 98 percent ethnic Japanese population.
“I was surprised to see a response similar to the old U.S. racial segregation policy of ‘separate but equal.’ Why do you have to worry about the hairstyle? It’s a graduation ceremony,” Yuichiro Tamaki, leader of the opposition Democratic Party for the People, tweeted. He added that Japan needs to be better at accepting diversity in education.
In an interview with Mainichi Shimbun, the student’s father said: “Braiding is a way for Black people to arrange their hair, the same way that Japanese people part their hair. It’s discriminatory to assume that a hairstyle with roots is a violation without any reason.”
Schools in Japan have repeatedly come under fire for imposing draconian school rules on their students. Among the many restrictions, some institutions dictate sock and skirt length, underwear color and eyebrow shape.
Hair is heavily regulated as well, with some schools demanding photographic proof that a pupil’s locks aren’t naturally black and straight. One school went so far as to edit a student’s yearbook photos so her brown hair would appear darker.
Asao Naito, an associate professor of sociology from Meiji University who has studied burakku kousoku, was unsurprised by the school’s reaction to the student’s cornrows.
Japanese schools place far greater importance on the school’s image as a whole than a student’s individualism, Naito said. To do this, institutions impose strict regulations in ways that would seem totally unreasonable by society’s standards.
As a result, the regulations emphasize the collective and begin to make the school feel like a cult, Naito said. “They strictly enforce obedience in the form of hairstyles, skirt lengths, underwear colors, and so on, as an act of showing that the human being belongs entirely to the school and is a servant of the school,” he told VICE World News.
Motoki Sugiyama, a former middle school teacher, said Japan takes for granted that the majority is Buddhist, black-haired, heterosexual and Japanese by ancestry. That’s why there’s limited understanding of other cultures, an issue that’s reflected in how schools deal with non-Japanese pupils, he said.
“Unless the Japanese people change, restrictions on appearances in schools will not disappear,” he told VICE World News.
Restrictive school rules in Japan date back to at least the 1870s, when the central government began regulating education institutions. Attention to such regulations heightened in the 1970s and 1980s, when students increasingly protested against burakku kousoku. Educators were also passing stricter rules to crack down on bullying and school violence during this period.
Now, some institutions are getting rid of the repressive regulations. Southern Japan’s Fukuoka City plans to eliminate all school rules considered to be unreasonable—such as ponytail bans—by the new school year in all of the city’s junior high schools. More schools are also offering genderless uniforms to respect pupils’ gender diversity and sexual identity.
The rules of the school in Hyogo, which hasn’t been identified, reportedly stipulate that hairstyles should be “clean and appropriate for high school students, without being influenced by fashion trends.” Boys must make sure their hair doesn’t cover their eyes, ears or shirt collars. Though bleaching, dyeing, and hair-drying are prohibited, braiding is not explicitly specified.
When asked why the student was restricted from participating in his graduation, the school simply said the hairstyle wasn’t allowed and that it didn’t mean he wasn’t allowed to attend—he just had to sit somewhere else.
Reflecting on the incident, the graduate told Mainichi Shimbun: “This hairstyle is part of my father’s roots and is my culture as a Black man.”
Follow Hanako Montgomery on Twitter and Instagram.
The post Half-Black Student in Japan Segregated During Graduation For Wearing Cornrows appeared first on VICE.
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A Black and Japanese teenager in Japan was pulled away from his classmates during his graduation ceremony because he showed up with cornrows, according to local reports.
The unnamed 18-year-old, who has black and curly hair, wore braids because his high school graduation was a special occasion, Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun reported on Tuesday. He wanted to show up with “neat hair” to the February ceremony, so he asked his father—a Black researcher from New York—about the hairstyle.
But his public high school, located in the western prefecture of Hyogo, said his cornrows were against the rules
|
. Administrators made him sit on the second floor, segregated from his classmates. Teachers also told him he wasn’t allowed to respond to his name when it was called.
The episode has prompted a debate about Japan’s notoriously strict school rules, known as burakku kousoku, as well as discriminatory actions against racial minorities in a country with a 98 percent ethnic Japanese population.
“I was surprised to see a response similar to the old U.S. racial segregation policy of ‘separate but equal.’ Why do you have to worry about the hairstyle? It’s a graduation ceremony,” Yuichiro Tamaki, leader of the opposition Democratic Party for the People, tweeted. He added that Japan needs to be better at accepting diversity in education.
In an interview with Mainichi Shimbun, the student’s father said: “Braiding is a way for Black people to arrange their hair, the same way that Japanese people part their hair. It’s discriminatory to assume that a hairstyle with roots is a violation without any reason.”
Schools in Japan have repeatedly come under fire for imposing draconian school rules on their students. Among the many restrictions, some institutions dictate sock and skirt length, underwear color and eyebrow shape.
Hair is heavily regulated as well, with some schools demanding photographic proof that a pupil’s locks aren’t naturally black and straight. One school went so far as to edit a student’s yearbook photos so her brown hair would appear darker.
Asao Naito, an associate professor of sociology from Meiji University who has studied burakku kousoku, was unsurprised by the school’s reaction to the student’s cornrows.
Japanese schools place far greater importance on the school’s image as a whole than a student’s individualism, Naito said. To do this, institutions impose strict regulations in ways that would seem totally unreasonable by society’s standards.
As a result, the regulations emphasize the collective and begin to make the school feel like a cult, Naito said. “They strictly enforce obedience in the form of hairstyles, skirt lengths, underwear colors, and so on, as an act of showing that the human being belongs entirely to the school and is a servant of the school,” he told VICE World News.
Motoki Sugiyama, a former middle school teacher, said Japan takes for granted that the majority is Buddhist, black-haired, heterosexual and Japanese by ancestry. That’s why there’s limited understanding of other cultures, an issue that’s reflected in how schools deal with non-Japanese pupils, he said.
“Unless the Japanese people change, restrictions on appearances in schools will not disappear,” he told VICE World News.
Restrictive school rules in Japan date back to at least the 1870s, when the central government began regulating education institutions. Attention to such regulations heightened in the 1970s and 1980s, when students increasingly protested against burakku kousoku. Educators were also passing stricter rules to crack down on bullying and school violence during this period.
Now, some institutions are getting rid of the repressive regulations. Southern Japan’s Fukuoka City plans to eliminate all school rules considered to be unreasonable—such as ponytail bans—by the new school year in all of the city’s junior high schools. More schools are also offering genderless uniforms to respect pupils’ gender diversity and sexual identity.
The rules of the school in Hyogo, which hasn’t been identified, reportedly stipulate that hairstyles should be “clean and appropriate for high school students, without being influenced by fashion trends.” Boys must make sure their hair doesn’t cover their eyes, ears or shirt collars. Though bleaching, dyeing, and hair-drying are prohibited, braiding is not explicitly specified.
When asked why the student was restricted from participating in his graduation, the school simply said the hairstyle wasn’t allowed and that it didn’t mean he wasn’t allowed to attend—he just had to sit somewhere else.
Reflecting on the incident, the graduate told Mainichi Shimbun: “This hairstyle is part of my father’s roots and is my culture as a Black man.”
Follow Hanako Montgomery on Twitter and Instagram.
The post Half-Black Student in Japan Segregated During Graduation For Wearing Cornrows appeared first on VICE.
|
The second article that Gavin has written for the Anti-Apartheid Legacy Centre for Memory and Learning focused on the role of LGBT activists in 1980s’ anti-apartheid campaigning.
After the end of apartheid, South Africa became the first country in the world to guarantee freedom from discrimination on the grounds of sexuality as a constitutional right. The ‘equality clause’ in the 1996 South African Constitution was an attempt to overcome the legal inequalities (based on race and ethnicity) that had shaped South African society throughout the colonial and apartheid eras.
However, the specific inclusion of protection against discrimination based on sexuality was a direct response to the visible role that some LGBT people had played in the struggle against apartheid in the 1980s. As LGBT people became more visible in the anti-apartheid struggle, they organised around the slogan “no liberation without gay liberation” (using terminology that made sense at the time). They argued that it was not enough to opposed racial inequalities in South Africa, but that a post-apartheid nation had to oppose all forms of social and legal inequalities.
Here we tell the story of two gay anti-apartheid activists, and the LGBT groups they worked with, who helped raise the visibility of LGBT rights in South Africa during the last years of the apartheid system. We focus on the stories of Simon Nkoli and Ivan Toms, but there are many other important LGBT activists who campaigned with them. They include Zackie Achmat, Sheila Lapinsky, Alfred Machela, Bev Ditsie, Edwin Cameron and others.
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The second article that Gavin has written for the Anti-Apartheid Legacy Centre for Memory and Learning focused on the role of LGBT activists in 1980s’ anti-apartheid campaigning.
After the end of apartheid, South Africa became the first country in the world to guarantee freedom from discrimination on the grounds of sexuality as a constitutional right. The ‘equality clause’ in the 1996 South African Constitution was an attempt to overcome the legal inequalities (based on race and ethnicity) that had shaped South African society throughout the colonial and apartheid eras.
However, the specific inclusion of protection against discrimination based on sexuality was
|
a direct response to the visible role that some LGBT people had played in the struggle against apartheid in the 1980s. As LGBT people became more visible in the anti-apartheid struggle, they organised around the slogan “no liberation without gay liberation” (using terminology that made sense at the time). They argued that it was not enough to opposed racial inequalities in South Africa, but that a post-apartheid nation had to oppose all forms of social and legal inequalities.
Here we tell the story of two gay anti-apartheid activists, and the LGBT groups they worked with, who helped raise the visibility of LGBT rights in South Africa during the last years of the apartheid system. We focus on the stories of Simon Nkoli and Ivan Toms, but there are many other important LGBT activists who campaigned with them. They include Zackie Achmat, Sheila Lapinsky, Alfred Machela, Bev Ditsie, Edwin Cameron and others.
|
AI language models like ChatGPT have made significant strides in recent years, with some experts suggesting that they can perform at the level of 90% of the population in various tasks. As AI technology continues to advance, it is essential to explore its potential applications in futurology, the study of future trends, and predictions. In this analysis, we will discuss how AI language models might impact different aspects of futurology, from scenario planning and forecasting to trend analysis and ethical considerations.
One of the critical aspects of futurology is scenario planning, which involves envisioning multiple possible future outcomes to aid decision-making and strategic planning. AI language models like ChatGPT can contribute to scenario planning by generating coherent narratives of potential future scenarios based on historical data and emerging trends. By leveraging natural language processing capabilities, AI models can help analysts create a diverse range of plausible scenarios, fostering a more comprehensive understanding of the risks and opportunities that may lie ahead.
Forecasting is a crucial component of futurology, as it involves predicting future events or trends based on existing data and patterns. AI language models can play a significant role in forecasting by analyzing vast amounts of information and identifying underlying patterns or correlations. These insights can then be used to generate forecasts with increased accuracy and precision, assisting businesses and policymakers in making informed decisions.
Trend analysis is another essential aspect of futurology, as it involves examining current trends and determining their potential impact on the future. AI language models can help identify and analyze trends by processing large quantities of text data from various sources, such as news articles, social media, and research papers. By leveraging their natural language understanding capabilities, AI models can provide insights into emerging trends and their potential implications for society, the economy, and the environment.
Ethics and the Role of AI in Shaping the Future
As AI language models become more capable and integrated into various aspects of futurology, it is crucial to consider the ethical implications of their use. AI models should be developed and utilized responsibly, ensuring that they align with human values and do not exacerbate existing biases or inequalities. In addition, it is essential to recognize that AI models, while powerful, are not infallible and should not be relied upon as the sole source of insight in futurology. Human expertise, judgment, and intuition must continue to play a central role in shaping our understanding of the future.
Challenges and Limitations
While AI language models hold considerable promise in the field of futurology, there are inherent challenges and limitations that must be acknowledged. One of the primary limitations is the reliance on historical data and patterns, which may not always be an accurate predictor of future events. Additionally, AI models may struggle to account for unforeseen events, such as global pandemics or geopolitical shifts, which can significantly alter the trajectory of future trends.
Moreover, AI language models may face difficulty in understanding and predicting human behavior, as human decision-making can often be influenced by emotions, biases, and other factors that are challenging for AI to quantify. It is also essential to recognize that AI-generated predictions and insights may be influenced by the data and biases present in their training data, which can lead to skewed or incomplete perspectives on future trends.
Collaboration between AI and Human Experts
To fully harness the potential of AI language models in futurology, it is crucial to establish a collaborative relationship between AI and human experts. By combining the strengths of AI, such as its ability to process vast amounts of data and identify patterns, with human expertise and intuition, we can develop a more holistic and nuanced understanding of the future. This collaborative approach can lead to more accurate predictions, richer scenario planning, and a deeper comprehension of the ethical and societal implications
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AI language models like ChatGPT have made significant strides in recent years, with some experts suggesting that they can perform at the level of 90% of the population in various tasks. As AI technology continues to advance, it is essential to explore its potential applications in futurology, the study of future trends, and predictions. In this analysis, we will discuss how AI language models might impact different aspects of futurology, from scenario planning and forecasting to trend analysis and ethical considerations.
One of the critical aspects of futurology is scenario planning, which involves envisioning multiple possible future outcomes to aid decision-making and strategic planning.
|
AI language models like ChatGPT can contribute to scenario planning by generating coherent narratives of potential future scenarios based on historical data and emerging trends. By leveraging natural language processing capabilities, AI models can help analysts create a diverse range of plausible scenarios, fostering a more comprehensive understanding of the risks and opportunities that may lie ahead.
Forecasting is a crucial component of futurology, as it involves predicting future events or trends based on existing data and patterns. AI language models can play a significant role in forecasting by analyzing vast amounts of information and identifying underlying patterns or correlations. These insights can then be used to generate forecasts with increased accuracy and precision, assisting businesses and policymakers in making informed decisions.
Trend analysis is another essential aspect of futurology, as it involves examining current trends and determining their potential impact on the future. AI language models can help identify and analyze trends by processing large quantities of text data from various sources, such as news articles, social media, and research papers. By leveraging their natural language understanding capabilities, AI models can provide insights into emerging trends and their potential implications for society, the economy, and the environment.
Ethics and the Role of AI in Shaping the Future
As AI language models become more capable and integrated into various aspects of futurology, it is crucial to consider the ethical implications of their use. AI models should be developed and utilized responsibly, ensuring that they align with human values and do not exacerbate existing biases or inequalities. In addition, it is essential to recognize that AI models, while powerful, are not infallible and should not be relied upon as the sole source of insight in futurology. Human expertise, judgment, and intuition must continue to play a central role in shaping our understanding of the future.
Challenges and Limitations
While AI language models hold considerable promise in the field of futurology, there are inherent challenges and limitations that must be acknowledged. One of the primary limitations is the reliance on historical data and patterns, which may not always be an accurate predictor of future events. Additionally, AI models may struggle to account for unforeseen events, such as global pandemics or geopolitical shifts, which can significantly alter the trajectory of future trends.
Moreover, AI language models may face difficulty in understanding and predicting human behavior, as human decision-making can often be influenced by emotions, biases, and other factors that are challenging for AI to quantify. It is also essential to recognize that AI-generated predictions and insights may be influenced by the data and biases present in their training data, which can lead to skewed or incomplete perspectives on future trends.
Collaboration between AI and Human Experts
To fully harness the potential of AI language models in futurology, it is crucial to establish a collaborative relationship between AI and human experts. By combining the strengths of AI, such as its ability to process vast amounts of data and identify patterns, with human expertise and intuition, we can develop a more holistic and nuanced understanding of the future. This collaborative approach can lead to more accurate predictions, richer scenario planning, and a deeper comprehension of the ethical and societal implications
|
No state in the contiguous United States has had more rainfall than Mississippi over the last five years. But even the wettest parts of the country are seeing their crops dry up due to unrelenting drought this summer.
A variety of plants, from cotton to soybeans to peanuts, are taking a hit in Mississippi. Livestock farmers, faced with dried up pastures, are either having to sell their cattle or feed them hay that’s supposed to be saved for the winter.
“Normally, we don’t start feeding hay to cattle until November usually,” said Shelby Bearden, Mississippi State University’s Extension agent for Copiah County. “And there were people feeding hay in August this year.”
Experienced farmers, like Louis Guedon in Jefferson County, said it’s been decades since Mississippi has seen conditions like this year.
“It ain’t been this dry in thirty-something years,” said Guedon, adding that he’s grown just a fifth of the number of corn bushels he gets under average weather conditions. “It’s a bloodbath.”
About a third of the state is experiencing “severe to exceptional” drought, according to the state’s agriculture department, and over two-thirds are seeing at least minimal drought. Over the last month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has declared emergencies for 24 counties in Mississippi to help farmers in those areas access federal assistance.
While most of Mississippi is seeing at least “abnormally dry” weather, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, the worst conditions are concentrated in the southern half of the state, especially in Amite, Pike, Walthall, Lawrence, Lincoln, Copiah and Simpson counties.
“It’s the worst drought we’ve seen in a long, long time,” said Mississippi Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce Andy Gipson in a Sept. 8 news release. Gipson later told Mississippi Today that it’s too early to know where this year’s drought ranks versus previous ones, but that it’s so far comparable to one the state had in the late 1980s.
Hazlehurst farmer Walter West Jr. said the dry conditions have lasted since mid-July. At his family’s farm, he said they were able to plant corn early enough to get a good yield, but have lost about $100,000 from reduced cotton output. A third-generation farmer, West said the variance in weather conditions is just part of the job.
“That’s the risk you take,” he said, adding that some years the crops suffer from too much rain. “It’s just a big gamble I guess. Mother Nature, she’s the ultimate determination of what you do, and you’re at her mercy year in and year out.”
West said he could potentially tap into his crop insurance to stabilize the farm’s finances for next year, but hopes to not have to go that route. Gipson encouraged farmers to contact their local USDA office to report their losses and to see what types of federal aid they can access.
Guedon, whose farm has been in his family for over 150 years, emphasized that the issue is the combination of the lack of rain with the intense heat.
This summer, Jackson saw its hottest August ever, with an average temperature of 87.8 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the National Weather Service. This July was the third-hottest ever in the city.
“If you don’t think that doing nothing in 100 degree heat will exhaust you, just go put your chair out in the middle of the parking lot and just sit in it for eight hours,” Guedon said. “Your clothes will be wet with sweat, you’ll be able to wring water out of your underwear.”
He said in addition to drying out crops, the high temperatures affect his cows’ reproductive cycles.
“They’re less likely to ovulate when it’s hot, hot, hot,” he said. “And the bulls… they don’t breed the cattle as well when it’s hot, hot, hot.”
Gipson said livestock farmers are having to make tough decisions to survive financially.
“It truly is a disaster, that’s the only word for it,” the commissioner said. “A lot of the (livestock producers) are being forced into a position of having to sell out because they can’t afford to hold these cows through these conditions.”
As of Sept. 14, Mississippi farmers in 32 counties were eligible for the USDA’s Livestock Forage Disaster Program, which provides compensation to livestock producers who suffer grazing losses due to drought.
Gipson said the tough year for Mississippi farmers goes back to March, when a winter freeze took out much of the state’s blueberry production.
Despite the trying conditions, he hopes those who can will try again next year.
“I encourage every one of our farmers to get back in as soon as possible because we really need every farmer in this state,” Gipson said. “We already have fewer farmers than we’ve ever had.”
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No state in the contiguous United States has had more rainfall than Mississippi over the last five years. But even the wettest parts of the country are seeing their crops dry up due to unrelenting drought this summer.
A variety of plants, from cotton to soybeans to peanuts, are taking a hit in Mississippi. Livestock farmers, faced with dried up pastures, are either having to sell their cattle or feed them hay that’s supposed to be saved for the winter.
“Normally, we don’t start feeding hay to cattle until November usually,” said Shelby Bearden, Mississippi State University’s Extension agent for Copiah
|
County. “And there were people feeding hay in August this year.”
Experienced farmers, like Louis Guedon in Jefferson County, said it’s been decades since Mississippi has seen conditions like this year.
“It ain’t been this dry in thirty-something years,” said Guedon, adding that he’s grown just a fifth of the number of corn bushels he gets under average weather conditions. “It’s a bloodbath.”
About a third of the state is experiencing “severe to exceptional” drought, according to the state’s agriculture department, and over two-thirds are seeing at least minimal drought. Over the last month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has declared emergencies for 24 counties in Mississippi to help farmers in those areas access federal assistance.
While most of Mississippi is seeing at least “abnormally dry” weather, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, the worst conditions are concentrated in the southern half of the state, especially in Amite, Pike, Walthall, Lawrence, Lincoln, Copiah and Simpson counties.
“It’s the worst drought we’ve seen in a long, long time,” said Mississippi Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce Andy Gipson in a Sept. 8 news release. Gipson later told Mississippi Today that it’s too early to know where this year’s drought ranks versus previous ones, but that it’s so far comparable to one the state had in the late 1980s.
Hazlehurst farmer Walter West Jr. said the dry conditions have lasted since mid-July. At his family’s farm, he said they were able to plant corn early enough to get a good yield, but have lost about $100,000 from reduced cotton output. A third-generation farmer, West said the variance in weather conditions is just part of the job.
“That’s the risk you take,” he said, adding that some years the crops suffer from too much rain. “It’s just a big gamble I guess. Mother Nature, she’s the ultimate determination of what you do, and you’re at her mercy year in and year out.”
West said he could potentially tap into his crop insurance to stabilize the farm’s finances for next year, but hopes to not have to go that route. Gipson encouraged farmers to contact their local USDA office to report their losses and to see what types of federal aid they can access.
Guedon, whose farm has been in his family for over 150 years, emphasized that the issue is the combination of the lack of rain with the intense heat.
This summer, Jackson saw its hottest August ever, with an average temperature of 87.8 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the National Weather Service. This July was the third-hottest ever in the city.
“If you don’t think that doing nothing in 100 degree heat will exhaust you, just go put your chair out in the middle of the parking lot and just sit in it for eight hours,” Guedon said. “Your clothes will be wet with sweat, you’ll be able to wring water out of your underwear.”
He said in addition to drying out crops, the high temperatures affect his cows’ reproductive cycles.
“They’re less likely to ovulate when it’s hot, hot, hot,” he said. “And the bulls… they don’t breed the cattle as well when it’s hot, hot, hot.”
Gipson said livestock farmers are having to make tough decisions to survive financially.
“It truly is a disaster, that’s the only word for it,” the commissioner said. “A lot of the (livestock producers) are being forced into a position of having to sell out because they can’t afford to hold these cows through these conditions.”
As of Sept. 14, Mississippi farmers in 32 counties were eligible for the USDA’s Livestock Forage Disaster Program, which provides compensation to livestock producers who suffer grazing losses due to drought.
Gipson said the tough year for Mississippi farmers goes back to March, when a winter freeze took out much of the state’s blueberry production.
Despite the trying conditions, he hopes those who can will try again next year.
“I encourage every one of our farmers to get back in as soon as possible because we really need every farmer in this state,” Gipson said. “We already have fewer farmers than we’ve ever had.”
|
Climate Change Wreaks Havoc in Southern Africa
Cyclone Freddy displaced more than 400,000, confirming scientists’ worst fears about extreme weather caused by global warming.
Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief.
Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief.
The highlights this week: Senegal protests flare, Zimbabwe’s crackdown on the opposition continues, and China focuses investments on data and cybersecurity.
If you would like to receive Africa Brief in your inbox every Wednesday, please sign up here.
Africa’s Frightening New Reality
Drought in Somalia, flooding in Nigeria, and a cyclone in Malawi have confirmed scientists’ grim climate projections about Africa’s future. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its latest damning report this week, noting that the world will likely miss a target of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.
The report warned that extreme weather is “increasingly driving displacement” and that without “rapid, deep and sustained mitigation and accelerated adaptation actions, losses and damages will continue to increase, including projected adverse impacts in Africa.” The report’s release came on the same day as another United Nations survey that estimated 43,000 people died during Somalia’s worst drought in decades last year, and half of those deaths were likely children under 5.
In the past week, Cyclone Freddy—which wreaked havoc across Mozambique, Madagascar, Réunion island, and Zimbabwe—circled back to hit southern Africa for the second time in a month, killing hundreds of people in Malawi and Mozambique and leaving tens of thousands more homeless in what could potentially be the longest sustained storm ever recorded.
Cyclones are typical in the region between November and April, but what makes Freddy unique, according to U.N. weather experts, is that it never completely dissipated, despite multiple landfalls. Scientists say global warming caused by mostly industrialized nations emitting greenhouse gases has made cyclone activity more frequent and intense.
“The destruction and suffering that I witnessed in southern Malawi is the human face of the global climate crisis,” said, Rebecca Adda-Dontoh, the United Nations resident coordinator for Malawi. “The people I met with—many of whom have lost their homes and loved ones—have done nothing to cause this crisis.”
By Monday, the death toll for both countries combined had passed 500, with hundreds still missing. In Malawi, more than 360,000 people have been displaced, and the government has declared a state of disaster. Struggling farmers have lost their maize harvests and entire villages have been washed away by mud.
The Malawian government has set aside $1.5 million to help victims and is appealing for international help. “The level of devastation we are dealing with is greater than the resources we have,” said Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera in a televised speech. The United Nations emergency fund on Monday released $5.5 million to Malawi to assist affected communities.
About 59,000 Mozambicans are displaced as a result of the storm, according to local authorities. The situation was made worse by an ongoing cholera outbreak. According to UNICEF, cases have quadrupled to over 10,000, with more than 2,300 cases reported in the past week.
While support is being provided on the ground, “the humanitarian community is overstretched at the moment to deal with this adequately,” said Guy Taylor, spokesperson for UNICEF in Mozambique. The country “has been hit year on year by these tropical storms and cyclones. It is a population that is not really that resilient after being impacted so many times and being already in a state of vulnerability.”
He warned that the cyclone season has not ended, so there is a possibility that Mozambique could be hit again.
Following the IPCC’s report, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called on richer nations to try to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions “as close as possible to 2040,” rather than waiting for the 2050 deadline most have signed up for. Last year, global carbon emissions hit record levels. According to the International Energy Agency, “over 95 percent of the world’s coal consumption is taking place in countries that have committed to reducing their emissions to net zero.”
Reaching net zero in Africa has been complicated by goals to provide electricity for many in the region who have no access and therefore use toxic forms of energy such as firewood. African leaders argue that the only way to realistically provide power cheaply is through coal.
A study published last month in the journal Nature found that IPCC scientists are expecting African countries to cut fossil fuel use twice as fast as developed nations ever did. Yet borrowing money for renewable energy investments is more expensive for African nations.
Emerging economies including China and India—which plan to reach net zero in 2060 and 2070—must do so faster, Guterres said. “Every country must be part of the solution,” he said. “Demanding others move first only ensures humanity comes last.”
While global leaders squabble over which arrangement is best, the world is on track for a temperature rise of between 2.4 and 2.6 degrees Celsius by the end of this century, and Africa will be the most affected continent.
The Week Ahead
Thursday, March 23: The U.S. House Committee on Armed Services holds a hearing on national security challenges in the Middle East and Africa.
Friday, March 24, to Friday, March 31: The U.N. Human Rights Council holds sessions discussing periodic reviews of Tunisia, Morocco, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, the Central African Republic, and South Sudan.
Saturday, March 25, to Sunday, April 2: U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris visits Ghana, Tanzania, and Zambia.
What We’re Watching
Nigeria local elections. Nigerians voted on Saturday to elect governors and state assembly representatives in an exercise once again marred by low turnout, voter intimidation by hired thugs, and cultural tensions. Turnout in Nigerian elections is typically low.
Across the country, intimidation was a common thread as polling stations were attacked by gangs who snatched ballot papers. Governors were being chosen in 28 of Nigeria’s 36 states. Lagos was the key focus as All Progressives Congress (APC) incumbent Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu fought to retain his seat against Labour Party candidate Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour.
Sanwo-Olu’s win, with a healthy margin of over 400,000 votes, was marred by xenophobic statements issued by APC politicians against Igbos in Lagos. The Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, is Igbo, a member of Nigeria’s third-largest ethnic group that has historically been marginalized in the country’s political space.
As analyst Bisi Olawunmi noted in the Guardian Nigeria, “the spectre of Igbo takeover of Lagos has become an obsession with the APC,” which, prior to the Feb. 25 presidential election, had assumed “the aura of invincibility—that no political force can unseat them.” Obi on Tuesday announced that he had filed a court petition challenging the results of the presidential election.
Russian meddling. U.S. intelligence warned Chadian President Mahamat Idriss Déby that Russian mercenaries were backing Chadian rebels amassing in neighboring Central African Republic as part of a wider plot to kill him, the New York Times reported. Military leader Déby, who was not democratically elected, is facing public calls for a speedy transition to democracy amid widespread insecurity across the Sahel.
His administration has responded to pro-democracy protesters with deadly force, killing more than a hundred people. France’s support of Déby has given rise to much of the furor against Paris in the country, and there is a perception across Africa that the United States is more concerned about its rivalry with Russia than it is about African lives.
Zimbabwe jails opposition figure. A court in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, has once again refused to dismiss charges against Job Sikhala, an outspoken Zimbabwean opposition politician. Sikhala has been held in a maximum-security prison since June after being arrested alongside fellow members of his Citizens Coalition for Change party.
He was charged with inciting public violence based on a video in which he allegedly demanded justice for the murder of opposition member Moreblessing Ali, whose mutilated body was found dumped in a well in June 2022. Sikhala has unsuccessfully applied for bail 15 times, while more than a dozen activists have since been freed. Sikhala’s lawyers argue he is being politically persecuted.
The ruling Zanu-PF party has controlled Zimbabwe since independence, and rights groups expect an escalation of crackdowns against opponents as elections approach in August. Last year, Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga was given a suspended six-month prison sentence after being found guilty of inciting violence when she held up in public a placard stating: “We want better. Reform our institutions.”
Senegal protests. Fresh protests erupted in Senegal last week as thousands of people gathered on the streets of Dakar in support of Senegalese opposition leader Ousmane Sonko during his latest court appearance. Police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd as some protesters set fire to buses and burned down grocery stores.
Sonko is facing a lawsuit for libel after he allegedly accused Mame Mbaye Niang, the tourism minister, of embezzlement. The judge eventually postponed the hearing until March 30. Sonko is viewed as a fierce presidential challenger and, if convicted, he would be disqualified from running in next year’s election. He claims his legal problems are part of a concerted effort by President Macky Sall’s government to derail his candidacy. Sonko faces a separate charge of raping a beauty salon employee. No date has been set for this trial.
Meanwhile, Sall has refused to state whether he’ll run for a third term, which has angered many Senegalese and led to charges of democratic backsliding.
This Week in Tech
China’s new Belt and Road? The Chinese technology giant Huawei has announced a $300 million investment in Africa’s data centers and cybersecurity industries. Currently, African organizations are in need of computing power and built-in systems against cyber threats, which Huawei hopes to partner on. The announcement was made by David Wang, a Huawei executive, while addressing an audience at a digital transformation summit in Barcelona.
Beijing is now one of the largest investors in African tech infrastructure, which some analysts see as a modernized revamp of its Belt and Road Initiative. Moving away from buildings and roads to hardware and software potentially creates new trade opportunities for Chinese firms.
In June 2021, Senegal’s president, Macky Sall, opened the Diamniadio National Datacenter, about 20 miles outside Dakar. The facility cost 46 billion CFA francs ($18.2 million). It was built by Huawei and financed through a Chinese loan.
Chart of the Week
African experts have struggled to take on a stronger voice on important global issues, such as migration and climate change, that impact Africans the most. The authors of IPCC reports come from 120 different countries, but expert voices remain unequal, according to one analysis by Carbon Brief. While the diversity of experts contributing to IPCC reports has improved over the past three decades, just one African country, South Africa, appears in the top 20 countries when it comes to contributors.
FP’s Most Read This Week
• Putin Is Trapped in the Sunk-Cost Fallacy of War by David V. Gioe
• Staring Down the Black Hole of Russia’s Future by Anastasia Edel
• Saudi-Iranian Détente Is a Wake-Up Call for America by Stephen M. Walt
What We’re Reading
No Country for Women. In the Elephant, Mordecai Ogada writes about the fallout from a BBC Africa Eye documentary released last month that uncovered the extent of sexual abuse on tea plantations in Kenya that supply some of the world’s biggest tea brands. Ogada lambasts Kenya’s legislature for sweeping cases under the rug, allowing the exploitation of women working for international institutions to continue with impunity.
According to a 2007 Kenya human rights and business country risk assessment, more than 90 percent of women working in export processing zones in Kenya have experienced or observed sexual abuse at their workplace. “The malaise is so deep and widespread that instances can be found in virtually all companies,” Ogada writes.
Nosmot Gbadamosi is a multimedia journalist and the writer of Foreign Policy’s weekly Africa Brief. She has reported on human rights, the environment, and sustainable development from across the African continent. Twitter: @nosmotg
More from Foreign Policy
Russians Are Unraveling Before Our Eyes
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De-dollarization’s moment might finally be here.
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A former U.S. ambassador, an Iran expert, a Libya expert, and a former U.K. Conservative Party advisor weigh in.
The Battle for Eurasia
China, Russia, and their autocratic friends are leading another epic clash over the world’s largest landmass.
Join the Conversation
Commenting on this and other recent articles is just one benefit of a Foreign Policy subscription.
Already a subscriber?.
Join the Conversation
Join the conversation on this and other recent Foreign Policy articles when you subscribe now.
Not your account?
Join the Conversation
Please follow our comment guidelines, stay on topic, and be civil, courteous, and respectful of others’ beliefs.
|
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Climate Change Wreaks Havoc in Southern Africa
Cyclone Freddy displaced more than 400,000, confirming scientists’ worst fears about extreme weather caused by global warming.
Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief.
Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief.
The highlights this week: Senegal protests flare, Zimbabwe’s crackdown on the opposition continues, and China focuses investments on data and cybersecurity.
If you would like to receive Africa Brief in your inbox every Wednesday, please sign up here.
Africa’s Frightening New Reality
Drought in Somalia, flooding in Nigeria, and a cyclone in Malawi
|
have confirmed scientists’ grim climate projections about Africa’s future. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its latest damning report this week, noting that the world will likely miss a target of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.
The report warned that extreme weather is “increasingly driving displacement” and that without “rapid, deep and sustained mitigation and accelerated adaptation actions, losses and damages will continue to increase, including projected adverse impacts in Africa.” The report’s release came on the same day as another United Nations survey that estimated 43,000 people died during Somalia’s worst drought in decades last year, and half of those deaths were likely children under 5.
In the past week, Cyclone Freddy—which wreaked havoc across Mozambique, Madagascar, Réunion island, and Zimbabwe—circled back to hit southern Africa for the second time in a month, killing hundreds of people in Malawi and Mozambique and leaving tens of thousands more homeless in what could potentially be the longest sustained storm ever recorded.
Cyclones are typical in the region between November and April, but what makes Freddy unique, according to U.N. weather experts, is that it never completely dissipated, despite multiple landfalls. Scientists say global warming caused by mostly industrialized nations emitting greenhouse gases has made cyclone activity more frequent and intense.
“The destruction and suffering that I witnessed in southern Malawi is the human face of the global climate crisis,” said, Rebecca Adda-Dontoh, the United Nations resident coordinator for Malawi. “The people I met with—many of whom have lost their homes and loved ones—have done nothing to cause this crisis.”
By Monday, the death toll for both countries combined had passed 500, with hundreds still missing. In Malawi, more than 360,000 people have been displaced, and the government has declared a state of disaster. Struggling farmers have lost their maize harvests and entire villages have been washed away by mud.
The Malawian government has set aside $1.5 million to help victims and is appealing for international help. “The level of devastation we are dealing with is greater than the resources we have,” said Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera in a televised speech. The United Nations emergency fund on Monday released $5.5 million to Malawi to assist affected communities.
About 59,000 Mozambicans are displaced as a result of the storm, according to local authorities. The situation was made worse by an ongoing cholera outbreak. According to UNICEF, cases have quadrupled to over 10,000, with more than 2,300 cases reported in the past week.
While support is being provided on the ground, “the humanitarian community is overstretched at the moment to deal with this adequately,” said Guy Taylor, spokesperson for UNICEF in Mozambique. The country “has been hit year on year by these tropical storms and cyclones. It is a population that is not really that resilient after being impacted so many times and being already in a state of vulnerability.”
He warned that the cyclone season has not ended, so there is a possibility that Mozambique could be hit again.
Following the IPCC’s report, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called on richer nations to try to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions “as close as possible to 2040,” rather than waiting for the 2050 deadline most have signed up for. Last year, global carbon emissions hit record levels. According to the International Energy Agency, “over 95 percent of the world’s coal consumption is taking place in countries that have committed to reducing their emissions to net zero.”
Reaching net zero in Africa has been complicated by goals to provide electricity for many in the region who have no access and therefore use toxic forms of energy such as firewood. African leaders argue that the only way to realistically provide power cheaply is through coal.
A study published last month in the journal Nature found that IPCC scientists are expecting African countries to cut fossil fuel use twice as fast as developed nations ever did. Yet borrowing money for renewable energy investments is more expensive for African nations.
Emerging economies including China and India—which plan to reach net zero in 2060 and 2070—must do so faster, Guterres said. “Every country must be part of the solution,” he said. “Demanding others move first only ensures humanity comes last.”
While global leaders squabble over which arrangement is best, the world is on track for a temperature rise of between 2.4 and 2.6 degrees Celsius by the end of this century, and Africa will be the most affected continent.
The Week Ahead
Thursday, March 23: The U.S. House Committee on Armed Services holds a hearing on national security challenges in the Middle East and Africa.
Friday, March 24, to Friday, March 31: The U.N. Human Rights Council holds sessions discussing periodic reviews of Tunisia, Morocco, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, the Central African Republic, and South Sudan.
Saturday, March 25, to Sunday, April 2: U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris visits Ghana, Tanzania, and Zambia.
What We’re Watching
Nigeria local elections. Nigerians voted on Saturday to elect governors and state assembly representatives in an exercise once again marred by low turnout, voter intimidation by hired thugs, and cultural tensions. Turnout in Nigerian elections is typically low.
Across the country, intimidation was a common thread as polling stations were attacked by gangs who snatched ballot papers. Governors were being chosen in 28 of Nigeria’s 36 states. Lagos was the key focus as All Progressives Congress (APC) incumbent Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu fought to retain his seat against Labour Party candidate Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour.
Sanwo-Olu’s win, with a healthy margin of over 400,000 votes, was marred by xenophobic statements issued by APC politicians against Igbos in Lagos. The Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, is Igbo, a member of Nigeria’s third-largest ethnic group that has historically been marginalized in the country’s political space.
As analyst Bisi Olawunmi noted in the Guardian Nigeria, “the spectre of Igbo takeover of Lagos has become an obsession with the APC,” which, prior to the Feb. 25 presidential election, had assumed “the aura of invincibility—that no political force can unseat them.” Obi on Tuesday announced that he had filed a court petition challenging the results of the presidential election.
Russian meddling. U.S. intelligence warned Chadian President Mahamat Idriss Déby that Russian mercenaries were backing Chadian rebels amassing in neighboring Central African Republic as part of a wider plot to kill him, the New York Times reported. Military leader Déby, who was not democratically elected, is facing public calls for a speedy transition to democracy amid widespread insecurity across the Sahel.
His administration has responded to pro-democracy protesters with deadly force, killing more than a hundred people. France’s support of Déby has given rise to much of the furor against Paris in the country, and there is a perception across Africa that the United States is more concerned about its rivalry with Russia than it is about African lives.
Zimbabwe jails opposition figure. A court in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, has once again refused to dismiss charges against Job Sikhala, an outspoken Zimbabwean opposition politician. Sikhala has been held in a maximum-security prison since June after being arrested alongside fellow members of his Citizens Coalition for Change party.
He was charged with inciting public violence based on a video in which he allegedly demanded justice for the murder of opposition member Moreblessing Ali, whose mutilated body was found dumped in a well in June 2022. Sikhala has unsuccessfully applied for bail 15 times, while more than a dozen activists have since been freed. Sikhala’s lawyers argue he is being politically persecuted.
The ruling Zanu-PF party has controlled Zimbabwe since independence, and rights groups expect an escalation of crackdowns against opponents as elections approach in August. Last year, Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga was given a suspended six-month prison sentence after being found guilty of inciting violence when she held up in public a placard stating: “We want better. Reform our institutions.”
Senegal protests. Fresh protests erupted in Senegal last week as thousands of people gathered on the streets of Dakar in support of Senegalese opposition leader Ousmane Sonko during his latest court appearance. Police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd as some protesters set fire to buses and burned down grocery stores.
Sonko is facing a lawsuit for libel after he allegedly accused Mame Mbaye Niang, the tourism minister, of embezzlement. The judge eventually postponed the hearing until March 30. Sonko is viewed as a fierce presidential challenger and, if convicted, he would be disqualified from running in next year’s election. He claims his legal problems are part of a concerted effort by President Macky Sall’s government to derail his candidacy. Sonko faces a separate charge of raping a beauty salon employee. No date has been set for this trial.
Meanwhile, Sall has refused to state whether he’ll run for a third term, which has angered many Senegalese and led to charges of democratic backsliding.
This Week in Tech
China’s new Belt and Road? The Chinese technology giant Huawei has announced a $300 million investment in Africa’s data centers and cybersecurity industries. Currently, African organizations are in need of computing power and built-in systems against cyber threats, which Huawei hopes to partner on. The announcement was made by David Wang, a Huawei executive, while addressing an audience at a digital transformation summit in Barcelona.
Beijing is now one of the largest investors in African tech infrastructure, which some analysts see as a modernized revamp of its Belt and Road Initiative. Moving away from buildings and roads to hardware and software potentially creates new trade opportunities for Chinese firms.
In June 2021, Senegal’s president, Macky Sall, opened the Diamniadio National Datacenter, about 20 miles outside Dakar. The facility cost 46 billion CFA francs ($18.2 million). It was built by Huawei and financed through a Chinese loan.
Chart of the Week
African experts have struggled to take on a stronger voice on important global issues, such as migration and climate change, that impact Africans the most. The authors of IPCC reports come from 120 different countries, but expert voices remain unequal, according to one analysis by Carbon Brief. While the diversity of experts contributing to IPCC reports has improved over the past three decades, just one African country, South Africa, appears in the top 20 countries when it comes to contributors.
FP’s Most Read This Week
• Putin Is Trapped in the Sunk-Cost Fallacy of War by David V. Gioe
• Staring Down the Black Hole of Russia’s Future by Anastasia Edel
• Saudi-Iranian Détente Is a Wake-Up Call for America by Stephen M. Walt
What We’re Reading
No Country for Women. In the Elephant, Mordecai Ogada writes about the fallout from a BBC Africa Eye documentary released last month that uncovered the extent of sexual abuse on tea plantations in Kenya that supply some of the world’s biggest tea brands. Ogada lambasts Kenya’s legislature for sweeping cases under the rug, allowing the exploitation of women working for international institutions to continue with impunity.
According to a 2007 Kenya human rights and business country risk assessment, more than 90 percent of women working in export processing zones in Kenya have experienced or observed sexual abuse at their workplace. “The malaise is so deep and widespread that instances can be found in virtually all companies,” Ogada writes.
Nosmot Gbadamosi is a multimedia journalist and the writer of Foreign Policy’s weekly Africa Brief. She has reported on human rights, the environment, and sustainable development from across the African continent. Twitter: @nosmotg
More from Foreign Policy
Russians Are Unraveling Before Our Eyes
A wave of fresh humiliations has the Kremlin struggling to control the narrative.
A BRICS Currency Could Shake the Dollar’s Dominance
De-dollarization’s moment might finally be here.
Is Netflix’s ‘The Diplomat’ Factual or Farcical?
A former U.S. ambassador, an Iran expert, a Libya expert, and a former U.K. Conservative Party advisor weigh in.
The Battle for Eurasia
China, Russia, and their autocratic friends are leading another epic clash over the world’s largest landmass.
Join the Conversation
Commenting on this and other recent articles is just one benefit of a Foreign Policy subscription.
Already a subscriber?.
Join the Conversation
Join the conversation on this and other recent Foreign Policy articles when you subscribe now.
Not your account?
Join the Conversation
Please follow our comment guidelines, stay on topic, and be civil, courteous, and respectful of others’ beliefs.
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Attack on Crimean bridge targets Russian supplies and symbolism
An attack Monday damaged a busy bridge linking Russia to Crimea, suspending traffic and killing two people — the second time in a year the bridge has been targeted.
Why it matters: The Kerch bridge holds vital strategic and symbolic value for Russia, providing a key supply route for Russian troops in their ongoing assault on Ukraine.
The big picture: The bridge has for years epitomized the tension between Russia and Ukraine over the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014.
- The 12-mile bridge, inaugurated by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2018, is the only direct link between Crimea and the Russian mainland, per The Guardian.
- Over the course of the war, the Kerch Bridge has been used to transport fuel, armor and vehicles to Russian troops, CNN reported.
State of play: Russian government officials have referred to the incident as a "terror attack" and blamed Ukraine.
- Russia's National Antiterrorism Committee said Monday that the attack was carried out by Ukrainian forces using two surface drones, Russian state news agency TASS reported.
- A couple from Russia's Belgorod region was killed and their teenage daughter was injured, Belgorod regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote in a Telegram post.
- Part of the bridge's roadway was damaged, suspending traffic, though rail service has resumed and a ferry is continuing to carry people from the peninsula to the Russian mainland, per TASS.
Worth noting: Ukrainian authorities have not formally claimed responsibility for the attack.
- "Any illegal structures used to deliver Russian instruments of mass murder are necessarily short-lived ... regardless of the reasons for the destruction," Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, tweeted Monday in an apparent reference to the attack.
- Hours after the attack took place, Russia announced that it was pulling out of the Black Sea grain deal.
Flashback: The Kerch bridge was heavily damaged by an explosion last October, after which Russia scrambled to reestablish supply lines to Crimea.
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Attack on Crimean bridge targets Russian supplies and symbolism
An attack Monday damaged a busy bridge linking Russia to Crimea, suspending traffic and killing two people — the second time in a year the bridge has been targeted.
Why it matters: The Kerch bridge holds vital strategic and symbolic value for Russia, providing a key supply route for Russian troops in their ongoing assault on Ukraine.
The big picture: The bridge has for years epitomized the tension between Russia and Ukraine over the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014.
- The 12-mile bridge, inaugurated by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 20
|
18, is the only direct link between Crimea and the Russian mainland, per The Guardian.
- Over the course of the war, the Kerch Bridge has been used to transport fuel, armor and vehicles to Russian troops, CNN reported.
State of play: Russian government officials have referred to the incident as a "terror attack" and blamed Ukraine.
- Russia's National Antiterrorism Committee said Monday that the attack was carried out by Ukrainian forces using two surface drones, Russian state news agency TASS reported.
- A couple from Russia's Belgorod region was killed and their teenage daughter was injured, Belgorod regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote in a Telegram post.
- Part of the bridge's roadway was damaged, suspending traffic, though rail service has resumed and a ferry is continuing to carry people from the peninsula to the Russian mainland, per TASS.
Worth noting: Ukrainian authorities have not formally claimed responsibility for the attack.
- "Any illegal structures used to deliver Russian instruments of mass murder are necessarily short-lived ... regardless of the reasons for the destruction," Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, tweeted Monday in an apparent reference to the attack.
- Hours after the attack took place, Russia announced that it was pulling out of the Black Sea grain deal.
Flashback: The Kerch bridge was heavily damaged by an explosion last October, after which Russia scrambled to reestablish supply lines to Crimea.
|
Here is how you can 'harden' plants for your garden
Gardeners often grow their own plants from seed instead of purchasing transplants.
This is a fairly simple process that requires only minimal equipment. In only a few weeks you can grow seedlings to a size suitable for planting into the garden, containers or raised beds.
Before you move your young, tender transplants to the garden, they must first be hardened or acclimated to outdoor temperatures, sunlight, wind and other environmental factors. Plants taken directly from the greenhouse or from your garage to the garden most often scorch from sunlight and wind and will either die or be severely stunted.
The hardening process, also called hardening off, changes tender and succulent plants into tough plants with stronger stems and leaves capable of withstanding wind and sunlight. This process also helps develop cuticle on the leaf and stem surfaces which reduces water loss. When transplants are the proper size, move them to a shady, protected location outdoors.
Local news:Henderson police search middle school as part of anti-drug effort
A few guidelines to hardening include:
- Keep transplants in the shade, gradually move them into sunlight for short periods each day
- Don’t take out transplants on windy days or when temperatures are below 45 degrees (this includes cool season vegetables)
- Bring transplants back indoors at night for the first few days unless temperatures are very mild
- Reduce watering frequency but don’t let plants dry out completely
- Don’t fertilize during the hardening period
The hardening process should begin one to three weeks before your vegetable transplants are ready for the garden. The time it takes a plant to be completely hardened for planting depends on the conditions under which the plant was grown. Don’t rush the hardening process since even if the transplant survives planting, growth and fruiting will be delayed and yields will be reduced. Let the condition of the plant be your guide.
Another way of hardening transplants is to place them in a cold frame. A cold frame is a simple structure that protects plants from wind and utilizes the sun for heat. Cold frames allow the sun to transmit energy through its lid where it can be stored as heat in the soil floor. The heat is slowly released overnight to keep transplants warm.
Cold frames are most often built above ground of treated wood, although permanent frames can be made of poured concrete or masonry blocks. Previously lids were made of wood and glass, but are more likely made of plexiglass or a double layer of clear plastic today. Doubling plastic creates a dead air space for additional insulation. The lid should be hinged for easy opening as a source of ventilation and temperature control. Place cold frames away from trees, near a water source, and with a southern exposure.
Adjust the lid of the cold frame every few days to help harden plants. On mild, sunny days you may need to open the lid wider. When very cold temperatures are expected you should bring your transplants back indoors. Cold frames can also be used for growing cool season crops (i.e., lettuce, radish) to harvest before regular planting season. You can also extend your growing season into November or December by growing the same crops in cold frames.
When hardening is complete, your plants can be set out in the garden. Transplant on a cloudy day or late afternoon and keep plants shaded for two to three days until they are established. Even hardened plants may wilt when exposed to full sun at first though they generally recover in a few days. Keep plants watered as necessary. Seedlings grown in peat pots or peat pellets may be planted directly into the garden. Break the base of the peat pot to improve root penetration and drainage and remove the top edges of the pot that extend above the soil line. These edges can act as a wick that moves water away from the root zone.
Growing your own vegetables from seed can be fun and rewarding just remember to correctly acclimate your new transplants to outdoor conditions properly.
P. Andrew Rideout is the University of Kentucky Extension Agent for Horticulture and can be reached at <email-pii>.
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Here is how you can 'harden' plants for your garden
Gardeners often grow their own plants from seed instead of purchasing transplants.
This is a fairly simple process that requires only minimal equipment. In only a few weeks you can grow seedlings to a size suitable for planting into the garden, containers or raised beds.
Before you move your young, tender transplants to the garden, they must first be hardened or acclimated to outdoor temperatures, sunlight, wind and other environmental factors. Plants taken directly from the greenhouse or from your garage to the garden most often scorch from sunlight and wind and will either die or be severely st
|
unted.
The hardening process, also called hardening off, changes tender and succulent plants into tough plants with stronger stems and leaves capable of withstanding wind and sunlight. This process also helps develop cuticle on the leaf and stem surfaces which reduces water loss. When transplants are the proper size, move them to a shady, protected location outdoors.
Local news:Henderson police search middle school as part of anti-drug effort
A few guidelines to hardening include:
- Keep transplants in the shade, gradually move them into sunlight for short periods each day
- Don’t take out transplants on windy days or when temperatures are below 45 degrees (this includes cool season vegetables)
- Bring transplants back indoors at night for the first few days unless temperatures are very mild
- Reduce watering frequency but don’t let plants dry out completely
- Don’t fertilize during the hardening period
The hardening process should begin one to three weeks before your vegetable transplants are ready for the garden. The time it takes a plant to be completely hardened for planting depends on the conditions under which the plant was grown. Don’t rush the hardening process since even if the transplant survives planting, growth and fruiting will be delayed and yields will be reduced. Let the condition of the plant be your guide.
Another way of hardening transplants is to place them in a cold frame. A cold frame is a simple structure that protects plants from wind and utilizes the sun for heat. Cold frames allow the sun to transmit energy through its lid where it can be stored as heat in the soil floor. The heat is slowly released overnight to keep transplants warm.
Cold frames are most often built above ground of treated wood, although permanent frames can be made of poured concrete or masonry blocks. Previously lids were made of wood and glass, but are more likely made of plexiglass or a double layer of clear plastic today. Doubling plastic creates a dead air space for additional insulation. The lid should be hinged for easy opening as a source of ventilation and temperature control. Place cold frames away from trees, near a water source, and with a southern exposure.
Adjust the lid of the cold frame every few days to help harden plants. On mild, sunny days you may need to open the lid wider. When very cold temperatures are expected you should bring your transplants back indoors. Cold frames can also be used for growing cool season crops (i.e., lettuce, radish) to harvest before regular planting season. You can also extend your growing season into November or December by growing the same crops in cold frames.
When hardening is complete, your plants can be set out in the garden. Transplant on a cloudy day or late afternoon and keep plants shaded for two to three days until they are established. Even hardened plants may wilt when exposed to full sun at first though they generally recover in a few days. Keep plants watered as necessary. Seedlings grown in peat pots or peat pellets may be planted directly into the garden. Break the base of the peat pot to improve root penetration and drainage and remove the top edges of the pot that extend above the soil line. These edges can act as a wick that moves water away from the root zone.
Growing your own vegetables from seed can be fun and rewarding just remember to correctly acclimate your new transplants to outdoor conditions properly.
P. Andrew Rideout is the University of Kentucky Extension Agent for Horticulture and can be reached at <email-pii>.
|
If you are not from the area, it might seem like a difference without a distinction. If you happen to live in a place where, as long as we have written and geologic records, the soil has traveled downwind, it’s an important difference.
Note the make of the cars. Welcome to the Filthy Fifties, which were drier than the 1930s around here. Image source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/04/07/dust-storms-just-part-life-west-texas/3378177002/
The above is a dust storm. They happen when the wind picks up so much dust that it starts attracting more, and you get black (or deep red) skies and lots and lots of static. In my part of the world, they often came from the north, part of a screaming cold front, but not always. In the 1950s people could identify the looming wind shift based on the color of dirt. Some cars would be shorted out by the static in the air, and woe betide you if you touched a barbed-wire fence. They became electrified. A dust storm is a haboob, “black roller” that tosses dirt and sand well into the sky. If you can see over it from the ground, it’s not a dust storm (by local standards). Back in the day, some were so bad south of the Panhandle that the blowing sand would strip the paint off of cars. I’ve not heard of that in a very, very long time.
I’ve been inside a dust storm once. The sky turned dark red, the wind howled, I could see two blocks in town, and the power went out for four hours. There wasn’t much to do besides read on my Kindle, then sit and listen to the wind and wait for the power to come back.
Blowing dust is just that. In local areas you will have poor visibility, such as downwind of a construction site or bare field (depending on soil moisture and wind direction). The top soil departs and gets into the air, but you can see blue-ish sky over the layer of dirt. Straight up might be blue, or somewhat brassy (as I type this, it is brassy in town, so it is probably icky brown in more open areas.) Visibility can drop locally, but you don’t have huge swaths of the area shut down because of no visibility at all. As I type, the wind is 270 at 41 MPH gusting to 67 MPH. Which explains why, as I drove back from Day Job, I saw exactly one semi on the interstate, and he was east bound. Everyone else is staying parked until this weakens, lest they end up on their sides, or needing to refuel every ten miles. We’re supposed to get a hard wind shift around 2000, 50 MPH from the north, then tapering off quickly.
If you go back to the earliest written accounts of the region, and from areas to the east, you find that the dirt blew long before humans farmed out here. The bunch-grasses had gaps between clumps when it got a little dry. Bare soil + steady dry winds = traveling topsoil. The dust storms are less common, but still happen.
“270 at 41 MPH”–Do I hear a pilot speaking, or are weather-sensitive farm-country people this conversant with weather?
A bit of both. The automated five-minute updates use degrees and MPH. The airport uses degrees and knots.
My mother’s family made the mistake of trying to homestead in SE Colorado (Rattlesnake Butte). The dust storms eventually blew them to California.
Been a while since I saw one of them brewing up. It was “close things NOW!” or skip a trip, get under cover, and wait for it to blow over. Impressive, and scary to see the sky go black with that red-brown bar at the bottom.
And the further west you go, the better the chance that it will be blowing sand, which WILL sandblast the paint off the car. I’ve seen that going across California where one side of the cars in the car lot were shiny and the other side still had paint.
Last week I was watching a YouTube travel video with somebody pulling a camper from the Gulf Coast of Texas to Utah.
They had just reached the panhandle when the big winds started up. Their fuel mileage dropped by half, and after a half day dealing with the winds they just stopped somewhere to wait the winds out.
I drove back from Albuquerque with a 50 MPH direct crosswind. Once. One FedEx delivery van, two other pickups, and I were the only traffic on I-40 from Tucumcari to Bushland. That was Not Fun. I didn’t try to do the limit. 50 MPH was as fast as felt safe.
Yeah. You don’t want to take off in that crosswind!
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If you are not from the area, it might seem like a difference without a distinction. If you happen to live in a place where, as long as we have written and geologic records, the soil has traveled downwind, it’s an important difference.
Note the make of the cars. Welcome to the Filthy Fifties, which were drier than the 1930s around here. Image source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/04/07/dust-storms-just-part-life-west-texas/33781770
|
02/
The above is a dust storm. They happen when the wind picks up so much dust that it starts attracting more, and you get black (or deep red) skies and lots and lots of static. In my part of the world, they often came from the north, part of a screaming cold front, but not always. In the 1950s people could identify the looming wind shift based on the color of dirt. Some cars would be shorted out by the static in the air, and woe betide you if you touched a barbed-wire fence. They became electrified. A dust storm is a haboob, “black roller” that tosses dirt and sand well into the sky. If you can see over it from the ground, it’s not a dust storm (by local standards). Back in the day, some were so bad south of the Panhandle that the blowing sand would strip the paint off of cars. I’ve not heard of that in a very, very long time.
I’ve been inside a dust storm once. The sky turned dark red, the wind howled, I could see two blocks in town, and the power went out for four hours. There wasn’t much to do besides read on my Kindle, then sit and listen to the wind and wait for the power to come back.
Blowing dust is just that. In local areas you will have poor visibility, such as downwind of a construction site or bare field (depending on soil moisture and wind direction). The top soil departs and gets into the air, but you can see blue-ish sky over the layer of dirt. Straight up might be blue, or somewhat brassy (as I type this, it is brassy in town, so it is probably icky brown in more open areas.) Visibility can drop locally, but you don’t have huge swaths of the area shut down because of no visibility at all. As I type, the wind is 270 at 41 MPH gusting to 67 MPH. Which explains why, as I drove back from Day Job, I saw exactly one semi on the interstate, and he was east bound. Everyone else is staying parked until this weakens, lest they end up on their sides, or needing to refuel every ten miles. We’re supposed to get a hard wind shift around 2000, 50 MPH from the north, then tapering off quickly.
If you go back to the earliest written accounts of the region, and from areas to the east, you find that the dirt blew long before humans farmed out here. The bunch-grasses had gaps between clumps when it got a little dry. Bare soil + steady dry winds = traveling topsoil. The dust storms are less common, but still happen.
“270 at 41 MPH”–Do I hear a pilot speaking, or are weather-sensitive farm-country people this conversant with weather?
A bit of both. The automated five-minute updates use degrees and MPH. The airport uses degrees and knots.
My mother’s family made the mistake of trying to homestead in SE Colorado (Rattlesnake Butte). The dust storms eventually blew them to California.
Been a while since I saw one of them brewing up. It was “close things NOW!” or skip a trip, get under cover, and wait for it to blow over. Impressive, and scary to see the sky go black with that red-brown bar at the bottom.
And the further west you go, the better the chance that it will be blowing sand, which WILL sandblast the paint off the car. I’ve seen that going across California where one side of the cars in the car lot were shiny and the other side still had paint.
Last week I was watching a YouTube travel video with somebody pulling a camper from the Gulf Coast of Texas to Utah.
They had just reached the panhandle when the big winds started up. Their fuel mileage dropped by half, and after a half day dealing with the winds they just stopped somewhere to wait the winds out.
I drove back from Albuquerque with a 50 MPH direct crosswind. Once. One FedEx delivery van, two other pickups, and I were the only traffic on I-40 from Tucumcari to Bushland. That was Not Fun. I didn’t try to do the limit. 50 MPH was as fast as felt safe.
Yeah. You don’t want to take off in that crosswind!
|
The Papuans and Iberian Roma are nearly identical on the maternal line, as measured by mtDNA. See, A New Model of Computational Genomics , generally. However, they have different distributions, in that if you plot the entropy of the distribution of bases at a given index in the mtDNA genome, you’ll see they produce very different graphs, with different measurable characteristics. See the charts below, with the Papuans on the left, and the Roma on the right. As a consequence, despite the fact they are plainly very closely related people on the maternal line, they must have different distributions of those same genomes. For example, posit two populations A and B. Both populations have genome X, however in population A, genome X appears 10 times, and in population B, genome X appears 4 times. As a consequence, despite the fact that both populations intersect, in that they both have at least some instances genome X, they nonetheless have different distributions of that genome, since X appears more in A than in B.
If selection is functioning well in a given population, then the distribution of genomes should eventually converge to whatever the ideal distribution is, for the environment, within the powers and perceptions of the individuals in the population (e.g., not all species will be able to identify ideal mates). As a consequence, you should be able to start out with any number of each possible genome type, and nonetheless converge to the ideal distribution of genomes, simply through selection over time. Specifically, posit a set of genomes , where obviously changes as a function of time , and each gives the integer count of the number of genomes of type , at time . This would imply that as increases, selection will cause to converge to the ideal distribution of genomes, since the undesirable genomes will either be reduced in count over time, or die off completely. In contrast, the desirable genomes will of course flourish.
Returning to the Papuans, how is it that they have a different distribution of maternal lines, if those individual maternal lines are in fact so similar? One sensible answer is exactly this mechanic, which causes the distribution of maternal lines to reflect environmental factors, in particular paternal selection. Since the Iberian Roma live in Spain, and the Papuans live in Papua, they of course could have differing ideal distributions of mtDNA genomes. Ultimately, left to itself, a population of women will be selected by men for reproduction, and vice versa, suggesting that there’s a difference in preferences between the Iberian Roma men and the Papuan men, since the women are nearly genetically identical, as measured by mtDNA. This is obviously plausible, given that they’re very different people, at least superficially and geographically. The astonishing fact is that they are so genetically similar, despite this, leading to many of my ideas in genetics generally, in particular, the disconnect between genetics and appearance, when compared to genetics and brain power. Selection is therefore yet another explanation for how it is that mtDNA carries information about the paternal line, despite being inherited directly from the mother with little to no mutation.
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The Papuans and Iberian Roma are nearly identical on the maternal line, as measured by mtDNA. See, A New Model of Computational Genomics , generally. However, they have different distributions, in that if you plot the entropy of the distribution of bases at a given index in the mtDNA genome, you’ll see they produce very different graphs, with different measurable characteristics. See the charts below, with the Papuans on the left, and the Roma on the right. As a consequence, despite the fact they are plainly very closely related people on the maternal line, they must have different distributions of those same genomes
|
. For example, posit two populations A and B. Both populations have genome X, however in population A, genome X appears 10 times, and in population B, genome X appears 4 times. As a consequence, despite the fact that both populations intersect, in that they both have at least some instances genome X, they nonetheless have different distributions of that genome, since X appears more in A than in B.
If selection is functioning well in a given population, then the distribution of genomes should eventually converge to whatever the ideal distribution is, for the environment, within the powers and perceptions of the individuals in the population (e.g., not all species will be able to identify ideal mates). As a consequence, you should be able to start out with any number of each possible genome type, and nonetheless converge to the ideal distribution of genomes, simply through selection over time. Specifically, posit a set of genomes , where obviously changes as a function of time , and each gives the integer count of the number of genomes of type , at time . This would imply that as increases, selection will cause to converge to the ideal distribution of genomes, since the undesirable genomes will either be reduced in count over time, or die off completely. In contrast, the desirable genomes will of course flourish.
Returning to the Papuans, how is it that they have a different distribution of maternal lines, if those individual maternal lines are in fact so similar? One sensible answer is exactly this mechanic, which causes the distribution of maternal lines to reflect environmental factors, in particular paternal selection. Since the Iberian Roma live in Spain, and the Papuans live in Papua, they of course could have differing ideal distributions of mtDNA genomes. Ultimately, left to itself, a population of women will be selected by men for reproduction, and vice versa, suggesting that there’s a difference in preferences between the Iberian Roma men and the Papuan men, since the women are nearly genetically identical, as measured by mtDNA. This is obviously plausible, given that they’re very different people, at least superficially and geographically. The astonishing fact is that they are so genetically similar, despite this, leading to many of my ideas in genetics generally, in particular, the disconnect between genetics and appearance, when compared to genetics and brain power. Selection is therefore yet another explanation for how it is that mtDNA carries information about the paternal line, despite being inherited directly from the mother with little to no mutation.
|
(CNN)Dangerous climate feedback loops are increasing global warming and risk causing a permanent shift away from the Earth's current climate, according to a new study.
Climate feedback loops are cyclical chain reactions that happen when one change triggers further changes, in a process that keeps on repeating itself. Some of these feedback loops drive down warming, but others amplify it.
Take Arctic ice, for example. Warming temperatures cause sea ice to melt, revealing the dark ocean water beneath. As dark surfaces absorb more heat than reflective surfaces like ice, the ocean warms and more ice melts.
A group of international scientists from institutions including Oregon State University, Exeter University and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, pored over climate literature to identify 41 climate feedback loops.
Of these, they found that 27 are driving up global temperatures, according to the study published Friday in the scientific journal One Earth, while just seven are helping to slow the pace of climate crisis.
William Ripple, Professor of Ecology at Oregon State University and a lead author on the study, told CNN that forest die-off, smoldering peatlands and thawing permafrost were particularly worrisome.
"These feedbacks may be large and are difficult to accurately quantify," Ripple told CNN.
The researchers were surprised by the large number of amplifying climate feedback loops they found, he added.
"To the best of our knowledge, this is the most extensive list available of climate feedback loops, and not all of them are fully considered in climate models," Christopher Wolf, a postdoctoral scholar at Oregon State University and the study's other lead author, said in a statement.
Climate feedback loops can also indirectly affect each other, according to the study, creating a complex web of interconnected changes that can accelerate the impacts of the climate crisis.
For example, planet-warming po
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(CNN)Dangerous climate feedback loops are increasing global warming and risk causing a permanent shift away from the Earth's current climate, according to a new study.
Climate feedback loops are cyclical chain reactions that happen when one change triggers further changes, in a process that keeps on repeating itself. Some of these feedback loops drive down warming, but others amplify it.
Take Arctic ice, for example. Warming temperatures cause sea ice to melt, revealing the dark ocean water beneath. As dark surfaces absorb more heat than reflective surfaces like ice, the ocean warms and more ice melts.
A group of international scientists from institutions including Oregon State
|
University, Exeter University and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, pored over climate literature to identify 41 climate feedback loops.
Of these, they found that 27 are driving up global temperatures, according to the study published Friday in the scientific journal One Earth, while just seven are helping to slow the pace of climate crisis.
William Ripple, Professor of Ecology at Oregon State University and a lead author on the study, told CNN that forest die-off, smoldering peatlands and thawing permafrost were particularly worrisome.
"These feedbacks may be large and are difficult to accurately quantify," Ripple told CNN.
The researchers were surprised by the large number of amplifying climate feedback loops they found, he added.
"To the best of our knowledge, this is the most extensive list available of climate feedback loops, and not all of them are fully considered in climate models," Christopher Wolf, a postdoctoral scholar at Oregon State University and the study's other lead author, said in a statement.
Climate feedback loops can also indirectly affect each other, according to the study, creating a complex web of interconnected changes that can accelerate the impacts of the climate crisis.
For example, planet-warming po
|
A new study claims that the underreporting of adverse events linked to COVID-19 vaccination is caused by clinical, political, systemic, and media factors. The peer-reviewed study published in the International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research claims that this lack of information has led to misguided recommendations by authorities. The study is titled “The Blind Spot in COVID-19 Vaccination Policies: Under-Reported Adverse Events.”
According to The Epoch Times, Patrick Provost, a professor in the Department of Microbiology at Laval University in Quebec City, says his study is based on a the adverse reactions suffered by two scientists who were in good health prior to vaccination. He claims they experienced several adverse events (AEs) after getting COVID-19 vaccines and still suffer the consequences.
“Their concern for their own health, given their background knowledge, training, and investigative mindset, put them in a unique position to testify concerning deficiencies in AE reporting following COVID-19 injections,” said Provost in the study. One of the scientists developed five different AEs, including ophthalmic migraines, skin rases, and diabetic imbalance. The other visited the emergency care unit three times with heart issues and was diagnosed with myocarditis and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), a blood circulation disorder.
Provost says that the attending physicians for these scientists refused to admit there could be a link between the injections and the adverse events. Provost, who studies micro RNA, small molecules that regulate genes, claims that the mRNA, or messenger RNA, vaccines can be internalized by the body’s cells and can cause the immune system to turn on itself, leading to the development of autoimmune diseases.
Health Canada says that out of 96,432,067 COVID-19 vaccine injections that have been administered as of January 20, adverse events have been reported by 53,611 people. That’s about six people out of every 10,000 people who have reported one or more adverse events. Of these, .011 cases out of all doses administered were considered serious.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that adverse events have been rare following the vaccines, but did find a small but increased risk of myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) after mRNA vaccines, particularly in male adolescents and young adults, during a study conducted between December 2020 and August 2021. Most patients who experienced myocarditis or pericarditis (inflammation of the outer lining of the heart) after COVID-19 vaccination responded well to medicine and rest and felt better quickly, says the CDC.
Provost’s study outlined a number of factors to explain why he believes AE’s are underreported. Clinically, he says that physicians have a lack of openness to consider the impact of COVID-19 injections and a belief that they can’t be responsible, says The Epoch Times. Other factors, he says, include the tedious procedure doctors must follow to report AEs, and the mass reporting that the rapidly deployed injections using mRNA are as safe as traditional vaccines tested over decades.
He singles out what he calls the “safe and effective mainstream narrative” thrust upon the public by authorities and the media without allowing individuals to challenge the theory. Provost notes that colleges can threaten and suspend their members who step out of line. Provost was suspended by Laval University for eight weeks last summer after he said publicly that there’s no real benefit to vaccinate children against COVID-19. His union filed a grievance over the suspension stating it was “an attack on academic freedom,” said Simon Viviers, vice-president of the Laval University faculty union. “To allow a university to judge the validity of the comments made by a university professor in public and to sanction him in this manner is problematic,” he added, according to CBC News.
Provost’s views were challenged by many experts, including Dr. Mathieu Nadeau-Vallée, a medical resident at University of Montreal, who holds a Ph.D. in immunology. He said that Provost is not an expert in the mRNA technology used in the Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, or in the vaccination of children.
“This person doesn’t really have the expertise to speak about this,” Nadeau-Vallée. “He’s a biochemistry professor; he doesn’t study messenger RNA, he studies small RNA. It’s not at all the same area of research. So, this is a person who is expressing themselves about a subject that they’re not really an expert in and is speaking against the scientific consensus on that subject.” Nadeau-Vallée said that COVID-19 vaccines and public health measures have saved lives.
“Academic freedom means being able to speak about any subject but it doesn’t mean we can say false things,” he said, adding that if someone wants to speak against scientific consensus, they have to show scientific evidence.
© 2024 NewsmaxHealth. All rights reserved.
|
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A new study claims that the underreporting of adverse events linked to COVID-19 vaccination is caused by clinical, political, systemic, and media factors. The peer-reviewed study published in the International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research claims that this lack of information has led to misguided recommendations by authorities. The study is titled “The Blind Spot in COVID-19 Vaccination Policies: Under-Reported Adverse Events.”
According to The Epoch Times, Patrick Provost, a professor in the Department of Microbiology at Laval University in Quebec City, says his study is based on a the adverse
|
reactions suffered by two scientists who were in good health prior to vaccination. He claims they experienced several adverse events (AEs) after getting COVID-19 vaccines and still suffer the consequences.
“Their concern for their own health, given their background knowledge, training, and investigative mindset, put them in a unique position to testify concerning deficiencies in AE reporting following COVID-19 injections,” said Provost in the study. One of the scientists developed five different AEs, including ophthalmic migraines, skin rases, and diabetic imbalance. The other visited the emergency care unit three times with heart issues and was diagnosed with myocarditis and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), a blood circulation disorder.
Provost says that the attending physicians for these scientists refused to admit there could be a link between the injections and the adverse events. Provost, who studies micro RNA, small molecules that regulate genes, claims that the mRNA, or messenger RNA, vaccines can be internalized by the body’s cells and can cause the immune system to turn on itself, leading to the development of autoimmune diseases.
Health Canada says that out of 96,432,067 COVID-19 vaccine injections that have been administered as of January 20, adverse events have been reported by 53,611 people. That’s about six people out of every 10,000 people who have reported one or more adverse events. Of these, .011 cases out of all doses administered were considered serious.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that adverse events have been rare following the vaccines, but did find a small but increased risk of myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) after mRNA vaccines, particularly in male adolescents and young adults, during a study conducted between December 2020 and August 2021. Most patients who experienced myocarditis or pericarditis (inflammation of the outer lining of the heart) after COVID-19 vaccination responded well to medicine and rest and felt better quickly, says the CDC.
Provost’s study outlined a number of factors to explain why he believes AE’s are underreported. Clinically, he says that physicians have a lack of openness to consider the impact of COVID-19 injections and a belief that they can’t be responsible, says The Epoch Times. Other factors, he says, include the tedious procedure doctors must follow to report AEs, and the mass reporting that the rapidly deployed injections using mRNA are as safe as traditional vaccines tested over decades.
He singles out what he calls the “safe and effective mainstream narrative” thrust upon the public by authorities and the media without allowing individuals to challenge the theory. Provost notes that colleges can threaten and suspend their members who step out of line. Provost was suspended by Laval University for eight weeks last summer after he said publicly that there’s no real benefit to vaccinate children against COVID-19. His union filed a grievance over the suspension stating it was “an attack on academic freedom,” said Simon Viviers, vice-president of the Laval University faculty union. “To allow a university to judge the validity of the comments made by a university professor in public and to sanction him in this manner is problematic,” he added, according to CBC News.
Provost’s views were challenged by many experts, including Dr. Mathieu Nadeau-Vallée, a medical resident at University of Montreal, who holds a Ph.D. in immunology. He said that Provost is not an expert in the mRNA technology used in the Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, or in the vaccination of children.
“This person doesn’t really have the expertise to speak about this,” Nadeau-Vallée. “He’s a biochemistry professor; he doesn’t study messenger RNA, he studies small RNA. It’s not at all the same area of research. So, this is a person who is expressing themselves about a subject that they’re not really an expert in and is speaking against the scientific consensus on that subject.” Nadeau-Vallée said that COVID-19 vaccines and public health measures have saved lives.
“Academic freedom means being able to speak about any subject but it doesn’t mean we can say false things,” he said, adding that if someone wants to speak against scientific consensus, they have to show scientific evidence.
© 2024 NewsmaxHealth. All rights reserved.
|
Ohio says to beware the elm zigzag sawfly
Pesky pests' infesting quests are leaving arbor experts stressed.
Buzzing the news: Researchers recently discovered elm zigzag sawflies in Franklin and Delaware counties, per the Ohio Department of Natural Resources — the first detection of the species in Ohio.
- They've been spotted in Canada and eastern U.S. states in recent years.
Why it matters: These unwelcome guests are "capable of significant defoliation of elm trees," ODNR notes.
Threat level: While they're not known to cause trees' death, their full impact on tree health is not entirely known.
What they're saying: Kathleen Knight, a U.S. Forest Service research ecologist, tells Axios it's unclear how the sawflies got here.
- "Humans are pretty efficient at moving things around accidentally, so it's possible they were brought into Ohio by people inadvertently."
Zoom in: The light-green larvae are up to one-half-inch long and leave a distinctive pattern on leaves, hence their name.
- Adult elm zigzag sawflies are smaller, shiny black in color and have wings.
How you can help: Report sightings and infestation patterns on the Great Lakes Early Detection Network phone app or call ODNR's Division of Forestry at 614-265-6694.
- You're encouraged to take photos or collect the insect specimen.
More Columbus stories
No stories could be found
Get a free daily digest of the most important news in your backyard with Axios Columbus.
|
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Ohio says to beware the elm zigzag sawfly
Pesky pests' infesting quests are leaving arbor experts stressed.
Buzzing the news: Researchers recently discovered elm zigzag sawflies in Franklin and Delaware counties, per the Ohio Department of Natural Resources — the first detection of the species in Ohio.
- They've been spotted in Canada and eastern U.S. states in recent years.
Why it matters: These unwelcome guests are "capable of significant defoliation of elm trees," ODNR notes.
Threat level: While they're not known to cause trees' death, their full impact on tree
|
health is not entirely known.
What they're saying: Kathleen Knight, a U.S. Forest Service research ecologist, tells Axios it's unclear how the sawflies got here.
- "Humans are pretty efficient at moving things around accidentally, so it's possible they were brought into Ohio by people inadvertently."
Zoom in: The light-green larvae are up to one-half-inch long and leave a distinctive pattern on leaves, hence their name.
- Adult elm zigzag sawflies are smaller, shiny black in color and have wings.
How you can help: Report sightings and infestation patterns on the Great Lakes Early Detection Network phone app or call ODNR's Division of Forestry at 614-265-6694.
- You're encouraged to take photos or collect the insect specimen.
More Columbus stories
No stories could be found
Get a free daily digest of the most important news in your backyard with Axios Columbus.
|
Detroit, Chicago and the Midwest blanketed by wildfire haze from Canada
Smoke from Canadian wildfires is smothering U.S. cities like Detroit, Chicago and Pittsburgh. Air quality warnings are in effect across the Midwest as officials warn of hazardous conditions.
Here's what we're following:
Chicago's air quality was the worst of anywhere in the world at one point yesterday, according to WBEZ. The Illinois city had an air quality rating of "unhealthy" as of 9 a.m. local time.
Meteorologists expect Michigan's air quality to fluctuate this week between unhealthy for sensitive groups and unhealthy for everyone, Michigan Radio reported. An official with the American Lung Association warned all residents to take precautions.
A thick haze is moving from Erie and the Great Lakes region across Pittsburgh, WESA said. A code red air quality alert issued by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is in effect for several counties all day Wednesday.
For more on the impact of the Canadian wildfires on air quality across the US, head over to NPR's live updates for the latest.
Newsrooms from across the NPR Network contributed to this coverage.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
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Detroit, Chicago and the Midwest blanketed by wildfire haze from Canada
Smoke from Canadian wildfires is smothering U.S. cities like Detroit, Chicago and Pittsburgh. Air quality warnings are in effect across the Midwest as officials warn of hazardous conditions.
Here's what we're following:
Chicago's air quality was the worst of anywhere in the world at one point yesterday, according to WBEZ. The Illinois city had an air quality rating of "unhealthy" as of 9 a.m. local time.
Meteorologists expect Michigan's air quality to fluctuate this week between unhealthy for sensitive groups and unhealthy for
|
everyone, Michigan Radio reported. An official with the American Lung Association warned all residents to take precautions.
A thick haze is moving from Erie and the Great Lakes region across Pittsburgh, WESA said. A code red air quality alert issued by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is in effect for several counties all day Wednesday.
For more on the impact of the Canadian wildfires on air quality across the US, head over to NPR's live updates for the latest.
Newsrooms from across the NPR Network contributed to this coverage.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
|
School gun violence torments America's youngest generation
More than 1,000 incidents involving firearms have shaken America's schools since 2018 — a dramatic increase over any similar period since at least 1970, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database.
Why it matters: The stunning rise in gun violence on school property is reshaping the daily lives of America's youngest generation, putting children at the center of a previously unthinkable number of life-or-death moments.
What's happening: 273 people were killed or wounded on school grounds from 303 gun-related incidents last year alone — both record highs, according to the database.
- Guns are the leading cause of death for U.S. children and teens and firearms accounted for nearly 19% of childhood deaths in 2021, according to the CDC.
- Gun-related incidents outside of the classroom, such as gun suicides and gun murders, reached record levels in 2021 and "swatting" calls, or fake reports of shootings or bombs that prompt SWAT team responses and lockdowns, are rising.
- "The threat of gun violence has become a constant in children's lives in this country and we're seeing the impact of it," Sarah Burd-Sharps, the senior director of research at Everytown, told Axios.
The daily impacts of gun violence on children extend to the measures schools take to prevent future incidents.
- Nearly all (98%) K-12 public schools reported drilling students on lockdown procedures as of the 2019-2020 school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
- 96% of schools reported having written procedures for an active shooter incident.
Research suggests safety measures can be effective in preventing gun-related incidents, but they risk disrupting the norms of the school day and have become controversial among some parents and activists.
- "At nine o'clock [students] have to hide in the bathroom for long periods of time and be silent and then at 10 o'clock, they need to learn math," Burds-Sharps said.
- "It's not a recipe for America's schoolchildren to learn and to achieve in school and to be able to focus and to concentrate."
State of play: Black children and teens disproportionately bear the burden of gun violence and were about five times as likely as white kids to die from gunfire in 2021, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of CDC data.
- While guns became the leading cause of death for all American children in 2020, they have been the leading cause of death for Black children for over a decade.
Dr. Katie Donnelly, a pediatric emergency medicine physician at Children's National Hospital in Washington, D.C., said that she interacts "with a lot of kids who really aren't thinking about what they want to be when they grow up because they don't have an expectation that they're going to grow up."
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School gun violence torments America's youngest generation
More than 1,000 incidents involving firearms have shaken America's schools since 2018 — a dramatic increase over any similar period since at least 1970, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database.
Why it matters: The stunning rise in gun violence on school property is reshaping the daily lives of America's youngest generation, putting children at the center of a previously unthinkable number of life-or-death moments.
What's happening: 273 people were killed or wounded on school grounds from 303 gun-related
|
incidents last year alone — both record highs, according to the database.
- Guns are the leading cause of death for U.S. children and teens and firearms accounted for nearly 19% of childhood deaths in 2021, according to the CDC.
- Gun-related incidents outside of the classroom, such as gun suicides and gun murders, reached record levels in 2021 and "swatting" calls, or fake reports of shootings or bombs that prompt SWAT team responses and lockdowns, are rising.
- "The threat of gun violence has become a constant in children's lives in this country and we're seeing the impact of it," Sarah Burd-Sharps, the senior director of research at Everytown, told Axios.
The daily impacts of gun violence on children extend to the measures schools take to prevent future incidents.
- Nearly all (98%) K-12 public schools reported drilling students on lockdown procedures as of the 2019-2020 school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
- 96% of schools reported having written procedures for an active shooter incident.
Research suggests safety measures can be effective in preventing gun-related incidents, but they risk disrupting the norms of the school day and have become controversial among some parents and activists.
- "At nine o'clock [students] have to hide in the bathroom for long periods of time and be silent and then at 10 o'clock, they need to learn math," Burds-Sharps said.
- "It's not a recipe for America's schoolchildren to learn and to achieve in school and to be able to focus and to concentrate."
State of play: Black children and teens disproportionately bear the burden of gun violence and were about five times as likely as white kids to die from gunfire in 2021, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of CDC data.
- While guns became the leading cause of death for all American children in 2020, they have been the leading cause of death for Black children for over a decade.
Dr. Katie Donnelly, a pediatric emergency medicine physician at Children's National Hospital in Washington, D.C., said that she interacts "with a lot of kids who really aren't thinking about what they want to be when they grow up because they don't have an expectation that they're going to grow up."
|
Black vultures have become a big headache for Missouri livestock producers
The federally protected birds are preying on newborn livestock. Missouri's black vulture bird population has grown from 14,000 in 2015 to roughly 21,000 in 2021, which is only worsening the problem.
Missouri livestock producers are battling a growing nuisance — black vultures.
Black vultures, unlike the more common turkey vultures, are known for being aggressive as they gang up and prey on newborn livestock. Davin Althoff, the director of marketing and commodities at the Missouri Farm Bureau, said he’s received countless calls from livestock producers about how aggressive the birds are.
“After the birth of the calf, the black head vulture will attack,” Althoff said. “Typically, they attack the eyeballs first, and then they’ll go in for the kill.”
The black vulture bird population has grown in Missouri from 14,000 in 2015 to roughly 21,000 in 2021. Their rapid growth has only worsened the problem.
The Missouri legislature has appropriated $1.6 million in the unsigned budget to the Missouri Department of Agriculture to help learn more about the birds' behavior and population growth as well as mitigate the problems they cause.
The money will also be used to hire two USDA coordinators in southwest and southeast Missouri who will be responsible for working with landowners.
As many wait for Gov. Mike Parson’s signature, several groups including the bureau and the USDA’s Wildlife Services are providing mitigation strategies to help livestock producers.
Black vultures are federally protected and are not allowed to be killed without a permit. Althoff said livestock producers in the state can contact the Missouri Farm Bureau to get a free sub-permit to shoot and kill up to five birds.
“There’s also a lot of strategy around what these producers can do with the dead birds they kill,” he said. “One of the most effective methods is utilizing a dead black vulture or a fake black-headed vulture hung in effigy — hung upside down. The producers that apply for the sub-permit and are issued the permit, while they are only allocated five kills, it’s what they do with those [dead vultures] that is very effective in mitigating the challenges of the black vultures.”
There are also nonlethal approaches to handling the pesky birds. David Marks, assistant state director with the USDA Wildlife Services, said putting birthing livestock near human activity, harassing and scaring off black vultures with loud noises and using guard dogs can help.
“If you start seeing them in an area that you haven’t before, it’s a lot easier to harass them and change what they are attracted to in the first place early on before they get established,” Marks said. “But once they get established in an area and the population starts to grow they really get tied to that area, and it’s a lot harder to make them want to leave.”
Livestock producers who are able to prove they’ve lost livestock to black vultures can apply for reimbursement for the animal and necropsy through the Livestock Indemnity Program.
Copyright 2023 St. Louis Public Radio. To see more, visit St. Louis Public Radio.
|
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Black vultures have become a big headache for Missouri livestock producers
The federally protected birds are preying on newborn livestock. Missouri's black vulture bird population has grown from 14,000 in 2015 to roughly 21,000 in 2021, which is only worsening the problem.
Missouri livestock producers are battling a growing nuisance — black vultures.
Black vultures, unlike the more common turkey vultures, are known for being aggressive as they gang up and prey on newborn livestock. Davin Althoff, the director of marketing and commodities at the
|
Missouri Farm Bureau, said he’s received countless calls from livestock producers about how aggressive the birds are.
“After the birth of the calf, the black head vulture will attack,” Althoff said. “Typically, they attack the eyeballs first, and then they’ll go in for the kill.”
The black vulture bird population has grown in Missouri from 14,000 in 2015 to roughly 21,000 in 2021. Their rapid growth has only worsened the problem.
The Missouri legislature has appropriated $1.6 million in the unsigned budget to the Missouri Department of Agriculture to help learn more about the birds' behavior and population growth as well as mitigate the problems they cause.
The money will also be used to hire two USDA coordinators in southwest and southeast Missouri who will be responsible for working with landowners.
As many wait for Gov. Mike Parson’s signature, several groups including the bureau and the USDA’s Wildlife Services are providing mitigation strategies to help livestock producers.
Black vultures are federally protected and are not allowed to be killed without a permit. Althoff said livestock producers in the state can contact the Missouri Farm Bureau to get a free sub-permit to shoot and kill up to five birds.
“There’s also a lot of strategy around what these producers can do with the dead birds they kill,” he said. “One of the most effective methods is utilizing a dead black vulture or a fake black-headed vulture hung in effigy — hung upside down. The producers that apply for the sub-permit and are issued the permit, while they are only allocated five kills, it’s what they do with those [dead vultures] that is very effective in mitigating the challenges of the black vultures.”
There are also nonlethal approaches to handling the pesky birds. David Marks, assistant state director with the USDA Wildlife Services, said putting birthing livestock near human activity, harassing and scaring off black vultures with loud noises and using guard dogs can help.
“If you start seeing them in an area that you haven’t before, it’s a lot easier to harass them and change what they are attracted to in the first place early on before they get established,” Marks said. “But once they get established in an area and the population starts to grow they really get tied to that area, and it’s a lot harder to make them want to leave.”
Livestock producers who are able to prove they’ve lost livestock to black vultures can apply for reimbursement for the animal and necropsy through the Livestock Indemnity Program.
Copyright 2023 St. Louis Public Radio. To see more, visit St. Louis Public Radio.
|
Here’s an exclusive sneak peek into the STEM education trends that my organization, Beyond100K, compiles annually. The trends in this synthesis, drawing from hundreds of conversations, surveys, and more, will define STEM and education this year.
Trend 1: Belonging Matters in STEM
Through an intensive listening and research effort, more than 600 young people told us that belonging was essential to persisting in STEM and pursuing a STEM career.
It is clear that, to help spark the brilliance of millions more young minds and to keep students from disengaging from STEM, teachers and schools need to prioritize a focus on equity, representation, and especially belonging in STEM education. Ed Tech and tool creators, take heed: There’s a growing demand for frameworks, tools, and metrics that can help teachers implement and assess efforts to expand belonging in their STEM classrooms. Luckily, we’re far from starting from scratch, with strong tools to adopt and adapt. A University of Michigan researcher developed a framework to help teachers foster student belonging in math, and a University of Texas chemistry professor developed a simple and intuitive way to foster belonging among students. LabXchange is developing evidence-based curricula to support educators to foster students’ sense of belonging, identity, self-efficacy, and confidence in science, to support its 15,000+ science resources. The Education Trust developed a state-by-state dashboard focused on teacher diversity, and the National Academies will be publishing a consensus study on equity in K-12 STEM education in the spring. In December, the US Department of Education launched YOU Belong in STEM, the first national STEM initiative in over 10 years. Its name tells us everything we need to know: Creating the conditions for STEM excellence starts with students and teachers feeling a sense of belonging in their STEM classrooms.
Despite all this progress, we’d be remiss not to acknowledge the uphill nature of this work. There is a longstanding, deeply-rooted belief that STEM fields are only for the elite few who have what it takes to succeed — and in which rigor and excellence are measured by how many students fail. It will take a shift not only in K-12 but in higher ed and in the workforce to truly create the conditions where all students can know that they belong and can succeed in STEM.
Trend 2: STEM Teachers of Color Are Key
There is a legacy of exclusion impacting who we see and don’t see in today’s teaching profession. Since Brown v. Board of Education, teachers of color have been marginalized and discriminated against, leading to generational inequities for teachers and students alike.
Though publicly available data lags, about 50% of our public-school students are BIPOC, but only 20% of public-school teachers are. Fortunately, we continue to see an emphasis on increasing the recruitment, preparation, and retention of BIPOC STEM teachers.
A group of organizations working on diversifying the STEM teacher pipeline recently created a public website for organizations committed to the recruitment, preparation, and retention of teachers of color. Federal funding is supporting Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to scale up teacher residency programs, and the US Department of Education is giving $25 million to boost diverse teacher education across colleges and universities. Breakthrough Collaborative, Young People's Project, Teach For America, Relay Graduate School of Education, and Alder Graduate School of Education, among many others, have made commitments to recruiting more BIPOC STEM teachers.
Through deep research, we heard that to not only attract but retain a more racially diverse teacher workforce requires positive work environments that center belonging for teachers of color. A recently published toolkit offers specific recommendations for administrators to improve work environments for teachers of color, but more will need to be done to support schools to create work environments in which all teachers, and especially teachers of color, can thrive.
Trend 3: The Earlier the Better for Teacher Recruitment
Unless you’ve been quarantined from the news, you know there’s a steep and accelerating nationwide teacher shortage, especially in the STEM subjects.
So we’re heartened by an emerging trend to go upstream of the shortage to focus on attracting potential STEM teachers earlier, in part by recruiting potential teachers with nontraditional backgrounds.
Schools and districts around the country are reinvesting in time-tested recruitment tools like signing bonuses and tuition reimbursements. At the same time, there are more programs that aim to reach potential teachers earlier, including by creating opportunities for high school students to gain experience and training. Young People’s Project is growing its teacher cadet program to certify over 500 high school and college students as math literacy workers, en route to a STEM teaching career. Breakthrough Collaborative introduces college students to careers in teaching, partnering with local community colleges, state colleges, HBCUs and Minority Serving Institutions. At the other end of the spectrum, Encorps, which focuses on older adults, is expanding teacher recruitment; maybe the tech layoffs will have a silver lining for STEM teaching?
Trend 4: More Pathways to Teaching
Across the country, more routes to teaching are sprouting up, a welcome antidote to the decline in traditional teacher preparation.
Apprenticeships, collaborations between education and labor departments in states, residencies, and new community college pathways are expanding across the country, as are fast-track education programs that make the transition into teaching possible for more people. In Texas, UT Austin and Austin Community College are pairing up to lead a program called UTeach Access that will recruit students who applied to study biology, chemistry, math, or physics and offer them a spot in the UTeach STEM teaching preparation program. Reach University is offering job-embedded learning, where half a degree comes from on-the-job work and half comes from personalized online tutorials. The National Center for Teacher Residencies is supporting new teacher residency programs across the country and is partnering with HBCUs to enable students from under-served districts to build a career in STEM education.
An important note: Some efforts, like those in Florida, simply reduced requirements for teachers, instead of supporting more people to meet the teacher-preparation goals that will best serve students. The evidence from past downturns like we’re seeing now is that short-term, emergency responses are counterproductive and negatively impact all students, especially students of color and students in our least-resourced schools. We must ensure that efforts to ease pathways into teaching don’t devolve into a race to the bottom on preparedness.
|
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Here’s an exclusive sneak peek into the STEM education trends that my organization, Beyond100K, compiles annually. The trends in this synthesis, drawing from hundreds of conversations, surveys, and more, will define STEM and education this year.
Trend 1: Belonging Matters in STEM
Through an intensive listening and research effort, more than 600 young people told us that belonging was essential to persisting in STEM and pursuing a STEM career.
It is clear that, to help spark the brilliance of millions more young minds and to keep students from disengaging from STEM, teachers
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and schools need to prioritize a focus on equity, representation, and especially belonging in STEM education. Ed Tech and tool creators, take heed: There’s a growing demand for frameworks, tools, and metrics that can help teachers implement and assess efforts to expand belonging in their STEM classrooms. Luckily, we’re far from starting from scratch, with strong tools to adopt and adapt. A University of Michigan researcher developed a framework to help teachers foster student belonging in math, and a University of Texas chemistry professor developed a simple and intuitive way to foster belonging among students. LabXchange is developing evidence-based curricula to support educators to foster students’ sense of belonging, identity, self-efficacy, and confidence in science, to support its 15,000+ science resources. The Education Trust developed a state-by-state dashboard focused on teacher diversity, and the National Academies will be publishing a consensus study on equity in K-12 STEM education in the spring. In December, the US Department of Education launched YOU Belong in STEM, the first national STEM initiative in over 10 years. Its name tells us everything we need to know: Creating the conditions for STEM excellence starts with students and teachers feeling a sense of belonging in their STEM classrooms.
Despite all this progress, we’d be remiss not to acknowledge the uphill nature of this work. There is a longstanding, deeply-rooted belief that STEM fields are only for the elite few who have what it takes to succeed — and in which rigor and excellence are measured by how many students fail. It will take a shift not only in K-12 but in higher ed and in the workforce to truly create the conditions where all students can know that they belong and can succeed in STEM.
Trend 2: STEM Teachers of Color Are Key
There is a legacy of exclusion impacting who we see and don’t see in today’s teaching profession. Since Brown v. Board of Education, teachers of color have been marginalized and discriminated against, leading to generational inequities for teachers and students alike.
Though publicly available data lags, about 50% of our public-school students are BIPOC, but only 20% of public-school teachers are. Fortunately, we continue to see an emphasis on increasing the recruitment, preparation, and retention of BIPOC STEM teachers.
A group of organizations working on diversifying the STEM teacher pipeline recently created a public website for organizations committed to the recruitment, preparation, and retention of teachers of color. Federal funding is supporting Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to scale up teacher residency programs, and the US Department of Education is giving $25 million to boost diverse teacher education across colleges and universities. Breakthrough Collaborative, Young People's Project, Teach For America, Relay Graduate School of Education, and Alder Graduate School of Education, among many others, have made commitments to recruiting more BIPOC STEM teachers.
Through deep research, we heard that to not only attract but retain a more racially diverse teacher workforce requires positive work environments that center belonging for teachers of color. A recently published toolkit offers specific recommendations for administrators to improve work environments for teachers of color, but more will need to be done to support schools to create work environments in which all teachers, and especially teachers of color, can thrive.
Trend 3: The Earlier the Better for Teacher Recruitment
Unless you’ve been quarantined from the news, you know there’s a steep and accelerating nationwide teacher shortage, especially in the STEM subjects.
So we’re heartened by an emerging trend to go upstream of the shortage to focus on attracting potential STEM teachers earlier, in part by recruiting potential teachers with nontraditional backgrounds.
Schools and districts around the country are reinvesting in time-tested recruitment tools like signing bonuses and tuition reimbursements. At the same time, there are more programs that aim to reach potential teachers earlier, including by creating opportunities for high school students to gain experience and training. Young People’s Project is growing its teacher cadet program to certify over 500 high school and college students as math literacy workers, en route to a STEM teaching career. Breakthrough Collaborative introduces college students to careers in teaching, partnering with local community colleges, state colleges, HBCUs and Minority Serving Institutions. At the other end of the spectrum, Encorps, which focuses on older adults, is expanding teacher recruitment; maybe the tech layoffs will have a silver lining for STEM teaching?
Trend 4: More Pathways to Teaching
Across the country, more routes to teaching are sprouting up, a welcome antidote to the decline in traditional teacher preparation.
Apprenticeships, collaborations between education and labor departments in states, residencies, and new community college pathways are expanding across the country, as are fast-track education programs that make the transition into teaching possible for more people. In Texas, UT Austin and Austin Community College are pairing up to lead a program called UTeach Access that will recruit students who applied to study biology, chemistry, math, or physics and offer them a spot in the UTeach STEM teaching preparation program. Reach University is offering job-embedded learning, where half a degree comes from on-the-job work and half comes from personalized online tutorials. The National Center for Teacher Residencies is supporting new teacher residency programs across the country and is partnering with HBCUs to enable students from under-served districts to build a career in STEM education.
An important note: Some efforts, like those in Florida, simply reduced requirements for teachers, instead of supporting more people to meet the teacher-preparation goals that will best serve students. The evidence from past downturns like we’re seeing now is that short-term, emergency responses are counterproductive and negatively impact all students, especially students of color and students in our least-resourced schools. We must ensure that efforts to ease pathways into teaching don’t devolve into a race to the bottom on preparedness.
|
Who was this man named Noah? The name of the hero, according to Mesopotamian versions of the flood was Utnapishtim. It is just possible that an abbreviation of Utnapishtim as “Na’ish” was pronounced “Noah”. This Noah was told how to make a big triple deck ark of gopher cypress with pitch all over it, 450 feet long (300 cubits), 75 feet wide (50 cubits), and 45 feet high (30 cubits) in Genesis, chapter 6:14-7:9. This was hard work for Noah and his three sons building this boat ark with a roof and a door. By today’s standards, it was like a small river cruise ship or an American destroyer ship. God said that he was going to send a big flood and destroy everything except for whatever would be in this ark. Everything on the earth would die, if it was not on the ark. Thus, Noah built an ark, loaded it with animals, stocked it with food, and then got on it with his family. His family consisted of Noah, his unnamed wife, and his three sons and their unnamed wives. Yahweh told Noah to get two of every living thing, a male and female, of birds, animals, and creeping things, and put them into the ark. This in itself would have been a difficult task also. The division of living things was always the same, clean and unclean animals, birds, and creeping things. This ‘creeping things’ seems strange, but appears over and over again. There was no word about fish since they could survive in the water. Noah also took food and did as God asked him to do. God told Noah to take seven pairs of all clean animals, instead of just one pair of the other unclean animals. In fact, this is the Priestly tradition story with the emphasis on clean and unclean animals that was never mentioned until here. Of course, the clean and unclean animals were part of the later Mosaic Law. In seven days, God said that the forty-day rain would begin. In seven days, the 600-year-old Noah got his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, their wives, and all the animals, birds, and creeping things into the ark, just as God had told him to do. This was a crowded ship, even though there was no indication of any children of the three sons. That was quite a task, but Noah was up to the work. Have you ever had a busy week?
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Who was this man named Noah? The name of the hero, according to Mesopotamian versions of the flood was Utnapishtim. It is just possible that an abbreviation of Utnapishtim as “Na’ish” was pronounced “Noah”. This Noah was told how to make a big triple deck ark of gopher cypress with pitch all over it, 450 feet long (300 cubits), 75 feet wide (50 cubits), and 45 feet high (30 cubits) in Genesis, chapter 6:14-7:9. This was
|
hard work for Noah and his three sons building this boat ark with a roof and a door. By today’s standards, it was like a small river cruise ship or an American destroyer ship. God said that he was going to send a big flood and destroy everything except for whatever would be in this ark. Everything on the earth would die, if it was not on the ark. Thus, Noah built an ark, loaded it with animals, stocked it with food, and then got on it with his family. His family consisted of Noah, his unnamed wife, and his three sons and their unnamed wives. Yahweh told Noah to get two of every living thing, a male and female, of birds, animals, and creeping things, and put them into the ark. This in itself would have been a difficult task also. The division of living things was always the same, clean and unclean animals, birds, and creeping things. This ‘creeping things’ seems strange, but appears over and over again. There was no word about fish since they could survive in the water. Noah also took food and did as God asked him to do. God told Noah to take seven pairs of all clean animals, instead of just one pair of the other unclean animals. In fact, this is the Priestly tradition story with the emphasis on clean and unclean animals that was never mentioned until here. Of course, the clean and unclean animals were part of the later Mosaic Law. In seven days, God said that the forty-day rain would begin. In seven days, the 600-year-old Noah got his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, their wives, and all the animals, birds, and creeping things into the ark, just as God had told him to do. This was a crowded ship, even though there was no indication of any children of the three sons. That was quite a task, but Noah was up to the work. Have you ever had a busy week?
|
Nearly half of Louisiana residents are obese
Nearly half of Louisianans are obese, according to a new analysis from NORC, a research organization at the University of Chicago.
Why it matters: Obesity is associated with hypertension, cardiovascular disease, stroke and other conditions that can lead to preventable, premature death, Axios' Arielle Dreher reports.
By the numbers: An adult with a BMI of 30 or higher is considered obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control, and between 25 and 30 is considered overweight.
- 47.9% of Louisianans have a BMI of 30 or higher. Of those, 12.7% have a BMI higher than 40, according to NORC’s map.
The big picture: Obesity rates have steadily increased over the past decade nationally.
- Obesity disproportionately impacts Black and Hispanic Americans, the analysis found.
Threat level: Louisiana is one of the top states for obesity rates and the related chronic diseases.
- Nationally, 42.7% of adults have a BMI over 30.
- West Virginia and Mississippi have the country's highest obesity rates at 51%.
- The District of Columbia has the lowest rate at 33%.
Between the lines: Obesity rates are determined in part by using body mass index ranges, which have been called into question for correlating weight and health too closely, the New Yorker reports.
Of note: The NORC analysis was produced with funding from Novo Nordisk, a producer of both insulin and popular weight-loss drug Ozempic.
- NORC's analysis and mapping tool used findings through 2021 based on telephone surveys by the CDC's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System.
More New Orleans stories
No stories could be found
Get a free daily digest of the most important news in your backyard with Axios New Orleans.
|
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Nearly half of Louisiana residents are obese
Nearly half of Louisianans are obese, according to a new analysis from NORC, a research organization at the University of Chicago.
Why it matters: Obesity is associated with hypertension, cardiovascular disease, stroke and other conditions that can lead to preventable, premature death, Axios' Arielle Dreher reports.
By the numbers: An adult with a BMI of 30 or higher is considered obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control, and between 25 and 30 is considered overweight.
- 47.9% of Louisianans have a BMI
|
of 30 or higher. Of those, 12.7% have a BMI higher than 40, according to NORC’s map.
The big picture: Obesity rates have steadily increased over the past decade nationally.
- Obesity disproportionately impacts Black and Hispanic Americans, the analysis found.
Threat level: Louisiana is one of the top states for obesity rates and the related chronic diseases.
- Nationally, 42.7% of adults have a BMI over 30.
- West Virginia and Mississippi have the country's highest obesity rates at 51%.
- The District of Columbia has the lowest rate at 33%.
Between the lines: Obesity rates are determined in part by using body mass index ranges, which have been called into question for correlating weight and health too closely, the New Yorker reports.
Of note: The NORC analysis was produced with funding from Novo Nordisk, a producer of both insulin and popular weight-loss drug Ozempic.
- NORC's analysis and mapping tool used findings through 2021 based on telephone surveys by the CDC's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System.
More New Orleans stories
No stories could be found
Get a free daily digest of the most important news in your backyard with Axios New Orleans.
|
Progress toward gender equality is “vanishing before our eyes,” United Nations Secretary General António Guterres told the Commission on the Status of Women on Monday.
Speaking to the key UN women’s rights group ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8, Guterres said gender equality is “300 years away” according to the latest estimates from UN Women, the UN organization dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women.
Guterres cited high rates of maternal mortality, girls being forced into early marriage, and girls being kidnapped and assaulted for attending school as evidence that hope of achieving gender equality “is growing more distant.”
In his speech, Guterres did not mention Iran, which was expelled from the 45-member commission in December over protests following the death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of the country’s so-called “morality police.”
“Women’s rights are being abused, threatened, and violated around the world,” Guterres said, naming a few countries in particular, including Afghanistan, where he said “women and girls have been erased from public life.”
On Monday, young Afghan women gathered outside Kabul University to protest the ruling Taliban’s ban on female education, a restriction which a new UN report says may amount to “a crime against humanity.”
The report presented to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday also noted the rise in forced and child marriages, the ban excluding women from other public spaces like parks and gyms, and other restrictions limiting women’s ability to work and travel independently in Afghanistan.
Guterres said the deputy secretary-general and the executive director of UN Women recently visited Afghanistan and conveyed to the Taliban authorities that “we will never give up fighting for” women and girls.
“Crisis and conflict affect women and girls first and worst,” Guterres said, including the war in Ukraine as an example. Last year, the UN called for an investigation into reports of rape and sexual violence against Ukrainian women and children following Russia’s invasion.
Guterres also said that “in many places, women’s sexual and reproductive rights are being rolled back,” though he didn’t specify where.
Last June, the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, leaving the right to abortion up to individual states. The year before, a ban on abortions due to fetal defects took effect in Poland – essentially ending almost all abortions in the country.
To achieve gender equality, Guterres called for “collective” and “urgent” action, from increasing education, income and employment for women and girls, especially in developing nations in the Global South, to promoting the participation of women and girls in science and technology.
“Centuries of patriarchy, discrimination and harmful stereotypes have created a huge gender gap in science and technology,” Guterres said. “Let’s be clear: global frameworks are not working for the world’s women and girls. They need to change.”
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Progress toward gender equality is “vanishing before our eyes,” United Nations Secretary General António Guterres told the Commission on the Status of Women on Monday.
Speaking to the key UN women’s rights group ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8, Guterres said gender equality is “300 years away” according to the latest estimates from UN Women, the UN organization dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women.
Guterres cited high rates of maternal mortality, girls being forced into early marriage, and girls being kidnapped and assaulted for attending school as evidence that hope of achieving gender equality “is growing more distant.”
|
In his speech, Guterres did not mention Iran, which was expelled from the 45-member commission in December over protests following the death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of the country’s so-called “morality police.”
“Women’s rights are being abused, threatened, and violated around the world,” Guterres said, naming a few countries in particular, including Afghanistan, where he said “women and girls have been erased from public life.”
On Monday, young Afghan women gathered outside Kabul University to protest the ruling Taliban’s ban on female education, a restriction which a new UN report says may amount to “a crime against humanity.”
The report presented to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday also noted the rise in forced and child marriages, the ban excluding women from other public spaces like parks and gyms, and other restrictions limiting women’s ability to work and travel independently in Afghanistan.
Guterres said the deputy secretary-general and the executive director of UN Women recently visited Afghanistan and conveyed to the Taliban authorities that “we will never give up fighting for” women and girls.
“Crisis and conflict affect women and girls first and worst,” Guterres said, including the war in Ukraine as an example. Last year, the UN called for an investigation into reports of rape and sexual violence against Ukrainian women and children following Russia’s invasion.
Guterres also said that “in many places, women’s sexual and reproductive rights are being rolled back,” though he didn’t specify where.
Last June, the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, leaving the right to abortion up to individual states. The year before, a ban on abortions due to fetal defects took effect in Poland – essentially ending almost all abortions in the country.
To achieve gender equality, Guterres called for “collective” and “urgent” action, from increasing education, income and employment for women and girls, especially in developing nations in the Global South, to promoting the participation of women and girls in science and technology.
“Centuries of patriarchy, discrimination and harmful stereotypes have created a huge gender gap in science and technology,” Guterres said. “Let’s be clear: global frameworks are not working for the world’s women and girls. They need to change.”
|
The National Education Equity Lab, an education justice nonprofit, has enlisted more prestigious universities to offer college courses and supports to students in some of the nation’s poorest high schools. The new partners include Morehouse College and the University of California System.
They join Princeton, Stanford, Georgetown, Cornell, Wesleyan University, Barnard College, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, Spelman College, Brown University, Howard University, and Arizona State University, all of which were early providers in the Ed Equity network.
Founded in 2019 by Leslie Cornfeld, a former federal civil rights prosecutor and later an advisor to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and two U.S. Secretaries of Education, Ed Equity Lab has quickly become one of the nation’s leading models for preparing low-income and underrepresented minority students to enroll and succeed in college. It’s helping fill the college pipeline with talented students who might have otherwise never believed they could succeed at college.
The Lab follows a simple plan, a first-ever national model: deliver and support college credit-bearing courses taught by faculty from a network of leading colleges and universities in teacher-led high school classrooms, at no cost to students.
Here’s how it works. School districts serving low-income students are invited to participate, and they offer the opportunity to principals in Title 1 high schools. Principals pick the high school teachers who assist the college faculty in offering the course, and they also select the students - typically about 25 per course. Many Ed Equity Lab high schools offer multiple courses – meaning students can graduate with a semester or more of transferable credits under their belts, resulting in substantial tuition savings.
Students - mostly juniors and seniors, but sometimes exceptional sophomores - are selected on the basis of their academic record as well as teachers’ nominations of students they believe have untapped potential to succeed.
The courses are offered as dual enrollment classes where students receive both college and high school credit. They are taught by 1) college faculty members, who deliver the lectures asynchronously via video, and hold office hours via Zoom; 2) high school teachers who co-teach the course during the school day; and 3) graduate or undergraduate students who function like college teaching assistants responsible for leading a weekly live discussion section and doing the course grading with the college faculty.
Ed Equity Lab delivers and supports all aspects of the model, including onboarding schools and universities, conducting orientations and trainings for the teachers, and organizing virtual events and career and college advising sessions. There’s even an alumni society of the scholars. (You can watch a brief introduction to the Ed Equity Lab by Cornfeld and others and listen to some former students describe their experiences here.)
Students take the courses for free, and the universities offer them to the high schools at cost. School districts pay $250 per student per class, a discounted rate made possible by the universities’ generous pricing and the considerable investment that the Lab has been able to attract from private donors, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the NBA Foundation, the Apollo Opportunity Foundation, and private family foundations.
‘These investments are critical to reaching the vast talent in underserved communities,’’ said Vivian Zelter, who leads the Lab’s efforts to raise funding to expand the program to one million scholars over the next ten years.
Since starting in 2019, with a humanities course taught by Harvard professor Elisa New, the Lab’s program has expanded dramatically. By the end of the year, it will have reached over 15,000 students in more than 100 school districts across 29 states. The Lab aims to be in 25% of the nation’s Title 1 high schools by 2025, and reach more than one million students over the next ten years.
The curriculum has expanded as well, with more than 30 courses offered so far. For example, students can enroll in a Personal Finance course offered by Wharton, Introduction to Computer Science by Stanford, Environmental Studies from Howard, or a psychology course taught by Penn Professor Angela Duckworth.
“Our students have demonstrated that talent is equally distributed, opportunity is not,’’ said Cornfeld. To date, 80% of students completing a Lab course have passed it, making the courses eligible for transcripted credit at most colleges. Many students take - and pass - multiple classes, giving them a strong start on their college degrees.
Early results show that Ed Equity Lab Alumni are better prepared to succeed in college. “Our preliminary data show our students are enrolling in four-year institutions and going out of state to attend at higher rates than similarly situated students,” said the Lab’s Chief Academic Officer, Ariel Murphy Bedford.
Michaell Santos, a student from the Bronx and president of the Ed Equity Lab Alumni Society, is a great example of the program’s impact. After completing five Ed Equity Lab college courses, Michaell was accepted to Yale University, where he plans to major in political science. According to Michaell, “since my junior year, the lab has given me countless opportunities and has allowed me to grow as a student and person...The National Education Equity Lab made me realize that I could be successful outside of my South Bronx bubble.”
Commenting on his university’s new partnership with the Ed Equity Lab, University of California president Michael V. Drake said, “The University of California is committed to expanding access to higher education for students of all backgrounds. We are proud to collaborate with the National Education Equity Lab to further that goal - and reach more students than ever before.”
Morehouse President David A. Thomas said the Lab’s program enabled his institution to “share the power of Morehouse to propel college and career opportunities at new levels across our nation.”
What accounts for Ed Equity Lab’s growing appeal? Three factors seem important.
- First, by keeping the model simple, it’s eminently scalable. New advances in educational technology have made offering dual enrollment courses to large numbers of students much more feasible. Plus scalable student supports - like relying on existing teachers - are built right into the model.
- Second, the Lab gives colleges and universities an entry - a foot in the school door - for helping k-12 districts improve their educational opportunities and outcomes. Long concerned - even dismayed - about the college readiness of high school students, particularly in under-resourced communities, educators can use the program to not just lament the problem but address it constructively.
- Finally, as higher education leaders anticipate a Supreme Court ruling later this year that may curtail or end affirmative action in college admissions, the connections forged with students who thrive in Ed Equity Lab classes afford colleges a race-neutral way to identify, recruit, and admit outstanding students from different backgrounds. Don’t think the likelihood of that advantage has been lost on institutions that remain committed to the importance of diversity. As former U. S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, a member of Ed Equity Lab’s board, said, “this shows what happens when higher ed leaders roll up their sleeves and expand opportunity beyond their own gates. It’s game changing.”
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The National Education Equity Lab, an education justice nonprofit, has enlisted more prestigious universities to offer college courses and supports to students in some of the nation’s poorest high schools. The new partners include Morehouse College and the University of California System.
They join Princeton, Stanford, Georgetown, Cornell, Wesleyan University, Barnard College, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, Spelman College, Brown University, Howard University, and Arizona State University, all of which were early providers in the Ed Equity network.
Founded in 2019 by Leslie Cornfeld, a former federal civil rights prosecutor and later an advisor
|
to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and two U.S. Secretaries of Education, Ed Equity Lab has quickly become one of the nation’s leading models for preparing low-income and underrepresented minority students to enroll and succeed in college. It’s helping fill the college pipeline with talented students who might have otherwise never believed they could succeed at college.
The Lab follows a simple plan, a first-ever national model: deliver and support college credit-bearing courses taught by faculty from a network of leading colleges and universities in teacher-led high school classrooms, at no cost to students.
Here’s how it works. School districts serving low-income students are invited to participate, and they offer the opportunity to principals in Title 1 high schools. Principals pick the high school teachers who assist the college faculty in offering the course, and they also select the students - typically about 25 per course. Many Ed Equity Lab high schools offer multiple courses – meaning students can graduate with a semester or more of transferable credits under their belts, resulting in substantial tuition savings.
Students - mostly juniors and seniors, but sometimes exceptional sophomores - are selected on the basis of their academic record as well as teachers’ nominations of students they believe have untapped potential to succeed.
The courses are offered as dual enrollment classes where students receive both college and high school credit. They are taught by 1) college faculty members, who deliver the lectures asynchronously via video, and hold office hours via Zoom; 2) high school teachers who co-teach the course during the school day; and 3) graduate or undergraduate students who function like college teaching assistants responsible for leading a weekly live discussion section and doing the course grading with the college faculty.
Ed Equity Lab delivers and supports all aspects of the model, including onboarding schools and universities, conducting orientations and trainings for the teachers, and organizing virtual events and career and college advising sessions. There’s even an alumni society of the scholars. (You can watch a brief introduction to the Ed Equity Lab by Cornfeld and others and listen to some former students describe their experiences here.)
Students take the courses for free, and the universities offer them to the high schools at cost. School districts pay $250 per student per class, a discounted rate made possible by the universities’ generous pricing and the considerable investment that the Lab has been able to attract from private donors, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the NBA Foundation, the Apollo Opportunity Foundation, and private family foundations.
‘These investments are critical to reaching the vast talent in underserved communities,’’ said Vivian Zelter, who leads the Lab’s efforts to raise funding to expand the program to one million scholars over the next ten years.
Since starting in 2019, with a humanities course taught by Harvard professor Elisa New, the Lab’s program has expanded dramatically. By the end of the year, it will have reached over 15,000 students in more than 100 school districts across 29 states. The Lab aims to be in 25% of the nation’s Title 1 high schools by 2025, and reach more than one million students over the next ten years.
The curriculum has expanded as well, with more than 30 courses offered so far. For example, students can enroll in a Personal Finance course offered by Wharton, Introduction to Computer Science by Stanford, Environmental Studies from Howard, or a psychology course taught by Penn Professor Angela Duckworth.
“Our students have demonstrated that talent is equally distributed, opportunity is not,’’ said Cornfeld. To date, 80% of students completing a Lab course have passed it, making the courses eligible for transcripted credit at most colleges. Many students take - and pass - multiple classes, giving them a strong start on their college degrees.
Early results show that Ed Equity Lab Alumni are better prepared to succeed in college. “Our preliminary data show our students are enrolling in four-year institutions and going out of state to attend at higher rates than similarly situated students,” said the Lab’s Chief Academic Officer, Ariel Murphy Bedford.
Michaell Santos, a student from the Bronx and president of the Ed Equity Lab Alumni Society, is a great example of the program’s impact. After completing five Ed Equity Lab college courses, Michaell was accepted to Yale University, where he plans to major in political science. According to Michaell, “since my junior year, the lab has given me countless opportunities and has allowed me to grow as a student and person...The National Education Equity Lab made me realize that I could be successful outside of my South Bronx bubble.”
Commenting on his university’s new partnership with the Ed Equity Lab, University of California president Michael V. Drake said, “The University of California is committed to expanding access to higher education for students of all backgrounds. We are proud to collaborate with the National Education Equity Lab to further that goal - and reach more students than ever before.”
Morehouse President David A. Thomas said the Lab’s program enabled his institution to “share the power of Morehouse to propel college and career opportunities at new levels across our nation.”
What accounts for Ed Equity Lab’s growing appeal? Three factors seem important.
- First, by keeping the model simple, it’s eminently scalable. New advances in educational technology have made offering dual enrollment courses to large numbers of students much more feasible. Plus scalable student supports - like relying on existing teachers - are built right into the model.
- Second, the Lab gives colleges and universities an entry - a foot in the school door - for helping k-12 districts improve their educational opportunities and outcomes. Long concerned - even dismayed - about the college readiness of high school students, particularly in under-resourced communities, educators can use the program to not just lament the problem but address it constructively.
- Finally, as higher education leaders anticipate a Supreme Court ruling later this year that may curtail or end affirmative action in college admissions, the connections forged with students who thrive in Ed Equity Lab classes afford colleges a race-neutral way to identify, recruit, and admit outstanding students from different backgrounds. Don’t think the likelihood of that advantage has been lost on institutions that remain committed to the importance of diversity. As former U. S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, a member of Ed Equity Lab’s board, said, “this shows what happens when higher ed leaders roll up their sleeves and expand opportunity beyond their own gates. It’s game changing.”
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When Bobbi Wilson learned about the spotted lanternfly, the 9-year-old hoped to curb the damage the invasive species causes to trees by spraying her New Jersey neighborhood with a homemade solution of water, dish soap and apple cider vinegar.
While police soon realized there was nothing suspicious about Bobbi, the girl’s mother and critics slammed the incident as the latest example of racial profiling.
Months after police questioned Bobbi, Yale University honored the young scientist known as “Bobbi Wonder” for her efforts to eradicate spotted lanternflies in her hometown of Caldwell, N.J. The Yale School of Public Health recognized Bobbi this month and thanked her for donating her personal lanternfly collection to the university’s Peabody Museum.
“Yale doesn’t normally do anything like this … this is something unique to Bobbi,” Ijeoma Opara, an assistant professor with the Yale School of Public Health who organized the Jan. 20 event, said in a news release. “We wanted to show her bravery and how inspiring she is, and we just want to make sure she continues to feel honored and loved by the Yale community.”
Monique Joseph, Bobbi’s mother, told Yale officials that her daughter was grateful for the event honoring her interest in science. Joseph said that she wasn’t sure whether she should make a big issue out of the incident but that she wanted to shine light on the situation when she realized that the neighbor’s call was intentional.
“You know, you hear about racism; you kind of experience it in your peripheral if you’re lucky in your life. It doesn’t come knocking on your door,” Joseph said in a news release. “That morning when it happened, my world stopped.”
Gregory Mascera, the lawyer for neighbor Gordon Lawshe, a former city councilman, did not respond to a request for comment early Tuesday.
Joseph told News12 New Jersey that Lawshe eventually apologized “under the guise of telling me he was reporting a lost little girl.” Mascera told the outlet in November that Lawshe and his family faced threats to them and their property.
“Mr. Lawshe and his family have been defamed and will continue to be defamed until the innuendo and direct accusations and attacks against Mr. Lawshe and his family cease,” Mascera said at the time.
The fourth-grader learned about the spotted lanternfly and its effect on the environment last summer on TikTok, she told the Progress, a local newspaper. The spotted lanternfly is an invasive, black-and-red plant hopper native to China that was first detected in the United States in Pennsylvania in 2014, the U.S. Agriculture Department says. The insect, which feeds on the plant sap of more than 70 kinds of plants and trees, has since colonized in at least 14 states, according to National Geographic. One of the insects was photographed on now-President Biden’s shoulder during a 2020 campaign stop, and the species even made a “guest appearance” on “Saturday Night Live.”
In New Jersey, the state has urged residents to do their part in eradicating the insect.
“If you see a Spotted Lanternfly, help us Stomp it Out!” reads a message from the state’s Department of Agriculture.
On Oct. 22, Bobbi made her homemade solution in a jug and set out to trap the insects in a big plastic bottle. Joseph said Bobbi had spent between 30 to 45 minutes a day catching spotted lanternflies, finding many on the trees at a local cemetery. Bobbi explained to the local newspaper that after she sprays the insects, she steps on them to make sure both the insect and the sack of eggs it is carrying are destroyed.
“They suck the life out of the trees,” she said to the Progress of spotted lanternflies.
Lawshe told the police dispatcher that he wanted to report a “real tiny woman” who was wearing a hood. Bobbi is wearing a hooded jacket in the body-cam image.
“I don’t know what the hell she’s doing,” Lawshe told the police dispatcher when he called that day, according to News12. “Scares me though.”
As Bobbi was spraying the neighborhood, an officer approached and asked what she was doing, according to body-cam footage. After she told him she was spraying for spotted lanternflies, she showed him the jug with her homemade solution. When Joseph asked why the officer was there, he replied that their neighbor had called.
“Are you serious?” Joseph asked the officer, according to body-cam footage.
The officer quickly concluded that the girl was “obviously fine.” Then Bobbi walked up to her mother and asked if she was in trouble. Both Joseph and the officer assured her there was no problem.
“No, you’re not in trouble,” the officer replied.
The officer walked over to Lawshe’s residence and explained that Bobbi was trying to catch and kill spotted lanternflies.
“What a weirdo, huh?” Lawshe responded to the officer, according to body-cam footage.
At a council meeting on Nov. 1, Bobbi’s 13-year-old sister, Hayden, spoke about the incident in front of the community. Hayden lauded Bobbi for her efforts to eradicate the insect and denounced her neighbor for calling the police on a young Black girl.
“She was not only doing something amazing for our environment, she was doing something that made her feel like a hero,” the elder sister said, according to CNN. She added that what her neighbor did was “extremely offensive, traumatic, and scarring towards my family.” She added, “I can confidently assure you guys that she will never forget this.”
Since the story went viral, Bobbi has been honored for her efforts and passion for science. Earlier this month, Bobbi was honored by police and Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.), among others, at an event in Montclair, N.J., according to NorthJersey.com. Then Opara invited Bobbi and her family to come to Yale to meet successful Black female scientists, in hope of countering the memories of that October day, university officials said.
Asked by CBS News how it makes her feel to know her spotted lanternflies would be in the Yale museum, Bobbi could not contain her excitement.
“Happy and proud,” she said.
Joseph thanked Yale for helping to “change the trajectory of that day.” The mother emphasized that the family would do everything in its power to make sure that Bobbi “lives up to her fullest potential.”
“I am aware this happened for us, not to us,” Joseph said in the news release. “The reason that Bobbi is here, and we are not grieving, is because someone above wanted us to be a part of changing racism in our town. … It is because we have Bobbi that we are able to stand here and do something about it, to speak up for ourselves.”
|
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When Bobbi Wilson learned about the spotted lanternfly, the 9-year-old hoped to curb the damage the invasive species causes to trees by spraying her New Jersey neighborhood with a homemade solution of water, dish soap and apple cider vinegar.
While police soon realized there was nothing suspicious about Bobbi, the girl’s mother and critics slammed the incident as the latest example of racial profiling.
Months after police questioned Bobbi, Yale University honored the young scientist known as “Bobbi Wonder” for her efforts to eradicate spotted lanternflies in her hometown of Caldwell, N.J. The Yale School of Public Health recognized Bobbi this
|
month and thanked her for donating her personal lanternfly collection to the university’s Peabody Museum.
“Yale doesn’t normally do anything like this … this is something unique to Bobbi,” Ijeoma Opara, an assistant professor with the Yale School of Public Health who organized the Jan. 20 event, said in a news release. “We wanted to show her bravery and how inspiring she is, and we just want to make sure she continues to feel honored and loved by the Yale community.”
Monique Joseph, Bobbi’s mother, told Yale officials that her daughter was grateful for the event honoring her interest in science. Joseph said that she wasn’t sure whether she should make a big issue out of the incident but that she wanted to shine light on the situation when she realized that the neighbor’s call was intentional.
“You know, you hear about racism; you kind of experience it in your peripheral if you’re lucky in your life. It doesn’t come knocking on your door,” Joseph said in a news release. “That morning when it happened, my world stopped.”
Gregory Mascera, the lawyer for neighbor Gordon Lawshe, a former city councilman, did not respond to a request for comment early Tuesday.
Joseph told News12 New Jersey that Lawshe eventually apologized “under the guise of telling me he was reporting a lost little girl.” Mascera told the outlet in November that Lawshe and his family faced threats to them and their property.
“Mr. Lawshe and his family have been defamed and will continue to be defamed until the innuendo and direct accusations and attacks against Mr. Lawshe and his family cease,” Mascera said at the time.
The fourth-grader learned about the spotted lanternfly and its effect on the environment last summer on TikTok, she told the Progress, a local newspaper. The spotted lanternfly is an invasive, black-and-red plant hopper native to China that was first detected in the United States in Pennsylvania in 2014, the U.S. Agriculture Department says. The insect, which feeds on the plant sap of more than 70 kinds of plants and trees, has since colonized in at least 14 states, according to National Geographic. One of the insects was photographed on now-President Biden’s shoulder during a 2020 campaign stop, and the species even made a “guest appearance” on “Saturday Night Live.”
In New Jersey, the state has urged residents to do their part in eradicating the insect.
“If you see a Spotted Lanternfly, help us Stomp it Out!” reads a message from the state’s Department of Agriculture.
On Oct. 22, Bobbi made her homemade solution in a jug and set out to trap the insects in a big plastic bottle. Joseph said Bobbi had spent between 30 to 45 minutes a day catching spotted lanternflies, finding many on the trees at a local cemetery. Bobbi explained to the local newspaper that after she sprays the insects, she steps on them to make sure both the insect and the sack of eggs it is carrying are destroyed.
“They suck the life out of the trees,” she said to the Progress of spotted lanternflies.
Lawshe told the police dispatcher that he wanted to report a “real tiny woman” who was wearing a hood. Bobbi is wearing a hooded jacket in the body-cam image.
“I don’t know what the hell she’s doing,” Lawshe told the police dispatcher when he called that day, according to News12. “Scares me though.”
As Bobbi was spraying the neighborhood, an officer approached and asked what she was doing, according to body-cam footage. After she told him she was spraying for spotted lanternflies, she showed him the jug with her homemade solution. When Joseph asked why the officer was there, he replied that their neighbor had called.
“Are you serious?” Joseph asked the officer, according to body-cam footage.
The officer quickly concluded that the girl was “obviously fine.” Then Bobbi walked up to her mother and asked if she was in trouble. Both Joseph and the officer assured her there was no problem.
“No, you’re not in trouble,” the officer replied.
The officer walked over to Lawshe’s residence and explained that Bobbi was trying to catch and kill spotted lanternflies.
“What a weirdo, huh?” Lawshe responded to the officer, according to body-cam footage.
At a council meeting on Nov. 1, Bobbi’s 13-year-old sister, Hayden, spoke about the incident in front of the community. Hayden lauded Bobbi for her efforts to eradicate the insect and denounced her neighbor for calling the police on a young Black girl.
“She was not only doing something amazing for our environment, she was doing something that made her feel like a hero,” the elder sister said, according to CNN. She added that what her neighbor did was “extremely offensive, traumatic, and scarring towards my family.” She added, “I can confidently assure you guys that she will never forget this.”
Since the story went viral, Bobbi has been honored for her efforts and passion for science. Earlier this month, Bobbi was honored by police and Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.), among others, at an event in Montclair, N.J., according to NorthJersey.com. Then Opara invited Bobbi and her family to come to Yale to meet successful Black female scientists, in hope of countering the memories of that October day, university officials said.
Asked by CBS News how it makes her feel to know her spotted lanternflies would be in the Yale museum, Bobbi could not contain her excitement.
“Happy and proud,” she said.
Joseph thanked Yale for helping to “change the trajectory of that day.” The mother emphasized that the family would do everything in its power to make sure that Bobbi “lives up to her fullest potential.”
“I am aware this happened for us, not to us,” Joseph said in the news release. “The reason that Bobbi is here, and we are not grieving, is because someone above wanted us to be a part of changing racism in our town. … It is because we have Bobbi that we are able to stand here and do something about it, to speak up for ourselves.”
|
Earth’s average temperature set a new unofficial record high on Thursday, the third such milestone in a week that already rated as the hottest on record.
The planetary average hit 63 degrees Fahrenheit, surpassing the 62.9-degree mark set Tuesday and equaled Wednesday, according to data from the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, a tool that uses satellite data and computer simulations to measure the world’s condition.
That average includes places that are sweltering under dangerous heat — like Jingxing, China, which checked in almost 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 degrees Celsius) — and the merely unusually warm, like Antarctica, where temperatures across much of the continent were as much as 8 degrees Fahrenheit above normal this week.
The temperature is ramping up across Europe this week, too. Germany’s weather agency, DWD, has predicted highs of 99F on Sunday and the Health Ministry has issued a warning to vulnerable people.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Thursday issued a note of caution about the Maine tool’s findings, saying it could not confirm data that results in part from computer modeling.
“Although NOAA cannot validate the methodology or conclusion of the University of Maine analysis, we recognize that we are in a warm period due to climate change,” NOAA said.
Still, the Maine data has been widely regarded as another troubling sign of climate change around the globe. Some climate scientists said this week they weren’t surprised to see the unofficial records.
Robert Watson, a scientist and former chairman of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said governments and the private sector “are not truly committed to address climate change.” Nor are citizens, he said.
“They demand cheap energy, cheap food and do not want to pay the true cost of food and energy,” Watson said.
|
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Earth’s average temperature set a new unofficial record high on Thursday, the third such milestone in a week that already rated as the hottest on record.
The planetary average hit 63 degrees Fahrenheit, surpassing the 62.9-degree mark set Tuesday and equaled Wednesday, according to data from the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, a tool that uses satellite data and computer simulations to measure the world’s condition.
That average includes places that are sweltering under dangerous heat — like Jingxing, China, which checked in almost 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3
|
degrees Celsius) — and the merely unusually warm, like Antarctica, where temperatures across much of the continent were as much as 8 degrees Fahrenheit above normal this week.
The temperature is ramping up across Europe this week, too. Germany’s weather agency, DWD, has predicted highs of 99F on Sunday and the Health Ministry has issued a warning to vulnerable people.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Thursday issued a note of caution about the Maine tool’s findings, saying it could not confirm data that results in part from computer modeling.
“Although NOAA cannot validate the methodology or conclusion of the University of Maine analysis, we recognize that we are in a warm period due to climate change,” NOAA said.
Still, the Maine data has been widely regarded as another troubling sign of climate change around the globe. Some climate scientists said this week they weren’t surprised to see the unofficial records.
Robert Watson, a scientist and former chairman of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said governments and the private sector “are not truly committed to address climate change.” Nor are citizens, he said.
“They demand cheap energy, cheap food and do not want to pay the true cost of food and energy,” Watson said.
|
Reminiscing on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s trips and impact at St. Helena Island
Dr. King frequented the coastal South Carolina region frequently to plan and worship.
BEAUFORT COUNTY, S.C. (WBTV) - Perhaps it was the peaceful coastal setting or the trials of Spanish Moss hanging from the trees on St. Helena Island that attracted a man by the name of Martin Luther King.
While the civil rights leader was widely known for his urban demonstrations, South Carolina’s Low Country offered a dramatic change of scenery.
He was known to worship at St. Helena Island’s Brick Baptist Church.
That’s where Deacon Joseph McDominick remembers his visits going back to the 1960s.
“It was plan and work sessions,” he said. “It wasn’t no vacation. When you saw him, you knew there was something going on.”
What was going on meant there were likely public gatherings at the 50 acre Penn Center.
He was there before and after the 1963 March on Washington.
Dr. King also spent time on the 50 acre campus that next year when the government debated and put forth the civil rights act.
During the year of the crisis in Selma the social justice advocate made it to coastal South Carolina.
He was a guest at Penn Center until the year before he died in 1968.
Former Beaufort, S.C. Mayor Billy Keyserling remembers the visits.
“So when Dr. King came, there wasn’t much excitement in town,” he said. “But there was a lot of excitement on St. Helena Island, which is largely black.”
Keyserling also recalls being in the audience during the island gatherings as a teenager.
“It gave those of us who had the opportunity to be touched by his words or touch his hand this incredible rush to know that something was happening had some seeds not all of them and roots right here in this dirt,” he said.
Coming to St. Helena Island did several things for Dr. King.
It took him out of contentious environments well known for their volatile protests, reduced his risk for arrest, and allowed his creative juices to flow in a relaxed environment.
Another positive drawing card was the strong Gullah Geechie Culture.
Shequana Milton owns and operates the K and M Gullah Boutique.
She is in her 30s and wasn’t born during Dr. King’s visits to St. Helena, but takes pride in his message from decades ago.
“Hope is still alive,” Milton said. “We are all hoping for change daily. So hope is still alive.”
Back at the Penn Center, a relationship has been established with the National Park Service showcasing Dr. King’s work, and renovations are expected at the place he called home during his visits over five years.
Gantt cottage is on the list for a facelift that’s expected to start later this year.
Copyright 2023 WBTV. All rights reserved.
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|
Reminiscing on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s trips and impact at St. Helena Island
Dr. King frequented the coastal South Carolina region frequently to plan and worship.
BEAUFORT COUNTY, S.C. (WBTV) - Perhaps it was the peaceful coastal setting or the trials of Spanish Moss hanging from the trees on St. Helena Island that attracted a man by the name of Martin Luther King.
While the civil rights leader was widely known for his urban demonstrations, South Carolina’s Low Country offered a dramatic change of scenery.
He was known to worship at St. Helena Island’s Brick Baptist Church.
That’s
|
where Deacon Joseph McDominick remembers his visits going back to the 1960s.
“It was plan and work sessions,” he said. “It wasn’t no vacation. When you saw him, you knew there was something going on.”
What was going on meant there were likely public gatherings at the 50 acre Penn Center.
He was there before and after the 1963 March on Washington.
Dr. King also spent time on the 50 acre campus that next year when the government debated and put forth the civil rights act.
During the year of the crisis in Selma the social justice advocate made it to coastal South Carolina.
He was a guest at Penn Center until the year before he died in 1968.
Former Beaufort, S.C. Mayor Billy Keyserling remembers the visits.
“So when Dr. King came, there wasn’t much excitement in town,” he said. “But there was a lot of excitement on St. Helena Island, which is largely black.”
Keyserling also recalls being in the audience during the island gatherings as a teenager.
“It gave those of us who had the opportunity to be touched by his words or touch his hand this incredible rush to know that something was happening had some seeds not all of them and roots right here in this dirt,” he said.
Coming to St. Helena Island did several things for Dr. King.
It took him out of contentious environments well known for their volatile protests, reduced his risk for arrest, and allowed his creative juices to flow in a relaxed environment.
Another positive drawing card was the strong Gullah Geechie Culture.
Shequana Milton owns and operates the K and M Gullah Boutique.
She is in her 30s and wasn’t born during Dr. King’s visits to St. Helena, but takes pride in his message from decades ago.
“Hope is still alive,” Milton said. “We are all hoping for change daily. So hope is still alive.”
Back at the Penn Center, a relationship has been established with the National Park Service showcasing Dr. King’s work, and renovations are expected at the place he called home during his visits over five years.
Gantt cottage is on the list for a facelift that’s expected to start later this year.
Copyright 2023 WBTV. All rights reserved.
|
With 9.2 million tons, Chile is home to the world's largest known lithium reserves. By 2026, Chilean lithium production is set to reach 30 thousand metric tons. According to a report published last year by the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC), by cutting off access to clean water, lithium mining is having a drastic effect on the lives of the country's indigenous communities. The privatization of minerals and water, states the report, gives companies direct ownership of those valuable resources. As mining operations increase in both frequency and intensity, squeezing an already “dry region even drier, communities lose their access to potable water.” This leaves them with no option but to rely on notoriously unreliable tankers in the region to make deliveries. As the report notes, lithium can be extracted in three ways: from hard rock, a common practice in Australia; from sedimentary rock, a process that could soon become a reality in the US; and, finally, “through the evaporation of brines found beneath salt flats on South America’s Atacama Plateau.” The Chilean government and Chinese-backed mining businesses favor the latter. It is important to note that, when it comes to the extraction of lithium, China, the world leader in EV production, and Chile share an incredibly close bond. The Chinese are certainly benefiting from Chile's vast reserves; the locals, meanwhile, dehydrated and desperate, are left to suffer.
Some 6,000 miles away, in Congo, plenty of innocent people are also suffering. With 3.5 million metric tons, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has the largest cobalt reserves in the world. Mining this metal is incredibly difficult, dangerous work.
A Wilson Center report notes that of the 255,000 Congolese mining for cobalt, 40,000 are children, some as young as six years of age. Miners, often found using their hands as tools, earn as little $2 per day. Moreover, besides being paid paltry sums, they must breathe in cobalt-laden dust that can cause fatal lung ailments and increase the chances of developing spina bifida and various limb abnormalities. Again, just like in Chile, Chinese-backed businesses run many of the mining operations in Congo.
South Africa, another country with close ties to China, is the world’s largest producer of manganese. In 2021, its manganese output rose by almost 1 million metric tons (MT). Again, just like what is occurring in Chile, manganese mining drastically reduces the amount of water available to vulnerable communities. South Africa is currently in the midst of a severe water crisis. Mining also harms the quality of the water available.
An ActionAid survey found that 57% of individuals living near a manganese mine “had either no access to water at times or had to travel long distances to access water,” with 62% of respondents saying they were worried about the quality of the water available, “citing concerns about lime, saltiness, discolouration, and contamination.” The vast majority (84%) of respondents said that manganese mining is endangering their health, with 75% of those surveyed suffering from respiratory illnesses. The Action Aid team warns that women and girls are the worst affected by the activities of mining companies. As they are left with no option but to walk long distances to find clean water, often on their own and sometimes late at night, women and girls are at direct risk of being attacked and/or sexually assaulted.
In Indonesia, home to the largest nickel reserves in the world, vulnerable communities are also being harmed. As the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre previously noted, "there are several positive correlations between air pollution levels, dust fall accumulation in households, and health conditions typically found in the nickel industry. The human health impact of mining in Indonesia, they concluded, is significant. At various mining sites, local women are forced to become "contract wives," a situation where migrant workers (many of them Chinese) marry a local woman then, once their contract ends, leave her. Other women are forced into sex work.
The Balama mine, located in Cabo Delgado, the northernmost province of Mozambique, has the largest natural graphite mine in the world. Cabo Delgado is also home to another gigantic mine, the Ancuabe mine. Last year, hundreds of miners in the region went on strike. Considering their monthly wage is just 7,000 meticais ($109), it's easy to see why. Similar to what is occurring in Congo, young children can often be found slaving away in these mines, breathing in dangerous fumes.
EVs, we're constantly told, are excellent for the environment. For people with a conscience, however, they are absolutely disastrous. Yes, some will say, but why should we connect these human rights abuses to EV batteries specifically? Why aren’t you also attacking smartphones? After all, there is certainly an overlap in at least some of the battery ingredients used. Because nobody is pushing smartphones as being progressive or environmentally friendly. Everyone acknowledges that smartphones are a sort of necessary evil. But no one, at least no one of a sound mind, claims they are helping to save the planet. EVs, on the other hand, are marketed as utterly benign creations designed to help the human race. In truth, though, the batteries powering electric vehicles are the products of lots of blood, inordinate amounts of sweat, and tears of genuine pain.
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With 9.2 million tons, Chile is home to the world's largest known lithium reserves. By 2026, Chilean lithium production is set to reach 30 thousand metric tons. According to a report published last year by the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC), by cutting off access to clean water, lithium mining is having a drastic effect on the lives of the country's indigenous communities. The privatization of minerals and water, states the report, gives companies direct ownership of those valuable resources. As mining operations increase in both frequency and intensity, squeezing an already “dry region even drier, communities lose their
|
access to potable water.” This leaves them with no option but to rely on notoriously unreliable tankers in the region to make deliveries. As the report notes, lithium can be extracted in three ways: from hard rock, a common practice in Australia; from sedimentary rock, a process that could soon become a reality in the US; and, finally, “through the evaporation of brines found beneath salt flats on South America’s Atacama Plateau.” The Chilean government and Chinese-backed mining businesses favor the latter. It is important to note that, when it comes to the extraction of lithium, China, the world leader in EV production, and Chile share an incredibly close bond. The Chinese are certainly benefiting from Chile's vast reserves; the locals, meanwhile, dehydrated and desperate, are left to suffer.
Some 6,000 miles away, in Congo, plenty of innocent people are also suffering. With 3.5 million metric tons, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has the largest cobalt reserves in the world. Mining this metal is incredibly difficult, dangerous work.
A Wilson Center report notes that of the 255,000 Congolese mining for cobalt, 40,000 are children, some as young as six years of age. Miners, often found using their hands as tools, earn as little $2 per day. Moreover, besides being paid paltry sums, they must breathe in cobalt-laden dust that can cause fatal lung ailments and increase the chances of developing spina bifida and various limb abnormalities. Again, just like in Chile, Chinese-backed businesses run many of the mining operations in Congo.
South Africa, another country with close ties to China, is the world’s largest producer of manganese. In 2021, its manganese output rose by almost 1 million metric tons (MT). Again, just like what is occurring in Chile, manganese mining drastically reduces the amount of water available to vulnerable communities. South Africa is currently in the midst of a severe water crisis. Mining also harms the quality of the water available.
An ActionAid survey found that 57% of individuals living near a manganese mine “had either no access to water at times or had to travel long distances to access water,” with 62% of respondents saying they were worried about the quality of the water available, “citing concerns about lime, saltiness, discolouration, and contamination.” The vast majority (84%) of respondents said that manganese mining is endangering their health, with 75% of those surveyed suffering from respiratory illnesses. The Action Aid team warns that women and girls are the worst affected by the activities of mining companies. As they are left with no option but to walk long distances to find clean water, often on their own and sometimes late at night, women and girls are at direct risk of being attacked and/or sexually assaulted.
In Indonesia, home to the largest nickel reserves in the world, vulnerable communities are also being harmed. As the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre previously noted, "there are several positive correlations between air pollution levels, dust fall accumulation in households, and health conditions typically found in the nickel industry. The human health impact of mining in Indonesia, they concluded, is significant. At various mining sites, local women are forced to become "contract wives," a situation where migrant workers (many of them Chinese) marry a local woman then, once their contract ends, leave her. Other women are forced into sex work.
The Balama mine, located in Cabo Delgado, the northernmost province of Mozambique, has the largest natural graphite mine in the world. Cabo Delgado is also home to another gigantic mine, the Ancuabe mine. Last year, hundreds of miners in the region went on strike. Considering their monthly wage is just 7,000 meticais ($109), it's easy to see why. Similar to what is occurring in Congo, young children can often be found slaving away in these mines, breathing in dangerous fumes.
EVs, we're constantly told, are excellent for the environment. For people with a conscience, however, they are absolutely disastrous. Yes, some will say, but why should we connect these human rights abuses to EV batteries specifically? Why aren’t you also attacking smartphones? After all, there is certainly an overlap in at least some of the battery ingredients used. Because nobody is pushing smartphones as being progressive or environmentally friendly. Everyone acknowledges that smartphones are a sort of necessary evil. But no one, at least no one of a sound mind, claims they are helping to save the planet. EVs, on the other hand, are marketed as utterly benign creations designed to help the human race. In truth, though, the batteries powering electric vehicles are the products of lots of blood, inordinate amounts of sweat, and tears of genuine pain.
|
Women's History Month: Honoring the women who helped shape Tampa Bay
Nods to notable women in Tampa Bay history can be found in our parks, roads and schools.
Why it matters: These are some of the women who helped shape Tampa Bay.
Driving the news: For Women’s History Month, we asked which Tampa Bay women deserve their own statues, and you responded.
- While these women's names can be found around town, none have a statue ... yet.
The big picture: No comprehensive, up-to-date ledger of American public art installations exists, but researchers agree that women and people of color are deeply under-represented, Axios Local's Chelsea Brasted writes.
- When women are represented in monuments and statues, they are often allegorical or fictional characters, such as the depiction of Little Nell alongside Charles Dickens in Philadelphia or the statue of Dorothy from "The Wizard of Oz" in Chicago.
- St. Armand's Circle in Sarasota features statues of the Roman goddess Venus and Greek goddess Athena.
Zoom in: These Tampa Bay women were all real. But sometimes we get so used to reading the names of buildings or streets that we forget who they're honoring. Here's your reminder:
Johnnie Ruth Clarke
Why she matters: Clark is credited as the first African American to obtain a doctorate from any Florida public university, specifically the University of Florida College of Education in 1966.
- She was a Pinellas County Public Schools teacher and served as dean of Gibbs Junior College in the 1950s, as well as assistant dean of academic affairs at St. Petersburg Junior College in the 1960s.
- She founded the Florida State Sickle Cell Foundation in 1972.
How you know her name: St. Petersburg College established an academic scholarship in her name and there's a community health center named after her in St. Petersburg.
C. Bette Wimbish
Why she matters: Wimbish was the first Black person to hold elected office in Tampa Bay in the modern era and Pinellas County's first Black female lawyer. She served on the St. Petersburg City Council and later became the city's vice mayor.
How you know her name: Interstate 375 in Pinellas County was renamed C. Bette Wimbish Highway in 2017.
Why she matters: She was the first woman to serve on St. Petersburg's Planning Board in 1928 and was a founding member of the city's Garden Club.
How you know her name: St. Pete named the waterfront park downtown after her to honor Wylie's dedication to protecting parks.
Why she matters: Hall, then an 85-year-old white woman, funded St. Petersburg's first Black swimming pool in 1954.
- Hall gave most of her life savings — $25,000 — to fund the pool and give the city's African American community a place to swim.
- She wrote an initial check for $10,000 on the spot at a City Council meeting to prove her dedication to the project. City Council matched her gift with $35,000. The pool was built just a year before she died.
How you know her name: Jennie Hall Pool was segregated until 1959, when the city integrated its public pools and beaches.
More Tampa Bay stories
No stories could be found
Get a free daily digest of the most important news in your backyard with Axios Tampa Bay.
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Women's History Month: Honoring the women who helped shape Tampa Bay
Nods to notable women in Tampa Bay history can be found in our parks, roads and schools.
Why it matters: These are some of the women who helped shape Tampa Bay.
Driving the news: For Women’s History Month, we asked which Tampa Bay women deserve their own statues, and you responded.
- While these women's names can be found around town, none have a statue ... yet.
The big picture: No comprehensive, up-to-date ledger of American public art installations exists, but researchers agree that women and people of color are deeply under-re
|
presented, Axios Local's Chelsea Brasted writes.
- When women are represented in monuments and statues, they are often allegorical or fictional characters, such as the depiction of Little Nell alongside Charles Dickens in Philadelphia or the statue of Dorothy from "The Wizard of Oz" in Chicago.
- St. Armand's Circle in Sarasota features statues of the Roman goddess Venus and Greek goddess Athena.
Zoom in: These Tampa Bay women were all real. But sometimes we get so used to reading the names of buildings or streets that we forget who they're honoring. Here's your reminder:
Johnnie Ruth Clarke
Why she matters: Clark is credited as the first African American to obtain a doctorate from any Florida public university, specifically the University of Florida College of Education in 1966.
- She was a Pinellas County Public Schools teacher and served as dean of Gibbs Junior College in the 1950s, as well as assistant dean of academic affairs at St. Petersburg Junior College in the 1960s.
- She founded the Florida State Sickle Cell Foundation in 1972.
How you know her name: St. Petersburg College established an academic scholarship in her name and there's a community health center named after her in St. Petersburg.
C. Bette Wimbish
Why she matters: Wimbish was the first Black person to hold elected office in Tampa Bay in the modern era and Pinellas County's first Black female lawyer. She served on the St. Petersburg City Council and later became the city's vice mayor.
How you know her name: Interstate 375 in Pinellas County was renamed C. Bette Wimbish Highway in 2017.
Why she matters: She was the first woman to serve on St. Petersburg's Planning Board in 1928 and was a founding member of the city's Garden Club.
How you know her name: St. Pete named the waterfront park downtown after her to honor Wylie's dedication to protecting parks.
Why she matters: Hall, then an 85-year-old white woman, funded St. Petersburg's first Black swimming pool in 1954.
- Hall gave most of her life savings — $25,000 — to fund the pool and give the city's African American community a place to swim.
- She wrote an initial check for $10,000 on the spot at a City Council meeting to prove her dedication to the project. City Council matched her gift with $35,000. The pool was built just a year before she died.
How you know her name: Jennie Hall Pool was segregated until 1959, when the city integrated its public pools and beaches.
More Tampa Bay stories
No stories could be found
Get a free daily digest of the most important news in your backyard with Axios Tampa Bay.
|
There are a few signs that the COVID pandemic is waning in the U.S., with this January 2023 being less severe than January 2022. Cases, hospitalizations and deaths are all slightly dropping, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But our baselines have shifted, changing our definition of normal. These metrics, especially deaths, are still much higher than we've tolerated historically. And while things aren't as bad as they were a year ago, as we've seen many, many times throughout the pandemic, it has a way of roaring back when we drop our guard.
Experts are especially concerned with the virus jumping from humans to animals and then back again, each time presenting new opportunities for novel mutations in different creatures. And many experts are worried that we aren't doing enough to monitor the situation, meaning a nasty and surprising new variant could emerge from this viral game of human-to-animal-to-human ping-pong.
"This back-and-forth transmission is also called 'ping pong zoonosis' or 'zooanthroponosis' too, as in the case of a circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants like BQ.1.1 or BF.7 getting passed on from humans to mammals."
Certainly, things have changed a lot since the initial 2020 outbreak. We have excellent vaccines for the virus and we know that high-quality masks are effective at mitigating the spread. We also have many drugs and therapies to fight SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID.
But, as viruses do, SARS-CoV-2 keeps mutating. Viruses are pathogenic microorganisms that may or may not be alive (scientists still actively debate this question). When they infect us, they hijack the genetic code of our cells to make copies of themselves. These viral Xeroxes can be kind of sloppy and the mistakes can either make the virus more destructive or less. This is normal and even expected.
The less concerning viruses tend to fizzle out. But the more concerning variants — think alpha, delta or the many off-shoots of omicron — can spread global illness, disability and death. As immunity wanes — also a normal and expected problem with coronaviruses — slightly different variants of the virus can evade our bodily defenses and whatever therapies we throw at it, though vaccines remain effective against severe illness and death.
Experts have been carefully monitoring for problematic mutations since SARS-CoV-2 was first sequenced in January 2020. A new paper in the journal Nature Reviews Microbiology attempts to summarize some of these recent changes and help public health experts attempt to handle them.
It won't be easy. The authors, which include Prof. David Robertson, a virologist at the University of Glasgow, detail the many ways in which the has virus mutated to evade our immunity, both from vaccines and recovering from sickness. (Getting a shot in this case is less likely to prevent you from getting sick, but vaccines still broadly protect against dying and hospitalization.) There are a couple of "unpredictable implications," they observe, that are especially concerning.
The first is the virus could spread from humans to animals and back again. The second is that we're not doing enough to monitor for these mutations by doing less sequencing, which is a method of studying the contrasting genetic makeup of organisms — sort of playing a very complex, tiny version of spot-the-difference.
"There are many countries with low sequencing capacity, or places with previously good surveillance that are decreasing or phasing out sequencing altogether," Robertson and his colleagues wrote. "This is troublesome as a lack of genomic surveillance will mean future variants will be detected much later or could be circulating at low levels before eventual detection. There is, thus, a need for widespread and equitable surveillance coverage to rapidly detect potential new [variants of concern] among these individuals and communities before they spread more widely."
Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon's weekly newsletter The Vulgar Scientist.
When a virus jumps from animals to humans, it's called zoonosis, from the Greek zōon "animal" and nosos "disease." So far, there isn't much evidence that animals are spreading COVID to us, even though we've done it to them multiple times. (Of course, the prevailing theory on SARS-CoV-2's origin is that it came from bats.) Once COVID went global, humans shared it with deer, dogs, hamsters, zoo animals and many other mammalian species. But no creature has absorbed more virus from us than mink, a species in the weasel family which are farmed for their fur.
Dr. Rajendram Rajnarayanan, an assistant dean of research and associate professor at the New York Institute of Technology campus in Jonesboro, Arkansas, has been following these reverse zoonotic transfers for a while. He's counted 133 cases in cats, 323 in deer and 1,320 in mink. In general, mink farms are a bad idea, with some also spreading avian flu recently.
Animal reservoirs are why smallpox was able to be eradicated in the '80s through a global vaccination campaign — because, quite simply, there aren't any animal reservoirs for smallpox.
"This back-and-forth transmission is also called 'ping pong zoonosis' or 'zooanthroponosis' too, as in the case of a circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants like BQ.1.1 or BF.7 getting passed on from humans to mammals," Rajnarayanan told Salon in an email. When this happens, it creates a "reservoir" for the virus, a place for it to always hide and potentially spring back. We see this with the occasional bubonic plague outbreak, which is caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis and lives in wild rodents like groundhogs. Thankfully, while plague killed millions in the Middle Ages, today it is treatable with antibiotics.
We aren't always so lucky. To use one example, the H1N1 influenza virus that caused the 2009 pandemic is sometimes called a "quadruple reassortant" virus, because segments of the virus originated from humans, birds and two species of pigs, North American and Eurasian. This is an example of reverse zoonosis that the CDC estimates killed more than half a million people globally.
Animal reservoirs are why smallpox was able to be eradicated in the '80s through a global vaccination campaign — because, quite simply, there aren't any animal reservoirs for smallpox. Animals can't spread smallpox, therefore they can't hold onto it and give it to us. That's not the case with COVID or other viruses, like Ebola or mpox. As with bubonic plague, it is unlikely we'll ever totally eradicate any virus, bacteria or pathogen that naturally occurs in animals.
"Animal reservoirs also keep a lineage in circulation and potentially reintroduce it back into circulation at an opportune moment," Rajnarayanan said.
"Just as many pathogens can move from non-humans to humans, some can also move from humans to non-humans," Dr. T. Ryan Gregory, an evolutionary and genome biologist at the University of Guelph in Canada, told Salon in an email. "The result could be that even if we manage to eliminate the pathogen from human populations, it could show up again later and cause an outbreak by jumping back into humans from another species. [Additionally], if a pathogen is circulating in another species, then it will be evolving under the conditions of that species' immunity, which is likely to be different from ours. This could result in a variant that is quite different and against which we would not have strong immunity if it moved back to humans."
As we approach the third anniversary of COVID stay-at-home orders and the initial (justified) panic of the pandemic, so many people are so exhausted they've declared that the pandemic is over. On January 17th, Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY) introduced the "Pandemic is Over Act," a bill sponsored by more than a dozen other House Republicans, with the aim of overturning the public health emergency Americans entered in spring 2020. But President Joseph Biden said essentially the same thing a few months ago, though his quote that the pandemic is "over" was mostly taken out of context.
Yet, the pandemic is not over. Not only are thousands of people still dying per week, China is currently undergoing one of its worst outbreaks yet, with an estimated 80 percent of the population (some 1.12 billion people) getting infected in the latest wave. Each infection is a new opportunity for the virus to mutate into something our defenses will struggle against. While there's no guarantee China's outbreak will create huge problems for the rest of the world, we did see omicron and delta emerge from similar waves in South Africa and India respectively.
Meanwhile, as the Nature Reviews Microbiology paper noted, many countries are dialing back the surveillance precisely when we should be monitoring for new variants to emerge, from animals or otherwise. Right now, we have about 700 sub-lineages from omicron, according to Rajnarayanan, which is sometimes called a "variant soup." It's worth noting that climate change is a big reason for all the recent pandemics and viral illnesses are predicted to worsen as the planet warms.
"Variant evolution is becoming increasingly complex, and it is as important as ever to detect, characterize, and track variants as they evolve and spread," Gregory said. "Wastewater is especially useful in identifying the presence of 'cryptic' variants, meaning ones that are not in wide circulation but are still potentially important."
Unfortunately, some conspiracy theorists want to blame this whole mess on vaccines, even though that's not how vaccination works. While immunity from either vaccines or past infection do create an important selective pressure, according to Gregory, it is overwhelmingly infections that are driving variant evolution.
"Ultimately, it's having a lot of virus circulating, mutating, and being subject to natural selection that is the biggest issue," Gregory said. "That's why mitigation is also important. Vaccines do a good job at preventing severe acute illness, but they aren't stopping transmission and thus we need other measures. Fortunately, the ones we have available such as wearing high quality (N95) masks, ventilation, air filtration, and reducing indoor crowd sizes are all variant-proof."
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There are a few signs that the COVID pandemic is waning in the U.S., with this January 2023 being less severe than January 2022. Cases, hospitalizations and deaths are all slightly dropping, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But our baselines have shifted, changing our definition of normal. These metrics, especially deaths, are still much higher than we've tolerated historically. And while things aren't as bad as they were a year ago, as we've seen many, many times throughout the pandemic, it has a way of roaring back when we drop our guard.
|
Experts are especially concerned with the virus jumping from humans to animals and then back again, each time presenting new opportunities for novel mutations in different creatures. And many experts are worried that we aren't doing enough to monitor the situation, meaning a nasty and surprising new variant could emerge from this viral game of human-to-animal-to-human ping-pong.
"This back-and-forth transmission is also called 'ping pong zoonosis' or 'zooanthroponosis' too, as in the case of a circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants like BQ.1.1 or BF.7 getting passed on from humans to mammals."
Certainly, things have changed a lot since the initial 2020 outbreak. We have excellent vaccines for the virus and we know that high-quality masks are effective at mitigating the spread. We also have many drugs and therapies to fight SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID.
But, as viruses do, SARS-CoV-2 keeps mutating. Viruses are pathogenic microorganisms that may or may not be alive (scientists still actively debate this question). When they infect us, they hijack the genetic code of our cells to make copies of themselves. These viral Xeroxes can be kind of sloppy and the mistakes can either make the virus more destructive or less. This is normal and even expected.
The less concerning viruses tend to fizzle out. But the more concerning variants — think alpha, delta or the many off-shoots of omicron — can spread global illness, disability and death. As immunity wanes — also a normal and expected problem with coronaviruses — slightly different variants of the virus can evade our bodily defenses and whatever therapies we throw at it, though vaccines remain effective against severe illness and death.
Experts have been carefully monitoring for problematic mutations since SARS-CoV-2 was first sequenced in January 2020. A new paper in the journal Nature Reviews Microbiology attempts to summarize some of these recent changes and help public health experts attempt to handle them.
It won't be easy. The authors, which include Prof. David Robertson, a virologist at the University of Glasgow, detail the many ways in which the has virus mutated to evade our immunity, both from vaccines and recovering from sickness. (Getting a shot in this case is less likely to prevent you from getting sick, but vaccines still broadly protect against dying and hospitalization.) There are a couple of "unpredictable implications," they observe, that are especially concerning.
The first is the virus could spread from humans to animals and back again. The second is that we're not doing enough to monitor for these mutations by doing less sequencing, which is a method of studying the contrasting genetic makeup of organisms — sort of playing a very complex, tiny version of spot-the-difference.
"There are many countries with low sequencing capacity, or places with previously good surveillance that are decreasing or phasing out sequencing altogether," Robertson and his colleagues wrote. "This is troublesome as a lack of genomic surveillance will mean future variants will be detected much later or could be circulating at low levels before eventual detection. There is, thus, a need for widespread and equitable surveillance coverage to rapidly detect potential new [variants of concern] among these individuals and communities before they spread more widely."
Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon's weekly newsletter The Vulgar Scientist.
When a virus jumps from animals to humans, it's called zoonosis, from the Greek zōon "animal" and nosos "disease." So far, there isn't much evidence that animals are spreading COVID to us, even though we've done it to them multiple times. (Of course, the prevailing theory on SARS-CoV-2's origin is that it came from bats.) Once COVID went global, humans shared it with deer, dogs, hamsters, zoo animals and many other mammalian species. But no creature has absorbed more virus from us than mink, a species in the weasel family which are farmed for their fur.
Dr. Rajendram Rajnarayanan, an assistant dean of research and associate professor at the New York Institute of Technology campus in Jonesboro, Arkansas, has been following these reverse zoonotic transfers for a while. He's counted 133 cases in cats, 323 in deer and 1,320 in mink. In general, mink farms are a bad idea, with some also spreading avian flu recently.
Animal reservoirs are why smallpox was able to be eradicated in the '80s through a global vaccination campaign — because, quite simply, there aren't any animal reservoirs for smallpox.
"This back-and-forth transmission is also called 'ping pong zoonosis' or 'zooanthroponosis' too, as in the case of a circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants like BQ.1.1 or BF.7 getting passed on from humans to mammals," Rajnarayanan told Salon in an email. When this happens, it creates a "reservoir" for the virus, a place for it to always hide and potentially spring back. We see this with the occasional bubonic plague outbreak, which is caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis and lives in wild rodents like groundhogs. Thankfully, while plague killed millions in the Middle Ages, today it is treatable with antibiotics.
We aren't always so lucky. To use one example, the H1N1 influenza virus that caused the 2009 pandemic is sometimes called a "quadruple reassortant" virus, because segments of the virus originated from humans, birds and two species of pigs, North American and Eurasian. This is an example of reverse zoonosis that the CDC estimates killed more than half a million people globally.
Animal reservoirs are why smallpox was able to be eradicated in the '80s through a global vaccination campaign — because, quite simply, there aren't any animal reservoirs for smallpox. Animals can't spread smallpox, therefore they can't hold onto it and give it to us. That's not the case with COVID or other viruses, like Ebola or mpox. As with bubonic plague, it is unlikely we'll ever totally eradicate any virus, bacteria or pathogen that naturally occurs in animals.
"Animal reservoirs also keep a lineage in circulation and potentially reintroduce it back into circulation at an opportune moment," Rajnarayanan said.
"Just as many pathogens can move from non-humans to humans, some can also move from humans to non-humans," Dr. T. Ryan Gregory, an evolutionary and genome biologist at the University of Guelph in Canada, told Salon in an email. "The result could be that even if we manage to eliminate the pathogen from human populations, it could show up again later and cause an outbreak by jumping back into humans from another species. [Additionally], if a pathogen is circulating in another species, then it will be evolving under the conditions of that species' immunity, which is likely to be different from ours. This could result in a variant that is quite different and against which we would not have strong immunity if it moved back to humans."
As we approach the third anniversary of COVID stay-at-home orders and the initial (justified) panic of the pandemic, so many people are so exhausted they've declared that the pandemic is over. On January 17th, Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY) introduced the "Pandemic is Over Act," a bill sponsored by more than a dozen other House Republicans, with the aim of overturning the public health emergency Americans entered in spring 2020. But President Joseph Biden said essentially the same thing a few months ago, though his quote that the pandemic is "over" was mostly taken out of context.
Yet, the pandemic is not over. Not only are thousands of people still dying per week, China is currently undergoing one of its worst outbreaks yet, with an estimated 80 percent of the population (some 1.12 billion people) getting infected in the latest wave. Each infection is a new opportunity for the virus to mutate into something our defenses will struggle against. While there's no guarantee China's outbreak will create huge problems for the rest of the world, we did see omicron and delta emerge from similar waves in South Africa and India respectively.
Meanwhile, as the Nature Reviews Microbiology paper noted, many countries are dialing back the surveillance precisely when we should be monitoring for new variants to emerge, from animals or otherwise. Right now, we have about 700 sub-lineages from omicron, according to Rajnarayanan, which is sometimes called a "variant soup." It's worth noting that climate change is a big reason for all the recent pandemics and viral illnesses are predicted to worsen as the planet warms.
"Variant evolution is becoming increasingly complex, and it is as important as ever to detect, characterize, and track variants as they evolve and spread," Gregory said. "Wastewater is especially useful in identifying the presence of 'cryptic' variants, meaning ones that are not in wide circulation but are still potentially important."
Unfortunately, some conspiracy theorists want to blame this whole mess on vaccines, even though that's not how vaccination works. While immunity from either vaccines or past infection do create an important selective pressure, according to Gregory, it is overwhelmingly infections that are driving variant evolution.
"Ultimately, it's having a lot of virus circulating, mutating, and being subject to natural selection that is the biggest issue," Gregory said. "That's why mitigation is also important. Vaccines do a good job at preventing severe acute illness, but they aren't stopping transmission and thus we need other measures. Fortunately, the ones we have available such as wearing high quality (N95) masks, ventilation, air filtration, and reducing indoor crowd sizes are all variant-proof."
|
Editor’s Note: A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.
Have you ever imagined what it might be like to live on Mars?
Soon, four researchers will have the chance to live inside a Martian base, without enduring a long spaceflight or ever setting foot on the red planet.
The simulated experience is the foundation of NASA’s latest experiment, called CHAPEA. The Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog will kick off in June at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The 3D-printed habitat resembles what the first human crews might use while exploring Mars. For a year, four volunteers won’t leave the inside of the base. They’ll live like astronauts while responding to unexpected equipment failures and other surprises that might crop up during life on Mars.
The simulation will also focus on nutrition and psychological and physiological tests for the crew.
Many items remain on the checklist before humans can safely reach Mars. In the meantime, robotic explorers are hard at work uncovering some of the secrets of the red planet.
Raging rivers may have once cut across the Martian landscape — and rocks from billions of years ago show where the powerful waterways left their mark.
The Perseverance rover spied the intriguing rocks while exploring the top of a sprawling fan-shaped feature, likely the remnants of an ancient river delta.
Two different mosaics captured by the rover show rippling rocks and a tall hill made of stacked layers. It’s possible the formation was the result of a rushing river that carved out banks and sandbars and deposited sediment — and evidence of past life could be hiding inside.
A new deep-sea mapping project could answer some of the lingering questions about the wreck of the RMS Titanic, which sank in 1912.
An expedition led by scientists and the deep-sea company Magellan set out to scan the ship’s remnants on the seafloor off Canada in summer 2022, allowing for the creation of a full-size digital twin of the wreck.
The detailed reconstruction, made from about 715,000 images, was even able to capture a serial number on one of the luxury liner’s propellers.
Experts anticipate the digital replica of the wreck will lead to a new era of research into the ship’s tragic demise.
Researchers have pieced together the world’s largest butterfly tree of life.
The tree, which organizes the history and lineage of nearly 19,000 modern species, helped scientists determine where the winged insects originated.
Butterflies first appeared in Central and North America about 100 million years ago when some moths began flying during the daytime to access flower nectar.
Rare butterfly fossils, and the evolution of a certain type of plant, were used to track the surprising spread of these delicate insects around the globe.
We are family
Walking on the beach or breathing air in a crowded room can leave behind a remarkably strong genetic footprint, a new study revealed.
As University of Florida scientists collected environmental DNA from sand to study endangered sea turtles, they also detected human DNA from the surroundings. The traces were of such high quality that the researchers were able to identify the genetic ancestry of nearby populations.
The team also matched the DNA with participants who volunteered.
Such clear genetic identification could be regarded as a significant breakthrough, but the fact that our personal biological information is so easily detected is raising ethical questions about consent, privacy and security.
A long time ago
Archaeologists have uncovered what they believe to be the oldest known architectural plans — and Stone Age humans used these schematics to build megastructures in the desert of what’s now Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
Markings found on stone slabs resemble massive structures called kites that enabled hunting thousands of years ago.
The distinct shapes of the ancient traps, which funneled wild animals such as gazelles into enclosures, first caught the attention of aircraft pilots in the 1920s.
Researchers said the scale drawings of these complex structures, complete with cardinal directions, showcase the knowledge of ancient humans.
Meanwhile, the remains of two additional Pompeii victims were found during ongoing site excavations in southern Italy. But researchers believe the men were killed by an accompanying earthquake rather than the famous volcanic eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79.
These stories might catch your eye:
— A Florida scientist who goes by the nickname Dr. Deep Sea has broken the record for time spent living underwater.
— The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted water on a rare comet in our solar system and multiple telescopes found an Earth-size exoplanet that may be covered in volcanoes.
— Jurassic-era marine reptiles called pliosaurs were twice the size of killer whales, according to a new analysis of 152 million-year-old fossils.
Keep your eye on the sky during sunset next week to witness Da Vinci glow, when a crescent moon is on the horizon but the outline of a full moon is visible.
Like what you’ve read? Oh, but there’s more. Sign up here to receive in your inbox the next edition of Wonder Theory, brought to you by CNN Space and Science writers Ashley Strickland and Katie Hunt. They find wonder in planets beyond our solar system and discoveries from the ancient world.
|
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Editor’s Note: A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.
Have you ever imagined what it might be like to live on Mars?
Soon, four researchers will have the chance to live inside a Martian base, without enduring a long spaceflight or ever setting foot on the red planet.
The simulated experience is the foundation of NASA’s latest experiment, called CHAPEA. The Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog will kick off in June at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The 3D-printed habitat resembles what the first human crews might use
|
while exploring Mars. For a year, four volunteers won’t leave the inside of the base. They’ll live like astronauts while responding to unexpected equipment failures and other surprises that might crop up during life on Mars.
The simulation will also focus on nutrition and psychological and physiological tests for the crew.
Many items remain on the checklist before humans can safely reach Mars. In the meantime, robotic explorers are hard at work uncovering some of the secrets of the red planet.
Raging rivers may have once cut across the Martian landscape — and rocks from billions of years ago show where the powerful waterways left their mark.
The Perseverance rover spied the intriguing rocks while exploring the top of a sprawling fan-shaped feature, likely the remnants of an ancient river delta.
Two different mosaics captured by the rover show rippling rocks and a tall hill made of stacked layers. It’s possible the formation was the result of a rushing river that carved out banks and sandbars and deposited sediment — and evidence of past life could be hiding inside.
A new deep-sea mapping project could answer some of the lingering questions about the wreck of the RMS Titanic, which sank in 1912.
An expedition led by scientists and the deep-sea company Magellan set out to scan the ship’s remnants on the seafloor off Canada in summer 2022, allowing for the creation of a full-size digital twin of the wreck.
The detailed reconstruction, made from about 715,000 images, was even able to capture a serial number on one of the luxury liner’s propellers.
Experts anticipate the digital replica of the wreck will lead to a new era of research into the ship’s tragic demise.
Researchers have pieced together the world’s largest butterfly tree of life.
The tree, which organizes the history and lineage of nearly 19,000 modern species, helped scientists determine where the winged insects originated.
Butterflies first appeared in Central and North America about 100 million years ago when some moths began flying during the daytime to access flower nectar.
Rare butterfly fossils, and the evolution of a certain type of plant, were used to track the surprising spread of these delicate insects around the globe.
We are family
Walking on the beach or breathing air in a crowded room can leave behind a remarkably strong genetic footprint, a new study revealed.
As University of Florida scientists collected environmental DNA from sand to study endangered sea turtles, they also detected human DNA from the surroundings. The traces were of such high quality that the researchers were able to identify the genetic ancestry of nearby populations.
The team also matched the DNA with participants who volunteered.
Such clear genetic identification could be regarded as a significant breakthrough, but the fact that our personal biological information is so easily detected is raising ethical questions about consent, privacy and security.
A long time ago
Archaeologists have uncovered what they believe to be the oldest known architectural plans — and Stone Age humans used these schematics to build megastructures in the desert of what’s now Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
Markings found on stone slabs resemble massive structures called kites that enabled hunting thousands of years ago.
The distinct shapes of the ancient traps, which funneled wild animals such as gazelles into enclosures, first caught the attention of aircraft pilots in the 1920s.
Researchers said the scale drawings of these complex structures, complete with cardinal directions, showcase the knowledge of ancient humans.
Meanwhile, the remains of two additional Pompeii victims were found during ongoing site excavations in southern Italy. But researchers believe the men were killed by an accompanying earthquake rather than the famous volcanic eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79.
These stories might catch your eye:
— A Florida scientist who goes by the nickname Dr. Deep Sea has broken the record for time spent living underwater.
— The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted water on a rare comet in our solar system and multiple telescopes found an Earth-size exoplanet that may be covered in volcanoes.
— Jurassic-era marine reptiles called pliosaurs were twice the size of killer whales, according to a new analysis of 152 million-year-old fossils.
Keep your eye on the sky during sunset next week to witness Da Vinci glow, when a crescent moon is on the horizon but the outline of a full moon is visible.
Like what you’ve read? Oh, but there’s more. Sign up here to receive in your inbox the next edition of Wonder Theory, brought to you by CNN Space and Science writers Ashley Strickland and Katie Hunt. They find wonder in planets beyond our solar system and discoveries from the ancient world.
|
A study published in this month’s Journal of the American Medical Association, or JAMA, found that tonsil and adenoid surgery in children with sleep difficulties due to snoring may help them with daytime issues such as behavior challenges and overall quality-of-life. The study was a randomized clinical trial of over 400 children with large tonsils and adenoids causing snoring and breathing issues during sleep.
The investigators randomly assigned half of the children with these issues to have their tonsils and adenoids removed, and the other half to undergo ‘watchful waiting’ over a 12 month period. The study group, based out of multiple institutions in the U.S., evaluated several metrics of behavior and quality-of-life both before study enrollment and 12 months later. The study format was approved by institutional review boards at each of the investigation treatment sites.
The two groups of children, with an average age of six years, were assessed before study enrollment and 12 months later for improvement in behavior, focus, executive function and quality-of-life. Those who had their tonsils and adenoids removed were found to have improved quality-of-life, which was analyzed in parental questionnaire format based on standardized pediatric quality-of-life measuring tools, as well as improved behavior, also based on standardized measuring parameters, compared with those who did not undergo tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy surgery. However, the investigators found no difference between groups when measuring for changes in executive function and attention.
As is well documented, children who have sleep issues due to snoring, known as sleep disordered breathing, can have problematic daytime behaviors including focus issues and learning challenges. Snoring and mild sleep apnea disrupt sleep cycles and depth of sleep in both children and adults, whereby what seems like a full night’s sleep may be functionally just half a night’s sleep if the sleep quality is poor. Some children who snore have issues of sleepiness, but it’s actually more common for sleep-deprived kids to be ‘tired and wired.’ Many of these children have been over-diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD.
Dr. Ron Mitchell, Professor of Otolaryngology and Pediatrics at the University of Texas Southwestern, is a co-author and site principal investigator for the study. He notes that “parents should look for daytime symptoms of attention and concentration problems, sleepiness and poor school performance...over a 3 month [timeframe in a child] who is snoring at night.” If these issues are getting worse, he recommends that “they should be evaluated by their pediatrician and considered for an ear, nose and throat evaluation.”
The study authors have some explanations as to why there was no discernible difference in executive function and attention in this group of children who had their tonsils and adenoids removed. One possibility is that cognitive testing in certain environments such as a testing center may not reflect real-world situations that could be impacted by sleep quality. In addition, there could have been other factors in the children’s lives, such as other medical conditions or learning differences that may have impacted the degree of change in test results from before to after surgery.
And while study data and clinical trials enhance our knowledge of medical conditions and their treatments, results should not be wholly used to guide care in all individuals. As Dr. Mitchell states, “Clinical trials provide us with helpful data and can direct care. However, the decision to proceed with surgery is best done on a case by case basis.”
In recent years, there has been more awareness and understanding of how sleep quality, not just quantity, can impact a child’s ability to focus, learn and regulate behaviors. The results of this new study underscore the importance of identifying and addressing issues of sleep quality and how it may or may not impact a child’s daytime function on multiple levels.
|
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A study published in this month’s Journal of the American Medical Association, or JAMA, found that tonsil and adenoid surgery in children with sleep difficulties due to snoring may help them with daytime issues such as behavior challenges and overall quality-of-life. The study was a randomized clinical trial of over 400 children with large tonsils and adenoids causing snoring and breathing issues during sleep.
The investigators randomly assigned half of the children with these issues to have their tonsils and adenoids removed, and the other half to undergo ‘watchful waiting’ over a 12 month period. The study group, based
|
out of multiple institutions in the U.S., evaluated several metrics of behavior and quality-of-life both before study enrollment and 12 months later. The study format was approved by institutional review boards at each of the investigation treatment sites.
The two groups of children, with an average age of six years, were assessed before study enrollment and 12 months later for improvement in behavior, focus, executive function and quality-of-life. Those who had their tonsils and adenoids removed were found to have improved quality-of-life, which was analyzed in parental questionnaire format based on standardized pediatric quality-of-life measuring tools, as well as improved behavior, also based on standardized measuring parameters, compared with those who did not undergo tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy surgery. However, the investigators found no difference between groups when measuring for changes in executive function and attention.
As is well documented, children who have sleep issues due to snoring, known as sleep disordered breathing, can have problematic daytime behaviors including focus issues and learning challenges. Snoring and mild sleep apnea disrupt sleep cycles and depth of sleep in both children and adults, whereby what seems like a full night’s sleep may be functionally just half a night’s sleep if the sleep quality is poor. Some children who snore have issues of sleepiness, but it’s actually more common for sleep-deprived kids to be ‘tired and wired.’ Many of these children have been over-diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD.
Dr. Ron Mitchell, Professor of Otolaryngology and Pediatrics at the University of Texas Southwestern, is a co-author and site principal investigator for the study. He notes that “parents should look for daytime symptoms of attention and concentration problems, sleepiness and poor school performance...over a 3 month [timeframe in a child] who is snoring at night.” If these issues are getting worse, he recommends that “they should be evaluated by their pediatrician and considered for an ear, nose and throat evaluation.”
The study authors have some explanations as to why there was no discernible difference in executive function and attention in this group of children who had their tonsils and adenoids removed. One possibility is that cognitive testing in certain environments such as a testing center may not reflect real-world situations that could be impacted by sleep quality. In addition, there could have been other factors in the children’s lives, such as other medical conditions or learning differences that may have impacted the degree of change in test results from before to after surgery.
And while study data and clinical trials enhance our knowledge of medical conditions and their treatments, results should not be wholly used to guide care in all individuals. As Dr. Mitchell states, “Clinical trials provide us with helpful data and can direct care. However, the decision to proceed with surgery is best done on a case by case basis.”
In recent years, there has been more awareness and understanding of how sleep quality, not just quantity, can impact a child’s ability to focus, learn and regulate behaviors. The results of this new study underscore the importance of identifying and addressing issues of sleep quality and how it may or may not impact a child’s daytime function on multiple levels.
|
Sept. 8, 1966
Nichelle Nichols became one of the first Black women to play a lead role on television, portraying Communication Officer Lt. Uhura on “Star Trek.”
Ebony magazine featured her as the first Black astronaut, “a triumph of modern-day TV over modern-day NASA.” A talented singer and dancer, Nichols told creator Gene Roddenberry after the first season that she planned to leave — news that devastated him. At a fundraiser after that, an organizer told her that her greatest fan wanted to meet her. When she turned around, she found herself staring at Martin Luther King Jr., who raved about what her role meant to him, his family and others around the world.
“When I could finally catch my breath after hearing so many accolades from a man I considered as my leader, I thanked him and then told him I was leaving the series,” she recalled. His smile vanished, and he told her that she must not leave: “You have opened a door that must not be allowed to close. For the first time, the world sees us as we should be seen, as equals, as intelligent people.”
In fact, he shared that “Star Trek” was the only show that he and his wife let their children stay up late and watch, “You are their hero!”
The next day, Nichols told Roddenberry she would stay, sharing King’s words. When she looked back at Roddenberry, a tear slid down his face. “And Gene,” she recalled, “was not a man to cry.”
After “Star Trek” ended in 1969, she produced educational programs related to space and challenged NASA to “come down from your ivory tower of intelligent pursuit, because the next Einstein might have a Black face — and she’s female.”
Afterward, she led an astronaut recruiting program for NASA that changed the faces of those who went into space. Sally Ride became the first woman in space, Guion Bluford Jr., the first African American in space, and Mae C. Jemison, the first Black woman in space who later played a part on “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” the first real astronaut to do so.
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Sept. 8, 1966
Nichelle Nichols became one of the first Black women to play a lead role on television, portraying Communication Officer Lt. Uhura on “Star Trek.”
Ebony magazine featured her as the first Black astronaut, “a triumph of modern-day TV over modern-day NASA.” A talented singer and dancer, Nichols told creator Gene Roddenberry after the first season that she planned to leave — news that devastated him. At a fundraiser after that, an organizer told her that her greatest fan wanted to meet her. When she turned around, she found herself staring at
|
Martin Luther King Jr., who raved about what her role meant to him, his family and others around the world.
“When I could finally catch my breath after hearing so many accolades from a man I considered as my leader, I thanked him and then told him I was leaving the series,” she recalled. His smile vanished, and he told her that she must not leave: “You have opened a door that must not be allowed to close. For the first time, the world sees us as we should be seen, as equals, as intelligent people.”
In fact, he shared that “Star Trek” was the only show that he and his wife let their children stay up late and watch, “You are their hero!”
The next day, Nichols told Roddenberry she would stay, sharing King’s words. When she looked back at Roddenberry, a tear slid down his face. “And Gene,” she recalled, “was not a man to cry.”
After “Star Trek” ended in 1969, she produced educational programs related to space and challenged NASA to “come down from your ivory tower of intelligent pursuit, because the next Einstein might have a Black face — and she’s female.”
Afterward, she led an astronaut recruiting program for NASA that changed the faces of those who went into space. Sally Ride became the first woman in space, Guion Bluford Jr., the first African American in space, and Mae C. Jemison, the first Black woman in space who later played a part on “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” the first real astronaut to do so.
|
Roughly a million years ago human beings lost most of their body hair, a key moment in evolution that involved major changes to the same set of genes that determined whether many of our fellow mammals kept or lost their coatings of fur, according to new research.
The study, published in the journal eLife, compared our genetic blueprints with those of 62 other mammals, including elephants, manatees and armadillos, examining how hairlessness evolved in different species at different times. The work also identified new genes and gene regulators linked to body hair, a discovery that may someday be used to treat millions of balding Americans.
The technique of comparing broad changes in the genetic codes of different mammals may also allow scientists to investigate questions with profound implications for human health: What genes developed to protect naked mole rats from cancer, and can they be manipulated in humans to treat or prevent the disease? What genetic changes have allowed bowhead whales to live for up to 200 years, far longer than any human, and can the knowledge be used to increase our life span?
“I think this is a very powerful application,” said Peter Sudmant, an assistant professor in the department of integrative biology at the University of California at Berkeley who was not involved in the study. The research method used has emerged at a moment when sequencing technology is advancing rapidly, allowing scientists to read long sequences of DNA faster and more accurately.
“I think we’re at the dawn of a very important era of medical genetics and comparative evolutionary genomics,” Sudmant said.
Hundreds of genes were likely to have been involved in the loss of most our body hair, said Nathan Clark at the University of Utah, who carried out the study with Amanda Kowalczyk at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and Maria Chikina at the University of Pittsburgh. Using computational tools they helped develop, the authors found that although the genes for a full covering of body hair remain in our genetic code, they have been muted.
“The initial loss of hair in a lot of species was likely very adaptive,” Clark said. “When you think about it, clearly a dolphin swimming in the water, or a whale or a manatee, would be greatly slowed down. They need to be streamlined. They don’t need that hair covering anymore.”
In the case of humans, one theory holds that the loss of body hair proved advantageous for hunting in warm climates. Less hair, coupled with development of a system that allowed the body to cool off by sweating, may have been key changes that allowed humans to become better hunters, able to chase some prey to exhaustion.
Although the fossil record is insufficient to determine precisely when ancient humans lost their full body hair, Clark said, “it’s likely to have occurred when we were leaving the shaded canopy of trees and then heading out supposedly on foot across open areas . . . so heat dissipation probably became a pretty important thing for us, and the ability to sweat probably came at the same time.”
“That would be my guess,” Clark said, clarifying that, “this paper doesn’t prove that.”
What the new study does show is the insight that can be gained by taking a multispecies view of evolution. Attempting to pinpoint specific genes that shut off in one animal that lost its body hair would be, as Clark put it, “a needle-in-a-haystack problem.”
However, finding genetic changes common to many animals that lost hair is far more manageable. Scientists can line up the genetic blueprints of each animal and note areas that have changed rapidly in some species while remaining constant in others. The approach capitalizes on an underappreciated fact of evolution: Despite very different appearances and behaviors, humans share much of their DNA with other mammals: 99 percent with chimpanzees, 85 percent with mice and 80 percent with cows.
Clark and his colleagues compared more than 19,000 genes and almost 350,000 regulatory regions and narrowed their focus to those linked to keeping or losing body hair. Many of the genes linked to hair growth contain instructions for making the protein keratin, which forms hair, nails and the skin’s outer layer.
The scientists examined animals that lost their full body hair along with others, such as bison, guinea pigs, aardvarks and bears, that have retained full coats of fur. They designed their study to discount genetic regions that code for two confounding variables: living in water and large body size. A disproportionate number of thinly haired mammals are large, and those living on land in hot climates would face challenges dissipating heat.
Among animals who lost body hair, some may have experienced the evolutionary change much more recently.
“If you look at African elephants and Indian elephants, they’re relatively hairless, but they have very close relatives who were alive hundreds of thousands of years that were completely woolly,” Clark said. “You have this dichotomy where [woolly mammoths] went up north and kept all of their thick hair, and [elephants] are down south and they lost it all. They have very sparse hair covering.”
The process of losing body hair was likely to have been very slow, and among mammals it occurred at least nine different times, according to the paper. The key factor determining how long the transition took was whether lack of hair provided an animal with a specific advantage. If it did, selective pressure favored animals that had the genes for full body hair dialed down or turned off.
For example, a warmer climate that reduced vegetation in the tundra is thought to have contributed to the extinction of woolly mammoths about 10,000 years ago.
“If the more woolly ones that couldn’t sweat well were dying off because they were overheating trying to chase some food source, then yes it would be a big disadvantage,” Clark said.
If there was a clear advantage, the loss of body hair might have occurred over hundreds of generations, taking thousands of years, Clark said. If there was no advantage but body hair was simply no longer important, then it would probably have taken thousands of generations or more.
The technique used in the paper also sheds light on the less-understood areas of our genetic blueprint. While about 20,000 genes carry the instructions for making proteins, they account for only about 2 percent of the genome. Other areas function much like a dimmer switch on a light, affecting the degree to which genes or groups of genes are turned up or down. Turning up a gene almost always causes more of a specific protein to be made.
“Not nearly as much work has been done on those regions,” said Mark Springer, a professor emeritus in evolution, ecology and organismal biology at the University of California at Riverside. This paper “really points the way forward for future research. There’s much more to be learned.”
In 2017 Clark and some of his colleagues used a similar technique to compare the genomic evolution of animals that live above ground with blind mammals that live below ground. They found many vision- and skin-related genes that changed at a faster rate in animals living underground. They also identified genes and regulatory regions that could be used as potential targets for treatment of congenital eye diseases.
“I have to say this kind of stuff is incredibly cool,” Sudmant said. “We’re looking at 75 million years of evolution. The fact that you can look at the molecular pathways that are influencing a trait like body hair is mind-blowing.”
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Roughly a million years ago human beings lost most of their body hair, a key moment in evolution that involved major changes to the same set of genes that determined whether many of our fellow mammals kept or lost their coatings of fur, according to new research.
The study, published in the journal eLife, compared our genetic blueprints with those of 62 other mammals, including elephants, manatees and armadillos, examining how hairlessness evolved in different species at different times. The work also identified new genes and gene regulators linked to body hair, a discovery that may someday be used to treat millions of balding Americans.
|
The technique of comparing broad changes in the genetic codes of different mammals may also allow scientists to investigate questions with profound implications for human health: What genes developed to protect naked mole rats from cancer, and can they be manipulated in humans to treat or prevent the disease? What genetic changes have allowed bowhead whales to live for up to 200 years, far longer than any human, and can the knowledge be used to increase our life span?
“I think this is a very powerful application,” said Peter Sudmant, an assistant professor in the department of integrative biology at the University of California at Berkeley who was not involved in the study. The research method used has emerged at a moment when sequencing technology is advancing rapidly, allowing scientists to read long sequences of DNA faster and more accurately.
“I think we’re at the dawn of a very important era of medical genetics and comparative evolutionary genomics,” Sudmant said.
Hundreds of genes were likely to have been involved in the loss of most our body hair, said Nathan Clark at the University of Utah, who carried out the study with Amanda Kowalczyk at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and Maria Chikina at the University of Pittsburgh. Using computational tools they helped develop, the authors found that although the genes for a full covering of body hair remain in our genetic code, they have been muted.
“The initial loss of hair in a lot of species was likely very adaptive,” Clark said. “When you think about it, clearly a dolphin swimming in the water, or a whale or a manatee, would be greatly slowed down. They need to be streamlined. They don’t need that hair covering anymore.”
In the case of humans, one theory holds that the loss of body hair proved advantageous for hunting in warm climates. Less hair, coupled with development of a system that allowed the body to cool off by sweating, may have been key changes that allowed humans to become better hunters, able to chase some prey to exhaustion.
Although the fossil record is insufficient to determine precisely when ancient humans lost their full body hair, Clark said, “it’s likely to have occurred when we were leaving the shaded canopy of trees and then heading out supposedly on foot across open areas . . . so heat dissipation probably became a pretty important thing for us, and the ability to sweat probably came at the same time.”
“That would be my guess,” Clark said, clarifying that, “this paper doesn’t prove that.”
What the new study does show is the insight that can be gained by taking a multispecies view of evolution. Attempting to pinpoint specific genes that shut off in one animal that lost its body hair would be, as Clark put it, “a needle-in-a-haystack problem.”
However, finding genetic changes common to many animals that lost hair is far more manageable. Scientists can line up the genetic blueprints of each animal and note areas that have changed rapidly in some species while remaining constant in others. The approach capitalizes on an underappreciated fact of evolution: Despite very different appearances and behaviors, humans share much of their DNA with other mammals: 99 percent with chimpanzees, 85 percent with mice and 80 percent with cows.
Clark and his colleagues compared more than 19,000 genes and almost 350,000 regulatory regions and narrowed their focus to those linked to keeping or losing body hair. Many of the genes linked to hair growth contain instructions for making the protein keratin, which forms hair, nails and the skin’s outer layer.
The scientists examined animals that lost their full body hair along with others, such as bison, guinea pigs, aardvarks and bears, that have retained full coats of fur. They designed their study to discount genetic regions that code for two confounding variables: living in water and large body size. A disproportionate number of thinly haired mammals are large, and those living on land in hot climates would face challenges dissipating heat.
Among animals who lost body hair, some may have experienced the evolutionary change much more recently.
“If you look at African elephants and Indian elephants, they’re relatively hairless, but they have very close relatives who were alive hundreds of thousands of years that were completely woolly,” Clark said. “You have this dichotomy where [woolly mammoths] went up north and kept all of their thick hair, and [elephants] are down south and they lost it all. They have very sparse hair covering.”
The process of losing body hair was likely to have been very slow, and among mammals it occurred at least nine different times, according to the paper. The key factor determining how long the transition took was whether lack of hair provided an animal with a specific advantage. If it did, selective pressure favored animals that had the genes for full body hair dialed down or turned off.
For example, a warmer climate that reduced vegetation in the tundra is thought to have contributed to the extinction of woolly mammoths about 10,000 years ago.
“If the more woolly ones that couldn’t sweat well were dying off because they were overheating trying to chase some food source, then yes it would be a big disadvantage,” Clark said.
If there was a clear advantage, the loss of body hair might have occurred over hundreds of generations, taking thousands of years, Clark said. If there was no advantage but body hair was simply no longer important, then it would probably have taken thousands of generations or more.
The technique used in the paper also sheds light on the less-understood areas of our genetic blueprint. While about 20,000 genes carry the instructions for making proteins, they account for only about 2 percent of the genome. Other areas function much like a dimmer switch on a light, affecting the degree to which genes or groups of genes are turned up or down. Turning up a gene almost always causes more of a specific protein to be made.
“Not nearly as much work has been done on those regions,” said Mark Springer, a professor emeritus in evolution, ecology and organismal biology at the University of California at Riverside. This paper “really points the way forward for future research. There’s much more to be learned.”
In 2017 Clark and some of his colleagues used a similar technique to compare the genomic evolution of animals that live above ground with blind mammals that live below ground. They found many vision- and skin-related genes that changed at a faster rate in animals living underground. They also identified genes and regulatory regions that could be used as potential targets for treatment of congenital eye diseases.
“I have to say this kind of stuff is incredibly cool,” Sudmant said. “We’re looking at 75 million years of evolution. The fact that you can look at the molecular pathways that are influencing a trait like body hair is mind-blowing.”
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On Tuesday, Biden announced the formal designation of the 917,618-acre Baaj Nwaavjo I'tah Kukveni Grand Canyon National Monument to prevent public lands held sacred by local Native American tribes from hosting new uranium mines. New uranium mines have been prohibited in the area since 2012 due to an Obama administration moratorium that was set to expire in 2032. Biden's move has made that ban permanent.
According to a senior administration official, the area hosts 1.3 percent of the country's known uranium reserves. But this figure doesn't tell the whole story.
"Maybe if you're trying to count molecules then it's only 1.3 percent, but I'd say it's 100 percent of America's high-grade uranium deposits locked up in the monument," says Curtis Moore, senior vice president of marketing and corporate development at Energy Fuels—a uranium-mining company that owns the Pinyon Plain mine in the Grand Canyon area. "And grade typically corresponds to lower-cost, more-accessible, and lower-environmental-impact mining. For every ton of ore you pull out of the ground, there is more uranium in that ton."
By prohibiting uranium mining, the administration is looking to preserve groundwater near the Grand Canyon. "Creeks and streams [flow] into the Colorado River, supporting farms and ranches across the Southwest and bringing clean water to 40 million Americans," said Biden during a Tuesday speech in Arizona.
"The area's unique hydrology has supported Indigenous peoples and other forms of life since time immemorial and is essential in providing drinking water and supporting agricultural production and other services for millions of people across the Southwest," noted a press release from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
However, the claim that uranium mining near the Grand Canyon contaminates the water doesn't hold up to scrutiny. A 2021 study by the U.S. Geological Survey sampled 206 groundwater sites in the Grand Canyon region and found that "195 sites (95%) had maximum observed uranium concentrations less than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Maximum Contaminant Level of 30 µg/L for drinking water."
"Some uranium mines, particularly the ones that were used for nuclear weapons production, were not operated well and leave a legacy impact," explains Adam Stein, director of the Nuclear Energy Innovation program at the Breakthrough Institute. "However, modern uranium mining is very different, in both technology and regulatory requirements, from the uranium mines of the past."
A major political factor at play for Biden is the support of local Native American communities. These communities played an important role in helping Biden win Arizona during the 2020 election. "It is likely a strategic decision to focus on the Grand Canyon," Gabriel Sanchez, a fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, told The New York Times. "Many Native Americans do not vote based on party, but on which candidates will do the most to advance the interests of Native American communities."
"I fail to see any rationale in this proposal beyond a selfish political agenda that locks away the very resources we depend on for our daily lives," said Rep. Bruce Westerman (R–Ark.), chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, in a statement.
Biden's authority to designate national monuments derives from the Antiquities Act of 1906, a comprehensive statute that "authorizes the President to proclaim national monuments on federal lands that contain historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, or other objects of historic or scientific interest," allowing the president to regulate how the land is used. The new monument is the fifth of Biden's presidency.
"Although regulations on land use have not caused significant issues with uranium mining in the past, over time, more and more areas have been subject either to new mining bans or the use of national monuments to prevent new mining on a permanent basis," notes Stein.
The new monument will have a detrimental effect on the U.S. uranium industry, which has struggled in recent years. After experiencing a boom from the 1940s to the 1980s, domestic uranium production fell when prices dropped after the Chernobyl disaster. According to the World Nuclear Association, U.S. uranium mining production decreased from 1792 tonnes U in 2013 to 75 in 2022.
This production is essential for nuclear power. "Today, nuclear provides about 20 percent of all electricity in the United States and about 50 percent of our carbon-free electricity," notes Moore. "And that's all powered by uranium."
The possibility of the U.S. applying sanctions on Russian uranium has made the industry's need for domestic mining more urgent. When the U.S. threatened sanctions on Russia's Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation in 2022, the price of uranium skyrocketed to about $60 per pound.
"The United States imports about 50 percent of our uranium in U.S. nuclear power plants from Russia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, and Russia has their hands on quite a bit of Kazakh uranium production," explains Moore. "As we're trying to reduce our reliance on Russia, we should be trying to develop our own domestic sources of uranium."
If the Biden administration is serious about building clean energy projects, hindering an industry that's vital to the production of nuclear power is the wrong approach.
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On Tuesday, Biden announced the formal designation of the 917,618-acre Baaj Nwaavjo I'tah Kukveni Grand Canyon National Monument to prevent public lands held sacred by local Native American tribes from hosting new uranium mines. New uranium mines have been prohibited in the area since 2012 due to an Obama administration moratorium that was set to expire in 2032. Biden's move has made that ban permanent.
According to a senior administration official, the area hosts 1.3 percent of the country's known uranium reserves. But this figure doesn't tell the whole story.
"
|
Maybe if you're trying to count molecules then it's only 1.3 percent, but I'd say it's 100 percent of America's high-grade uranium deposits locked up in the monument," says Curtis Moore, senior vice president of marketing and corporate development at Energy Fuels—a uranium-mining company that owns the Pinyon Plain mine in the Grand Canyon area. "And grade typically corresponds to lower-cost, more-accessible, and lower-environmental-impact mining. For every ton of ore you pull out of the ground, there is more uranium in that ton."
By prohibiting uranium mining, the administration is looking to preserve groundwater near the Grand Canyon. "Creeks and streams [flow] into the Colorado River, supporting farms and ranches across the Southwest and bringing clean water to 40 million Americans," said Biden during a Tuesday speech in Arizona.
"The area's unique hydrology has supported Indigenous peoples and other forms of life since time immemorial and is essential in providing drinking water and supporting agricultural production and other services for millions of people across the Southwest," noted a press release from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
However, the claim that uranium mining near the Grand Canyon contaminates the water doesn't hold up to scrutiny. A 2021 study by the U.S. Geological Survey sampled 206 groundwater sites in the Grand Canyon region and found that "195 sites (95%) had maximum observed uranium concentrations less than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Maximum Contaminant Level of 30 µg/L for drinking water."
"Some uranium mines, particularly the ones that were used for nuclear weapons production, were not operated well and leave a legacy impact," explains Adam Stein, director of the Nuclear Energy Innovation program at the Breakthrough Institute. "However, modern uranium mining is very different, in both technology and regulatory requirements, from the uranium mines of the past."
A major political factor at play for Biden is the support of local Native American communities. These communities played an important role in helping Biden win Arizona during the 2020 election. "It is likely a strategic decision to focus on the Grand Canyon," Gabriel Sanchez, a fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, told The New York Times. "Many Native Americans do not vote based on party, but on which candidates will do the most to advance the interests of Native American communities."
"I fail to see any rationale in this proposal beyond a selfish political agenda that locks away the very resources we depend on for our daily lives," said Rep. Bruce Westerman (R–Ark.), chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, in a statement.
Biden's authority to designate national monuments derives from the Antiquities Act of 1906, a comprehensive statute that "authorizes the President to proclaim national monuments on federal lands that contain historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, or other objects of historic or scientific interest," allowing the president to regulate how the land is used. The new monument is the fifth of Biden's presidency.
"Although regulations on land use have not caused significant issues with uranium mining in the past, over time, more and more areas have been subject either to new mining bans or the use of national monuments to prevent new mining on a permanent basis," notes Stein.
The new monument will have a detrimental effect on the U.S. uranium industry, which has struggled in recent years. After experiencing a boom from the 1940s to the 1980s, domestic uranium production fell when prices dropped after the Chernobyl disaster. According to the World Nuclear Association, U.S. uranium mining production decreased from 1792 tonnes U in 2013 to 75 in 2022.
This production is essential for nuclear power. "Today, nuclear provides about 20 percent of all electricity in the United States and about 50 percent of our carbon-free electricity," notes Moore. "And that's all powered by uranium."
The possibility of the U.S. applying sanctions on Russian uranium has made the industry's need for domestic mining more urgent. When the U.S. threatened sanctions on Russia's Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation in 2022, the price of uranium skyrocketed to about $60 per pound.
"The United States imports about 50 percent of our uranium in U.S. nuclear power plants from Russia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, and Russia has their hands on quite a bit of Kazakh uranium production," explains Moore. "As we're trying to reduce our reliance on Russia, we should be trying to develop our own domestic sources of uranium."
If the Biden administration is serious about building clean energy projects, hindering an industry that's vital to the production of nuclear power is the wrong approach.
|
Kenzaburo Oe, one of Japan’s most prominent postwar writers, died March 3. He won the Nobel Prize in 1994 for what the committee called his creation of worlds “where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today.”
Here’s a brief guide to Oe and his writing.
Start with …
The keystone: “A Personal Matter”
Oe is best known for this 1964 semi-autobiographical novel, a dark comedy about a callow young academic who decides to leave his wife after their baby is born with a brain herniation. “A Personal Matter” is the first of what would become several novels about the life of Oe’s son Hikari, who appears under his own or other names (Eeyore, Mori, Kikuhiko) throughout his father’s fiction. The experience of parenting a child with a severe mental disability is what Oe called one of the central, structuring pillars of his work.
The nonfiction classic: “Hiroshima Notes”
Though Oe is primarily known as a novelist, “Hiroshima Notes,” an essay collection from 1965, is one of his best-selling works. Drawing on interviews with survivors and the doctors and nurses who cared for them, the book also offers a stark portrait of the American and Japanese governments’ efforts to suppress the bleakest aspects of the bombing’s aftermath.
The one Oe himself might have recommended: “The Silent Cry”
“The Silent Cry,” from 1967, tells the story of two brothers who return to their family’s village with the aim of selling their childhood home, only to find themselves entangled in its dark past and reenacting their ancestors’ disturbing acts. “It is a work from my youth and the faults are apparent,” Oe told an interviewer. “But I think it’s the most successful, faults and all.”
For something different: “Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age!”
The novel “Rouse Up” traces a father’s revisiting of an old and impossible promise: to demystify all the complexities of life for his son Eeyore, who is about to turn 20. The narrator, K, finds a lifeline in the work of the mystical romantic William Blake, using the poems to bridge the gap between them.
To learn more about Oe’s life …
Read his interview in “The Paris Review.”
“I don’t think I’m that interesting to listen to,” Oe told Sarah Fay in 2007. “I haven’t seen many great things. I haven’t been to a new world. I haven’t had many strange experiences. I have experienced many little things. I write about those small experiences and revise them and reexperience them through revision.” Yet their conversation makes for a beguiling read, as Oe was disarmingly candid on topics from his prose (“very difficult, very twisted, complicated”) to his daily habits (how he coped with insomnia: four whiskeys and two to four cans of beer — which, he allowed, tended to decrease his reading ability).
Read the New Yorker’s profile of Oe from 1995.
The profile was occasioned by Oe winning the Nobel and telling anyone who would listen that he planned to stop writing fiction after the release of his son’s music, David Remnick reported at the time: “because the mission he set for himself thirty-one years ago — to speak somehow for his severely brain-damaged son, Hikari — is no longer necessary.” Oe published another novel, “Somersault,” four years later. The profile provides an unusually intimate view of Oe’s life, including his tense relationship with the novelist Yukio Mishima, and hints at the political activities he would undertake in later years.
Listen to his Nobel lecture.
Oe riffs on the speech given by the first Nobel laureate in literature from Japan, Yasunari Kawabata in 1968, to offer his own meditation on what it means to be a Japanese writer — “born and brought up in a peripheral, marginal, off-center region of the peripheral, marginal, off-center country.”
And once you’re done reading, here’s more:
Listen to Hikari Oe’s music.
Drawings of Hikari’s musical compositions appeared in some of Oe’s books, and after the head of Nippon Columbia took an interest, Hikari became a popular classical composer, mostly for piano, flute and violin. The music “is entirely accessible,” one reviewer wrote in 1995, “and while the early pieces are appealing primarily for their simplicity and charm, some of the later, darker ones are extremely moving, with haunting melodies and striking elegance and economy of development.”
Watch Juzo Itami’s movies.
Itami, Oe’s brother-in-law, inspired his novel “The Changeling” (2000). The movie that made Itami internationally famous was his “noodle western” from 1985, “Tampopo,” in which a ragtag band tries to save a single mother’s failing ramen restaurant. But if you’re looking to explore the connection between Itami and Oe, you’ll want to seek out “A Quiet Life,” about a young woman left to take care of her younger brother after her mother and writer-father take off for Australia.
More from Book World
Join Book Club: Delivered to your inbox on Fridays, a selection of book reviews and recommendations from Book World editor Ron Charles. Sign up for the newsletter.
Best books of 2022: See our picks for the 10 best books of 2022 or dive into your favorite genre. Look to the best thrillers and mysteries to keep you on the edge of your seat, get lost in the possibilities of the best sci-fi and fantasy, and spark some joy with these 14 feel-good reads.
There’s more: Those looking for love stories should check out the best romance novels of 2022. And for the young (and young at heart) in your life, see the best children’s and YA books and top graphic novels. Plus, six BookTok stars share their favorite reads of the year. Audiobooks more you’re thing? We’ve got you covered there too.
Still need more reading inspiration? Check out reviews for the latest in fiction and nonfiction.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
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Kenzaburo Oe, one of Japan’s most prominent postwar writers, died March 3. He won the Nobel Prize in 1994 for what the committee called his creation of worlds “where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today.”
Here’s a brief guide to Oe and his writing.
Start with …
The keystone: “A Personal Matter”
Oe is best known for this 1964 semi-autobiographical novel, a dark comedy about a callow young academic who decides to leave his wife after their baby is born with a brain
|
herniation. “A Personal Matter” is the first of what would become several novels about the life of Oe’s son Hikari, who appears under his own or other names (Eeyore, Mori, Kikuhiko) throughout his father’s fiction. The experience of parenting a child with a severe mental disability is what Oe called one of the central, structuring pillars of his work.
The nonfiction classic: “Hiroshima Notes”
Though Oe is primarily known as a novelist, “Hiroshima Notes,” an essay collection from 1965, is one of his best-selling works. Drawing on interviews with survivors and the doctors and nurses who cared for them, the book also offers a stark portrait of the American and Japanese governments’ efforts to suppress the bleakest aspects of the bombing’s aftermath.
The one Oe himself might have recommended: “The Silent Cry”
“The Silent Cry,” from 1967, tells the story of two brothers who return to their family’s village with the aim of selling their childhood home, only to find themselves entangled in its dark past and reenacting their ancestors’ disturbing acts. “It is a work from my youth and the faults are apparent,” Oe told an interviewer. “But I think it’s the most successful, faults and all.”
For something different: “Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age!”
The novel “Rouse Up” traces a father’s revisiting of an old and impossible promise: to demystify all the complexities of life for his son Eeyore, who is about to turn 20. The narrator, K, finds a lifeline in the work of the mystical romantic William Blake, using the poems to bridge the gap between them.
To learn more about Oe’s life …
Read his interview in “The Paris Review.”
“I don’t think I’m that interesting to listen to,” Oe told Sarah Fay in 2007. “I haven’t seen many great things. I haven’t been to a new world. I haven’t had many strange experiences. I have experienced many little things. I write about those small experiences and revise them and reexperience them through revision.” Yet their conversation makes for a beguiling read, as Oe was disarmingly candid on topics from his prose (“very difficult, very twisted, complicated”) to his daily habits (how he coped with insomnia: four whiskeys and two to four cans of beer — which, he allowed, tended to decrease his reading ability).
Read the New Yorker’s profile of Oe from 1995.
The profile was occasioned by Oe winning the Nobel and telling anyone who would listen that he planned to stop writing fiction after the release of his son’s music, David Remnick reported at the time: “because the mission he set for himself thirty-one years ago — to speak somehow for his severely brain-damaged son, Hikari — is no longer necessary.” Oe published another novel, “Somersault,” four years later. The profile provides an unusually intimate view of Oe’s life, including his tense relationship with the novelist Yukio Mishima, and hints at the political activities he would undertake in later years.
Listen to his Nobel lecture.
Oe riffs on the speech given by the first Nobel laureate in literature from Japan, Yasunari Kawabata in 1968, to offer his own meditation on what it means to be a Japanese writer — “born and brought up in a peripheral, marginal, off-center region of the peripheral, marginal, off-center country.”
And once you’re done reading, here’s more:
Listen to Hikari Oe’s music.
Drawings of Hikari’s musical compositions appeared in some of Oe’s books, and after the head of Nippon Columbia took an interest, Hikari became a popular classical composer, mostly for piano, flute and violin. The music “is entirely accessible,” one reviewer wrote in 1995, “and while the early pieces are appealing primarily for their simplicity and charm, some of the later, darker ones are extremely moving, with haunting melodies and striking elegance and economy of development.”
Watch Juzo Itami’s movies.
Itami, Oe’s brother-in-law, inspired his novel “The Changeling” (2000). The movie that made Itami internationally famous was his “noodle western” from 1985, “Tampopo,” in which a ragtag band tries to save a single mother’s failing ramen restaurant. But if you’re looking to explore the connection between Itami and Oe, you’ll want to seek out “A Quiet Life,” about a young woman left to take care of her younger brother after her mother and writer-father take off for Australia.
More from Book World
Join Book Club: Delivered to your inbox on Fridays, a selection of book reviews and recommendations from Book World editor Ron Charles. Sign up for the newsletter.
Best books of 2022: See our picks for the 10 best books of 2022 or dive into your favorite genre. Look to the best thrillers and mysteries to keep you on the edge of your seat, get lost in the possibilities of the best sci-fi and fantasy, and spark some joy with these 14 feel-good reads.
There’s more: Those looking for love stories should check out the best romance novels of 2022. And for the young (and young at heart) in your life, see the best children’s and YA books and top graphic novels. Plus, six BookTok stars share their favorite reads of the year. Audiobooks more you’re thing? We’ve got you covered there too.
Still need more reading inspiration? Check out reviews for the latest in fiction and nonfiction.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
|
When it comes to boating in the upper Colorado River Basin, there’s no better place than Dinosaur National Monument. A multi-day river trip in Dinosaur starts on the Green or Yampa — both wholly unique from one another in form and hydrology, yet each providing world-class recreational opportunities and scenery.
The more time I’ve spent on these rivers, the more my focus has been drawn to how we manage the lands around them. If there’s one direct threat to the greater landscape around Dinosaur, it’s the outdated laws and regulations of the Bureau of Land Management’s Oil and Gas Program. However, the bureau has recently proposed a rule package that would start to address some of the imbalance in its current management of public lands.
Dinosaur National Monument is a place where these rules could really make a difference. It is a unique landscape, in that it’s bisected by the political boundaries of Colorado and Utah, each having starkly different physical and economic relationships with the Monument. Craig is at the forefront of communities in Colorado moving away from coal and proactively planning for increased recreation; Vernal, Utah was the birthplace of western river running and the hub of Utah’s most active oil and gas region, the Uinta Basin.
In the 1950s the country was embroiled in the idea of building a large dam, deep in the confines of Dinosaur National Monument that would have flooded the canyons and squandered the natural and cultural heritage for all future generations. That fight brought about the modern ideals of protecting wild places into the American mainstream. Today, the concept of wilderness — flawed, imperfect, but noble, eloquent and right — must evolve. To protect special places like Dinosaur means protecting the integrity of lands all around them.
Like the priority system of water allocation, the general mining law and other tenets of capitalism, the oil and gas program is shaped by the industry it’s intended to regulate. For example, of all lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management, 90% are open to oil and gas leasing, with energy development being prioritized above all other land uses.
This is clearly evident south of Dinosaur in the Uinta Basin. Tens of thousands of wells tap the land, representing a lack of restraint of long term vision, to say nothing of the looming challenge of curbing fossil fuel emissions. The bureau’s mission explicitly states the need to “meet the present and future needs of the American people.” While energy development has brought short-term wealth to these communities, it’s also brought the worst air quality in the nation at times, painful episodes of boom and bust; and it certainly doesn’t serve our future.
The federal oil and gas program desperately needs to be modernized. The programs are full of subsidies, loopholes and policies that favor the oil and gas industry. Americans lose billions of dollars in revenue annually, allowing the industry to stockpile million acres of unused leases. Not only should we raise the cost to drill on public lands, but we should hold companies responsible for the cost of cleanup and end the leasing of lands with low or no potential for oil and gas.
One example sits directly on the western edge of Dinosaur National Monument, a set of exploratory oil wells overlapping wildlands full of cultural remnants and priority sage grouse habitat. When an operator acquires an oil and gas lease like this, the public’s interest is deemed to be satisfied only if the operator commences actual drilling operations. This is a requirement of their lease agreement with the BLM. Failure to do so invalidates the agreement.
The primary term of oil and gas lease is 10 years, yet this operator has maintained a grip on these leases for more than two decades, effectively holding public land hostage. Zombie leases like this need to be stopped; they are a maddening example of why our national oil and gas program needs not only updating but revolution.
The new federal policies that the Bureau of Land Management has recently proposed is a start. I applaud the promising package of updates for oil and gas leasing across hundreds of millions of acres of our shared lands.
But they need to go further. The updates could better protect threatened numerous national parks that are situated in regions with dense oil and gas development, and essential wildlife habitat and migration corridors threatened by encroaching drilling operations. This is a big-picture step in the right direction, but only one step.
I recognize that there’s a need for energy. We’re all consumers in some way, tethered and dependent on the global market network, but no reasonable mind will look at the thick industrialization of the Uinta Basin or Permian Basin and think this is a balanced, well-planned, and sustainable practice. Most importantly, we have to curb the escalating impacts of climate change inflamed by fossil fuels if we want a sustainable planet for future generations.
Taxpayers have bankrolled oil and gas companies for too long under the current program. We must ensure that taxpayers receive a fairer return for the use and development of public lands and align leasing and permitting decisions with its very own conservation goals. If you want to take a stand against reckless oil and gas drilling on public lands, you can submit a comment to the Bureau of Land Management before Sept. 22.
The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy and submit columns, suggested writers and more to <email-pii>. (Learn more about how to submit a column.)
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When it comes to boating in the upper Colorado River Basin, there’s no better place than Dinosaur National Monument. A multi-day river trip in Dinosaur starts on the Green or Yampa — both wholly unique from one another in form and hydrology, yet each providing world-class recreational opportunities and scenery.
The more time I’ve spent on these rivers, the more my focus has been drawn to how we manage the lands around them. If there’s one direct threat to the greater landscape around Dinosaur, it’s the outdated laws and regulations of the Bureau of Land Management’s Oil and Gas Program. However, the bureau has recently proposed
|
a rule package that would start to address some of the imbalance in its current management of public lands.
Dinosaur National Monument is a place where these rules could really make a difference. It is a unique landscape, in that it’s bisected by the political boundaries of Colorado and Utah, each having starkly different physical and economic relationships with the Monument. Craig is at the forefront of communities in Colorado moving away from coal and proactively planning for increased recreation; Vernal, Utah was the birthplace of western river running and the hub of Utah’s most active oil and gas region, the Uinta Basin.
In the 1950s the country was embroiled in the idea of building a large dam, deep in the confines of Dinosaur National Monument that would have flooded the canyons and squandered the natural and cultural heritage for all future generations. That fight brought about the modern ideals of protecting wild places into the American mainstream. Today, the concept of wilderness — flawed, imperfect, but noble, eloquent and right — must evolve. To protect special places like Dinosaur means protecting the integrity of lands all around them.
Like the priority system of water allocation, the general mining law and other tenets of capitalism, the oil and gas program is shaped by the industry it’s intended to regulate. For example, of all lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management, 90% are open to oil and gas leasing, with energy development being prioritized above all other land uses.
This is clearly evident south of Dinosaur in the Uinta Basin. Tens of thousands of wells tap the land, representing a lack of restraint of long term vision, to say nothing of the looming challenge of curbing fossil fuel emissions. The bureau’s mission explicitly states the need to “meet the present and future needs of the American people.” While energy development has brought short-term wealth to these communities, it’s also brought the worst air quality in the nation at times, painful episodes of boom and bust; and it certainly doesn’t serve our future.
The federal oil and gas program desperately needs to be modernized. The programs are full of subsidies, loopholes and policies that favor the oil and gas industry. Americans lose billions of dollars in revenue annually, allowing the industry to stockpile million acres of unused leases. Not only should we raise the cost to drill on public lands, but we should hold companies responsible for the cost of cleanup and end the leasing of lands with low or no potential for oil and gas.
One example sits directly on the western edge of Dinosaur National Monument, a set of exploratory oil wells overlapping wildlands full of cultural remnants and priority sage grouse habitat. When an operator acquires an oil and gas lease like this, the public’s interest is deemed to be satisfied only if the operator commences actual drilling operations. This is a requirement of their lease agreement with the BLM. Failure to do so invalidates the agreement.
The primary term of oil and gas lease is 10 years, yet this operator has maintained a grip on these leases for more than two decades, effectively holding public land hostage. Zombie leases like this need to be stopped; they are a maddening example of why our national oil and gas program needs not only updating but revolution.
The new federal policies that the Bureau of Land Management has recently proposed is a start. I applaud the promising package of updates for oil and gas leasing across hundreds of millions of acres of our shared lands.
But they need to go further. The updates could better protect threatened numerous national parks that are situated in regions with dense oil and gas development, and essential wildlife habitat and migration corridors threatened by encroaching drilling operations. This is a big-picture step in the right direction, but only one step.
I recognize that there’s a need for energy. We’re all consumers in some way, tethered and dependent on the global market network, but no reasonable mind will look at the thick industrialization of the Uinta Basin or Permian Basin and think this is a balanced, well-planned, and sustainable practice. Most importantly, we have to curb the escalating impacts of climate change inflamed by fossil fuels if we want a sustainable planet for future generations.
Taxpayers have bankrolled oil and gas companies for too long under the current program. We must ensure that taxpayers receive a fairer return for the use and development of public lands and align leasing and permitting decisions with its very own conservation goals. If you want to take a stand against reckless oil and gas drilling on public lands, you can submit a comment to the Bureau of Land Management before Sept. 22.
The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy and submit columns, suggested writers and more to <email-pii>. (Learn more about how to submit a column.)
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While many people may think the earth is a source of unlimited energy and raw materials, that isn’t necessarily the case. And while we may be familiar with the depletion of above-ground resources like forests, jungles, lakes, and rivers, many of us don’t give any thought to the depletion of underground resources.
The concept of peak oil is tied into the concept of resource depletion, the idea that oil resources are finite, and that at some point the available stores of oil that can be produced will no longer be economically viable to extract, and so oil production will peak at some point before entering an inexorable decline.
The same theory has been applied to gold too, with the theory being that gold production will peak at some point and then decline as all economically viable gold to be mined will be exhausted. And now some researchers have put a date on that.
The Gold Mining Process
When we think of gold mining, many of us naturally think of the California ‘49ers, panning for gold in streams and creeks. Or we may think of underground mines out in the West, or deep earth mines in South Africa, with loads of rich ore being brought to the surface in railcars or elevators.
The reality of much of the world’s gold mining today, though, is that it takes place in large open pit mines, in which thousands of tons of rock are removed, crushed, and subjected to chemical treatments that remove the gold from them. A high grade gold mine is one that contains 8-10 grams of gold per ton of rock. In other words, it would take 3-4 tons of rock to get a single ounce of gold.
Some of the world’s largest gold mines produce over a million ounces of gold per year, meaning that they’re processing massive amounts of rock. Naturally that is very energy intensive, capital intensive, and expensive. So the idea that at some point there may no longer be enough gold deposits rich enough to profitably mine seems to make sense.
Some experts predict that the world’s gold resources will be effectively depleted by 2050, a mere 27 years away. And what happens then?
Sources of Gold Supply
Right now mining production accounts for about 75%-80% of world gold production in any given year. Recycling accounts for the rest of it.
If gold mines were to cease producing gold in meaningful amounts, because it was no longer profitable to do so, then it would fall on recycling of above-ground gold stores to make up the shortfall between demand and supply. Unlike oil, which is consumed in the form of gasoline, motor oil, or diesel, and is thus lost forever, most of the gold that has ever been produced remains in existence above ground in some form or another.
Could gold recycling pick up enough to equilibrate gold demand and supply? It’s hard to think that the gold-plated pins on our computer chips could ever be crucial to gold supply, but that could very well become reality in a few decades. Or the gold jewelry and gold coins we currently have squirreled away could end up being melted down to satisfy growing gold demand.
One would imagine that the gold price would have to rise too in order to induce people to give up their valued jewelry and coins. That’s the natural consequence of a decrease in supply, if demand remains the same.
If the predictions of those who subscribe to the peak gold theory are correct, we could see significantly decreased gold production within our lifetimes. Gold could get more expensive as a result, which would greatly benefit gold owners, while those looking to buy gold would have to pay a lot more.
What Peak Gold Means for You
If you already own gold, peak gold could mean that the value of your gold assets could increase significantly. And if you think you can wait for years to buy gold, then it’s possible that the gold price could rise so much by then that you’re priced out of the market.
Of course, all of this could be much ado about nothing. Peak oil predictions have been anything but accurate, and the future is a tough thing to predict in any case. It could very well happen that gold production decreases but gold prices increase enough to keep marginal producing mines open longer.
Still, if there is a possibility that peak gold could be true, could it hurt to position yourself to take advantage of it? After all, owning gold can already benefit you through portfolio diversification, inflation hedging, and acting as a safe haven. If you take advantage of those benefits and also position yourself to reap the gains in the case that peak gold turns out to be true, that would be a win-win situation.
With over a decade of experience, over $1 billion in precious metals placements, and thousands of satisfied customers, Goldco has everything you need to help you benefit from owning gold. Whether you want to protect your retirement savings with a gold IRA or buy coins to store at home, Goldco’s experts have helped people just like you harness gold’s benefits. Give us a call today and learn more about how to put gold to work for you.
Trevor Gerszt is the founder and CEO of Goldco, a precious metals dealer in Los Angeles. For more than 20 years, Trevor has sought out ways to help people build long-term wealth through the security and stability of precious metals and other alternative assets. Goldco is A+ Rated by the Better Business Bureau, a 5-Time INC 500 Winner and has countless 5-Star Reviews for its quality customer service, dependability and strong reputation.
© 2023 Newsmax Finance. All rights reserved.
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While many people may think the earth is a source of unlimited energy and raw materials, that isn’t necessarily the case. And while we may be familiar with the depletion of above-ground resources like forests, jungles, lakes, and rivers, many of us don’t give any thought to the depletion of underground resources.
The concept of peak oil is tied into the concept of resource depletion, the idea that oil resources are finite, and that at some point the available stores of oil that can be produced will no longer be economically viable to extract, and so oil production will peak at some point before entering an inexorable decline.
The same theory has
|
been applied to gold too, with the theory being that gold production will peak at some point and then decline as all economically viable gold to be mined will be exhausted. And now some researchers have put a date on that.
The Gold Mining Process
When we think of gold mining, many of us naturally think of the California ‘49ers, panning for gold in streams and creeks. Or we may think of underground mines out in the West, or deep earth mines in South Africa, with loads of rich ore being brought to the surface in railcars or elevators.
The reality of much of the world’s gold mining today, though, is that it takes place in large open pit mines, in which thousands of tons of rock are removed, crushed, and subjected to chemical treatments that remove the gold from them. A high grade gold mine is one that contains 8-10 grams of gold per ton of rock. In other words, it would take 3-4 tons of rock to get a single ounce of gold.
Some of the world’s largest gold mines produce over a million ounces of gold per year, meaning that they’re processing massive amounts of rock. Naturally that is very energy intensive, capital intensive, and expensive. So the idea that at some point there may no longer be enough gold deposits rich enough to profitably mine seems to make sense.
Some experts predict that the world’s gold resources will be effectively depleted by 2050, a mere 27 years away. And what happens then?
Sources of Gold Supply
Right now mining production accounts for about 75%-80% of world gold production in any given year. Recycling accounts for the rest of it.
If gold mines were to cease producing gold in meaningful amounts, because it was no longer profitable to do so, then it would fall on recycling of above-ground gold stores to make up the shortfall between demand and supply. Unlike oil, which is consumed in the form of gasoline, motor oil, or diesel, and is thus lost forever, most of the gold that has ever been produced remains in existence above ground in some form or another.
Could gold recycling pick up enough to equilibrate gold demand and supply? It’s hard to think that the gold-plated pins on our computer chips could ever be crucial to gold supply, but that could very well become reality in a few decades. Or the gold jewelry and gold coins we currently have squirreled away could end up being melted down to satisfy growing gold demand.
One would imagine that the gold price would have to rise too in order to induce people to give up their valued jewelry and coins. That’s the natural consequence of a decrease in supply, if demand remains the same.
If the predictions of those who subscribe to the peak gold theory are correct, we could see significantly decreased gold production within our lifetimes. Gold could get more expensive as a result, which would greatly benefit gold owners, while those looking to buy gold would have to pay a lot more.
What Peak Gold Means for You
If you already own gold, peak gold could mean that the value of your gold assets could increase significantly. And if you think you can wait for years to buy gold, then it’s possible that the gold price could rise so much by then that you’re priced out of the market.
Of course, all of this could be much ado about nothing. Peak oil predictions have been anything but accurate, and the future is a tough thing to predict in any case. It could very well happen that gold production decreases but gold prices increase enough to keep marginal producing mines open longer.
Still, if there is a possibility that peak gold could be true, could it hurt to position yourself to take advantage of it? After all, owning gold can already benefit you through portfolio diversification, inflation hedging, and acting as a safe haven. If you take advantage of those benefits and also position yourself to reap the gains in the case that peak gold turns out to be true, that would be a win-win situation.
With over a decade of experience, over $1 billion in precious metals placements, and thousands of satisfied customers, Goldco has everything you need to help you benefit from owning gold. Whether you want to protect your retirement savings with a gold IRA or buy coins to store at home, Goldco’s experts have helped people just like you harness gold’s benefits. Give us a call today and learn more about how to put gold to work for you.
Trevor Gerszt is the founder and CEO of Goldco, a precious metals dealer in Los Angeles. For more than 20 years, Trevor has sought out ways to help people build long-term wealth through the security and stability of precious metals and other alternative assets. Goldco is A+ Rated by the Better Business Bureau, a 5-Time INC 500 Winner and has countless 5-Star Reviews for its quality customer service, dependability and strong reputation.
© 2023 Newsmax Finance. All rights reserved.
|
The electric car revolution hinges on equitable, affordable charging
The electric vehicle (EV) movement is growing nationwide, but people who live in apartments, low-income neighborhoods and rural areas without easy charging access could get left behind.
Why it matters: If the benefits of cleaner transportation — better air quality, less noise, lower energy costs — don't flow equitably to all Americans, EV adoption is likely to stall, limiting the country's ability to achieve its climate goals.
- In a first of its kind study, University of Michigan researchers found that the lowest-income U.S. households would keep experiencing the highest transportation energy burdens even if all gas-powered cars were replaced with EVs.
- "We identified disparities that will require targeted policies to promote energy justice in lower-income communities," lead author Jesse Vega-Perkins said in a release, pointing toward charging subsidies and better public transportation.
Where it stands: With most EVs priced like luxury cars, early adopters have typically been wealthy people who live in single-family homes where it's relatively easy to install a home charger.
- When more affordable cars like GM's $30,000 plug-in Chevrolet Equinox hit the market in 2024, access to public charging will become more important — especially for those who don't have a private garage or driveway.
- A recent Axios analysis found that public chargers are easier to find in whiter, wealthier neighborhoods.
What's happening: The federal government is aiming to spur more investment in public charging with $7.5 billion allocated over five years under the 2021 infrastructure law.
- The package includes $5 billion for highway chargers and $2.5 billion for other community charging sites.
- The feds' goal is to install 500,000 EV fast-chargers across America, starting along interstate highways.
- Once a reliable nationwide charging network is established — meaning plugs every 50 miles along major highways — states can use leftover funds to install chargers in other places, including disadvantaged neighborhoods, multi-family buildings, and rural or tribal areas.
Between the lines: Equity is supposed to be a focus of the program, even for highway chargers.
- An executive order signed by President Biden in 2021 requires that 40% of the overall benefits of federally funded programs go to disadvantaged communities.
Yes, but: That doesn't mean 40% of all charging infrastructure must be installed in disadvantaged communities.
- Rather, it means each state must identify, prioritize and measure the total benefits that flow from federally funded EV charging infrastructure, including job growth and more.
What they're saying: "It’s good that Uncle Sam is writing big checks to do what the private sector hasn't done on its own," John Gartner, senior director of the Center for Sustainable Energy, tells Axios.
- His nonprofit helps states manage EV charging programs, like California's new $30 million rebate project to offset the cost of installing chargers in disadvantaged communities.
Reality check: Installing more public chargers doesn't fully address inequity issues because it's more expensive to charge at a public station than at home.
- Residents of single-family homes have access to low-cost, off-peak rates from their regulated utility. Users of public chargers, however, must pay whatever fee the operator chooses — often double or more the cost of home charging.
- The average price of electricity in the U.S. is 16 cents per kilowatt-hour, while public charging rates can be anywhere from 30 cents to 60 cents per kilowatt-hour.
- While recharging your EV at home might cost about $10, it's likely to cost $20 or $30 at a public charger, based on typical rates and figures.
What's needed: States should update building codes to provide metered EV charging access for all residents of multi-family homes, advocates say.
- "If electricity is more expensive for cars of people living in apartments, they'll be slower to adopt, whether rich or poor," says Marc Geller, co-founder of Plug In America.
- "You can't rapidly electrify if everyone doesn't get to participate."
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The electric car revolution hinges on equitable, affordable charging
The electric vehicle (EV) movement is growing nationwide, but people who live in apartments, low-income neighborhoods and rural areas without easy charging access could get left behind.
Why it matters: If the benefits of cleaner transportation — better air quality, less noise, lower energy costs — don't flow equitably to all Americans, EV adoption is likely to stall, limiting the country's ability to achieve its climate goals.
- In a first of its kind study, University of Michigan researchers found that the lowest-income U.S. households would keep experiencing the highest transportation energy burdens even if
|
all gas-powered cars were replaced with EVs.
- "We identified disparities that will require targeted policies to promote energy justice in lower-income communities," lead author Jesse Vega-Perkins said in a release, pointing toward charging subsidies and better public transportation.
Where it stands: With most EVs priced like luxury cars, early adopters have typically been wealthy people who live in single-family homes where it's relatively easy to install a home charger.
- When more affordable cars like GM's $30,000 plug-in Chevrolet Equinox hit the market in 2024, access to public charging will become more important — especially for those who don't have a private garage or driveway.
- A recent Axios analysis found that public chargers are easier to find in whiter, wealthier neighborhoods.
What's happening: The federal government is aiming to spur more investment in public charging with $7.5 billion allocated over five years under the 2021 infrastructure law.
- The package includes $5 billion for highway chargers and $2.5 billion for other community charging sites.
- The feds' goal is to install 500,000 EV fast-chargers across America, starting along interstate highways.
- Once a reliable nationwide charging network is established — meaning plugs every 50 miles along major highways — states can use leftover funds to install chargers in other places, including disadvantaged neighborhoods, multi-family buildings, and rural or tribal areas.
Between the lines: Equity is supposed to be a focus of the program, even for highway chargers.
- An executive order signed by President Biden in 2021 requires that 40% of the overall benefits of federally funded programs go to disadvantaged communities.
Yes, but: That doesn't mean 40% of all charging infrastructure must be installed in disadvantaged communities.
- Rather, it means each state must identify, prioritize and measure the total benefits that flow from federally funded EV charging infrastructure, including job growth and more.
What they're saying: "It’s good that Uncle Sam is writing big checks to do what the private sector hasn't done on its own," John Gartner, senior director of the Center for Sustainable Energy, tells Axios.
- His nonprofit helps states manage EV charging programs, like California's new $30 million rebate project to offset the cost of installing chargers in disadvantaged communities.
Reality check: Installing more public chargers doesn't fully address inequity issues because it's more expensive to charge at a public station than at home.
- Residents of single-family homes have access to low-cost, off-peak rates from their regulated utility. Users of public chargers, however, must pay whatever fee the operator chooses — often double or more the cost of home charging.
- The average price of electricity in the U.S. is 16 cents per kilowatt-hour, while public charging rates can be anywhere from 30 cents to 60 cents per kilowatt-hour.
- While recharging your EV at home might cost about $10, it's likely to cost $20 or $30 at a public charger, based on typical rates and figures.
What's needed: States should update building codes to provide metered EV charging access for all residents of multi-family homes, advocates say.
- "If electricity is more expensive for cars of people living in apartments, they'll be slower to adopt, whether rich or poor," says Marc Geller, co-founder of Plug In America.
- "You can't rapidly electrify if everyone doesn't get to participate."
|
Given that Sir John A. Macdonald died in 1891, the facts of his life are obviously unchangeable. The story of his life, however, has changed dramatically in recent years.
During his life, and for well over a century after his death, Macdonald was regarded as Canada’s foremost founding father and one of the country’s most colourful characters. Confederation was very much Macdonald’s singular achievement—the product of his masterful skill at negotiation, plus plenty of patience and resolve. His contemporaries also praised his sunny disposition and lively sense of humour.
While Macdonald’s fondness for the bottle and involvement in a serious political scandal would eventually temper history’s judgement, he was nevertheless considered a nation-builder worthy of celebration and veneration. Today, on the other hand, he is routinely cast as a war criminal—the “architect of genocide against Indigenous People” as one teachers union put it. Since 2020, statues of Macdonald have been pulled down in numerous Canadian cities, including Hamilton, Montreal, Victoria, Charlottetown, and Toronto.
Yet a proper and balanced consideration of Macdonald’s life reveals that Canada’s first prime minister was directly and deliberately responsible for saving the lives of untold numbers of indigenous people. It is easily argued, in fact, that no Canadian politician before or since has had such a salutary impact on the fate of Canada’s native population. Given the temper of our times, this is not likely to be a popular notion. But that does not make it any less true.
Avoiding War and Abiding by Treaties
Canada’s treatment of its indigenous people under Macdonald is best understood in comparison with that of the native population in the United States. Given the geographically arbitrary location of the Canada-US border, we can consider the divergent experiences on either side of it to constitute a natural (albeit, for some, decidedly tragic) experiment. The results very much favour Macdonald’s Canada.
By and large, American settlers entered indigenous lands ahead of any formal government presence, and without negotiation with the original inhabitants. What treaties were signed between native tribes and the government were often abrogated as soon as it was in the interests of white settlers to do so.
This process—what might be considered a “settlement first, negotiation second” approach—inevitably led to conflict and war. In 1890, as part of its regular census of the native population, the US Congress requested a calculation of all lives lost in the more than 40 individual wars that had been fought between indigenous tribes and American settlers or government troops since the signing of the US Constitution in 1789. The government’s best estimate for this hundred-year period put the death toll at 45,000 natives and 20,000 white soldiers and settlers. A more recent academic study using more advanced statistical methods raises the native death toll to 60,000.
Looking only at conflicts in the American West between 1850 and 1890—the period most relevant to the settling of Canada’s Prairies—the Encyclopedia of Indian Wars indicates that 6,600 whites and 15,000 natives were killed or wounded in battles during this four-decade span.(It should be noted that these figures do not include the loss of life caused by government policies carried out at gunpoint outside of war. The Trail of Tears, for example, is estimated to have caused 4,000 to 8,000 native deaths, an astounding casualty rate of 25–50 percent.)
Standing in stark and—from the Canadian perspective—greatly uplifting contrast to these appalling figures is a companion document to the 1890 US Congress report, concerning the Canadian experience. Significantly, it makes no mention of any death toll arising from “Indian Wars” in this country. This was not an oversight. Since the British conquest of New France in 1761, there were no significant wars in what is now Canada prior to the Riel Rebellion of 1885. And this solitary armed conflict was a Métis uprising notable for its lack of large-scale native participation; the First Nation death toll from the entire conflagration was no more than a few dozen.
Such a long and, it must be said, happy period of peaceful relations between indigenous and white populations in Canada was largely the result of British policy that sought to make and keep treaties with native communities. Recall that one of the American Revolution’s underlying causes was the British colonial government’s determination to prevent white settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains, a commitment made in the Royal Proclamation of 1763. The British approach is best characterized as “negotiation first, settlement second.”
As Canada’s first prime minister, Macdonald was extremely proud of this legacy of peaceful co-operation and co-habitation. And he was determined to maintain such a policy while overseeing the settlement of Canada’s West.
The creation of the North-West Mounted Police
Another key piece of Macdonald’s plan to avoid white/native conflict in Canada’s new western territory was to create a police force that would establish a system of law and order on the Prairies ahead of white settlement—again, in contrast to the American experience.
The North-West Mounted Police (NWMP), the precursor to today’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police, was meant to deter incursions from the United States and protect the legal rights of both natives and settlers once settlement began. Notwithstanding claims that the modern-day RCMP is riven with racism and sexism, the force’s very existence stands as testimony to the Canadian government’s intention to protect the native population from depredation and genocide.
The design of the NWMP was deeply influenced by a report from Lt. William Francis Butler, a British soldier who toured the Canadian west at Macdonald’s request in 1871. Butler had previous travelled the American Plains and was outraged by the “terrible, heart-sickening deeds of cruelty and rapacious infamy” arising from the American “wars of extinction” waged against indigenous people. He was determined that Canada should avoid such a disaster, and proposed the creation of a mounted police force and system of travelling magistrates to protect the indigenous population and bring a formal process for justice to the Prairies. Macdonald wholly embraced this vision.
Settlement of the Canadian west began in earnest in the early 1880s, and led, as expected, to increased instances of conflict between settlers and natives on and off reserve lands. Considering the accusations made against Macdonald today, it is noteworthy that he was criticized in his time for instructing the NWMP not to show favouritism toward white settlers. Rather, he argued, it was their proper role to protect the rights of native and settler alike.
Macdonald wished to install a functioning justice system in the Canadian west prior to white settlement, to protect native interests. His enlightened view on this score will no doubt come as a surprise to his many present-day detractors. But again, it is part of the true historical record. Through such policies, Macdonald undoubtedly saved many native lives from American-style frontier “justice.”
The arrival of smallpox to North America was disastrous for native populations across the continent, since they had no natural resistance to this deadly disease. In the 1830s, for example, an epidemic originating in the American west migrated north and killed three quarters of all Natives living in the Edmonton area.
Prior to Confederation, the governments of Upper and Lower Canada, under the joint leadership of Macdonald and George-Étienne Cartier, had organized a vaccination campaign for provincial native populations as part of a comprehensive public health program. This was highly effective, and the effects were quickly felt.
Once Canada took over the Hudson’s Bay Company lands, smallpox vaccination was gradually expanded to include all native Canadians in the western territories as well. During the Liberal administration of Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie, Dr. Daniel Hagarty was appointed medical superintendent for the Canadian west and given the huge responsibility of vaccinating the entire indigenous population. This objective was maintained following Macdonald’s return to power in 1878. And it was tremendously successful. In some native communities, the vaccination rate hit 100 percent, a remarkable feat that is rarely duplicated today.
This nation-wide policy was so successful that in 1885, when a particularly deadly smallpox outbreak killed 3,000 residents of Montreal, the Kahnewake native reserve across the river reported “but very few cases” of the disease. Everyone on the reserve had already been vaccinated by the federal government.
Untold numbers of indigenous people died throughout the Canadian west prior to the 1870s as a result of smallpox. Yet due to the commitment of Liberal and Conservative administrations, the death toll among native Canadians from the disease by the 1880s and beyond was close to zero. Macdonald deserves his share of the credit for this fact.
Famine Relief for Natives on the Prairies
The gravest charges against Macdonald’s legacy involve his role in the famine among the indigenous population of the Prairies following the collapse of North America’s buffalo herds in the late 1870s. The claim that Macdonald was responsible for a “state-sponsored attack on Indigenous communities” by denying food relief in order to open the Prairies to white settlement is forcefully made in the 2014 book Clearing the Plains, by University of Saskatchewan historian and notable Macdonald critic James Daschuk.
Perhaps the most stinging indictment comes from Macdonald’s own words. Daschuk twice quotes Macdonald saying, in 1882, that his government was “doing all we can, by refusing food until the Indians are on the verge of starvation, to reduce the expense.” This line is also repeated in many current-day condemnations of Macdonald as evidence of his lack of compassion for indigenous people.
The near-extinction of the continental buffalo herds caused tremendous hardship for Canada’s western indigenous communities, which depended on the meat, bones, and hide of the buffalo for much of their sustenance and supplies. While this outcome was widely predicted in the late 19th century, it occurred much faster than anyone expected.
When the famine arrived with unexpected swiftness in 1878, the government reacted as its treaties dictated. Macdonald told the House of Commons that the “absolute failure of the usual food supply of the Indians in the North-West” created the “necessity of a large expenditure in order to save them from absolute starvation.” A year later, Macdonald announced a special council to investigate the food crisis and to “supply food to the Indians.” Natives living on reserves were provided aid, mostly flour and bacon, as per the government’s obligations. Tribes not living on their reserve land, however, had their relief provisions withheld or reduced in order to induce them to move onto reserves as a negotiation tactic. Macdonald describes his policy in more detail in 1886 House of Commons debates:
To the Indians who go upon their reserves we give food until they are able to support themselves, but we reduce them to half rations when they are simply wandering and demoralised Indians … When these people are hanging about the Government stores and offices, we reduce them to as low a ration as is sufficient to keep life in their bodies; but we tell them: ‘Go to your stations and we will give you food to take you there, and you will get full rations until you are able to support yourselves.’
In making this statement, Macdonald was responding to the charge of excessive generosity, which had been made by members of the Liberal opposition. And while “half rations” may sound draconian to modern ears, and was no doubt uncomfortable, it was not a death sentence.
Keep in mind that no treaty obligated the federal government to provide any rations to natives living off-reserve. Even Daschuk acknowledges that “Rations kept many from starving.” The reduction for some was meant to encourage natives to return to their reserves, where the treaties they signed required them to be. Recall that it was this strict and legalistic approach to treaties that distinguished Canada’s native experience from the bloody and arbitrary American approach.
Macdonald allocated considerable government resources to fulfilling its famine-relief duties. In 1878, the federal budget for Indian Affairs was a rather modest $276,000. By the peak of the famine in 1884, this item had grown to $1.1 million, outweighing National Defence by a substantial margin.
Residential schools also figure prominently in popular claims that Macdonald was responsible for a “genocide” of indigenous people. In fact, the first such schools appeared in Canada in 1695, long before Macdonald’s tenure. And their application to western Canada cannot properly be regarded as a government plot to permanently eliminate native culture. Under the seven numbered treaties, the federal government was obligated to build and staff such schools only when requested to do so by native leaders, or, as Treaty Six clearly states, “whenever the Indians of the reserve shall desire it.”
And they clearly did desire it. During Macdonald’s tenure as prime minister, no fewer than 185 on-reserve day schools and 20 residential schools were built. This reveals a strong interest among native leaders to have their children given a western-style education, as well as a preference for local over residential schools at this time.
And attendance was entirely voluntary. Although the Progressive movement across North America at this time was pushing governments everywhere to make schooling universally compulsory, Macdonald resisted this for native children. Without parental support, he believed, native education would not succeed. Accordingly, it was left up to native parents to decide whether their offspring should go to school. This policy continued long after Macdonald’s death. As late as 1920, attendance at all native schools in Canada was still entirely voluntary.
Macdonald’s legacy is complicated by the passage of time and changing perspectives. But through careful study of his own words and deeds, as well as the reports and actions of his officials, contemporaries, native chiefs, and political opponents, what emerges is a clear and powerful picture of his enlightened view towards indigenous people and his strong sense of moral purpose. If Macdonald’s story has changed, it’s because Canadian society no longer understands its own history.
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Given that Sir John A. Macdonald died in 1891, the facts of his life are obviously unchangeable. The story of his life, however, has changed dramatically in recent years.
During his life, and for well over a century after his death, Macdonald was regarded as Canada’s foremost founding father and one of the country’s most colourful characters. Confederation was very much Macdonald’s singular achievement—the product of his masterful skill at negotiation, plus plenty of patience and resolve. His contemporaries also praised his sunny disposition and lively sense of humour.
While Macdonald’s fondness for the bottle and involvement in a serious political scandal
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would eventually temper history’s judgement, he was nevertheless considered a nation-builder worthy of celebration and veneration. Today, on the other hand, he is routinely cast as a war criminal—the “architect of genocide against Indigenous People” as one teachers union put it. Since 2020, statues of Macdonald have been pulled down in numerous Canadian cities, including Hamilton, Montreal, Victoria, Charlottetown, and Toronto.
Yet a proper and balanced consideration of Macdonald’s life reveals that Canada’s first prime minister was directly and deliberately responsible for saving the lives of untold numbers of indigenous people. It is easily argued, in fact, that no Canadian politician before or since has had such a salutary impact on the fate of Canada’s native population. Given the temper of our times, this is not likely to be a popular notion. But that does not make it any less true.
Avoiding War and Abiding by Treaties
Canada’s treatment of its indigenous people under Macdonald is best understood in comparison with that of the native population in the United States. Given the geographically arbitrary location of the Canada-US border, we can consider the divergent experiences on either side of it to constitute a natural (albeit, for some, decidedly tragic) experiment. The results very much favour Macdonald’s Canada.
By and large, American settlers entered indigenous lands ahead of any formal government presence, and without negotiation with the original inhabitants. What treaties were signed between native tribes and the government were often abrogated as soon as it was in the interests of white settlers to do so.
This process—what might be considered a “settlement first, negotiation second” approach—inevitably led to conflict and war. In 1890, as part of its regular census of the native population, the US Congress requested a calculation of all lives lost in the more than 40 individual wars that had been fought between indigenous tribes and American settlers or government troops since the signing of the US Constitution in 1789. The government’s best estimate for this hundred-year period put the death toll at 45,000 natives and 20,000 white soldiers and settlers. A more recent academic study using more advanced statistical methods raises the native death toll to 60,000.
Looking only at conflicts in the American West between 1850 and 1890—the period most relevant to the settling of Canada’s Prairies—the Encyclopedia of Indian Wars indicates that 6,600 whites and 15,000 natives were killed or wounded in battles during this four-decade span.(It should be noted that these figures do not include the loss of life caused by government policies carried out at gunpoint outside of war. The Trail of Tears, for example, is estimated to have caused 4,000 to 8,000 native deaths, an astounding casualty rate of 25–50 percent.)
Standing in stark and—from the Canadian perspective—greatly uplifting contrast to these appalling figures is a companion document to the 1890 US Congress report, concerning the Canadian experience. Significantly, it makes no mention of any death toll arising from “Indian Wars” in this country. This was not an oversight. Since the British conquest of New France in 1761, there were no significant wars in what is now Canada prior to the Riel Rebellion of 1885. And this solitary armed conflict was a Métis uprising notable for its lack of large-scale native participation; the First Nation death toll from the entire conflagration was no more than a few dozen.
Such a long and, it must be said, happy period of peaceful relations between indigenous and white populations in Canada was largely the result of British policy that sought to make and keep treaties with native communities. Recall that one of the American Revolution’s underlying causes was the British colonial government’s determination to prevent white settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains, a commitment made in the Royal Proclamation of 1763. The British approach is best characterized as “negotiation first, settlement second.”
As Canada’s first prime minister, Macdonald was extremely proud of this legacy of peaceful co-operation and co-habitation. And he was determined to maintain such a policy while overseeing the settlement of Canada’s West.
The creation of the North-West Mounted Police
Another key piece of Macdonald’s plan to avoid white/native conflict in Canada’s new western territory was to create a police force that would establish a system of law and order on the Prairies ahead of white settlement—again, in contrast to the American experience.
The North-West Mounted Police (NWMP), the precursor to today’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police, was meant to deter incursions from the United States and protect the legal rights of both natives and settlers once settlement began. Notwithstanding claims that the modern-day RCMP is riven with racism and sexism, the force’s very existence stands as testimony to the Canadian government’s intention to protect the native population from depredation and genocide.
The design of the NWMP was deeply influenced by a report from Lt. William Francis Butler, a British soldier who toured the Canadian west at Macdonald’s request in 1871. Butler had previous travelled the American Plains and was outraged by the “terrible, heart-sickening deeds of cruelty and rapacious infamy” arising from the American “wars of extinction” waged against indigenous people. He was determined that Canada should avoid such a disaster, and proposed the creation of a mounted police force and system of travelling magistrates to protect the indigenous population and bring a formal process for justice to the Prairies. Macdonald wholly embraced this vision.
Settlement of the Canadian west began in earnest in the early 1880s, and led, as expected, to increased instances of conflict between settlers and natives on and off reserve lands. Considering the accusations made against Macdonald today, it is noteworthy that he was criticized in his time for instructing the NWMP not to show favouritism toward white settlers. Rather, he argued, it was their proper role to protect the rights of native and settler alike.
Macdonald wished to install a functioning justice system in the Canadian west prior to white settlement, to protect native interests. His enlightened view on this score will no doubt come as a surprise to his many present-day detractors. But again, it is part of the true historical record. Through such policies, Macdonald undoubtedly saved many native lives from American-style frontier “justice.”
The arrival of smallpox to North America was disastrous for native populations across the continent, since they had no natural resistance to this deadly disease. In the 1830s, for example, an epidemic originating in the American west migrated north and killed three quarters of all Natives living in the Edmonton area.
Prior to Confederation, the governments of Upper and Lower Canada, under the joint leadership of Macdonald and George-Étienne Cartier, had organized a vaccination campaign for provincial native populations as part of a comprehensive public health program. This was highly effective, and the effects were quickly felt.
Once Canada took over the Hudson’s Bay Company lands, smallpox vaccination was gradually expanded to include all native Canadians in the western territories as well. During the Liberal administration of Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie, Dr. Daniel Hagarty was appointed medical superintendent for the Canadian west and given the huge responsibility of vaccinating the entire indigenous population. This objective was maintained following Macdonald’s return to power in 1878. And it was tremendously successful. In some native communities, the vaccination rate hit 100 percent, a remarkable feat that is rarely duplicated today.
This nation-wide policy was so successful that in 1885, when a particularly deadly smallpox outbreak killed 3,000 residents of Montreal, the Kahnewake native reserve across the river reported “but very few cases” of the disease. Everyone on the reserve had already been vaccinated by the federal government.
Untold numbers of indigenous people died throughout the Canadian west prior to the 1870s as a result of smallpox. Yet due to the commitment of Liberal and Conservative administrations, the death toll among native Canadians from the disease by the 1880s and beyond was close to zero. Macdonald deserves his share of the credit for this fact.
Famine Relief for Natives on the Prairies
The gravest charges against Macdonald’s legacy involve his role in the famine among the indigenous population of the Prairies following the collapse of North America’s buffalo herds in the late 1870s. The claim that Macdonald was responsible for a “state-sponsored attack on Indigenous communities” by denying food relief in order to open the Prairies to white settlement is forcefully made in the 2014 book Clearing the Plains, by University of Saskatchewan historian and notable Macdonald critic James Daschuk.
Perhaps the most stinging indictment comes from Macdonald’s own words. Daschuk twice quotes Macdonald saying, in 1882, that his government was “doing all we can, by refusing food until the Indians are on the verge of starvation, to reduce the expense.” This line is also repeated in many current-day condemnations of Macdonald as evidence of his lack of compassion for indigenous people.
The near-extinction of the continental buffalo herds caused tremendous hardship for Canada’s western indigenous communities, which depended on the meat, bones, and hide of the buffalo for much of their sustenance and supplies. While this outcome was widely predicted in the late 19th century, it occurred much faster than anyone expected.
When the famine arrived with unexpected swiftness in 1878, the government reacted as its treaties dictated. Macdonald told the House of Commons that the “absolute failure of the usual food supply of the Indians in the North-West” created the “necessity of a large expenditure in order to save them from absolute starvation.” A year later, Macdonald announced a special council to investigate the food crisis and to “supply food to the Indians.” Natives living on reserves were provided aid, mostly flour and bacon, as per the government’s obligations. Tribes not living on their reserve land, however, had their relief provisions withheld or reduced in order to induce them to move onto reserves as a negotiation tactic. Macdonald describes his policy in more detail in 1886 House of Commons debates:
To the Indians who go upon their reserves we give food until they are able to support themselves, but we reduce them to half rations when they are simply wandering and demoralised Indians … When these people are hanging about the Government stores and offices, we reduce them to as low a ration as is sufficient to keep life in their bodies; but we tell them: ‘Go to your stations and we will give you food to take you there, and you will get full rations until you are able to support yourselves.’
In making this statement, Macdonald was responding to the charge of excessive generosity, which had been made by members of the Liberal opposition. And while “half rations” may sound draconian to modern ears, and was no doubt uncomfortable, it was not a death sentence.
Keep in mind that no treaty obligated the federal government to provide any rations to natives living off-reserve. Even Daschuk acknowledges that “Rations kept many from starving.” The reduction for some was meant to encourage natives to return to their reserves, where the treaties they signed required them to be. Recall that it was this strict and legalistic approach to treaties that distinguished Canada’s native experience from the bloody and arbitrary American approach.
Macdonald allocated considerable government resources to fulfilling its famine-relief duties. In 1878, the federal budget for Indian Affairs was a rather modest $276,000. By the peak of the famine in 1884, this item had grown to $1.1 million, outweighing National Defence by a substantial margin.
Residential schools also figure prominently in popular claims that Macdonald was responsible for a “genocide” of indigenous people. In fact, the first such schools appeared in Canada in 1695, long before Macdonald’s tenure. And their application to western Canada cannot properly be regarded as a government plot to permanently eliminate native culture. Under the seven numbered treaties, the federal government was obligated to build and staff such schools only when requested to do so by native leaders, or, as Treaty Six clearly states, “whenever the Indians of the reserve shall desire it.”
And they clearly did desire it. During Macdonald’s tenure as prime minister, no fewer than 185 on-reserve day schools and 20 residential schools were built. This reveals a strong interest among native leaders to have their children given a western-style education, as well as a preference for local over residential schools at this time.
And attendance was entirely voluntary. Although the Progressive movement across North America at this time was pushing governments everywhere to make schooling universally compulsory, Macdonald resisted this for native children. Without parental support, he believed, native education would not succeed. Accordingly, it was left up to native parents to decide whether their offspring should go to school. This policy continued long after Macdonald’s death. As late as 1920, attendance at all native schools in Canada was still entirely voluntary.
Macdonald’s legacy is complicated by the passage of time and changing perspectives. But through careful study of his own words and deeds, as well as the reports and actions of his officials, contemporaries, native chiefs, and political opponents, what emerges is a clear and powerful picture of his enlightened view towards indigenous people and his strong sense of moral purpose. If Macdonald’s story has changed, it’s because Canadian society no longer understands its own history.
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July has been the hottest month in 137 years of El Paso weather records, with an average temperature almost 3 degrees warmer than any previous month.
Thirty of 31 days of July – as well as the last 15 days of June – saw temperatures soar past 100 degrees in El Paso. A 44-day consecutive streak of triple-digit temperatures came to an end on Sunday, when the temperature only reached 97 degrees. But the high returned to 100 on Monday, and the National Weather Service forecast says El Paso could be at the start of another streak of triple-digit heat that could last for several weeks.
Climate change has driven up summer temperatures in El Paso for decades, but the extended heatwave of the past six weeks is unprecedented.
“The duration and extent of this heat wave (in the Southwest) has been mind-boggling,” Brian Kahn, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told the NASA publication Earth Observatory.
He said the extended heatwave has been caused by a ridge of high pressure known as a heat dome that has persisted over the southern United States. Scientists say heat domes are created when changes in Pacific Ocean temperatures the previous winter generate strong atmospheric systems that create vast areas of sweltering heat that then get trapped under the high-pressure “dome.”
“There is a close relationship between how hot the surface is and the depth of the heat dome, and this particular system has extended high into the atmosphere for weeks on end,” Kahn said.
The streak of 44 consecutive days above 100 is almost double the previous record for consecutive triple-digit heat in El Paso, 23 straight days in June and July of 1994.
In a tweet Sunday, National Weather Service forecasters said triple digit temperatures will quickly resume and could last several weeks, perhaps again surpassing the 1994 streak of 23 days.
The tweet also said El Paso may surpass another 1994 record – 62 days above 100 degrees during the year.
The forecast calls for a likelihood of rain at the beginning of the week, which could help keep temperatures just under 100 earlier in the week. But temperatures are expected to hit 105 again by Friday and may reach 108 over the weekend.
Rain has been a rarity during the heat dome, with El Paso only recording a third of an inch of rain since the beginning of June. Normal rainfall for El Paso in June and July is about 2.5 inches.
The record streak of 100-plus temperatures began on June 16. During the streak, El Paso’s high temperature averaged more than 105 degrees, almost 10 degrees above normal. The peak temperature was 111 degrees on July 19.
During the streak, El Paso’s high temperature has hit 105 or more 27 times. That is more than the total number of 105-plus days between 1887 and 1957 combined.
El Paso is far from alone in seeing climate change consequences in July. It is likely to be the warmest month ever recorded on Earth, according to Copernicus Climate Change Service.
“The extreme weather which has affected many millions of people in July is unfortunately the harsh reality of climate change and a foretaste of the future,” Petteri Taalas, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization, said in a statement.
6:40 p.m. Monday, July 31: This story has been updated with final July figures.
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July has been the hottest month in 137 years of El Paso weather records, with an average temperature almost 3 degrees warmer than any previous month.
Thirty of 31 days of July – as well as the last 15 days of June – saw temperatures soar past 100 degrees in El Paso. A 44-day consecutive streak of triple-digit temperatures came to an end on Sunday, when the temperature only reached 97 degrees. But the high returned to 100 on Monday, and the National Weather Service forecast says El Paso could be at the start of another streak of triple
|
-digit heat that could last for several weeks.
Climate change has driven up summer temperatures in El Paso for decades, but the extended heatwave of the past six weeks is unprecedented.
“The duration and extent of this heat wave (in the Southwest) has been mind-boggling,” Brian Kahn, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told the NASA publication Earth Observatory.
He said the extended heatwave has been caused by a ridge of high pressure known as a heat dome that has persisted over the southern United States. Scientists say heat domes are created when changes in Pacific Ocean temperatures the previous winter generate strong atmospheric systems that create vast areas of sweltering heat that then get trapped under the high-pressure “dome.”
“There is a close relationship between how hot the surface is and the depth of the heat dome, and this particular system has extended high into the atmosphere for weeks on end,” Kahn said.
The streak of 44 consecutive days above 100 is almost double the previous record for consecutive triple-digit heat in El Paso, 23 straight days in June and July of 1994.
In a tweet Sunday, National Weather Service forecasters said triple digit temperatures will quickly resume and could last several weeks, perhaps again surpassing the 1994 streak of 23 days.
The tweet also said El Paso may surpass another 1994 record – 62 days above 100 degrees during the year.
The forecast calls for a likelihood of rain at the beginning of the week, which could help keep temperatures just under 100 earlier in the week. But temperatures are expected to hit 105 again by Friday and may reach 108 over the weekend.
Rain has been a rarity during the heat dome, with El Paso only recording a third of an inch of rain since the beginning of June. Normal rainfall for El Paso in June and July is about 2.5 inches.
The record streak of 100-plus temperatures began on June 16. During the streak, El Paso’s high temperature averaged more than 105 degrees, almost 10 degrees above normal. The peak temperature was 111 degrees on July 19.
During the streak, El Paso’s high temperature has hit 105 or more 27 times. That is more than the total number of 105-plus days between 1887 and 1957 combined.
El Paso is far from alone in seeing climate change consequences in July. It is likely to be the warmest month ever recorded on Earth, according to Copernicus Climate Change Service.
“The extreme weather which has affected many millions of people in July is unfortunately the harsh reality of climate change and a foretaste of the future,” Petteri Taalas, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization, said in a statement.
6:40 p.m. Monday, July 31: This story has been updated with final July figures.
|
Ax-1 Mission, Cargo Dragon, Crew Demo-2 Mission, Crew Dragon, Draco thrusters, Falcon 9, Inspiration4 Mission, International Space Station, LC-39A, NASA, SLC-40, SpaceX, SuperDraco
SWARUPA’S 6-PART SERIES ON ELON MUSK’S SPACEX
Discovering SpaceX: Falcon Rocket Family
Discovering SpaceX: Fleet of Recovery Ships
Discovering SpaceX: Dragon Spacecraft
Discovering SpaceX: Starlink Satellite Constellation
Discovering SpaceX: Super Heavy Starship
DISCOVERING SPACEX : DRAGON SPACECRAFT
SpaceX Dragon is a free-flying, reusable spacecraft developed for cargo and human transportation to the International Space Station (ISS) under NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program.
The extraordinary spacecraft first marked its entry in aerospace history way back in in December 2010, when its first-generation version (or Dragon-1) became the world’s first-ever private orbital spacecraft.
Since then, Dragon has been achieving historic milestones, one after another, winning admiration from the space industry and space enthusiasts across the world.
Crew Dragon is the crewed variant of the operational second generation Dragon spacecraft (or Dragon-2). It is the world’s first private spacecraft and the only American spacecraft capable of transporting humans (and cargo) to and from the ISS and beyond.
Crew Dragon is also the world’s first private spacecraft and the only spacecraft capable of flying an all-civilian crew on commercial missions to and from the ISS, and also, far beyond the ISS on space tourism missions.
Cargo Dragon is the cargo variant of the operational second generation Dragon spacecraft (or Dragon-2). It is the world’s first private spacecraft and the only American spacecraft capable of returning a significant amount of cargo back to Earth, including experiments.
As of 01.01.2023, Dragon-2 has made 15 missions to orbital space: 9 crewed missions (one uncrewed) and 6 cargo missions. All missions were to the ISS except one crewed mission, which travelled even farther than the International Space Station. Thirty people were transported to space across eight crewed missions.
CARGO DRAGON-1 (OR DRAGON-1)
Dragon-1 was the first version of SpaceX’s reusable spacecraft developed as a cargo vehicle to run resupply missions to the ISS for National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Dragon was named after the fictional “Puff the Magic Dragon” from the hit song by music group “Peter, Paul and Mary” by SpaceX Founder, Chief Engineer and CEO Elon Musk.
The unique spacecraft was introduced to the world for the first time in March 2006, when SpaceX submitted to NASA its proposal for the development of a private spacecraft to ferry cargo to the ISS for NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) demonstration program.
NASA awards Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contracts to selected American private space companies for delivery of cargo and supplies to the ISS on their privately developed spacecraft for NASA.
In December 2008, NASA awarded the first CRS contract to two companies – 6-year-old SpaceX and 26-year-old Orbital Sciences (which later became Orbital ATK, and now, Northrop Grumman). SpaceX received US$1.6 billion for 12 resupply missions (covering deliveries to 2016), while Orbital Sciences received US$ 1.9 billion for 8 resupply missions.
Dragon was developed from a blank sheet to its first mission in just over 4 years, and with the best of cutting-edge technology.
Dragon comprised a reusable space capsule and an expendable trunk module to be jettisoned prior to deorbit burn for atmospheric re-entry while returning to Earth.
Dragon high altitude drop test conducted on 12 August, 2010:
Dragon-1 capsule stood 14.4 feet (4.4 meters) tall with a diameter of 12 feet (3.66 meters). The expendable trunk measured 9.2 feet (2.8 meters) in height and 12 feet (3.66 meters) in width.
The pressurized capsule carried pressurized cargo and an unpressurized trunk housed its solar panels along with unpressurized cargo.
Altogether, Dragon was capable of carrying over 3,310 kilograms, split between pressurized cargo inside the capsule and unpressurized cargo carried in the trunk.
The Canadarm2 robotic arm of the ISS had to be used to dock Dragon to the ISS.
The Canadarm2 would reach out to grapple Dragon and prepare it to be pulled into its port on the International Space Station…
Video of a Dragon-1 capsule docking to the ISS:
From 2010 to 2020, Dragon-1 flew to and from International Space Station supplying it with resources and equipment.
All Falcon 9 launches with Dragon-1 took off from Cape Canaveral’s SLC-40 launch pad except for CRS-10, CRS-11 and CRS-12 missions which were launched from Kennedy Space Centre’s LC-39A launch pad.
The Dragon-1 capsule returned to Earth with dual drogue parachutes to slow and stabilize its descent before three main parachutes deployed to land it gently in the Pacific Ocean.
SpaceX deployed a recovery ship named NRC Quest to retrieve the capsule and its cargo from the Pacific Ocean, following splashdown.
After Dragon landing, the ship would move in to recover the capsule. Smaller fast-approach vessels were deployed to collect the parachutes from the ocean surface and assist in manoeuvring the capsule.
As soon as the capsule was recovered, NRC Quest would immediately sail towards the the Port of Los Angeles for a quick handover of the experiments to NASA.
SpaceX Dragon-1 becomes the first privately-developed spacecraft to successfully orbit and return to Earth…
In the morning of 8 December, 2010, the SpaceX COTS Demo Flight-1 (COTS-1) mission lifted off from SLC-40 pad in Florida with the first Dragon-1 spacecraft carrying a wheel of cheese as cargo atop the Falcon 9 rocket on its second launch mission to orbit.
SpaceX had secretly placed a wheel of Le Brouère (a French variant of the Swiss Gruyere, a hard yellow cheese made from cow’s milk) for a ride inside the Dragon Capsule 101.
Capsule C101, the first Dragon 1 from SpaceX production, completed all its mission objectives on this test flight. It orbited the Earth twice for about three hours before re-entering the atmosphere and parachuting into the Pacific Ocean, making a splashdown about 800 kilometres (500 miles) off the west coast of Baja California.
It landed well within the 60 by 20 kilometre recovery zone and was recovered about 20 minutes after splashdown.
Mission accomplished, 8-year-old SpaceX became the first private company to successfully launch, orbit and recover a spacecraft. And Dragon became the first privately-developed spacecraft to return safely from orbit – a feat previously achieved by just three nations (the United States, Russia, and China).
Following its achievement, the slightly-scorched cargo-carrying Dragon capsule was placed for permanent display, hanging from the ceiling, at SpaceX’s HQ cum factory in Hawthorne, California…
Since Dragon was going to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere, SpaceX had to obtain the license from the Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation. The license approved on 22 November, 2010, was the first such license awarded to a private company.
After the mission, SpaceX released photos of the cheese wheel, showing it inside a metal cylinder with a bolted cover that featured a cow wearing galoshes – a poster from the 1984 movie “Top Secret”.
Elon Musk later revealed that the wheel of cheese was inspired by a classic skit from the British comedy show “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”, in which actor John Cleese enters a cheese shop and requests dozens of oddly-named cheeses. The skit ends with the actor concluding that the shop – much like outer space – doesn’t have any cheese.
Dragon-1 becomes the first privately-developed spacecraft to successfully dock to the International Space Station…
On May 22 2012, SpaceX went through the most significant moment in the company’s history since its first successful rocket launch in September 2008. That day, a Falcon 9 took off from SLC-40 pad in Florida carrying a Dragon-1 capsule on a SpaceX COTS Demo Flight-2 (COTS-2) mission to attempt berthing with the ISS, deliver cargo to the orbiting laboratory and return to Earth.
It was Dragon’s first mission to and from the International Space Station.
Capsule C102 was the first Dragon with solar arrays. After its launch into space, the capsule fanned out its solar panels and using its 18 Draco thrusters, it proceeded on its way to the ISS.
On 25 May, Dragon got close enough to the ISS for astronaut Don Pettit to use Canadarm2, a 58-foot robotic arm on the ISS to reach out and grab the resupply spacecraft and attach it to the ISS.
With clouds and land forming a backdrop, the SpaceX Dragon commercial cargo craft is grappled by Canadian Space Agency’s Canadarm2 robotic arm at the International Space Station….
Dragon’s berthing with the ISS marked a huge milestone for SpaceX and NASA.
Dragon became the first privately-developed spacecraft in history to successfully dock to the International Space Station. It spent six days docked to the ISS, before returning to Earth with a Pacific Ocean splashdown on the 31st of May.
Capsule C102 is displayed in Kennedy Space Centre…
The two successful launches for the COTS program ware instrumental in SpaceX becoming a reliable contractor to NASA and paved the way for future contracts and missions.
Dragon-1 makes the first of its operational resupply missions to the ISS for NASA…
On 8 October, 2012, SpaceX launched the CRS-1 mission, the first of the 12 cargo resupply missions to and from the ISS under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contracts. It was Falcon 9’s fourth mission. During the launch, the first stage suffered an engine shutdown, but still got Dragon to orbit. The mission was partially successful as a secondary ORBCOMM payload was lost.
Capsule C103 achieved orbit, berthed and remained docked to the ISS for 20 days, before re-entering Earth atmosphere and splashing down in the Pacific Ocean on 28 October, 2012.
A SpaceX recovery ship, NRC Quest, retrieved Dragon and its cargo in the Pacific Ocean, following splashdown.
Since then, Dragon has flown to the ISS on CRS missions approximately twice a year, supplying the orbiting laboratory with resources and equipment and returning with cargo too.
In 2015, NASA extended SpaceX’s CRS contract to cover additional 8 resupply missions, totalling to 20 resupply missions.
Dragon-1’s first and only failure…
Dragon experienced its first and only failure during the CRS-7 mission in June 2015.
Due to a fault in the second stage, the Falcon 9 rocket disintegrated 139 seconds after lift-off. The Capsule C109 initially survived the mishap as it got ejected from the exploding launch vehicle. But its control software was not designed to survive such a mishap. As a result, the parachutes could not be opened. But still, Dragon continued transmitting data until it impacted with the ocean and was destroyed.
This failure led to all future Dragons having their software updated to be able to open parachutes in a similar scenario.
Dragon-1 becomes the first spacecraft to visit the ISS a second time since Space Shuttle Atlantis in 2011…
On 3 June, 2017, a Dragon flew to the ISS for the second time on the CRS-11 cargo resupply mission, becoming the first spacecraft to visit the ISS a second time since the Space Shuttle Atlantis in 2011.
The capsule had made its first trip in September 2014 to return to Earth a month later in October with cargo and loads of experiments.
On the CRS-11 mission, the capsule returned home in July 2017, after a month-long stay at the ISS, completing the first re-flight mission of a commercial spacecraft to and from the orbiting laboratory.
The capsule was recovered and refurbished for reuse.
Dragon-1 makes its final operational resupply missions to the ISS for NASA…
Dragon-1’s last mission was the CRS-20 cargo resupply mission launched on 7 March, 2020.
A twice-flown Capsule C112 filled with approximately 4,500 pounds of supplies and payloads for the ISS made this last Dragon-1 mission from Cape Canaveral’s SLC-40 launch pad.
It was SpaceX’s 20th and final cargo resupply mission to the ISS under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services-1 (CRS-1) contract.
The spacecraft departed the ISS on 7 April, 2020, for return to Earth.
Since the first mission in May 2012 until the last in April 2020, Dragon-1 spent over 520 days attached to the space station, delivered over 95,000 pounds of cargo, and returned over 76,000 pounds back to Earth.
The longest Dragon-1 mission from launch to splashdown lasted 39 days, 11 hours and 3 minutes.
The 13 vehicles (Capsule C101 to C113) in the Dragon-1 fleet completed 20 missions to the ISS and two COTS test missions, of which one was to the ISS.
Of the 13 capsules, 3 capsules made 3 missions each, 3 capsules made 2 missions each and the remaining 7 made a single mission.
On 1 December, 2022, a twice-flown Dragon Capsule C113 arrived at the Museum of Science and Industry (MSI) in Illinois, Chicago for its permanent exhibit.
Capsule C113 was flown twice to the International Space Station; on the CRS-12 and CRS-19 missions in 2017 and 2019 respectively…
The Dragon will join other historic spacecraft in the museum’s Henry Crown Space Centre when it debuts on public display in the spring of 2023.
An upgraded version of Dragon-1, the second generation Dragon spacecraft was developed as a reusable spacecraft to transport cargo and crew to the International Space Station and beyond.
Cargo Dragon was built to transport supplies to residents of the International Space Station. Once there, the Dragon capsules can remain stationed for months before making the return to Earth.
Crew Dragon was specifically designed to carry passengers into low earth orbit (LEO) and ferry NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station.
View of Dragon docked at the International Space Station as seen from another Dragon…
Dragon-2 docks automatically with the ISS. Its launch payload mass is 6000 kg and return payload mass is 3000 kg. The crew variant is capable of carrying seven people to orbit and back.
Both Cargo Dragon and Crew Dragon were planned to be made similar in order to speed up development of Crew Dragon. The similarity feature would minimize the design effort and simplify the human-rating process, allowing systems critical to crew and space station safety to be fully tested on unmanned demonstration flights and cargo resupply missions.
The difference between the two is that Crew Dragon has passenger seats, SuperDraco abort engines for crew escape system, life support system and cockpit controls that allow the crew to take control from the flight computer when needed.
All Crew and Cargo Dragon missions are launched from the historic LC-39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.
Dragon atop a Falcon 9 at LC-39A (right) and another Falcon 9 at SLC-40 (left)…
But in the future, SpaceX’s new Starship rocket will be launched from LC-39A. Hence SLC-40 is going to be outfitted for Dragon launches, starting first with Cargo Dragon before moving on to Crew Dragon.
Starship, once operational, will be the world’s first fully reusable and most powerful transportation system ever designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond.
Following the retirement of Dragon-1 and the start of Dragon-2 operations, SpaceX decided to move all splashdowns to the Atlantic Ocean.
The parachute system was fully redesigned from the one used in Dragon-1 capsules in order to deploy the parachutes under a variety of launch abort scenarios.
Dragon-2 has four parachutes to make a slow descent in the sea. It makes a splashdown either in the Atlantic Ocean (east of Florida) or the Gulf of Mexico, where it is recovered by SpaceX ships and returned to land for re-use.
After cleaning and refurbishment, the Dragon capsules are flown on future missions. They are reusable for a minimum five missions.
The first crewed Dragon flight took place on 30 May, 2020.
Cargo Dragon made its debut on the CRS-21 cargo resupply mission to the ISS in December 2020 under the new and operational NASA Commercial Resupply Services-2 (CRS-2) contract.
Like its predecessor, Dragon-2 spacecraft comprises a reusable capsule and an expendable trunk, which together stand around 26.7 feet (8.1m) tall, with a diameter of 13 feet (4m).
The Dragon capsule, also known as the pressurized section, allows for the transport of people as well as environmentally sensitive cargo.
Astronauts aboard the Internal Space Station have to enter the spacecraft to carry cargo, so even Cargo Dragon has a habitable cabin with air circulation, fire detection and suppression, lights, pressure control, and pressure and humidity monitoring.
Draco is SpaceX’s smallest rocket engine used as Reaction Control System (RCS) for attitude control and manoeuvring on Falcon 9 rockets and Dragon spacecraft.
Like Dragon-1, both Cargo and Crew Dragon are equipped with Draco thrusters (small engines fired in space), which are hypergolic liquid-propellant engines using a mixture of monomethyl hydrazine fuel and nitrogen tetroxide oxidizer.
Hypergolic propellants are fuels and oxidizers that ignite spontaneously on contact with each other and require no ignition source. The easy start and restart capability of hypergols make them ideal for spacecraft manoeuvring systems. Moreover, these storable propellants have very long on-orbit lifetimes for Dragon to remain berthed at the ISS for a year or more, ready to serve as an emergency “lifeboat” if necessary.
Each Draco is capable of producing 90 pounds (400 Newtons) of force in the vacuum of space.
The Draco thrusters are as important to Dragon as the large Merlin engines are to Falcon 9.
Dragon-2 is equipped with 16 Draco thrusters, placed four in each of the four engine pods of the capsule. They are fired for making orbital manoeuvres, attitude control, and to initiate Dragon’s approach and berthing with the International Space Station (ISS) and also its return to Earth.
Unlike Dragon-1, the second-generation Dragon-2 can dock to the ISS and other space habitats autonomously – that is, without requiring the help of a robotic arm or without having to be guided in by a human.
Dragon-2 is capable of fully autonomous rendezvous and docking to the ISS with manual override ability, using the NASA Docking System (NDS).
It is equipped with GPS sensors. The nosecone has cameras and imaging sensors such as Lidar (laser ranging) which measure the distance and speed of the spacecraft as it approaches the space station. The data is then transmitted to the flight computer, which uses algorithms that determine – based on the data – how to fire the thrusters to most effectively get to the docking target.
In the unlikely event of an emergency on the pad or during the climb to orbit, the Crew Dragon capsule has eight side-mounted SuperDraco engines clustered in pairs in four engine pods, which provide fault-tolerant propulsion for Dragon’s launch escape system (LES).
The SuperDraco abort engine is an advanced version of the Draco. It uses the same storable or non-cryogenic hypergolic propellant as the Draco, but it is much larger and delivers roughly 100 times the thrust of the Draco.
SuperDraco is the first space-going engine built entirely by a 3D printer and is made out of a single piece of metal, the high-strength alloy Inconel.
Each SuperDraco can produce 16,400 pounds of force for launch aborts.
Fired together at full throttle, the eight SuperDraco engines can move the spacecraft 0.5 miles – the length of over seven American football fields line up end to end – in 7.5 seconds, reaching a peak velocity of 436 mph.
Parachutes are then deployed to bring the astronauts down safely.
Crew Dragon is designed to be “two-fault tolerant”. So even if any two things fail, such as a flight computer and a thruster, the spacecraft can still bring the crew home safely.
PICA-X Heat Shield
Dragon has the world’s most powerful heat shield – SpaceX’s high performance PICA (Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator)-X heat shield, which is located at the base of the capsule.
The returning capsule enters Earth’s atmosphere at around 7 kilometres per second (15,660 miles per hour), heating the exterior of the shield to up to 1,850 degrees Celsius. Just a few inches of the PICA-X material keeps the interior of the capsule at room temperature.
Designed and developed in-house by SpaceX, the heat shield material is rigid, lightweight and ablative: it slowly burns away at high temperatures to carry away much of the extreme heat.
Dragon’s trunk not only carries unpressurized cargo but also supports the spacecraft during ascent. It has solar panels, heat-removal radiators, space for cargo, and fins to provide aerodynamic stability during emergency aborts.
The deployable solar arrays present in Dragon-1 capsules were eliminated and are now built into the trunk itself. This increases volume space and reduces the number of mechanisms on the vehicle.
Half the trunk is covered in solar panels, which provide power to Dragon during flight and while on-station. The trunk remains attached to the capsule until shortly before re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.
Dragon Launch & Splashdown
Falcon 9 launches Dragon to orbit following the same events as in satellite launches and returns to Earth.
Around 12 minutes after lift-off, the second stage separates from the Crew or Cargo Dragon spacecraft, and delivers it to orbit.
Crew Dragon separation:
Cargo Dragon separation:
Thereafter, Dragon performs a series of burns on its way to the ISS, reaching its destination at a targeted docking time…
After completing its stay at the ISS, Cargo Dragon departs for Earth with cargo. Crew Dragon departs with both crew and cargo.
The Dragon spacecraft first undocks and then performs departure burns with its Draco thrusters.
Dragon’s trunk is jettisoned following which the Draco thrusters make the de-orbit burn. Once Dragon’s de-orbit burn is complete, the nosecone is closed.
After passing through a fiery atmospheric re-entry phase, the Dragon capsule deploys dual drogue parachutes followed by four parachutes to slow its descent into the sea.
Dragon parachuting into the sea….
After splashdown, either in the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico, the capsule and crew/cargo is recovered by one of SpaceX’s two Dragon recovery ships stationed nearby…
Megan and Shannon are the two identical platform supply vessels equipped with a medical treatment facility, helipad, lifting frame and various control systems.
Under NASA requirements, recovery crews have to egress astronauts onto the recovery ship in the 60 minutes following splashdown, in all conditions.
Crew egress (or extraction) from the Dragon…
Dragon before launch and after launch…
Dragon is the only U.S. human-rated orbital transport spacecraft, the only reusable orbital crewed spacecraft and the only reusable orbital cargo spacecraft currently in operation.
SpaceX has built ten Dragon capsules, numbered C204 to C213. Of them three are operational Cargo Dragon capsules.
There are seven Crew Dragon capsules, of which four are operational and one is under construction. One capsule was destroyed and one was retired, each had flown once.
SpaceX recently decided to maintain a fleet of eight Dragon capsules in total – 5 Crew Dragon and 3 Cargo Dragon – and is targeting to reuse each Dragon capsule for about 15 flights.
SpaceX Cargo Dragon supplies cargo to the ISS under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services-2 (CRS-2) contract.
Besides SpaceX’s reusable Dragon spacecraft, NASA also awarded the CRS-2 contract to Northrop Grumman’s single-use Cygnus spacecraft, and Sierra Nevada Corporation’s (now Sierra Space) Dream Chaser spacecraft (expected to make its debut after 2022).
SpaceX was originally awarded 12 operational resupply missions, additional 3 came later in October 2020.
The operational Cargo Dragon fleet comprises three vehicles: Capsule C208, Capsule 209 and Capsule 211.
Cargo Dragon made its debut on 6 December, 2020, on the first operational resupply mission to the ISS (CRS-21) under NASA’s CRS-2 program.
Capsule C208 was first used on the CRS-21 mission. It was reflown on the CRS-23 and CRS-25 missions.
Capsule 209 was first used on the CRS-22 mission in June 2021. It flew with a heat shield from the Crew Demo-2 mission. It was the first time that a Dragon heat shield was reused. The capsule was reflown on the CRS-24 mission.
Capsule 211 was first used on CRS-26 mission in November 2022.
On 29 August 2021, SpaceX announced a new feature called Extenda-Lab installed in the Cargo Dragon, which will act as a laboratory in the advancement of science and research. It allows some powered payloads to remain on Dragon for experimentation during the duration of the mission. This is especially helpful with limited to no space on the ISS for additional projects and also saves the time taken to move payloads in and out of Dragon.
In March 2022, NASA awarded SpaceX six more cargo missions under the CRS-2 contract, to deliver supplies and equipment to the ISS through 2026.
So, 15 missions in total since the first one. The 15th mission will be CRS-35.
Till date, SpaceX has successfully delivered and returned cargo to and from the ISS on six missions since December 2020: CRS-21, CRS-22, CRS-23, CRS-24, CRS-25 and CRS-26.
Following the retirement of its Space Shuttle fleet in 2011, NASA started supporting several American space companies including SpaceX, who were working towards developing a replacement to succeed the crew orbital transportation capabilities of the Space Shuttle to fly NASA astronauts to the ISS, and restore the United States’ ability to conduct manned flights.
Then, in May 2014, Elon Musk introduced Crew Dragon to the world during an event at SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California.
In September 2014, NASA selected the proposals of SpaceX and Boeing for developing systems to provide crew transportation to and from the ISS, under its Commercial Crew Program.
SpaceX’s proposal at US$ 2.6 billion was least expensive against Boeing’s US$ 4.2 billion, but Boeing’s proposal was considered stronger.
NASA hoped to have SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft flying by 2017, but technical and funding issues pushed the timeline back by several years.
SpaceX was certified by NASA for crew transportation in November 2020. As part of the missions, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket transport up to four astronauts, along with critical cargo, to the space station. Crew Dragon has already flown five operational crewed missions to the ISS, whereas Boeing’s Starliner has yet to make its first crewed test mission due to various technical setbacks.
So Crew Dragon is the only orbital space transportation available to fly NASA astronauts and space tourists from American soil.
Till date, Crew Dragon has successfully delivered thirty people to orbit across eight missions since May 2020, when it first sent two astronauts to the ISS on the Crew Demo-2 mission for NASA. The eight missions include six for NASA – Crew Demo-2, Crew-1, Crew-2, Crew-3, Crew-4 and Crew-5 – and two civilian missions.
Crew Dragon is the first private spacecraft and also the only reusable spacecraft in the world to take humans to and from the International Space Station and beyond. It can also carry cargo in its unpressurized trunk.
It is also the only U.S. human-rated orbital crewed spacecraft and the only reusable orbital crewed spacecraft currently in operation. Its main role is to transport crews to and from the ISS under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
It can carry up to seven passengers to and from Earth orbit, and beyond. But for NASA missions, only four seats are used.
Crew Dragon Interiors
Crew Dragon combines substance with style, so it’s more like flying business class compared to the cramped interiors of spacecraft of the past and present.
The capsule has a minimalist interior design with white walls and bucket seats, flat-panel displays and four windows offering outside views.
Designed to carry seven passengers, seats are arranged for four in the front and three in the back. The thin, sturdy, contoured seats are made from the highest-grade carbon fibre and Alcantara cloth. There are three different seat sizes with foam that is moulded to an individual’s body.
Instead of analogue buttons and dials in the cockpits of previous vehicles such as the Space Shuttle, Crew Dragon has sleek touchscreens. Its advanced cockpit design is complete with modern human interfaces.
Above the four passenger seats, there is a three-screen control panel, a toilet (with privacy curtain), and the docking hatch.
Crew Dragon is fully autonomous, but the commander and pilot can monitor and control the spacecraft using the three large touchscreen displays.
In the middle of the console, there’s a joystick for flying the spacecraft and some physical buttons for essential functions that the crew could press in case of an emergency or a malfunctioning touchscreen.
With four windows, passengers can take in views of Earth, the Moon, and the wider Solar System right from their seats.
Earth view from Dragon’s window…
View of another Dragon arriving to the ISS…
On space tourism missions, the capsule docking adapter used for docking with the International Space Station, is replaced by a domed plexiglass window offering 360-degree view of Earth and the outer space.
The dome’s first use was on the world’s first all-civilian crewed Inspiration4 mission in September 2021.
Crew Safety System
The SuperDraco abort engines are part of Dragon’s integrated pusher launch escape system (LES), which is a built-in crew safety system for abort possibilities from launch pad to orbit. It can quickly separate Dragon from Falcon 9.
In the unlikely event of an emergency on the pad or during the climb to orbit, the launch escape system will fire all eight SuperDraco engines at full power to propel the capsule and its crew away from the rocket.
SpaceX’s spacesuit is meant for use during flights inside Crew Dragon, not for spacewalks. A one-piece suit, it is custom-made for each astronaut.
Two SpaceX mannequins launched to orbit, Ripley (the mannequin aboard the uncrewed Crew Demo-1 mission) and Starman (the mannequin behind the wheel of Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster launched on the first Falcon Heavy rocket launch mission in February 2018) were also dressed in a custom-made SpaceX spacesuit.
The spacesuit (also called “Starman suit”) is the work of legendary Hollywood costume designer Jose Fernandez, known for costumes in blockbusters such as “Wonder Woman,” “Wolverine,” “Batman vs. Superman” and “Captain America: Civil War.”
Functional and lightweight, the spacesuits’ main purpose is to protect crew members from fire or rapid cabin depressurization, where air is lost from the capsule. It ensures the crew have sufficient oxygen and regulates their temperature.
A single “umbilical” cable in the seat that plugs in to the suit’s thigh enables life support systems, including air and power connections.
The suits are interactive with the large computer panels used by astronauts to monitor Dragon systems and navigate to the International Space Station.
The helmets are 3D-printed with microphones inside, while the gloves are touchscreen-sensitive.
Crew Dragon flight tests prior to NASA human-spaceflight certification…
The Commercial Crew Program contracts called for at least one crewed flight test with at least one NASA astronaut aboard and required SpaceX to conduct at least two, and as many as six crewed missions to the space station once Crew Dragon received NASA human spaceflight certification.
SpaceX planned a series of four flight tests for the Crew Dragon: a “pad abort” test, an uncrewed orbital flight to the ISS (Crew-Demo-1), an in-flight abort test, and finally a 14-day crewed demonstration mission to the ISS (Crew Demo-2).
Pad Abort test
The first key flight test of Crew Dragon, The Pad Abort test was conducted successfully on 6 May, 2015, at SpaceX’s SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
The test vehicle “DragonFly” was a Dragon-1/Dragon-2 hybrid – it was a modified Dragon-1 pressure vessel equipped with SuperDraco thrusters.
It was the first flight test of SpaceX’s revolutionary launch abort system in a possible emergency.
By November 2015, SpaceX had test-fired the Crew Dragon propulsion module 27 times and the SuperDraco engines individually over 300 times, to refine the Crew Dragon design for human transportation to the International Space Station.
Dragon was tested for its hovering abilities at SpaceX’s testing facility in McGregor, Texas:
First Demonstration (Crew Demo-1) Mission
On 2 March, 2019, Falcon 9 launched Crew Dragon on its first orbital test mission, the uncrewed “Crew Demo-1” mission, from the historic LC-39A at the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
In place of NASA astronauts, the uncrewed mission carried a mannequin Ripley (named after Sigourney Weaver’s character in the “Alien” movies franchise) dressed in a custom-made SpaceX spacesuit with a plush toy “Little Earth” serving as zero-g indicator (toys to indicate to the still strapped-into-their-seats crew members that they have entered orbit and are in free fall around Earth) and approximately 400 lb (180 kg) of supplies and equipment.
The flight was intended to certify the Crew Dragon to carry humans, demonstrating on-orbit operation of avionics, communications, telemetry, life support, electrical, and propulsion systems, as well as the guidance, navigation, control (GNC) systems.
On its flight to the International Space Station, Dragon executed a series of burns that positioned the vehicle progressively closer to the station before it executed final docking manoeuvres, followed by pressurization of the vestibule, hatch opening, and crew ingress (entry). Docking took place on 3 March, the day following its launch to orbit.
The Crew Demo-1 test mission made Dragon the first American spacecraft to autonomously dock with the International Space Station.
The capsule spent five days docked to ISS before undocking and making a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean on 8 March, 2019.
Dragon became the first American spacecraft to autonomously dock with the International Space Station and safely return to Earth.
The successful Crew Demo-1 mission demonstrated SpaceX’s capabilities to safely and reliably fly astronauts to and from the space station as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. And with that, Dragon got qualified for a crewed “Crew Demo-2” mission.
The historic capsule was planned to be reused in June 2019 for the In-Flight Abort test, which was the final flight test before flying NASA astronauts on Crew Demo-2 mission. But on 20 April, 2019, the capsule was destroyed in an explosion during static fire testing at the Landing Zone-1 facility. The explosion and investigation delayed the In-Flight Abort test and the subsequent crewed orbital test.
In-Flight Abort test
By September 2019, SpaceX had completed over 700 tests of Crew Dragon’s SuperDraco engines.
Full duration static fire test of Crew Dragon’s SuperDraco engines…
The In-Flight Abort test of Crew Dragon’s launch escape capabilities was launched on 19 January, 2020, from LC-39A at Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.
The abort sequence was initiated approximately one and a half minutes after Falcon 9-Crew Dragon lifted off.
Crew Dragon’s eight SuperDraco engines powered the spacecraft away from Falcon 9 at speeds of over 400 mph.
Following separation, Dragon’s trunk was released and Dragon’s two drogue or funnel-shaped parachutes were deployed to stabilize the spacecraft following re-entry. Then, four upgraded Mark III parachutes were deployed to further decelerate the spacecraft prior to landing.
Dragon safely splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean and was successfully recovered by a SpaceX ship.
The In-Flight Abort test demonstrated Crew Dragon’s ability to reliably carry crew to safety in the unlikely event of an emergency on the launch pad or at any point during ascent.
Preparation for Crew Demo-2 mission…
Crew Demo-2 mission was SpaceX’s second spaceflight test of its Crew Dragon and its first test with astronauts on board. It was the final major test for SpaceX’s human spaceflight system to be certified by NASA for regular crew flights to and from the International Space Station as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
Dragon leaving the SpaceX factory for the Crew Demo-2 mission…
The test mission was an end-to-end demonstration of SpaceX’s crew transportation system, including launch, in-orbit, docking and landing operations.
With the Crew Demo-2 mission, a new era of human spaceflight was set to begin as American astronauts once again launched on an American rocket from American soil to low-Earth orbit for the first time since the retirement of the Space Shuttle Program in 2011.
Since then, NASA was completely dependent on Russian Soyuz vehicles to carry its astronauts to and from the space station.
NASA astronauts Robert “Bob” Behnken and Douglas “Doug” Hurley, were the first two crew members chosen to ride Crew Dragon on this historic mission to and from the International Space Station.
As the first humans assigned to fly on Crew Dragon, both NASA astronauts, who had previously flown on Space Shuttle missions, worked closely with SpaceX, and provided vital input to get the capsule ready for its historic launch.
SpaceX had completed numerous tests of Crew Dragon’s enhanced Mark 3 parachute design to provide a safe landing back on Earth for astronauts returning from the International Space Station.
Additionally, SpaceX and NASA jointly executed a series of mission simulations from launch and docking to departure and landing, an end-to-end demonstration of pad rescue operations, and a fully integrated test of critical crew flight hardware on the Demo-2 Crew Dragon spacecraft with Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley participating in their Demo-2 spacesuits.
SpaceX was returning human spaceflight to the United States with one of the safest, most advanced systems ever built, and NASA’s Commercial Crew Program was a turning point for America’s future in space exploration.
To mark the return of human spaceflight on American rockets from American soil, NASA revived their worm logo for Demo-2.
The Crew Demo-2 mission was to be launched on 27 May, 2020, from the historic LC-39A at Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. But due to weather conditions at the launch site, it was postponed to 30 May 2020.
Second Demonstration (Crew Demo-2) Mission
On 30 May, 2020, while the entire world was in the grips of the coronavirus pandemic, SpaceX launched its historic Crew Demo-2 test mission, the first flight of astronauts aboard Crew Dragon.
For the first time in history, NASA astronauts launched from American soil in a privately-built and operated American crew spacecraft to the International Space Station.
Lifting off at 3:22 p.m. EDT on a Falcon 9 rocket, Crew Dragon flawlessly sent NASA’s veteran test pilots Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley dressed in SpaceX spacesuit to the International Space Station on a two-month stay.
It was the most memorable moment for 18-year-old SpaceX, who had finally realized its mission of restoring human spaceflight to the United States.
“This is a dream come true for me and everyone at SpaceX,” said Elon Musk. “It is the culmination of an incredible amount of work by the SpaceX team, by NASA and by a number of other partners in the process of making this happen. You can look at this as the results of a hundred thousand people roughly when you add up all the suppliers and everyone working incredibly hard to make this day happen.”
On reaching orbit, the two Demo-2 crew members named the Crew Dragon capsule C206 “Endeavour”.
The capsule autonomously docked to the International Space Station the next day, on the 31st of May.
On 2 August, Crew Dragon undocked and made a successful splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean. It was the United States’ first crewed splashdown since the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975.
Appreciation from NASA…
SpaceX has worked closely with NASA since 2006 with a mission to fly people to space.
NASA’s policy of “setting only a high-level requirement for cargo transport to the space station, leaving the details to industry” allowed SpaceX to design and develop the Falcon 9 rocket on its own at a substantially lower cost.
As per NASA’s own independently verified numbers, SpaceX’s total development cost for the Falcon 9 rocket, including the Falcon 1 rocket, was estimated at US$390 million.
In 2011, NASA estimated that it would have cost the agency about US$4 billion to develop a rocket like the Falcon 9 booster based upon NASA’s traditional contracting processes.
In May 2020, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine remarked that thanks to NASA’s investments into SpaceX, the United States had 70% of the commercial launch market.
“The investments that we have made into SpaceX and the investment SpaceX has made in itself have really resulted in I think something that is going to be very beneficial, not just for human space exploration, but beneficial for the economy,” he said during a press conference.
In 2019, the per-seat cost for SpaceX’s Crew Dragon was around $55 million, that’s around 65% and 55% lesser than the Russian Soyuz (then $85 million) and Boeing Starliner (projected at $90 million).
So SpaceX not only fulfilled NASA’s objective of launching American astronauts, from American soil, on an American launch vehicle since the final flight of the Space Shuttle in 2011, but also did it at a very low cost.
The first commercial human spaceflight system for crew missions to and from the space station…
Following the smooth accomplishment of Crew Demo-2 test mission, in November 2020, NASA certified SpaceX Falcon 9 and SpaceX Crew Dragon as human spaceflight system for crew missions to and from the space station – becoming the first commercial system in history to achieve such designation.
It led to the start of the twice-a-year, operational crewed missions to the ISS under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
As part of the NASA crewed missions, Crew Dragon transports up to four astronauts, along with critical cargo to the ISS.
Crew Dragon is the only U.S. human-rated orbital transport spacecraft, the only reusable crewed spacecraft and the only reusable cargo spacecraft currently in operation to transport crews to and from the ISS under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
It is capable of carrying both NASA and commercial astronauts to destinations in low-Earth orbit, the Moon and beyond.
SpaceX offers paid crewed spaceflights on Crew Dragon for private individuals and awards them with Crew Dragon “Astronaut Wings” after their return.
SpaceX’s Crew-1 Mission, the first operational crewed mission for NASA…
On November 16, 2020, Falcon 9 launched Crew Dragon on the Crew-1 mission, its first six-month operational mission to the International Space Station. On board were NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, and Japan’s JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Soichi Noguchi.
Crew Dragon “Resilience” created history as it launched its first operational crewed flight and also the first crewed night launch from the United States in over ten years.
Everything from launch to splashdown went smoothly as planned. Reliability proven, SpaceX not only became a major player in the human spaceflight arena, but also the only one providing astronauts with a luxury class flight.
Crew Dragon returned the Crew-1 astronauts to Earth on 2 May, 2021, with a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico, marking the first night-time splashdown of a crewed US spacecraft since December 1968, when Apollo 8 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean.
On 23 April, 2021, the Crew-2 mission was launched to the ISS with NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, European Space Agency (ESA)’s French astronaut Thomas Pesquet and JAXA astronaut Akihiko Hoshide aboard Crew Dragon “Endeavour”.
European Space Agency (ESA)’s French astronaut Thomas Pesquet became the first European astronaut to fly the Crew Dragon. He also became the first French commander of the ISS.
Crew-2 mission set a new record for the longest ever stay in space at 199 days. This is just 11 days below Crew Dragon’s minimum certification of 210 days.
As per NASA’s manual, a human-rated capsule must be capable of spending at least 210 days in orbit. SpaceX designed Crew Dragon for the 210-day limit i.e. the minimum amount of time, so it can stay for much longer too.
The length of stay also depends upon the solar panels, which generally degrade in the harsh environment of space.
The Crew-2 astronauts returned to Earth on 9 November, 2021, with Crew Dragon making a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.
Inspiration4 Mission, the first commercial orbital spaceflight…
On 16 September, 2021, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon “Resilience” made the first “all-civilian” orbital spaceflight in history.
For the first time, Crew Dragon was used for non-docking orbital space tourism.
The Inspiration4 mission was a historic milestone for SpaceX as Crew Dragon and the world’s first non-professional astronauts in space circled Earth for three days reaching an orbital altitude of about 590 km (367 miles), the highest achieved since a Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission in 1999 and the fifth-highest Earth orbital human spaceflight overall. It was a much higher view compared to the view astronauts receive on the ISS at about 400 km or 250 miles.
Inspiration4 was a “fund-raiser” mission, funded and commanded by Founder and CEO of Shift4Payments, Jared Isaacman, to raise charity for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. His selected crew members were Christopher Sembroski, Sian Procter and Hayley Arceneaux.
A physician assistant at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and a paediatric cancer survivor, 29-year old Hayley Arceneaux became the first human in space with prosthetic leg bones and the youngest American to travel to space.
The four amateur astronauts were trained by SpaceX for six months. The training included lessons in orbital mechanics, operating in a microgravity environment, stress testing, emergency-preparedness training and mission simulations.
The crew had the advantage of a specially designed large domed window of the capsule, from where the four space travellers enjoyed unique images of the Earth for three days.
Their food differed from the usual of astronauts. They ate cold pizza, sandwiches, Bolognese spaghetti and even lamb. Some even watched movies on tablets before the descent to Earth began.
They also carried out scientific experiments during the flight. Above all, however, they proved that more and more people can reach space.
The mission ended successfully after 71 hours, with Dragon “Resilience” making a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean.
On 11 November, 2021, Crew-3 mission was launched to the ISS with NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron and ESA’s German astronaut Matthias Maurer aboard Crew Dragon “Endurance”.
Dragon “Endurance” and its crew returned to Earth on 6 May, 2022, with a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.
Ax-1 Mission, the first all-civilian commercial flight to the ISS…
On 9 April, 2022, SpaceX and its Crew Dragon created space history yet again with the first all-civilian commercial mission to the ISS.
Ax-1 was the first of several private crewed missions to the ISS, contracted by Axiom Space, a privately-owned space company from Houston, Texas.
It was the first non-government, fully commercial flight to the ISS carrying a retired NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegría, who now works for Axiom space and three wealthy civilians – Eytan Stibbe, a former Israeli fighter pilot, Larry Connor, an American technology entrepreneur, and Mark Pathy, a Canadian investor.
In the past, a number of wealthy private citizens have travelled to the ISS aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, but they were always accompanied by Russian cosmonauts.
On this mission, even though Ax-1 coordinated with NASA and ISS officials, its crew members were all private citizens.
Crew Dragon “Endeavour” docked to the Harmony module’s space-facing international docking adapter…
Crew Dragon and its civilian crew returned to Earth on 25 April, 2022, with a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean.
On 27 April, 2022, the Crew-4 mission launched to the ISS with NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Robert Hines, Jessica Watkins and ESA’s Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti aboard a new Crew Dragon “Freedom”.
Dragon “Freedom” completed its first flight, returning the Crew-4 astronauts to Earth on 14 October, 2022, with a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean.
The Crew-5 mission to the ISS launched on 5 October, 2022, with NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, JAXA’s Koichi Wakata and Russia’s Roscosmos astronaut Anna Kikina aboard Crew Dragon “Endurance”.
Anna Kikina not only became the first Russian to fly to the ISS aboard Crew Dragon, but also the first Russian to fly a US vehicle from US soil in two decades.
Crew Dragon Fleet
There are seven Crew Dragon capsules, of which four are operational and one is under construction. One capsule was destroyed during testing and one was retired, each was flown once.
The vehicles can fly on at least 5 missions. Of the four active vehicles, one has already flown thrice.
NASA allowed astronauts to fly on reused Crew Dragon capsules – and Falcon 9 boosters – after SpaceX completed its third Crew Dragon launch to the ISS.
Capsule 204, the first produced vehicle, was launched on the Crew Demo-1 test mission in March 2019 and was supposed to be reused on the In-Flight Abort test, but it was destroyed during ground testing, weeks after the Crew Demo-1 mission.
Capsule 205 was used for the In-Flight Abort test in January 2020. Later, it was retired.
Capsule 206 was launched on the Crew Demo-2 test mission and was named “Endeavour” by the crew after Space Shuttle Endeavour. It flew again on the Crew-2 mission in April 2021, and became the first Crew Dragon to be reused. It flew for the third time on the Axiom-1 mission in April 2022.
Capsule C207 was launched on Crew-1 mission in November 2020 and named by the crew as “Resilience”. The capsule has stronger outer panels that will allow it to land in harsher winds, and is the first Crew Dragon to be able to dock at another ISS port with IDA-3 (Node 2 zenith). SpaceX also made some improvements to the heat shield based on findings from the Crew Demo-2 mission.
The capsule was reused on the first all-civilian Inspiration4 mission in September 2021. it was equipped with a glass cupola to provide better views of Earth while in orbit. The cupola replaced the docking mechanism, which is required only for missions flying to the ISS.
Capsule C210 was launched on the Crew-3 mission in November 2021. It was named “Endurance” by the crew. The capsule has a reused nose cone and is a highly improvised version incorporating upgrades to the toilet, docking procedures, computer performance during re-entry, parachutes, etc.
It has been reused on the Crew-5 mission, and is currently docked to the space station.
Capsule C212, with a used heat shield structure but new thermal protection tiles (TPS), was launched on the Crew-4 mission in April 2022. It was named “Freedom”.
Normally, Crew Dragon remains docked to the ISS for a period of 180 days, but it is designed to remain on the space station for a minimum of 210 days.
SpaceX aims to launch up to 6 Crew Dragon missions per year for NASA and private customers. Having ferried 30 people to orbit and back across eight missions, Crew Dragon has surpassed NASA’s Gemini spacecraft, which delivered 20 astronauts. Now it’s closing on NASA’s Apollo capsule’s record of 45 astronauts. The Space Shuttle’s record of 355 astronauts remains out of reach and can be broken by SpaceX’s new Starship rocket after it becomes operational.
There won’t be any new Crew Dragons after the fifth one is built as SpaceX has considered it sufficient to rotate the reuse of the capsules already in existence to meet the company’s manifest of astronaut missions through the 2020s. The fifth and final Crew Dragon vehicle would be ready to fly for the first time in the 2024 timeframe.
SpaceX is targeting to reuse each Dragon capsule for about 15 flights, with caveats between missions such as swapping out “soft goods” and “a couple of hardware items” such as parachutes.
Crew Dragon’s future missions for NASA…
SpaceX’s future crewed missions to the ISS for NASA are Crew-6 in 2023, and Crew-7 in 2024. The dates for Crew-8 and Crew-9 missions have yet to be announced.
In September 2022, NASA awarded 5 additional Crew Dragon missions to SpaceX – Crew-10, Crew-11, Crew-12, Crew-13 and Crew-14, enabling the space agency to maintain an uninterrupted U.S. capability for human access to the ISS until 2030.
In February 2022, Jared Isaacman, who commanded the Inspiration4 mission, announced his Polaris Program, comprising three human spaceflight missions that will demonstrate new technologies, conduct extensive research, and ultimately culminate in the first flight of humans on board SpaceX’s new Starship rocket.
The first of Crew Dragon’s two missions to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) will fly in 2023. It will fly higher than any Dragon mission ever and aim to reach the highest Earth orbit ever flown.
The four civilian crew for the first mission will be Commander Jared “Rook” Isaacman, Pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet, and two highly experienced SpaceX employees, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon as mission specialists.
Crew Dragon and the Polaris Dawn crew will spend up to five days in orbit, during which the crew will attempt the first-ever commercial spacewalk. SpaceX’s extravehicular spacesuit, upgraded from the current intravehicular suit, will make its debut on this mission.
In September 2022, NASA and SpaceX signed an unfunded Space Act Agreement to study the feasibility of a SpaceX and Polaris Program idea to boost the Hubble Space Telescope into a higher orbit with the Dragon spacecraft, at no cost to the government.
SpaceX – in partnership with the Polaris Program – proposed this study to better understand the technical challenges associated with servicing missions, which would help in expanding space capabilities to ultimately help in making humanity a space-faring, multi-planetary civilization.
The Hubble Space Telescope, a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency), is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Hubble has been operating since 1990, about 335 miles above Earth in an orbit that is slowly decaying over time. Reboosting Hubble into a higher, more stable orbit could add multiple years of operations to its life. At the end of its lifetime, NASA plans to safely de-orbit or dispose it.
Axiom Space missions…
The Ax-2 mission is planned to launch Saudi Arabia’s first two astronauts to the ISS on a weeklong stay in early 2023. One of the two Saudi astronauts on this flight will be a woman, who would become the first female Arab astronaut. The Saudi astronauts will join two previously announced Americans, retired NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson and race car driver and investor John Shoffner,
The Ax-3 mission will launch Turkey’s first two astronauts into space in late 2023. The date for Ax-4 mission has yet to be announced.
The Axiom Space missions are intended to help pave the way to a privately-operated space lab owned by the company. In the future, Crew Dragon will also be used to shuttle tourists to and from Axiom Space’s planned space station, planned for late 2024.
In March 2020, NASA contracted SpaceX to develop a new variant of Dragon, the Dragon XL as a resupply spacecraft for its planned Lunar Gateway space station under a Gateway Logistics Services (GLS) contract.
The contract award is a significant step forward for NASA’s Artemis program that will land the first woman and next man on the Moon by 2024 and build a sustainable human lunar presence.
Dragon XL is planned to launch on a Falcon Heavy rocket, and is able to transport over 5,000 kg (11,000 lb) to the Gateway. Dragon XL will be docked at the Gateway for six to twelve months at a time.
This post is part of my 6-part blog series which covers the phenomenal rise of
SpaceX – the world’s no.1 aerospace company and manufacturer.
The series published on 01.01.2023 comprise the following posts:
Discovering SpaceX: Falcon Rocket Family
Discovering SpaceX: Fleet of Recovery Ships
Discovering SpaceX: Dragon Spacecraft
Discovering SpaceX: Starlink Satellite Constellation
Discovering SpaceX: Super Heavy Starship
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Ax-1 Mission, Cargo Dragon, Crew Demo-2 Mission, Crew Dragon, Draco thrusters, Falcon 9, Inspiration4 Mission, International Space Station, LC-39A, NASA, SLC-40, SpaceX, SuperDraco
SWARUPA’S 6-PART SERIES ON ELON MUSK’S SPACEX
Discovering SpaceX: Falcon Rocket Family
Discovering SpaceX: Fleet of Recovery Ships
Discovering SpaceX: Dragon Spacecraft
Discovering SpaceX: Starlink Satellite Constellation
Discovering SpaceX
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: Super Heavy Starship
DISCOVERING SPACEX : DRAGON SPACECRAFT
SpaceX Dragon is a free-flying, reusable spacecraft developed for cargo and human transportation to the International Space Station (ISS) under NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program.
The extraordinary spacecraft first marked its entry in aerospace history way back in in December 2010, when its first-generation version (or Dragon-1) became the world’s first-ever private orbital spacecraft.
Since then, Dragon has been achieving historic milestones, one after another, winning admiration from the space industry and space enthusiasts across the world.
Crew Dragon is the crewed variant of the operational second generation Dragon spacecraft (or Dragon-2). It is the world’s first private spacecraft and the only American spacecraft capable of transporting humans (and cargo) to and from the ISS and beyond.
Crew Dragon is also the world’s first private spacecraft and the only spacecraft capable of flying an all-civilian crew on commercial missions to and from the ISS, and also, far beyond the ISS on space tourism missions.
Cargo Dragon is the cargo variant of the operational second generation Dragon spacecraft (or Dragon-2). It is the world’s first private spacecraft and the only American spacecraft capable of returning a significant amount of cargo back to Earth, including experiments.
As of 01.01.2023, Dragon-2 has made 15 missions to orbital space: 9 crewed missions (one uncrewed) and 6 cargo missions. All missions were to the ISS except one crewed mission, which travelled even farther than the International Space Station. Thirty people were transported to space across eight crewed missions.
CARGO DRAGON-1 (OR DRAGON-1)
Dragon-1 was the first version of SpaceX’s reusable spacecraft developed as a cargo vehicle to run resupply missions to the ISS for National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Dragon was named after the fictional “Puff the Magic Dragon” from the hit song by music group “Peter, Paul and Mary” by SpaceX Founder, Chief Engineer and CEO Elon Musk.
The unique spacecraft was introduced to the world for the first time in March 2006, when SpaceX submitted to NASA its proposal for the development of a private spacecraft to ferry cargo to the ISS for NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) demonstration program.
NASA awards Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contracts to selected American private space companies for delivery of cargo and supplies to the ISS on their privately developed spacecraft for NASA.
In December 2008, NASA awarded the first CRS contract to two companies – 6-year-old SpaceX and 26-year-old Orbital Sciences (which later became Orbital ATK, and now, Northrop Grumman). SpaceX received US$1.6 billion for 12 resupply missions (covering deliveries to 2016), while Orbital Sciences received US$ 1.9 billion for 8 resupply missions.
Dragon was developed from a blank sheet to its first mission in just over 4 years, and with the best of cutting-edge technology.
Dragon comprised a reusable space capsule and an expendable trunk module to be jettisoned prior to deorbit burn for atmospheric re-entry while returning to Earth.
Dragon high altitude drop test conducted on 12 August, 2010:
Dragon-1 capsule stood 14.4 feet (4.4 meters) tall with a diameter of 12 feet (3.66 meters). The expendable trunk measured 9.2 feet (2.8 meters) in height and 12 feet (3.66 meters) in width.
The pressurized capsule carried pressurized cargo and an unpressurized trunk housed its solar panels along with unpressurized cargo.
Altogether, Dragon was capable of carrying over 3,310 kilograms, split between pressurized cargo inside the capsule and unpressurized cargo carried in the trunk.
The Canadarm2 robotic arm of the ISS had to be used to dock Dragon to the ISS.
The Canadarm2 would reach out to grapple Dragon and prepare it to be pulled into its port on the International Space Station…
Video of a Dragon-1 capsule docking to the ISS:
From 2010 to 2020, Dragon-1 flew to and from International Space Station supplying it with resources and equipment.
All Falcon 9 launches with Dragon-1 took off from Cape Canaveral’s SLC-40 launch pad except for CRS-10, CRS-11 and CRS-12 missions which were launched from Kennedy Space Centre’s LC-39A launch pad.
The Dragon-1 capsule returned to Earth with dual drogue parachutes to slow and stabilize its descent before three main parachutes deployed to land it gently in the Pacific Ocean.
SpaceX deployed a recovery ship named NRC Quest to retrieve the capsule and its cargo from the Pacific Ocean, following splashdown.
After Dragon landing, the ship would move in to recover the capsule. Smaller fast-approach vessels were deployed to collect the parachutes from the ocean surface and assist in manoeuvring the capsule.
As soon as the capsule was recovered, NRC Quest would immediately sail towards the the Port of Los Angeles for a quick handover of the experiments to NASA.
SpaceX Dragon-1 becomes the first privately-developed spacecraft to successfully orbit and return to Earth…
In the morning of 8 December, 2010, the SpaceX COTS Demo Flight-1 (COTS-1) mission lifted off from SLC-40 pad in Florida with the first Dragon-1 spacecraft carrying a wheel of cheese as cargo atop the Falcon 9 rocket on its second launch mission to orbit.
SpaceX had secretly placed a wheel of Le Brouère (a French variant of the Swiss Gruyere, a hard yellow cheese made from cow’s milk) for a ride inside the Dragon Capsule 101.
Capsule C101, the first Dragon 1 from SpaceX production, completed all its mission objectives on this test flight. It orbited the Earth twice for about three hours before re-entering the atmosphere and parachuting into the Pacific Ocean, making a splashdown about 800 kilometres (500 miles) off the west coast of Baja California.
It landed well within the 60 by 20 kilometre recovery zone and was recovered about 20 minutes after splashdown.
Mission accomplished, 8-year-old SpaceX became the first private company to successfully launch, orbit and recover a spacecraft. And Dragon became the first privately-developed spacecraft to return safely from orbit – a feat previously achieved by just three nations (the United States, Russia, and China).
Following its achievement, the slightly-scorched cargo-carrying Dragon capsule was placed for permanent display, hanging from the ceiling, at SpaceX’s HQ cum factory in Hawthorne, California…
Since Dragon was going to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere, SpaceX had to obtain the license from the Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation. The license approved on 22 November, 2010, was the first such license awarded to a private company.
After the mission, SpaceX released photos of the cheese wheel, showing it inside a metal cylinder with a bolted cover that featured a cow wearing galoshes – a poster from the 1984 movie “Top Secret”.
Elon Musk later revealed that the wheel of cheese was inspired by a classic skit from the British comedy show “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”, in which actor John Cleese enters a cheese shop and requests dozens of oddly-named cheeses. The skit ends with the actor concluding that the shop – much like outer space – doesn’t have any cheese.
Dragon-1 becomes the first privately-developed spacecraft to successfully dock to the International Space Station…
On May 22 2012, SpaceX went through the most significant moment in the company’s history since its first successful rocket launch in September 2008. That day, a Falcon 9 took off from SLC-40 pad in Florida carrying a Dragon-1 capsule on a SpaceX COTS Demo Flight-2 (COTS-2) mission to attempt berthing with the ISS, deliver cargo to the orbiting laboratory and return to Earth.
It was Dragon’s first mission to and from the International Space Station.
Capsule C102 was the first Dragon with solar arrays. After its launch into space, the capsule fanned out its solar panels and using its 18 Draco thrusters, it proceeded on its way to the ISS.
On 25 May, Dragon got close enough to the ISS for astronaut Don Pettit to use Canadarm2, a 58-foot robotic arm on the ISS to reach out and grab the resupply spacecraft and attach it to the ISS.
With clouds and land forming a backdrop, the SpaceX Dragon commercial cargo craft is grappled by Canadian Space Agency’s Canadarm2 robotic arm at the International Space Station….
Dragon’s berthing with the ISS marked a huge milestone for SpaceX and NASA.
Dragon became the first privately-developed spacecraft in history to successfully dock to the International Space Station. It spent six days docked to the ISS, before returning to Earth with a Pacific Ocean splashdown on the 31st of May.
Capsule C102 is displayed in Kennedy Space Centre…
The two successful launches for the COTS program ware instrumental in SpaceX becoming a reliable contractor to NASA and paved the way for future contracts and missions.
Dragon-1 makes the first of its operational resupply missions to the ISS for NASA…
On 8 October, 2012, SpaceX launched the CRS-1 mission, the first of the 12 cargo resupply missions to and from the ISS under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contracts. It was Falcon 9’s fourth mission. During the launch, the first stage suffered an engine shutdown, but still got Dragon to orbit. The mission was partially successful as a secondary ORBCOMM payload was lost.
Capsule C103 achieved orbit, berthed and remained docked to the ISS for 20 days, before re-entering Earth atmosphere and splashing down in the Pacific Ocean on 28 October, 2012.
A SpaceX recovery ship, NRC Quest, retrieved Dragon and its cargo in the Pacific Ocean, following splashdown.
Since then, Dragon has flown to the ISS on CRS missions approximately twice a year, supplying the orbiting laboratory with resources and equipment and returning with cargo too.
In 2015, NASA extended SpaceX’s CRS contract to cover additional 8 resupply missions, totalling to 20 resupply missions.
Dragon-1’s first and only failure…
Dragon experienced its first and only failure during the CRS-7 mission in June 2015.
Due to a fault in the second stage, the Falcon 9 rocket disintegrated 139 seconds after lift-off. The Capsule C109 initially survived the mishap as it got ejected from the exploding launch vehicle. But its control software was not designed to survive such a mishap. As a result, the parachutes could not be opened. But still, Dragon continued transmitting data until it impacted with the ocean and was destroyed.
This failure led to all future Dragons having their software updated to be able to open parachutes in a similar scenario.
Dragon-1 becomes the first spacecraft to visit the ISS a second time since Space Shuttle Atlantis in 2011…
On 3 June, 2017, a Dragon flew to the ISS for the second time on the CRS-11 cargo resupply mission, becoming the first spacecraft to visit the ISS a second time since the Space Shuttle Atlantis in 2011.
The capsule had made its first trip in September 2014 to return to Earth a month later in October with cargo and loads of experiments.
On the CRS-11 mission, the capsule returned home in July 2017, after a month-long stay at the ISS, completing the first re-flight mission of a commercial spacecraft to and from the orbiting laboratory.
The capsule was recovered and refurbished for reuse.
Dragon-1 makes its final operational resupply missions to the ISS for NASA…
Dragon-1’s last mission was the CRS-20 cargo resupply mission launched on 7 March, 2020.
A twice-flown Capsule C112 filled with approximately 4,500 pounds of supplies and payloads for the ISS made this last Dragon-1 mission from Cape Canaveral’s SLC-40 launch pad.
It was SpaceX’s 20th and final cargo resupply mission to the ISS under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services-1 (CRS-1) contract.
The spacecraft departed the ISS on 7 April, 2020, for return to Earth.
Since the first mission in May 2012 until the last in April 2020, Dragon-1 spent over 520 days attached to the space station, delivered over 95,000 pounds of cargo, and returned over 76,000 pounds back to Earth.
The longest Dragon-1 mission from launch to splashdown lasted 39 days, 11 hours and 3 minutes.
The 13 vehicles (Capsule C101 to C113) in the Dragon-1 fleet completed 20 missions to the ISS and two COTS test missions, of which one was to the ISS.
Of the 13 capsules, 3 capsules made 3 missions each, 3 capsules made 2 missions each and the remaining 7 made a single mission.
On 1 December, 2022, a twice-flown Dragon Capsule C113 arrived at the Museum of Science and Industry (MSI) in Illinois, Chicago for its permanent exhibit.
Capsule C113 was flown twice to the International Space Station; on the CRS-12 and CRS-19 missions in 2017 and 2019 respectively…
The Dragon will join other historic spacecraft in the museum’s Henry Crown Space Centre when it debuts on public display in the spring of 2023.
An upgraded version of Dragon-1, the second generation Dragon spacecraft was developed as a reusable spacecraft to transport cargo and crew to the International Space Station and beyond.
Cargo Dragon was built to transport supplies to residents of the International Space Station. Once there, the Dragon capsules can remain stationed for months before making the return to Earth.
Crew Dragon was specifically designed to carry passengers into low earth orbit (LEO) and ferry NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station.
View of Dragon docked at the International Space Station as seen from another Dragon…
Dragon-2 docks automatically with the ISS. Its launch payload mass is 6000 kg and return payload mass is 3000 kg. The crew variant is capable of carrying seven people to orbit and back.
Both Cargo Dragon and Crew Dragon were planned to be made similar in order to speed up development of Crew Dragon. The similarity feature would minimize the design effort and simplify the human-rating process, allowing systems critical to crew and space station safety to be fully tested on unmanned demonstration flights and cargo resupply missions.
The difference between the two is that Crew Dragon has passenger seats, SuperDraco abort engines for crew escape system, life support system and cockpit controls that allow the crew to take control from the flight computer when needed.
All Crew and Cargo Dragon missions are launched from the historic LC-39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.
Dragon atop a Falcon 9 at LC-39A (right) and another Falcon 9 at SLC-40 (left)…
But in the future, SpaceX’s new Starship rocket will be launched from LC-39A. Hence SLC-40 is going to be outfitted for Dragon launches, starting first with Cargo Dragon before moving on to Crew Dragon.
Starship, once operational, will be the world’s first fully reusable and most powerful transportation system ever designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond.
Following the retirement of Dragon-1 and the start of Dragon-2 operations, SpaceX decided to move all splashdowns to the Atlantic Ocean.
The parachute system was fully redesigned from the one used in Dragon-1 capsules in order to deploy the parachutes under a variety of launch abort scenarios.
Dragon-2 has four parachutes to make a slow descent in the sea. It makes a splashdown either in the Atlantic Ocean (east of Florida) or the Gulf of Mexico, where it is recovered by SpaceX ships and returned to land for re-use.
After cleaning and refurbishment, the Dragon capsules are flown on future missions. They are reusable for a minimum five missions.
The first crewed Dragon flight took place on 30 May, 2020.
Cargo Dragon made its debut on the CRS-21 cargo resupply mission to the ISS in December 2020 under the new and operational NASA Commercial Resupply Services-2 (CRS-2) contract.
Like its predecessor, Dragon-2 spacecraft comprises a reusable capsule and an expendable trunk, which together stand around 26.7 feet (8.1m) tall, with a diameter of 13 feet (4m).
The Dragon capsule, also known as the pressurized section, allows for the transport of people as well as environmentally sensitive cargo.
Astronauts aboard the Internal Space Station have to enter the spacecraft to carry cargo, so even Cargo Dragon has a habitable cabin with air circulation, fire detection and suppression, lights, pressure control, and pressure and humidity monitoring.
Draco is SpaceX’s smallest rocket engine used as Reaction Control System (RCS) for attitude control and manoeuvring on Falcon 9 rockets and Dragon spacecraft.
Like Dragon-1, both Cargo and Crew Dragon are equipped with Draco thrusters (small engines fired in space), which are hypergolic liquid-propellant engines using a mixture of monomethyl hydrazine fuel and nitrogen tetroxide oxidizer.
Hypergolic propellants are fuels and oxidizers that ignite spontaneously on contact with each other and require no ignition source. The easy start and restart capability of hypergols make them ideal for spacecraft manoeuvring systems. Moreover, these storable propellants have very long on-orbit lifetimes for Dragon to remain berthed at the ISS for a year or more, ready to serve as an emergency “lifeboat” if necessary.
Each Draco is capable of producing 90 pounds (400 Newtons) of force in the vacuum of space.
The Draco thrusters are as important to Dragon as
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The fossil of a tiny bird-like dinosaur with surprisingly long lower legs has been discovered in China.
The creature would have lived during the Late Jurassic Period 148 million to 150 million years ago in what’s now Fujian province in southeast China.
Named Fuijianvenator prodigiosus, which means “bizarre hunter from Fuijian” in Latin, the creature had elongated lower legs that were twice as long as its thighs. In most dinosaurs, the reverse is true.
Weighing around 1.4 pounds (641 grams) and the size of a pheasant, the fossil is important because it bridged a gap in the fossil record close to the origin of birds, said Min Wang, lead author of the study that published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
Birds diverged from two-legged therapod dinosaurs (the group T. rex belonged to) during the Jurassic period, but knowledge of their early evolutionary history is hampered by a relative lack of fossils from this time.
“Fujianvenator, given its unique skeletal morphologies, sheds new light about the morphological evolution … in the earliest evolutionary stage of birds,” said Wang, a professor at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing.
In modern animals, an elongated lower leg is associated with species that can run quickly, suggesting that Fujianvenator may have a been a high-speed runner, according to the study.
However, in birds, it’s a feature also present in wading birds like storks and cranes, making it possible that Fujianvenator lived in a swampy aquatic environment.
The fossil was found with fossils of other aquatic and semi-aquatic animals, including turtles and ray-finned fish, which suggest it may have hung out in swamps.
Other known early bird-like dinosaurs lived in trees and were more aerial in nature, the study said.
While no feathers were preserved in the fossil, it’s highly likely Fujianvenator had them because its closest relatives in the dinosaur family tree did, Wang said. It can’t be determined from the fossil whether the bird-like dinosaur could fly or not, he added.
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Editor’s Note: Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.
The fossil of a tiny bird-like dinosaur with surprisingly long lower legs has been discovered in China.
The creature would have lived during the Late Jurassic Period 148 million to 150 million years ago in what’s now Fujian province in southeast China.
Named Fuijianvenator prodigiosus, which means “bizarre hunter from Fuijian” in Latin, the creature had elongated lower legs that were twice as long as its thighs. In most dinosa
|
urs, the reverse is true.
Weighing around 1.4 pounds (641 grams) and the size of a pheasant, the fossil is important because it bridged a gap in the fossil record close to the origin of birds, said Min Wang, lead author of the study that published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
Birds diverged from two-legged therapod dinosaurs (the group T. rex belonged to) during the Jurassic period, but knowledge of their early evolutionary history is hampered by a relative lack of fossils from this time.
“Fujianvenator, given its unique skeletal morphologies, sheds new light about the morphological evolution … in the earliest evolutionary stage of birds,” said Wang, a professor at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing.
In modern animals, an elongated lower leg is associated with species that can run quickly, suggesting that Fujianvenator may have a been a high-speed runner, according to the study.
However, in birds, it’s a feature also present in wading birds like storks and cranes, making it possible that Fujianvenator lived in a swampy aquatic environment.
The fossil was found with fossils of other aquatic and semi-aquatic animals, including turtles and ray-finned fish, which suggest it may have hung out in swamps.
Other known early bird-like dinosaurs lived in trees and were more aerial in nature, the study said.
While no feathers were preserved in the fossil, it’s highly likely Fujianvenator had them because its closest relatives in the dinosaur family tree did, Wang said. It can’t be determined from the fossil whether the bird-like dinosaur could fly or not, he added.
|
Public safety officials share importance of gun safety during summer months
HAZARD, Ky. (WYMT) - As many kids embark on summer break, law enforcement and public health officials are working to inform everyone about gun safety, especially those who have firearms in their homes.
Kentucky State Police trooper Matt Gayheart said although accidental deaths involving firearms are not too common, it is still important to know safety tips that can prevent a tragedy like that from happening.
“Right now, as we see, our schools are letting out for the summer, a lot of people around here have households with firearms inside, we need to make sure we’re being as safe as possible in making sure those kids not only understand how that firearm works, but to also maintain safety while around that firearm,” Gayheart said.
Gayheart added gun safety education should begin early for children.
“The most important one for me would be to treat every firearm like it’s loaded, whether you know that to be true or untrue. Never point a firearm at anything you’re not intending to shoot,” he said.
Scott Lockard with the Kentucky River District Health Department said there are several resources, like the Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife, that teach basic gun safety.
“I think what we see that is a great concern in that people are getting firearms who are not getting the proper training, who don’t go through appropriate safety education,” Lockard said.
Gun locks and gun storage are key in making sure firearms do not end up in the wrong hands.
“We suggest that a firearm be stored in some kind of lock box or some type of container, whether it be a gun cabinet, or some kind of lock and key that children do not have access to,” said Gayeheart.
Gayheart added although most people would like to have their firearms easily accessible in the case of a home invasion or other life-threatening situation, it is still important to ensure firearms are unloaded and safely stored to prevent accidents from happening.
If you do not have a handgun lock and are interested in getting one, KSP Post 13 and the Kentucky River District Health Department can supply you with one.
Copyright 2023 WYMT. All rights reserved.
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Public safety officials share importance of gun safety during summer months
HAZARD, Ky. (WYMT) - As many kids embark on summer break, law enforcement and public health officials are working to inform everyone about gun safety, especially those who have firearms in their homes.
Kentucky State Police trooper Matt Gayheart said although accidental deaths involving firearms are not too common, it is still important to know safety tips that can prevent a tragedy like that from happening.
“Right now, as we see, our schools are letting out for the summer, a lot of people around here have households with firearms inside, we need to make sure
|
we’re being as safe as possible in making sure those kids not only understand how that firearm works, but to also maintain safety while around that firearm,” Gayheart said.
Gayheart added gun safety education should begin early for children.
“The most important one for me would be to treat every firearm like it’s loaded, whether you know that to be true or untrue. Never point a firearm at anything you’re not intending to shoot,” he said.
Scott Lockard with the Kentucky River District Health Department said there are several resources, like the Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife, that teach basic gun safety.
“I think what we see that is a great concern in that people are getting firearms who are not getting the proper training, who don’t go through appropriate safety education,” Lockard said.
Gun locks and gun storage are key in making sure firearms do not end up in the wrong hands.
“We suggest that a firearm be stored in some kind of lock box or some type of container, whether it be a gun cabinet, or some kind of lock and key that children do not have access to,” said Gayeheart.
Gayheart added although most people would like to have their firearms easily accessible in the case of a home invasion or other life-threatening situation, it is still important to ensure firearms are unloaded and safely stored to prevent accidents from happening.
If you do not have a handgun lock and are interested in getting one, KSP Post 13 and the Kentucky River District Health Department can supply you with one.
Copyright 2023 WYMT. All rights reserved.
|
SAN DIEGO — When biologist Alysson Muotri started tinkering with tiny balls of nerve cells in the lab more than a decade ago, his goal was simply to understand early brain development and neurological disease. He didn’t realize he was stumbling into an ethical minefield.
His University of California, San Diego, team found that when human stem cells were grown into so-called brain organoids in the lab, these tiny 3D structures produced regular waves of electrical activity that resembled what researchers see in a full-size human brain when they place electrodes along a person’s scalp.
These brain models were a useful tool to better understand conditions such as autism and schizophrenia, which could help researchers develop and test new treatments. But the work raised profound questions. What happens if brain organoids become conscious of their own existence? Would these cell growths be classified as people, animal models, or something else?
There is no evidence researchers are there yet, Muotri cautioned. But he said it’s probably just a matter of time before brain organoids become large and complex enough to develop some level of consciousness. “I personally think it’s inevitable to get there. But some people think this might be too early to discuss and we shouldn’t because the funding agencies might get scared, the public might get scared, and that might create an unnecessary roadblock for research,” he said. “It is a balance. And how to navigate that? I don’t have the right answer.”
Muotri and other leading stem cell scientists gathered last week at the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine to grapple with the implications of their work and take questions from the public. Their conversation was wide-ranging, touching on everything from how early and openly researchers should talk about the ethical risks of their work to the pros and cons of dwelling on worst-case scenarios.
There were more questions than answers. And many of the possibilities researchers considered remain hypothetical. But that can change quickly, noted moderator and Arizona State University bioethicist J. Benjamin Hurlbut, who pointed out that scientific advancements can cause these discussions to go “from prematurity to being behind the eight ball instantly.”
Thursday’s panel followed an opening presentation by Jacob Hanna, a researcher at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science. Hanna’s team has spent years deciphering the chemical cues that give embryonic stem cells their uncanny ability to grow into all the parts of a living organism, from the cells that keep your heart thumping to the neurons that keep your brain crackling with electrical activity.
His lab recently had a breakthrough. They devised a way to grow mouse stem cells into what they call synthetic embryos, complete with a beating heart and the beginnings of a brain and intestines. These embryos, created without sperm or egg, grew in the lab to the point that mouse embryos would typically reach after 8.5 days in the uterus.
It’s an advance that paves the way for scientists to understand how early development happens — and how this process can go awry. The study also raises the distant possibility of one day using this approach to grow whole organisms in the lab, possibly even people. But that’s not the goal of Hanna’s research, and he cautioned that focusing on misuse of the work can do more harm than good.
“You don’t ban nuclear physics because somebody can make a nuclear bomb,” he said. “There’s a benefit that you regulate.”
Rather than describe stem cell research in binary terms as ethical or unethical, Hanna thinks it makes more sense to talk about the balance between risks and harms. He pointed to the development of drugs and vaccines as an example, noting that these public health tools can be life-saving even though a small percent of people can have serious side effects.
All of the panelists acknowledged that they’re navigating uncharted territory. Many of the current limits on stem cell research simply come down to funding, pointed out Matthew Porteus, whose lab at Stanford University works on editing the genomes of stem cells. But that at least places some guardrails on the work of academics reliant on funding agencies such as the National Institutes of Health or California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. In the private sector, however, Porteus warned that companies aren’t constrained by these soft limits.
“The things I’m most worried about are not what’s going to happen in academics,” he said. “I’m worried about the very rich Silicon Valley tech bro, who decides that they’re smarter than the world and they’re going to do something that maybe the rest of us don’t believe is appropriate.”
Panelists called for transparency and public dialogue, pointing out that understanding laypeople’s concerns can help researchers find experimental solutions that allay those worries without stifling science. For instance, Hanna said, researchers may in some cases be able to work with so-called developmentally restricted stem cells, which can’t develop brain tissue or a beating heart.
And not every conversation need be contentious, he pointed out, citing a personal story as an example. After Hanna’s lab published two of their major embryonic stem cell papers, he received phone calls from an unexpected source — the head of the Greek Orthodox Church in Israel.
The second time, Hanna worked up the nerve to ask the religious leader whether he understood the scientist’s research, and what he thought about it.
“He said, ‘In my opinion, God is allowing you to grow stem cells from an embryo. And since he has given you that ability, you should try to make benefit from it,’” Hanna recalled.
The conversation didn’t leave Hanna with any illusions that his work is controversy-free. But, as he said to the crowd, it “gave me an example that you can get very interesting opinions. And this encouraged me to just talk more, as much as possible.”
Create a display name to comment
This name will appear with your comment
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SAN DIEGO — When biologist Alysson Muotri started tinkering with tiny balls of nerve cells in the lab more than a decade ago, his goal was simply to understand early brain development and neurological disease. He didn’t realize he was stumbling into an ethical minefield.
His University of California, San Diego, team found that when human stem cells were grown into so-called brain organoids in the lab, these tiny 3D structures produced regular waves of electrical activity that resembled what researchers see in a full-size human brain when they place electrodes along a person’s scalp.
These brain models were a useful tool to
|
better understand conditions such as autism and schizophrenia, which could help researchers develop and test new treatments. But the work raised profound questions. What happens if brain organoids become conscious of their own existence? Would these cell growths be classified as people, animal models, or something else?
There is no evidence researchers are there yet, Muotri cautioned. But he said it’s probably just a matter of time before brain organoids become large and complex enough to develop some level of consciousness. “I personally think it’s inevitable to get there. But some people think this might be too early to discuss and we shouldn’t because the funding agencies might get scared, the public might get scared, and that might create an unnecessary roadblock for research,” he said. “It is a balance. And how to navigate that? I don’t have the right answer.”
Muotri and other leading stem cell scientists gathered last week at the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine to grapple with the implications of their work and take questions from the public. Their conversation was wide-ranging, touching on everything from how early and openly researchers should talk about the ethical risks of their work to the pros and cons of dwelling on worst-case scenarios.
There were more questions than answers. And many of the possibilities researchers considered remain hypothetical. But that can change quickly, noted moderator and Arizona State University bioethicist J. Benjamin Hurlbut, who pointed out that scientific advancements can cause these discussions to go “from prematurity to being behind the eight ball instantly.”
Thursday’s panel followed an opening presentation by Jacob Hanna, a researcher at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science. Hanna’s team has spent years deciphering the chemical cues that give embryonic stem cells their uncanny ability to grow into all the parts of a living organism, from the cells that keep your heart thumping to the neurons that keep your brain crackling with electrical activity.
His lab recently had a breakthrough. They devised a way to grow mouse stem cells into what they call synthetic embryos, complete with a beating heart and the beginnings of a brain and intestines. These embryos, created without sperm or egg, grew in the lab to the point that mouse embryos would typically reach after 8.5 days in the uterus.
It’s an advance that paves the way for scientists to understand how early development happens — and how this process can go awry. The study also raises the distant possibility of one day using this approach to grow whole organisms in the lab, possibly even people. But that’s not the goal of Hanna’s research, and he cautioned that focusing on misuse of the work can do more harm than good.
“You don’t ban nuclear physics because somebody can make a nuclear bomb,” he said. “There’s a benefit that you regulate.”
Rather than describe stem cell research in binary terms as ethical or unethical, Hanna thinks it makes more sense to talk about the balance between risks and harms. He pointed to the development of drugs and vaccines as an example, noting that these public health tools can be life-saving even though a small percent of people can have serious side effects.
All of the panelists acknowledged that they’re navigating uncharted territory. Many of the current limits on stem cell research simply come down to funding, pointed out Matthew Porteus, whose lab at Stanford University works on editing the genomes of stem cells. But that at least places some guardrails on the work of academics reliant on funding agencies such as the National Institutes of Health or California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. In the private sector, however, Porteus warned that companies aren’t constrained by these soft limits.
“The things I’m most worried about are not what’s going to happen in academics,” he said. “I’m worried about the very rich Silicon Valley tech bro, who decides that they’re smarter than the world and they’re going to do something that maybe the rest of us don’t believe is appropriate.”
Panelists called for transparency and public dialogue, pointing out that understanding laypeople’s concerns can help researchers find experimental solutions that allay those worries without stifling science. For instance, Hanna said, researchers may in some cases be able to work with so-called developmentally restricted stem cells, which can’t develop brain tissue or a beating heart.
And not every conversation need be contentious, he pointed out, citing a personal story as an example. After Hanna’s lab published two of their major embryonic stem cell papers, he received phone calls from an unexpected source — the head of the Greek Orthodox Church in Israel.
The second time, Hanna worked up the nerve to ask the religious leader whether he understood the scientist’s research, and what he thought about it.
“He said, ‘In my opinion, God is allowing you to grow stem cells from an embryo. And since he has given you that ability, you should try to make benefit from it,’” Hanna recalled.
The conversation didn’t leave Hanna with any illusions that his work is controversy-free. But, as he said to the crowd, it “gave me an example that you can get very interesting opinions. And this encouraged me to just talk more, as much as possible.”
Create a display name to comment
This name will appear with your comment
|
If you see a large jet flying low and making a lot of right and left turns over the Central Valley today and tomorrow, not to worry: NASA is conducting research about air quality and pollution sources, using a low-altitude DC-8 that will zigzag across the Central Valley.
The aircraft from the NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center is conducting a collaborative scientific research mission with NOAA called AEROMMA — measuring Atmospheric Emissions and Reactions Observed from Megacities to Marine Areas. The project will bring together airborne, ground, and satellite observing systems, and state-of-the-art air quality and climate models to gather data on air quality.
NASA says the public can track the aircraft’s journey tracked in live time on Flight Aware. The aircraft’s tail number is N817NA.
NASA Video of DC-8 AEROMMA
At 2:40 p.m. Tuesday the DC-8 aircraft had reached its northernmost point at the Sacramento airport and was flying south over the city of Sacramento at about 1,600 feet, according to the Flight Aware app.
According to the flight path shown in Flight Aware, the jet will zigzag first to the east, then west over Concord in the East Bay, then continue zigzagging east and west as it gradually heads south. The plane will begin and end its journey Tuesday in Palmdale.
Low Altitude Jet Might Be Noisy
The flights will be overhead Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon and early evening, NASA said.
Those with sensitivity to loud noise should be aware of the flyover window, NASA warned. NASA’s DC-8, a large, four-engine passenger jet, is the world’s largest flying science laboratory.
The NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center is based at Edwards Air Force Base in the upper Mojave Desert.
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If you see a large jet flying low and making a lot of right and left turns over the Central Valley today and tomorrow, not to worry: NASA is conducting research about air quality and pollution sources, using a low-altitude DC-8 that will zigzag across the Central Valley.
The aircraft from the NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center is conducting a collaborative scientific research mission with NOAA called AEROMMA — measuring Atmospheric Emissions and Reactions Observed from Megacities to Marine Areas. The project will bring together airborne, ground, and satellite observing systems, and state-of-the-art air quality and climate models to gather data on
|
air quality.
NASA says the public can track the aircraft’s journey tracked in live time on Flight Aware. The aircraft’s tail number is N817NA.
NASA Video of DC-8 AEROMMA
At 2:40 p.m. Tuesday the DC-8 aircraft had reached its northernmost point at the Sacramento airport and was flying south over the city of Sacramento at about 1,600 feet, according to the Flight Aware app.
According to the flight path shown in Flight Aware, the jet will zigzag first to the east, then west over Concord in the East Bay, then continue zigzagging east and west as it gradually heads south. The plane will begin and end its journey Tuesday in Palmdale.
Low Altitude Jet Might Be Noisy
The flights will be overhead Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon and early evening, NASA said.
Those with sensitivity to loud noise should be aware of the flyover window, NASA warned. NASA’s DC-8, a large, four-engine passenger jet, is the world’s largest flying science laboratory.
The NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center is based at Edwards Air Force Base in the upper Mojave Desert.
|
The climate gains of urban trees
From stormwater runoff prevention to reducing the impacts of extreme heat, tree canopies provide a host of health and climate resiliency benefits for those in urban landscapes.
Why it matters: Not all trees are distributed equally. A new Climate Central analysis reveals which localities nationwide benefit most from the boons of urban forests.
How it works: Urban tree coverage helps reduce the impacts of extreme heat, prevents stormwater runoff, mitigates air pollution exposure and can even sequester carbon, per the analysis.
- A tree's leaves can absorb pollutants like ozone and nitrogen dioxide, the report noted.
What they found: The U.S. cities with the most air pollution absorbed by trees are Presque Isle, Maine; Eugene, Ore.; Eureka, Calif.; Bangor, Maine; and Duluth, Minn., according to Climate Central data shared with Axios.
- By contrast, the cities with the most intense urban heat islands are Houston, New Orleans, Newark, New York City and San Francisco.
What they're saying: Jaime González, Community and Equitable Conservation Programs Director for the Nature Conservancy's Texas Chapter, tells Axios the city of Houston is working to meet an "ambitious" goal of 4.6 million trees planted by the year 2030.
- González' team just partnered with the Texas A&M Forest Service to map available planting zones in Gulfton, Texas — a "nature-deprived" neighborhood in Houston that's home to a largely immigrant and lower-income community. They estimated 804 trees could be placed there to increase tree canopy cover.
- "You just walk around the neighborhood, there are long, long stretches where there are no trees and it's just hot pavement," says González. (In 2020, parts of Gulfton were 17 degrees hotter in the afternoon than the city's coolest neighborhood, per the Washington Post.)
- "If there's a very large pot of money coming down, there needs to be equitable and empowering ways to get the money to the communities that are going to be served."
- Beattra Wilson, assistant director for cooperative forestry at the U.S. Forest Service, tells Axios in an email that the IRA funding will allow them to "reach more communities to help plant, replace, and maintain millions of trees."
- Wilson also notes the agency's focus on "equity considerations" and prioritizing "underserved communities" with the funding, which will be allotted through grants through 2031.
Zoom out: Historic redlining, a discriminatory housing practice, has led to higher proportions of racial minorities living in areas with less tree canopy cover, which can exacerbate health problems, per a 2021 study.
- Plus, reports by D.C.-based nonprofit Casey Trees find that communities in Wards 5, 7, and 8 — home to the largest percentage of Black and Latino residents — have seen the highest rates of tree canopy loss over the last five years.
- "These communities can experience flooding, extreme temperatures due to heat island effects, and higher rates of respiratory issues," Casey Trees' Vincent Drader tells Axios in an email.
The intrigue: Kelvin Fong, assistant professor at Dalhousie University and an environmental health and justice researcher, tells Axios that the racial and social determinants that drive inequities in tree cover are not just an “urban greening problem,” but a “health equity issue."
- "If you just take the health records of people over a large area, and you trace their health outcomes, you will find that those who live in areas of higher green space or tree canopy cover tend to have better health outcomes," says Fong.
Yes, but: "Tree for tree, [urban] trees are potentially doing a lot. But it's not going to offset the fossil fuels which are also concentrated in cities," says Lucy Hutyra, professor of earth and environment at Boston University.
- From planting costs to maintenance, she notes the costliness of urban trees, as well as the different growing environments city to city, which produces varying ecosystem services and benefits.
The bottom line: "Trees are part of the solution," Hutyra tells Axios. "But they are not the whole solution."
Axios' Simran Parwani contributed reporting to this story.
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The climate gains of urban trees
From stormwater runoff prevention to reducing the impacts of extreme heat, tree canopies provide a host of health and climate resiliency benefits for those in urban landscapes.
Why it matters: Not all trees are distributed equally. A new Climate Central analysis reveals which localities nationwide benefit most from the boons of urban forests.
How it works: Urban tree coverage helps reduce the impacts of extreme heat, prevents stormwater runoff, mitigates air pollution exposure and can even sequester carbon, per the analysis.
- A tree's leaves can absorb pollutants like ozone and nitrogen dioxide, the report noted.
What they found
|
: The U.S. cities with the most air pollution absorbed by trees are Presque Isle, Maine; Eugene, Ore.; Eureka, Calif.; Bangor, Maine; and Duluth, Minn., according to Climate Central data shared with Axios.
- By contrast, the cities with the most intense urban heat islands are Houston, New Orleans, Newark, New York City and San Francisco.
What they're saying: Jaime González, Community and Equitable Conservation Programs Director for the Nature Conservancy's Texas Chapter, tells Axios the city of Houston is working to meet an "ambitious" goal of 4.6 million trees planted by the year 2030.
- González' team just partnered with the Texas A&M Forest Service to map available planting zones in Gulfton, Texas — a "nature-deprived" neighborhood in Houston that's home to a largely immigrant and lower-income community. They estimated 804 trees could be placed there to increase tree canopy cover.
- "You just walk around the neighborhood, there are long, long stretches where there are no trees and it's just hot pavement," says González. (In 2020, parts of Gulfton were 17 degrees hotter in the afternoon than the city's coolest neighborhood, per the Washington Post.)
- "If there's a very large pot of money coming down, there needs to be equitable and empowering ways to get the money to the communities that are going to be served."
- Beattra Wilson, assistant director for cooperative forestry at the U.S. Forest Service, tells Axios in an email that the IRA funding will allow them to "reach more communities to help plant, replace, and maintain millions of trees."
- Wilson also notes the agency's focus on "equity considerations" and prioritizing "underserved communities" with the funding, which will be allotted through grants through 2031.
Zoom out: Historic redlining, a discriminatory housing practice, has led to higher proportions of racial minorities living in areas with less tree canopy cover, which can exacerbate health problems, per a 2021 study.
- Plus, reports by D.C.-based nonprofit Casey Trees find that communities in Wards 5, 7, and 8 — home to the largest percentage of Black and Latino residents — have seen the highest rates of tree canopy loss over the last five years.
- "These communities can experience flooding, extreme temperatures due to heat island effects, and higher rates of respiratory issues," Casey Trees' Vincent Drader tells Axios in an email.
The intrigue: Kelvin Fong, assistant professor at Dalhousie University and an environmental health and justice researcher, tells Axios that the racial and social determinants that drive inequities in tree cover are not just an “urban greening problem,” but a “health equity issue."
- "If you just take the health records of people over a large area, and you trace their health outcomes, you will find that those who live in areas of higher green space or tree canopy cover tend to have better health outcomes," says Fong.
Yes, but: "Tree for tree, [urban] trees are potentially doing a lot. But it's not going to offset the fossil fuels which are also concentrated in cities," says Lucy Hutyra, professor of earth and environment at Boston University.
- From planting costs to maintenance, she notes the costliness of urban trees, as well as the different growing environments city to city, which produces varying ecosystem services and benefits.
The bottom line: "Trees are part of the solution," Hutyra tells Axios. "But they are not the whole solution."
Axios' Simran Parwani contributed reporting to this story.
|
The World Health Organization’s cancer research arm has labeled aspartame a “possible carcinogen,” casting new doubts on the safety one of the world’s most common artificial sweeteners.
The organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer said recent studies suggest that aspartame may be linked to a higher risk of liver cancer. But a different agency within the WHO said it would not change its guidance for how much aspartame can safely be consumed in a day, saying the substance was not shown to absorb into the bloodstream.
The seemingly opposing announcements by IARC and the Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives - separate agencies within the United Nation’s health authority - are certain to intensify questions about the safety of aspartame, which is used in everything from Diet Coke and toothpaste to low-calorie fruit yogurts and cough drops.
More than 90 countries have approved aspartame’s use, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has reviewed its safety five times since it was approved for consumption in 1981. Yet concerns have persisted about its potential cancer risk.
Already, governmental agencies and the food industry are pushing back.
The FDA said in a statement that it disagrees with IARC’s conclusion that aspartame is a possible carcinogen to humans, citing shortcomings in the studies on which IARC relied. It said aspartame is one of the most studied food additives in the human food supply.
“Some consumers may rely on products with aspartame and other sweeteners to help reduce their sugar consumption. We recognize that navigating different information from health organizations is challenging,” the FDA statement said.
For the world’s nearly 540 million people living with diabetes, IARC’s announcement is “misleading, inaccurate and fearmongering,” said Robert Rankin, president of the Calorie Control Council, an industry association representing the low- and reduced-calorie food and beverage industry.
Some critics ridiculed IARC in advance of this week’s expected announcement, noting that it has in the past labeled working at night, aloe vera and eating processed meat as cancer-causing.
Technically, IARC and JECFA’s assessments aren’t in conflict because the agencies have different jobs. IARC determines whether something has the potential to cause cancer, whereas JECFA judges whether it poses a real risk to humans. IARC has determined that aspartame may cause cancer, but JECFA has said there’s no proof it harms humans if used as directed.
Francesco Branca, director of the WHO’s Department of Nutrition and Food Safety, said in a news conference this week that studies have not demonstrated that the use of artificial sweeteners reduces body weight in the long term. The best course for consumers, he said, is to moderate consumption of sugar and sweeteners and to drink water instead.
“If the benefit is not there, why take that risk?” he asked.
JECFA reaffirmed what it considered the acceptable daily intake of aspartame. The rather generous limit set by the agency is 40 milligrams per kilogram of body weight - equivalent to about 36 cans of diet soda for a 132-pound adult, according to the American Cancer Society.
Branca said that some consumers may be getting a worryingly high daily dose because aspartame is not just in diet sodas and other beverages anymore - it has crept into many foods, as have an array of newer sweeteners, as people have sought to limit added sugars.
“Reconsider the pattern of consumption,” Branca advised. His comments drew an outcry from critics who said his recommendation went further than the evidence.
“That is an expression of personal opinion, not the science,” said Kevin Keane, interim president of the American Beverage Association, an industry organization whose members include Coca-Cola and Pepsi. “The compendium of science consistently shows all these products are safe and can be part of a balanced diet. We offer people an array of safe beverage choices that can meet their needs, including if they want to reduce sugar and calories.”
About 95 percent of carbonated soft drinks that have a sweetener use aspartame, as well as at least 90 percent of ready-to-drink teas.
Keane said that numerous randomized controlled trials, which scientific bodies regard as the gold standard of nutrition research, showed that sweeteners can be a safe tool to help people manage their weight. “These trials were inexplicably set aside by WHO in its guideline.”
Two studies are at the center of IARC’s announcement: a large observational study in France last year and an animal study in 2006 and 2007 by a team at the Ramazzini Institute in Italy. Both studies have come under serious criticism for their methods.
The French study followed more than 100,000 adults and found that those who consumed larger amounts of artificial sweeteners, particularly aspartame and acesulfame-K, had a slightly higher cancer risk. The Italian study reported that aspartame caused tumors at multiple sites in rats and mice.
IARC’s working group said that several recent studies found an association between consumption of artificially sweetened beverages and certain types of liver cancer in humans, as well as an increased incidence of tumors in two species, mouse and rat, of both sexes, seen in three published studies. The IARC group said, however, that chance, bias or confounding could not be ruled out as an explanation for the findings.
Some experts said IARC’s warning should be a wake-up call as highly processed foods have flooded diets across the world.
Neena Prasad, who directs the food policy program at Bloomberg Philanthropies, says this is a call for people to ask themselves why they are consuming these chemicals in the first place.
“The FDA should consider taking action, and the food industry could reformulate with safer alternatives,” said Thomas Galligan, principal scientist for food additives and supplements for the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest. “That would take the burden off consumers. Parsing this really shouldn’t fall on consumers.”
The 1958 Food Additives Amendment to the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act requires the agency to ban food additives found to cause or induce cancer in humans or animals.
The science is still evolving, said William Dahut, chief scientific officer at the American Cancer Society. The IARC report should make people reflect on their use of aspartame, but it is also “an opportunity to review their overall dietary intake, including processed meat and alcohol, known carcinogens associated with increased risk of cancer.”
|
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The World Health Organization’s cancer research arm has labeled aspartame a “possible carcinogen,” casting new doubts on the safety one of the world’s most common artificial sweeteners.
The organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer said recent studies suggest that aspartame may be linked to a higher risk of liver cancer. But a different agency within the WHO said it would not change its guidance for how much aspartame can safely be consumed in a day, saying the substance was not shown to absorb into the bloodstream.
The seemingly opposing announcements by IARC and the Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives - separate agencies within the United Nation’s
|
health authority - are certain to intensify questions about the safety of aspartame, which is used in everything from Diet Coke and toothpaste to low-calorie fruit yogurts and cough drops.
More than 90 countries have approved aspartame’s use, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has reviewed its safety five times since it was approved for consumption in 1981. Yet concerns have persisted about its potential cancer risk.
Already, governmental agencies and the food industry are pushing back.
The FDA said in a statement that it disagrees with IARC’s conclusion that aspartame is a possible carcinogen to humans, citing shortcomings in the studies on which IARC relied. It said aspartame is one of the most studied food additives in the human food supply.
“Some consumers may rely on products with aspartame and other sweeteners to help reduce their sugar consumption. We recognize that navigating different information from health organizations is challenging,” the FDA statement said.
For the world’s nearly 540 million people living with diabetes, IARC’s announcement is “misleading, inaccurate and fearmongering,” said Robert Rankin, president of the Calorie Control Council, an industry association representing the low- and reduced-calorie food and beverage industry.
Some critics ridiculed IARC in advance of this week’s expected announcement, noting that it has in the past labeled working at night, aloe vera and eating processed meat as cancer-causing.
Technically, IARC and JECFA’s assessments aren’t in conflict because the agencies have different jobs. IARC determines whether something has the potential to cause cancer, whereas JECFA judges whether it poses a real risk to humans. IARC has determined that aspartame may cause cancer, but JECFA has said there’s no proof it harms humans if used as directed.
Francesco Branca, director of the WHO’s Department of Nutrition and Food Safety, said in a news conference this week that studies have not demonstrated that the use of artificial sweeteners reduces body weight in the long term. The best course for consumers, he said, is to moderate consumption of sugar and sweeteners and to drink water instead.
“If the benefit is not there, why take that risk?” he asked.
JECFA reaffirmed what it considered the acceptable daily intake of aspartame. The rather generous limit set by the agency is 40 milligrams per kilogram of body weight - equivalent to about 36 cans of diet soda for a 132-pound adult, according to the American Cancer Society.
Branca said that some consumers may be getting a worryingly high daily dose because aspartame is not just in diet sodas and other beverages anymore - it has crept into many foods, as have an array of newer sweeteners, as people have sought to limit added sugars.
“Reconsider the pattern of consumption,” Branca advised. His comments drew an outcry from critics who said his recommendation went further than the evidence.
“That is an expression of personal opinion, not the science,” said Kevin Keane, interim president of the American Beverage Association, an industry organization whose members include Coca-Cola and Pepsi. “The compendium of science consistently shows all these products are safe and can be part of a balanced diet. We offer people an array of safe beverage choices that can meet their needs, including if they want to reduce sugar and calories.”
About 95 percent of carbonated soft drinks that have a sweetener use aspartame, as well as at least 90 percent of ready-to-drink teas.
Keane said that numerous randomized controlled trials, which scientific bodies regard as the gold standard of nutrition research, showed that sweeteners can be a safe tool to help people manage their weight. “These trials were inexplicably set aside by WHO in its guideline.”
Two studies are at the center of IARC’s announcement: a large observational study in France last year and an animal study in 2006 and 2007 by a team at the Ramazzini Institute in Italy. Both studies have come under serious criticism for their methods.
The French study followed more than 100,000 adults and found that those who consumed larger amounts of artificial sweeteners, particularly aspartame and acesulfame-K, had a slightly higher cancer risk. The Italian study reported that aspartame caused tumors at multiple sites in rats and mice.
IARC’s working group said that several recent studies found an association between consumption of artificially sweetened beverages and certain types of liver cancer in humans, as well as an increased incidence of tumors in two species, mouse and rat, of both sexes, seen in three published studies. The IARC group said, however, that chance, bias or confounding could not be ruled out as an explanation for the findings.
Some experts said IARC’s warning should be a wake-up call as highly processed foods have flooded diets across the world.
Neena Prasad, who directs the food policy program at Bloomberg Philanthropies, says this is a call for people to ask themselves why they are consuming these chemicals in the first place.
“The FDA should consider taking action, and the food industry could reformulate with safer alternatives,” said Thomas Galligan, principal scientist for food additives and supplements for the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest. “That would take the burden off consumers. Parsing this really shouldn’t fall on consumers.”
The 1958 Food Additives Amendment to the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act requires the agency to ban food additives found to cause or induce cancer in humans or animals.
The science is still evolving, said William Dahut, chief scientific officer at the American Cancer Society. The IARC report should make people reflect on their use of aspartame, but it is also “an opportunity to review their overall dietary intake, including processed meat and alcohol, known carcinogens associated with increased risk of cancer.”
|
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