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Mike DeWine: From Holocaust to Nazis at Columbus drag brunch, history teaches, can repeat "It is our responsibility as Americans, as Ohioans, and just as human beings to never let this dark chapter of history be forgotten — or repeated," Mike DeWine Mike DeWine is governor of Ohio. Louise Gips of Cleveland will turn 90 in December. She was almost six years-old when her family fled to Ukraine following the Nazi invasion of her native Poland, and eventually ended up in Siberia as Jewish prisoners of war. More:Oldest Holocaust memorial in US gets federal protection amid rise of antisemitism Louise told her family’s story at the Governor’s annual Holocaust Remembrance Ceremony in April. She also told her now deceased husband, Harry’s, story. While she and her family were fortunate to have survived the Holocaust, most of her husband’s family did not. Harry was 10 years-old when Nazis captured his family in Poland. They were sent to a Nazi ghetto, where countless Jews died of disease or starvation or were loaded on trucks daily to be taken directly to death camps where they were executed. Harry had six siblings. He and his oldest three siblings managed to escape the ghetto. Harry, then about 12 years-old, went to a farm and told the owner that he was a Christian boy and offered to work for him. A fight for survival The farmer looked out for Harry until someone recognized him and alerted the farmer that Harry was Jewish. Knowing he and his family could be killed for harboring a Jew, the farmer told Harry to hide in the woods. It was there, in the forest, that Harry spent the next 18 months fighting to survive. When the War was over, he went back to his hometown in Poland, only to learn that his family had all been killed except for two of his sisters. Nazis executed his youngest sister just three months before the War’s end. Louise told these stories because, in her words, “If all of us don’t speak, history will definitely repeat itself.” She is right. History is a teacher It is both incomprehensible and scary to me that there are people today in America who think that discrimination, hate, and bigotry are OK. According to the Anti-Defamation League, there were over 204 recorded antisemitic incidents of vandalism or propaganda in Ohio in 2022, often perpetrated by either neo-Nazi or white supremacist groups. Antisemitic incidents, alone, increased by 22% in Ohio between 2021 and 2022. More:Nazis protest at Land-Grant drag brunch: Here's what you need to know now Most recently, protestors purported to belong to the neo-Nazi group, “Blood Tribe,” gathered outside a Columbus brewery hosting a drag brunch fundraiser for the Kaleidoscope Youth Center. Donning red shirts and black ski masks to hide their cowardly faces, they waved a black flag with a Nazi swastika and a banner with the words "there will be blood." History is a teacher. We must use it, as Louise Gips has so eloquently done, to educate our young people and remind everyone what Hitler and the Nazis stood for and the atrocities they committed. 'Some bastard will say this never happened.' I told my dad, Dick DeWine’s, story here in the Dispatch a few years ago, following the violent demonstrations of white supremacists in Charlottesville. It bears repeating. Dad was a Private in the Army during World War II. He used to tell me about what he and his Army company saw when they arrived at the Dachau concentration camp just days after it had been liberated. What my dad and his fellow soldiers witnessed in Hitler’s Germany was burned on their brains for the rest of their lives. More:Mike DeWine: Remind neo-Nazis of the horrors of Dachau Dachau was a camp where more than 30,000 people perished at the hand of the Nazis. When Dad was there, he saw the ovens that the Nazis used to burn the bodies of so many of the prisoners, many still containing ashes and skeletal remains. Even into his 80s, Dad still vividly pictured the devices the Nazis used to slide the bodies into the ovens. He told me about going into a room next to the ovens and seeing fixtures on the walls that looked like showerheads. Those at the camp told him that prisoners were taken into these rooms and told they were going to take showers. Instead of water coming out of the nozzles, deadly poisonous gas was emitted. Dad also remembered walking down the road near the camp and encountering a very weak, emaciated man who had just been a prisoner. My dad and his buddies talked to the man and gave him food and cigarettes. They asked him if they could take his picture. He said yes — if it was with an American soldier. So, they did. Recollections of the Holocaust are difficult to read and even more difficult to imagine. It’s one of the reasons that when the concentration camps were being liberated, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower instructed that photos be taken and films be made of the prisoners and of the unimaginable conditions in which they lived and in which so many were murdered. He wanted to make sure that we told these stories because, in his words, “Some bastard will say this never happened.” There will come a time, in the not-too-distant future, when there will be no more Holocaust survivors — no more American liberators. If we don’t continue to tell their stories, who will? It is our responsibility as Americans, as Ohioans, and just as human beings to never let this dark chapter of history be forgotten — or repeated. Mike DeWine is governor of Ohio.	<urn:uuid:1c58e883-c678-4f6c-bfb1-7a518a2fa6d6>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-23", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224648245.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20230602003804-20230602033804-00720.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9856396317481995, "pii_count": 0, "score": 2.671875, "token_count": 1213, "url": "https://www.dispatch.com/story/opinion/columns/guest/2023/05/15/from-holocaust-to-nazis-at-columbus-ohio-drag-brunch-protest-history-teaches-can-repeat-mike-dewine/70212876007/" }	Mike DeWine: From Holocaust to Nazis at Columbus drag brunch, history teaches, can repeat "It is our responsibility as Americans, as Ohioans, and just as human beings to never let this dark chapter of history be forgotten — or repeated," Mike DeWine Mike DeWine is governor of Ohio. Louise Gips of Cleveland will turn 90 in December. She was almost six years-old when her family fled to Ukraine following the Nazi invasion of her native Poland, and eventually ended up in Siberia as Jewish prisoners of war. More:Oldest Holocaust memorial in US gets federal protection amid rise of antisemitism Louise told her family’s story at the Governor’s annual Holocaust Remembrance Ceremony in April. She also told her now deceased husband, Harry’s, story. While she and her family were fortunate to have survived the Holocaust, most of her husband’s family did not. Harry was 10 years-old when Nazis captured his family in Poland. They were sent to a Nazi ghetto, where countless Jews died of disease or starvation or were loaded on trucks daily to be taken directly to death camps where they were executed. Harry had six siblings. He and his oldest three siblings managed to escape the ghetto. Harry, then about 12 years-old, went to a farm and told the owner that he was a Christian boy and offered to work for him. A fight for survival The farmer looked out for Harry until someone recognized him and alerted the farmer that Harry was Jewish. Knowing he and his family could be killed for harboring a Jew, the farmer told Harry to hide in the woods. It was there, in the forest, that Harry spent the next 18 months fighting to survive. When the War was over, he went back to his hometown in Poland, only to learn that his family had all been killed except for two of his sisters. Nazis executed his youngest sister just three months before the War’s end. Louise told these stories because, in her words, “If all of us don’t speak, history will definitely repeat itself.” She is right. History is a teacher It is both incomprehensible and scary to me that there are people today in America who think that discrimination, hate, and bigotry are OK. According to the Anti-Defamation League, there were over 204 recorded antisemitic incidents of vandalism or propaganda in Ohio in 2022, often perpetrated by either neo-Nazi or white suprem	acist groups. Antisemitic incidents, alone, increased by 22% in Ohio between 2021 and 2022. More:Nazis protest at Land-Grant drag brunch: Here's what you need to know now Most recently, protestors purported to belong to the neo-Nazi group, “Blood Tribe,” gathered outside a Columbus brewery hosting a drag brunch fundraiser for the Kaleidoscope Youth Center. Donning red shirts and black ski masks to hide their cowardly faces, they waved a black flag with a Nazi swastika and a banner with the words "there will be blood." History is a teacher. We must use it, as Louise Gips has so eloquently done, to educate our young people and remind everyone what Hitler and the Nazis stood for and the atrocities they committed. 'Some bastard will say this never happened.' I told my dad, Dick DeWine’s, story here in the Dispatch a few years ago, following the violent demonstrations of white supremacists in Charlottesville. It bears repeating. Dad was a Private in the Army during World War II. He used to tell me about what he and his Army company saw when they arrived at the Dachau concentration camp just days after it had been liberated. What my dad and his fellow soldiers witnessed in Hitler’s Germany was burned on their brains for the rest of their lives. More:Mike DeWine: Remind neo-Nazis of the horrors of Dachau Dachau was a camp where more than 30,000 people perished at the hand of the Nazis. When Dad was there, he saw the ovens that the Nazis used to burn the bodies of so many of the prisoners, many still containing ashes and skeletal remains. Even into his 80s, Dad still vividly pictured the devices the Nazis used to slide the bodies into the ovens. He told me about going into a room next to the ovens and seeing fixtures on the walls that looked like showerheads. Those at the camp told him that prisoners were taken into these rooms and told they were going to take showers. Instead of water coming out of the nozzles, deadly poisonous gas was emitted. Dad also remembered walking down the road near the camp and encountering a very weak, emaciated man who had just been a prisoner. My dad and his buddies talked to the man and gave him food and cigarettes. They asked him if they could take his picture. He said yes — if it was with an American soldier. So, they did. Recollections of the Holocaust are difficult to read and even more difficult to imagine. It’s one of the reasons that when the concentration camps were being liberated, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower instructed that photos be taken and films be made of the prisoners and of the unimaginable conditions in which they lived and in which so many were murdered. He wanted to make sure that we told these stories because, in his words, “Some bastard will say this never happened.” There will come a time, in the not-too-distant future, when there will be no more Holocaust survivors — no more American liberators. If we don’t continue to tell their stories, who will? It is our responsibility as Americans, as Ohioans, and just as human beings to never let this dark chapter of history be forgotten — or repeated. Mike DeWine is governor of Ohio.
By Shivam Patel NEW DELHI (Reuters) – A Himalayan glacial lake in India probably burst its banks this week after chunks of ice fell into it in an apparent avalanche following heavy rains, triggering deadly flash floods in a small mountain state, experts told Reuters. At least 18 people have died and nearly 100 remain missing as heavy rains and water gushing out of Lhonak Lake unleashed flash floods on Wednesday in the Teesta river in Sikkim state, which borders Nepal, Bhutan and China. It is the latest in a series of extreme weather events that have caused widespread damage in the Himalayas of South Asia in recent years and have been blamed by scientists and officials on climate change. WHAT CAUSED THE FLOODING? The primary reason for the destruction in Sikkim was excess rainfall and a glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) in Lhonak Lake at an altitude of 5,200 metres (17,060 ft), India’s National Disaster Management Authority said. Glacial lakes are formed when a glacier melts and fills the depression left behind. There are 503 glacial lakes in the Indian Himalayas that are larger than 10 hectares – close to the size of 10 rugby fields put together, according to a 2011 assessment by India’s Central Water Commission. Satellite images released by India’s space agency on Thursday showed that Lhonak Lake more than halved in size after it flooded. The images also show a lot of ice floating on the lake surface, said Jakob F. Steiner, a fellow at the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), part of the Himalayan University Consortium. “On the south of the Lhonak Lake there are steep slopes, glaciers as well, there is still snow. It could be that a chunk of either ice or unstable slopes has detached and dropped into the lake water,” Steiner said, adding that the images indicate something like this happened. This can create shockwaves across the water surface that would be enough to topple the lake’s dam, Steiner added, since the lake is up to 120 metres (395 ft) deep. Finu Shrestha, a remote sensing and geo-information analyst at ICIMOD, said a combination of factors including rainfall, a snow avalanche and increasing pressure on the lake due to its growing size could have caused it to flood. Sharad Chandra, director of the flood forecasting division at India’s Central Water Commission, said two earthquakes that struck Nepal on Tuesday, of magnitudes 6.3 and 5.3, could also be one of the probable reasons behind the GLOF event. WERE THERE WARNINGS AND SIMILAR EVENTS IN THE PAST? Indian scientists at the National Remote Sensing Centre had said in a 2013 report that there was a 42% chance of Lhonak Lake bursting its banks. It said the lake had grown in size, from 17.54 hectares (43.34 acres) in 1977 to 98.73 hectares (243.97 acres) in 2008. Latest satellite imagery showed the lake area as approximately 162.7 hectares before it burst and shrank to 60.30 hectares. Deadly flash floods have previously been triggered multiple times due to GLOF events in the Himalayas, including a 2013 disaster in Kedarnath in Uttarakhand state that killed about 5,000 people. Floods caused by days of heavy rains in Sikkim in 1968 killed an estimated 1,000 people. (Editing by YP Rajesh; editing by Mark Heinrich)	<urn:uuid:4f94f177-cf05-4b99-81ba-eb390066cdac>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-50", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100327.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20231202042052-20231202072052-00227.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9479397535324097, "pii_count": 0, "score": 2.953125, "token_count": 752, "url": "https://ec2-15-188-152-128.eu-west-3.compute.amazonaws.com/2023/10/05/explainer-deadly-himalayan-lake-flooding/" }	By Shivam Patel NEW DELHI (Reuters) – A Himalayan glacial lake in India probably burst its banks this week after chunks of ice fell into it in an apparent avalanche following heavy rains, triggering deadly flash floods in a small mountain state, experts told Reuters. At least 18 people have died and nearly 100 remain missing as heavy rains and water gushing out of Lhonak Lake unleashed flash floods on Wednesday in the Teesta river in Sikkim state, which borders Nepal, Bhutan and China. It is the latest in a series of extreme weather events that have caused widespread damage in the Himalayas of South Asia in recent years and have been blamed by scientists and officials on climate change. WHAT CAUSED THE FLOODING? The primary reason for the destruction in Sikkim was excess rainfall and a glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) in Lhonak Lake at an altitude of 5,200 metres (17,060 ft), India’s National Disaster Management Authority said. Glacial lakes are formed when a glacier melts and fills the depression left behind. There are 503 glacial lakes in the Indian Himalayas that are larger than 10 hectares – close to the size of 10 rugby fields put together, according to a 2011 assessment by India’s Central Water Commission. Satellite images released by India’s space agency on Thursday showed that Lhonak Lake more than halved in size after it flooded. The images also show a lot of ice floating on the lake surface, said Jakob F. Steiner, a fellow at the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), part of the Himalayan University Consortium. “On the south of the Lhonak Lake there are steep slopes, glaciers as well, there is still snow. It could be that a chunk of either ice or unstable slopes has detached and dropped into the lake water,” Steiner said, adding that the images indicate something like this happened. This can create shockwaves across the water surface that would be enough to topple the lake’s dam, Steiner added, since the lake is up to 120 metres (395 ft) deep. Finu Shrestha, a remote sensing and geo-information analyst at ICIMOD, said a combination of factors including rainfall, a snow avalanche and increasing pressure on the lake due to its growing size could have caused it to flood	. Sharad Chandra, director of the flood forecasting division at India’s Central Water Commission, said two earthquakes that struck Nepal on Tuesday, of magnitudes 6.3 and 5.3, could also be one of the probable reasons behind the GLOF event. WERE THERE WARNINGS AND SIMILAR EVENTS IN THE PAST? Indian scientists at the National Remote Sensing Centre had said in a 2013 report that there was a 42% chance of Lhonak Lake bursting its banks. It said the lake had grown in size, from 17.54 hectares (43.34 acres) in 1977 to 98.73 hectares (243.97 acres) in 2008. Latest satellite imagery showed the lake area as approximately 162.7 hectares before it burst and shrank to 60.30 hectares. Deadly flash floods have previously been triggered multiple times due to GLOF events in the Himalayas, including a 2013 disaster in Kedarnath in Uttarakhand state that killed about 5,000 people. Floods caused by days of heavy rains in Sikkim in 1968 killed an estimated 1,000 people. (Editing by YP Rajesh; editing by Mark Heinrich)
The recent bank problems associated with Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse have highlighted the important distinction between a bank's liquidity and its capital. Liquidity and capital are two crucial aspects of a bank's financial health, and both play a vital role in its ability to withstand unexpected shocks. However, the two are also routinely conflated and lead to a lot of misconceptions as well. Liquidity refers to a bank's ability to meet its short-term obligations. It is the ability of a bank to pay its liabilities as they come due. For a bank, this means having enough cash or easily sellable assets on hand to meet customer demands for withdrawals or other cash needs of the bank, such as making debt payments. Capital, on the other hand, refers to the bank's net worth. It is the value of the bank’s assets above and beyond what the bank owes. Much like a homeowner may have a house worth $300,000 while still owing $200,000 on a mortgage, leaving $100,000 in net equity, bank capital constitutes investors’ equity in the firm. Capital is critical because it serves as a buffer against losses, ensuring that the bank can absorb losses without risking insolvency (i.e., having negative net worth). The recent banking problems have highlighted the importance of these two aspects of a bank's financial health—bank liquidity and bank capital—and also how the two concepts are related. Silicon Valley Bank's liquidity problems, for example, began when it experienced large losses on its bond portfolio. These were only paper losses at first. As interest rates rose rapidly in recent months, the value of SVB’s However, the paper losses led to a loss of confidence and a run on the bank, with customers withdrawing funds, leading to a liquidity crisis. Had SVB been able to hold its bonds to maturity, it might never have had an issue. However, problems arose when it had to sell its bonds on the open market at a loss in order to obtain the cash it needed to meet customer withdrawals. This is how a liquidity problem can quickly morph into a capital problem. Credit Suisse's problems were similar although they have taken longer to unfold. Credit Suisse’s share price has fallen more than 75% over the last year, largely as a result of some bad investment decisions, as well as turnover in top management. The company has been trying to turn things around, but the recent banking problems in America seem to have scared investors, leading some to think Credit Suisse may be the next domino to fall. As Credit Suisse began facing withdrawals, Swiss authorities stepped in to help engineer a takeover of the company by its long-time rival, UBS. Note that UBS is unlikely to agree to such a takeover if it thought Credit Suisse was insolvent (although the Swiss government has agreed to share in some of Credit Suisse’s losses). Presumably UBS executives believe Credit Suisse’s net worth exceeds the $3.2 billion they have agreed to pay for the company, otherwise they would not sign off on the sale. In response to the liquidity problems faced by European banks, the Federal Reserve and other central banks have ramped up swap lines to provide access to U.S. dollars. The swap lines allow foreign banks to borrow dollars from the Federal Reserve or their own central bank in exchange for their own currency or in exchange for some other asset, such as U.S. Treasury bonds. This provides the foreign banks with access to liquidity in U.S. dollars, which they can use to meet their short-term obligations. Some have criticized the Federal Reserve in recent weeks for “printing money” or bailing out irresponsible investors. However, it is essential to note that providing liquidity to banks is not the same as a bailout. A bailout involves the injection of capital into an insolvent bank to keep it afloat, while liquidity provision aims to prevent a liquidity crisis from spiraling out of control. The Federal Reserve acts as a lender of last resort, providing liquidity to banks during times of financial stress. This function is essential to ensuring that the banking system remains stable. Without the central bank acting as lender of last resort, banks might not have access to the funds they need to meet their obligations. This could lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy whereby customers lose confidence, banks sell assets at a loss to meet customer withdrawals, and customers lose further confidence as bank capital is eroded. So the next time someone tells you that a bank has been bailed out, ask yourself if it is bank liquidity or bank capital that is being provided. The distinction is critical, and the ability to distinguish between the two is an important test of the seriousness of any financial pundit.	<urn:uuid:2c87dde4-07a5-41b7-a292-124736484bf3>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-23", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224654097.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20230608035801-20230608065801-00359.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.968105673789978, "pii_count": 0, "score": 2.734375, "token_count": 974, "url": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesbroughel/2023/03/20/the-one-thing-you-need-to-know-to-understand-any-banking-crisis/" }	The recent bank problems associated with Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse have highlighted the important distinction between a bank's liquidity and its capital. Liquidity and capital are two crucial aspects of a bank's financial health, and both play a vital role in its ability to withstand unexpected shocks. However, the two are also routinely conflated and lead to a lot of misconceptions as well. Liquidity refers to a bank's ability to meet its short-term obligations. It is the ability of a bank to pay its liabilities as they come due. For a bank, this means having enough cash or easily sellable assets on hand to meet customer demands for withdrawals or other cash needs of the bank, such as making debt payments. Capital, on the other hand, refers to the bank's net worth. It is the value of the bank’s assets above and beyond what the bank owes. Much like a homeowner may have a house worth $300,000 while still owing $200,000 on a mortgage, leaving $100,000 in net equity, bank capital constitutes investors’ equity in the firm. Capital is critical because it serves as a buffer against losses, ensuring that the bank can absorb losses without risking insolvency (i.e., having negative net worth). The recent banking problems have highlighted the importance of these two aspects of a bank's financial health—bank liquidity and bank capital—and also how the two concepts are related. Silicon Valley Bank's liquidity problems, for example, began when it experienced large losses on its bond portfolio. These were only paper losses at first. As interest rates rose rapidly in recent months, the value of SVB’s However, the paper losses led to a loss of confidence and a run on the bank, with customers withdrawing funds, leading to a liquidity crisis. Had SVB been able to hold its bonds to maturity, it might never have had an issue. However, problems arose when it had to sell its bonds on the open market at a loss in order to obtain the cash it needed to meet customer withdrawals. This is how a liquidity problem can quickly morph into a capital problem. Credit Suisse's problems were similar although they have taken longer to unfold. Credit Suisse’s share price has fallen more than 75% over the last year, largely as a result of some bad investment decisions, as well as turnover in top management. The company has been trying to turn things around, but the recent banking	problems in America seem to have scared investors, leading some to think Credit Suisse may be the next domino to fall. As Credit Suisse began facing withdrawals, Swiss authorities stepped in to help engineer a takeover of the company by its long-time rival, UBS. Note that UBS is unlikely to agree to such a takeover if it thought Credit Suisse was insolvent (although the Swiss government has agreed to share in some of Credit Suisse’s losses). Presumably UBS executives believe Credit Suisse’s net worth exceeds the $3.2 billion they have agreed to pay for the company, otherwise they would not sign off on the sale. In response to the liquidity problems faced by European banks, the Federal Reserve and other central banks have ramped up swap lines to provide access to U.S. dollars. The swap lines allow foreign banks to borrow dollars from the Federal Reserve or their own central bank in exchange for their own currency or in exchange for some other asset, such as U.S. Treasury bonds. This provides the foreign banks with access to liquidity in U.S. dollars, which they can use to meet their short-term obligations. Some have criticized the Federal Reserve in recent weeks for “printing money” or bailing out irresponsible investors. However, it is essential to note that providing liquidity to banks is not the same as a bailout. A bailout involves the injection of capital into an insolvent bank to keep it afloat, while liquidity provision aims to prevent a liquidity crisis from spiraling out of control. The Federal Reserve acts as a lender of last resort, providing liquidity to banks during times of financial stress. This function is essential to ensuring that the banking system remains stable. Without the central bank acting as lender of last resort, banks might not have access to the funds they need to meet their obligations. This could lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy whereby customers lose confidence, banks sell assets at a loss to meet customer withdrawals, and customers lose further confidence as bank capital is eroded. So the next time someone tells you that a bank has been bailed out, ask yourself if it is bank liquidity or bank capital that is being provided. The distinction is critical, and the ability to distinguish between the two is an important test of the seriousness of any financial pundit.
Exercise as a treatment for severe depression is at least as effective as standard drugs or psychotherapy and by some measures better, according to the largest study to date of exercise as “medicine” for depression. “We found large, significant results,” said Andreas Heissel, an exercise scientist at the University of Potsdam in Germany, who led the study. For people struggling with depression, he said, the findings show you don’t have to run marathons or otherwise train strenuously to benefit. “Something is better than nothing,” Heissel said. The effects were robust enough that the study’s authors hope the finding will spur a move to make exercise a standard, prescribed therapy for depression. That approach would represent a notable shift. The American Psychological Association’s clinical practice guidelines, updated in 2019, recommend seven types of psychotherapy and several antidepressants for the treatment of depression, but they do not mention exercise. The World Health Organization promotes exercise for mental health as an add-on to traditional treatments — not on its own. But the study’s authors are confident. “We expect this review to lead to updated guidelines and recommendations for exercise as a first-line treatment option,” Heissel said. Some depression experts are hesitant. “I think that exercise should be prescribed for everyone with depression,” said Murray B. Stein, a professor and vice chair for clinical research in the department of psychiatry at the University of California at San Diego who was not involved in the study. “I still feel the evidence is weak, though, that exercise be considered a first-line treatment for depression.” The research behind exercise and depression Scientists and clinicians have known for some time that exercise protects us against developing depression. In large-scale epidemiological studies, active men and women become depressed at much lower rates than sedentary people, even if they exercise for only a few minutes a day or a few days a week. But it’s trickier to test exercise as a treatment for existing depression. You have to study it like any medicine, by recruiting people with the condition and randomly assigning them to the intervention — in this case, exercise — or a control group and scrupulously tracking what happens. Because these experiments tend to be complicated and expensive, past studies using exercise against depression have been small, typically involving only a few dozen people, making it difficult to draw firm conclusions about whether and how well exercise treats depression. In the study published in February in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, a global group of researchers pulled together every recent experiment using physical activity as depression therapy. They wound up with data from 41 studies of about 2,265 volunteers, representing the largest sample yet on this topic. The studies’ exercise programs included walking, running and weight training. Some consisted of group classes, others solo workouts, some supervised, some not. But all featured people with depression getting up and moving more. Exercise of any kind treats depression Pooled, the effects were potent. Overall, people with depression who exercised in any way improved their symptoms by almost five points, using one widely recognized diagnostic scale, and by about 6.5 points using another. For both scales, an improvement of three points or more is considered clinically meaningful, the study’s authors write. In practical terms, these numbers suggest that, for every two people with depression who start to exercise, one of them should experience “a large-magnitude reduction in depressive symptoms,” Heissel said. Those statistics represent “somewhat better” outcomes than those seen in recent studies of psychotherapy and drug treatment for depression, said Felipe Schuch, a professor researching exercise and mental health at the University of Santa Maria in Brazil and senior author of the study. In general, the effects were best if people exercised moderately, such as by walking, although more vigorous workouts, including running, cycling and weight training, were almost as effective, and even light activities such as gardening eased symptoms. Overall, the study “shows that exercise is a further, effective, stand-alone treatment option” for depression, Heissel said. The study did not look at how exercise might be improving mental health. In past research with depressed mice, as well as with people, exercise raised levels in the brain and bloodstreams of various biochemicals known to be involved in mood enhancement. It also often elevated people’s self-efficacy, which is the sense that you are capable of more than you once believed, a change typically associated with better mental health. But the precise mechanisms by which bodily movements alter brain functions to improve moods remain unclear, as do the differences in people’s responses. In every study the researchers included, some people’s depression lifted, while others’ symptoms remained stubbornly unchanged. (Similar disparities are seen in almost all studies of psychotherapy and drug treatments, too.) What is the right dose of exercise? “To formulate exercise as a prescription for medicine, we still need more research to understand the optimal type, frequency and amount of exercise for different people,” said Karmel Choi, a clinical psychologist and assistant professor at the Center for Precision Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. She has studied exercise and depression but was not involved in the new review. “Depression is not one size fits all,” she said, “so treatment should always be tailored to the individual.” Murray Stein of UCSD agrees. “Exercise has so many health benefits that it should be prescribed for virtually anything that ails humankind,” he said. But he remains unconvinced that it should be a primary treatment for depression. “I would prescribe exercise as an adjunct” approach for patients with moderate to severe depression, he said, with psychotherapy or an antidepressant as the main therapy. Certainly, more research is needed. “We do not know enough about dose, intensity and type of exercise,” Heissel said, or whether early improvements related to activity last. Future studies should dive into these questions and compare exercise head-to-head against psychotherapy and antidepressants, he said. Perhaps most important, researchers and clinicians need to recognize how daunting exercise can be for someone who is depressed. “Many people struggle to become active,” Heissel said. “So the first step is trying to understand what is the exercise that is more likely to be accepted and to generate enjoyment.” If you or someone you care about feels depressed, Heissel said, talk with a doctor about exercise, either as a first therapy or in addition to other treatments. Experiment with different activities until you settle on one you enjoy. “The best exercise is the one that is actually done,” Heissel said, “and that means exercise that is rewarding or pleasant.” Do you have a fitness question? Email <email-pii> and we may answer your question in a future column. Sign up for the Well+Being newsletter, your source of expert advice and simple tips to help you live well every day Read more from Well+Being Well+Being shares news and advice for living well every day. Sign up for our newsletter to get tips directly in your inbox. Eating like a centenarian can help you live a longer life. Waking up frequently at night can harm your health. Here are three ways to improve sleep. The frequency and color of poop can vary. Most of the time, they shouldn’t cause alarm. You should avoid kava and 9 other risky dietary supplements. Try these 6 ways to slow memory decline and lower dementia risk	<urn:uuid:cdef7ad7-e021-4375-9a67-15777bc95311>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-14", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296945183.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20230323194025-20230323224025-00503.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9611784815788269, "pii_count": 1, "score": 3, "token_count": 1622, "url": "https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/03/15/exercise-depression-benefits/" }	Exercise as a treatment for severe depression is at least as effective as standard drugs or psychotherapy and by some measures better, according to the largest study to date of exercise as “medicine” for depression. “We found large, significant results,” said Andreas Heissel, an exercise scientist at the University of Potsdam in Germany, who led the study. For people struggling with depression, he said, the findings show you don’t have to run marathons or otherwise train strenuously to benefit. “Something is better than nothing,” Heissel said. The effects were robust enough that the study’s authors hope the finding will spur a move to make exercise a standard, prescribed therapy for depression. That approach would represent a notable shift. The American Psychological Association’s clinical practice guidelines, updated in 2019, recommend seven types of psychotherapy and several antidepressants for the treatment of depression, but they do not mention exercise. The World Health Organization promotes exercise for mental health as an add-on to traditional treatments — not on its own. But the study’s authors are confident. “We expect this review to lead to updated guidelines and recommendations for exercise as a first-line treatment option,” Heissel said. Some depression experts are hesitant. “I think that exercise should be prescribed for everyone with depression,” said Murray B. Stein, a professor and vice chair for clinical research in the department of psychiatry at the University of California at San Diego who was not involved in the study. “I still feel the evidence is weak, though, that exercise be considered a first-line treatment for depression.” The research behind exercise and depression Scientists and clinicians have known for some time that exercise protects us against developing depression. In large-scale epidemiological studies, active men and women become depressed at much lower rates than sedentary people, even if they exercise for only a few minutes a day or a few days a week. But it’s trickier to test exercise as a treatment for existing depression. You have to study it like any medicine, by recruiting people with the condition and randomly assigning them to the intervention — in this case, exercise — or a control group and scrupulously tracking what happens. Because these experiments tend to be complicated and expensive, past studies using exercise against depression have been small, typically involving only a few dozen people, making it difficult to draw firm conclusions about whether and how well exercise treats depression. In the study published in February in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, a global group of researchers pulled together every recent experiment using physical activity as depression therapy. They	wound up with data from 41 studies of about 2,265 volunteers, representing the largest sample yet on this topic. The studies’ exercise programs included walking, running and weight training. Some consisted of group classes, others solo workouts, some supervised, some not. But all featured people with depression getting up and moving more. Exercise of any kind treats depression Pooled, the effects were potent. Overall, people with depression who exercised in any way improved their symptoms by almost five points, using one widely recognized diagnostic scale, and by about 6.5 points using another. For both scales, an improvement of three points or more is considered clinically meaningful, the study’s authors write. In practical terms, these numbers suggest that, for every two people with depression who start to exercise, one of them should experience “a large-magnitude reduction in depressive symptoms,” Heissel said. Those statistics represent “somewhat better” outcomes than those seen in recent studies of psychotherapy and drug treatment for depression, said Felipe Schuch, a professor researching exercise and mental health at the University of Santa Maria in Brazil and senior author of the study. In general, the effects were best if people exercised moderately, such as by walking, although more vigorous workouts, including running, cycling and weight training, were almost as effective, and even light activities such as gardening eased symptoms. Overall, the study “shows that exercise is a further, effective, stand-alone treatment option” for depression, Heissel said. The study did not look at how exercise might be improving mental health. In past research with depressed mice, as well as with people, exercise raised levels in the brain and bloodstreams of various biochemicals known to be involved in mood enhancement. It also often elevated people’s self-efficacy, which is the sense that you are capable of more than you once believed, a change typically associated with better mental health. But the precise mechanisms by which bodily movements alter brain functions to improve moods remain unclear, as do the differences in people’s responses. In every study the researchers included, some people’s depression lifted, while others’ symptoms remained stubbornly unchanged. (Similar disparities are seen in almost all studies of psychotherapy and drug treatments, too.) What is the right dose of exercise? “To formulate exercise as a prescription for medicine, we still need more research to understand the optimal type, frequency and amount of exercise for different people,” said Karmel Choi, a clinical psychologist and assistant professor at the Center for Precision Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. She has studied exercise and depression but was not involved in the new review. “Depression is not one size fits all,” she said, “so treatment should always be tailored to the individual.” Murray Stein of UCSD agrees. “Exercise has so many health benefits that it should be prescribed for virtually anything that ails humankind,” he said. But he remains unconvinced that it should be a primary treatment for depression. “I would prescribe exercise as an adjunct” approach for patients with moderate to severe depression, he said, with psychotherapy or an antidepressant as the main therapy. Certainly, more research is needed. “We do not know enough about dose, intensity and type of exercise,” Heissel said, or whether early improvements related to activity last. Future studies should dive into these questions and compare exercise head-to-head against psychotherapy and antidepressants, he said. Perhaps most important, researchers and clinicians need to recognize how daunting exercise can be for someone who is depressed. “Many people struggle to become active,” Heissel said. “So the first step is trying to understand what is the exercise that is more likely to be accepted and to generate enjoyment.” If you or someone you care about feels depressed, Heissel said, talk with a doctor about exercise, either as a first therapy or in addition to other treatments. Experiment with different activities until you settle on one you enjoy. “The best exercise is the one that is actually done,” Heissel said, “and that means exercise that is rewarding or pleasant.” Do you have a fitness question? Email <email-pii> and we may answer your question in a future column. Sign up for the Well+Being newsletter, your source of expert advice and simple tips to help you live well every day Read more from Well+Being Well+Being shares news and advice for living well every day. Sign up for our newsletter to get tips directly in your inbox. Eating like a centenarian can help you live a longer life. Waking up frequently at night can harm your health. Here are three ways to improve sleep. The frequency and color of poop can vary. Most of the time, they shouldn’t cause alarm. You should avoid kava and 9 other risky dietary supplements. Try these 6 ways to slow memory decline and lower dementia risk
Videos show 'disgusting' slicks in creek water near Ohio train derailment. What's going on? Videos appear to show shimmering chemical contamination on creeks near the site of the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment and chemical leak. Experts tell USA TODAY the rainbow-colored material is likely vinyl chloride, a heavier-than-water chemical that both leaked and burned following the Feb. 3 derailment of a Norfolk Southern freight train. The videos mark yet another example of heightened health and environmental concerns in the wake of the disaster. Authorities say about 3,500 small fish were killed in the creeks surrounding the derailment site shortly after the crash, leak and burn, but they have not reported significant subsequent deaths. Meanwhile, a new federal lawsuit claims fish and wild animals are dying as far as 20 miles away from the site of the derailment. Here's what to know about the videos: What do the videos show? The videos posted by several people, including Ohio Republican Sen. J.D. Vance show rainbow-colored slicks spreading across the surface of small streams in the area after people poked the creek beds with sticks or threw rocks in. "This is disgusting," Vance declared as sheen spread across what he said was Leslie Run creek. FACT CHECK:Ohio train derailment fact check: What's true and what's false? BACKGROUND: Is the Ohio River contaminated? East Palestine train derailment sparks concerns over water What is going on in the videos? John Senko, a professor of geosciences and biology at the University of Akron, said the videos depict what appears to be vinyl chloride, which would sink to the bottom of a lake or stream because it's denser than water. "It looks like what's happening is you got some of that stuff on the bottom of the creek, you stir it up a little bit, it starts to come up and then it's just going to sink again," he said. "So that stuff's behaving like I would expect vinyl chloride to behave.” What are the health risks of the creek contamination? The videos are evidence that groundwater contamination has occurred, experts told the USA TODAY Network. But contamination does not necessarily mean there's a health risk. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sets limits for what's deemed acceptable exposure to many chemicals, and says short-term exposure to high levels of vinyl chloride in the air can make people dizzy or give them headaches, while long-term exposure can cause liver damage. Dr. Kari Nadeau, the chair of Harvard's Environmental Health Department, said the oily sheen was likely left by burned chemicals that drifted back down to the ground and into the water. WATCH:Another Norfolk Southern train derails in Michigan after massive derailment in Ohio FACT CHECK:Baseless claim that Ohio train derailment was a 'false flag' operation "The information that I know as a public health expert, as well as from what the EPA is telling us right now, the EPA is letting us know that there are not dangerous levels of toxins in the water or the air at the current time," she said. What health concerns are there after Ohio train derailment? Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has asked CDC doctors and experts to help screen area residents for illness, and state and federal environmental experts are overseeing monitoring and cleanup efforts. - Ground water contamination: The crash and subsequent fire released chemicals into the air and onto the ground and a stream nearby. Experts say the ground and water contamination likely pose the biggest risk now. - Air quality: Federal authorities have tested more than 450 homes for volatile organic compounds, which could pose a health risk. - Private wells: Ohio Department of Health Director Bruce Vanderhoff said Tuesday that the air and water quality around East Palestine is generally safe, but private wells are in the process of being tested. Until those results are in, Vanderhoff encouraged residents with a private water supply to drink and use bottled water. What's being done to clean up? The spill happened closest to Sulfur Run creek, and authorities have damned it above and below the spill area. They're currently pumping the clean creek around the contamination area, and then remediating any contaminated water flowing into the short section of the dry creek bed. Norfolk Southern has said it will install wells to monitor groundwater. Officials will also sample soil in key areas, including near where the cars filled with vinyl chloride burned. WATCH:Ohio Gov. DeWine briefs on East Palestine train derailment WATCH:Residents seek answers over Ohio train derailment EPA controversy explained Many conservative lawmakers have complained the EPA has not responded aggressively enough to the spill. The EPA says Ohio and other federal agencies are better suited to assist. Vance in particular has attacked the EPA and challenged officials to drink the water in the streams in East Palestine. Underlying the discussion: The EPA has 20% fewer employees today than it did at its peak in 1999, when about 18,100 people worked there. The EPA's annual budget hit a high of $10.3 billion in 2010, and today sits at $9.5 billion. If the budget had kept up with inflation, it would be $14 billion. In 2017, then-President Trump proposed a 31% cut to the EPA's annual budget, although Congress ultimately rejected most of his cuts. President Biden has proposed a 2023 EPA budget of $11.8 billion, including hiring an extra 1,900 workers. The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law also provided billions in additional funding for programs overseen by the EPA, including environmental justice and cleanups. Most of the EPA's funding actually gets passed through to states and local governments, according to the agency. Ohio is among 24 states suing the federal government over the EPA's plans to toughen environmental regulations and pollution limits in small streams and wetlands over a long-disputed "Waters of the United States" rule. That lawsuit was filed Thursday. Contributing: Kelly Byer, The Repository	<urn:uuid:a22d91a1-5f0f-440d-81e5-22fcdd65fdde>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-14", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296949644.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20230331144941-20230331174941-00354.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.956243097782135, "pii_count": 0, "score": 2.53125, "token_count": 1255, "url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/02/17/east-palestine-ohio-train-derailment-water/11282711002/" }	Videos show 'disgusting' slicks in creek water near Ohio train derailment. What's going on? Videos appear to show shimmering chemical contamination on creeks near the site of the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment and chemical leak. Experts tell USA TODAY the rainbow-colored material is likely vinyl chloride, a heavier-than-water chemical that both leaked and burned following the Feb. 3 derailment of a Norfolk Southern freight train. The videos mark yet another example of heightened health and environmental concerns in the wake of the disaster. Authorities say about 3,500 small fish were killed in the creeks surrounding the derailment site shortly after the crash, leak and burn, but they have not reported significant subsequent deaths. Meanwhile, a new federal lawsuit claims fish and wild animals are dying as far as 20 miles away from the site of the derailment. Here's what to know about the videos: What do the videos show? The videos posted by several people, including Ohio Republican Sen. J.D. Vance show rainbow-colored slicks spreading across the surface of small streams in the area after people poked the creek beds with sticks or threw rocks in. "This is disgusting," Vance declared as sheen spread across what he said was Leslie Run creek. FACT CHECK:Ohio train derailment fact check: What's true and what's false? BACKGROUND: Is the Ohio River contaminated? East Palestine train derailment sparks concerns over water What is going on in the videos? John Senko, a professor of geosciences and biology at the University of Akron, said the videos depict what appears to be vinyl chloride, which would sink to the bottom of a lake or stream because it's denser than water. "It looks like what's happening is you got some of that stuff on the bottom of the creek, you stir it up a little bit, it starts to come up and then it's just going to sink again," he said. "So that stuff's behaving like I would expect vinyl chloride to behave.” What are the health risks of the creek contamination? The videos are evidence that groundwater contamination has occurred, experts told the USA TODAY Network. But contamination does not necessarily mean there's a health risk. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sets limits for what's deemed acceptable exposure to many chemicals, and says short-term exposure to high levels of vinyl chloride in the air can make people dizzy or give	them headaches, while long-term exposure can cause liver damage. Dr. Kari Nadeau, the chair of Harvard's Environmental Health Department, said the oily sheen was likely left by burned chemicals that drifted back down to the ground and into the water. WATCH:Another Norfolk Southern train derails in Michigan after massive derailment in Ohio FACT CHECK:Baseless claim that Ohio train derailment was a 'false flag' operation "The information that I know as a public health expert, as well as from what the EPA is telling us right now, the EPA is letting us know that there are not dangerous levels of toxins in the water or the air at the current time," she said. What health concerns are there after Ohio train derailment? Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has asked CDC doctors and experts to help screen area residents for illness, and state and federal environmental experts are overseeing monitoring and cleanup efforts. - Ground water contamination: The crash and subsequent fire released chemicals into the air and onto the ground and a stream nearby. Experts say the ground and water contamination likely pose the biggest risk now. - Air quality: Federal authorities have tested more than 450 homes for volatile organic compounds, which could pose a health risk. - Private wells: Ohio Department of Health Director Bruce Vanderhoff said Tuesday that the air and water quality around East Palestine is generally safe, but private wells are in the process of being tested. Until those results are in, Vanderhoff encouraged residents with a private water supply to drink and use bottled water. What's being done to clean up? The spill happened closest to Sulfur Run creek, and authorities have damned it above and below the spill area. They're currently pumping the clean creek around the contamination area, and then remediating any contaminated water flowing into the short section of the dry creek bed. Norfolk Southern has said it will install wells to monitor groundwater. Officials will also sample soil in key areas, including near where the cars filled with vinyl chloride burned. WATCH:Ohio Gov. DeWine briefs on East Palestine train derailment WATCH:Residents seek answers over Ohio train derailment EPA controversy explained Many conservative lawmakers have complained the EPA has not responded aggressively enough to the spill. The EPA says Ohio and other federal agencies are better suited to assist. Vance in particular has attacked the EPA and challenged officials to drink the water in the streams in East Palestine. Underlying the discussion: The EPA has 20% fewer employees today than it did at its peak in 1999, when about 18,100 people worked there. The EPA's annual budget hit a high of $10.3 billion in 2010, and today sits at $9.5 billion. If the budget had kept up with inflation, it would be $14 billion. In 2017, then-President Trump proposed a 31% cut to the EPA's annual budget, although Congress ultimately rejected most of his cuts. President Biden has proposed a 2023 EPA budget of $11.8 billion, including hiring an extra 1,900 workers. The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law also provided billions in additional funding for programs overseen by the EPA, including environmental justice and cleanups. Most of the EPA's funding actually gets passed through to states and local governments, according to the agency. Ohio is among 24 states suing the federal government over the EPA's plans to toughen environmental regulations and pollution limits in small streams and wetlands over a long-disputed "Waters of the United States" rule. That lawsuit was filed Thursday. Contributing: Kelly Byer, The Repository
Sloshing of Earth’s core may spike major earthquakesBy Paul VoosenOct. 30, 2017 , 1:45 PM The number of major earthquakes, like the magnitude-7 one that devastated Haiti in 2010, seems to be correlated with minute fluctuations in day length. SEATTLE—The world doesn’t stop spinning. But every so often, it slows down. For decades, scientists have charted tiny fluctuations in the length of Earth’s day: Gain a millisecond here, lose a millisecond there. Last week at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America here, two geophysicists argued that these minute changes could be enough to influence the timing of major earthquakes—and potentially help forecast them. During the past 100 years, Earth’s slowdowns have correlated surprisingly well with periods with a global increase in magnitude-7 and larger earthquakes, according to Roger Bilham of the University of Colorado (CU) in Boulder and Rebecca Bendick at the University of Montana in Missoula. Usefully, the spike, which adds two to five more quakes than typical, happens well after the slow-down begins. “The Earth offers us a 5-years heads up on future earthquakes, which is remarkable,” says Bilham, who presented the work. Most seismologists agree that earthquake prediction is a minefield. And so far, Bilham and Bendick have only fuzzy, hard-to-test ideas about what might cause the pattern they found. But the finding is too provocative to ignore, other researchers say. “The correlation they’ve found is remarkable, and deserves investigation,” says Peter Molnar, a geologist also at CU. The research started as a search for synchrony in earthquake timing. Individual oscillators, be they fireflies, heart muscles, or metronomes, can end up vibrating in synchrony as a result of some kind of cross-talk—or some common influence. To Bendick, it didn’t seem a far jump to consider the faults that cause earthquakes, with their cyclical buildup of strain and violent discharge, as “really noisy, really crummy oscillators,” she says. She and Bilham dove into the data, using the only complete earthquake catalog for the past 100 years: magnitude-7 and larger earthquakes. In work published in August in Geophysical Research Letters they reported two patterns: First, major quakes appeared to cluster in time —although not in space. And second, the number of large earthquakes seemed to peak at 32-year intervals. The earthquakes could be somehow talking to each other, or an external force could be nudging the earth into rupture. Exploring such global forces, the researchers eventually discovered the match with the length of day. Although weather patterns such as El Nino can drive day length to vary back and forth by a millisecond over a year or more, a periodic, decades-long fluctuation of several milliseconds—in particular, its point of peak slow down about every three decades or so—lined up with the quake trend perfectly. “Of course that seems sort of crazy,” Bendick says. But maybe it isn’t. When day length changes over decades, Earth’s magnetic field also develops a temporary ripple. Researchers think slight changes in the flow of the molten iron of the outer core may be responsible for both effects. Just what happens is uncertain—perhaps a bit of the molten outer core sticks to the mantle above. That might change the flow of the liquid metal, altering the magnetic field, and transfer enough momentum between the mantle and the core to affect day length. Seismologists aren’t used to thinking about the planet’s core, buried 2900 kilometers beneath the crust where quakes happen. But they should, Bilham said during his talk here. The core is “quite close to us. It’s closer than New York from here,” he said. At the equator, Earth spins 460 meters per second. Given this high velocity, it’s not absurd to think that a slight mismatch in speed between the solid crust and mantle and the liquid core could translate into a force somehow nudging quakes into synchrony, Molnar says. Of course, he adds, “It might be nonsense.” But the evidence for some kind of link is compelling, says geophysicist Michael Manga of the University of California, Berkeley. “I’ve worked on earthquakes triggered by seasonal variation, melting snow. His correlation is much better than what I’m used to seeing.” One way or another, says James Dolan, a geologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, “we’re going to know in 5 years.” That’s because Earth’s rotation began a periodic slow-down 4-plus years ago. Beginning next year, Earth should expect five more major earthquakes a year than average—between 17 to 20 quakes, compared with the anomalously low four so far this year. If the pattern holds, it will put a new spin on earthquake forecasting. doi:10.1126/science.aar3598 Twenty years ago this month, the US was rushing headlong into war with Iraq, one of the most consequential travesties in modern American history. Here is how one congressman and I tried and failed to get the Democratic Party on record opposing that war. After 9/11, neoconservatives began their campaign to invade Iraq. Their arguments included: that Saddam Hussein was linked to the 9/11 terrorists; that Iraq had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and was secretly buying components to build a nuclear bomb; that the US was attacked because our enemies saw us as weak and to demonstrate our strength and resolve we needed a decisive victory somewhere (anywhere); and that a complete victory in Iraq would be quick, easy, require few troops, be welcomed by the Iraqi people and result in the establishment of a friendly stable democracy. These outright fabrications or, at the very least, matters that demanded vigorous debate were not challenged. The mainstream media largely served as an echo chamber for the war-hawks and most leading politicians were shy to criticise. In advance of the February 2003 meeting of the Democratic National Committee, (DNC) Representative Jesse Jackson Junior and I submitted a resolution to encourage debate on the impending war. Using temperate and respectful language, it called on our party to urge the Bush administration “to pursue diplomatic efforts to achieve disarmament of Iraq, to clearly define for the American people and Congress the objectives, costs, consequences, terms and length of commitment envisioned by any US engagement or action in Iraq and to continue to operate in the context of and seek the full support of the United Nations in any effort to resolve the current crisis in Iraq.” Polling indicated that the majority of Americans and a supermajority of Democrats supported these positions. And we knew that if Democrats failed to challenge the rush to war, we would not only risk losing the support of voters, but also shirk our responsibility to avert a war that would prove devastating to our country and the Middle East region. At the DNC meeting, party leaders subjected me to intense pressure to withdraw the resolution. They argued that we needed to defer to the Democratic presidential candidates. With only one major candidate, Howard Dean, vigorously opposed to the war, they claimed that such a resolution would imply support for his candidacy. And, in their view, opposing the war would make it appear that the party was weak on national defence. I refused to withdraw the resolution and insisted on my right to introduce it and be heard. In my remarks to the committee, I warned that it was unconscionable that we send young men and women to war in a country whose history, culture and social composition we did not understand. I observed that the administration’s miscalculations about Iraq risked beginning “a war without end” and that going to war without UN authorisation jeopardised US legitimacy. I concluded by noting that ”raising the right questions, demanding answers and winning allies to our case is not being weak on defence. It’s being smart on defence.” After my presentation, the chair ruled that there would be no vote and the resolution died without debate or discussion. Twenty years later, it gives me no satisfaction to say that we were right to oppose that disastrous war. Thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed; countless others’ lives were shattered by the war’s consequences. While the neoconservatives told Congress that the war would cost $2 billion, the price tag is in the trillions and still growing. Instead of extinguishing extremism, the war fuelled it, metastasising into ever more virulent forms. And America emerged from the war weaker and less respected, while Iran emerged emboldened to project its menacing, meddlesome behaviour into the broader region. Passing our resolution would not have stopped the Bush administration’s march to war. At least, however, the Democrats would have been on record in opposition, potentially strengthening the resolve of members of Congress to speak out more forcefully and voice their dissent. That is how a democracy is supposed to work. And when it does not, we all pay a steep price. That is the concerning revelation shared by Daily Star on Wednesday after a Russian broadcast threatened to “obliterate” the UK and permanently submerge the nation underwater. According to the broadcast, which was uploaded to Twitter via an account called Terror Alarm, Putin’s chief propaganda reporter Dmitry Kiselyov claimed two Russian super-nukes launched from Moscow could “wipe the British Isles off the map.” “Russia could obliterate the UK with its new hypersonic Satan-2 missile,” Kiselyov said before adding that Russia is poised to “plunge Britain into the depths of the sea using underwater robotic drone Poseidon”. “It would only take a minute,” Putin allegedly told Johnson when the then-prime minister told the Russian leader that a war against Ukraine would be an “utter catastrophe.” Russia’s recent threat to nuke the UK also comes shortly after Ukraine’s Western allies agreed to send tanks and other military arms to the invaded nation – something Russia called “extremely dangerous.” “Red lines are now a thing of the past,” a Kremlin spokesperson cryptically said at the time. The Admiral Gorshkov, which was scheduled to sail to the Black Sea before abruptly diverting towards the U.S. and Bermuda last week, is reportedly outfitted with nuclear-capable Zircon missiles that move at speeds up to 6,670 MPH and have a maximum range of 625 miles. Putin’s navy has also reportedly been running missile tests involving the Admiral Gorshkov and the Mach 9 Zircon missiles, with the ship’s commander – Captain Igor Krokhmal – indicating in a recent video the weapons are allegedly working as expected. “The electronic launch and the work by the shipborne combat team confirmed the missile system’s designed characteristics demonstrated during preliminary and state trials,” Krokhmal said last week. Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and the influential Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr in Tehran, Iran on Sept. 11, 2019. (Photo via Iran’s supreme leader’s website) In this context, many of the ingredients for another political crisis are already stacking up. While the victory in the Gulf Cup saw Iraqis come together in celebration, the country has been beset with a currency crisis. The government has also yet to present a draft for a new election law, as Sudani had promised he would within three months of forming his cabinet. Of further note, the prime minister—whose appointment last autumn ended the deadlock between his supporters in the Iran-backed Shiite Coordination Framework and the Sadrists after the Oct. 2021 elections—also vowed that he would call early legislative polls towards the end of this summer, less than a year after taking charge. These dynamics—and their domestic and international complications—portend the possibility of Sadr’s gradual return to the political stage. While the mercurial Shiite cleric is known for his unexpected moves, the manner and timing of his official return to Iraqi politics can reasonably be expected to only occur once the stars simultaneously align on the domestic, regional, and international scenes. Sadr and Iran Having won more than 70 of the 329 seats in Iraq’s legislature in the Oct. 2021 polls, the Sadrists initially sought to form a “national majority government” together with Sunni Arab blocs and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). The endeavor could have sidelined Iran’s allies in the Shiite Coordination Framework from the executive branch of power. But the tenacity of the Coordination Framework parties ultimately paid off. As a political deadlock dragged on, Sadr in June 2022 ordered his MPs to resign, and after violent clashes in Baghdad’s Green Zone two months later announced his “final retirement” from politics. The move ultimately paved the way for Sudani to take office last autumn, with the backing of the Coordination Framework. Though Iran’s allies have advanced amid the Sadrist withdrawal from the political process, Amwaj.media has learned that there are serious attempts to restore “warmth” to the line of communication between Tehran and Hanana, Sadr’s headquarters in Najaf Governorate. Speaking on condition of anonymity, an informed political source in Iraq asserted that these efforts have entailed talk of a “necessary” trip to Iran by Sadr in the near future. The head of the Sadrist Movement would in such a scenario be expected to directly meet with Iranian officials in charge of the Iraq dossier to discuss political developments. Talk of Sadr possibly visiting Iran—where members of his extended family live, and where he himself was previously based during parts of the US occupation of Iraq—first emerged on the third anniversary of the US assassination of the former commander of the expeditionary Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Qasem Soleimani was on Jan. 3, 2020 killed in an American drone strike near Baghdad’s international airport along with the deputy chief of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis. Amid rumors of a possibly impending visit to Iran by Sadr, members of his movement have been quick to deny such an eventuality. However, speaking on condition of anonymity, an Iranian diplomat asserted to Amwaj.media that there was a basis for the speculations, without further elaboration. Lebanon appears central to the apparent efforts to jumpstart a rapprochement between Sadr and Iran. Arabic-language outlet ‘Jadeh Iran’ in Nov. 2022 reported that Sadrist leaders and representatives from the Lebanese Hezbollah movement had gathered in Beirut for talks. The two sides are said to have discussed political developments which surfaced prior to the formation of the Sudani government in Oct. 2022, and the repercussions—including the different scenarios that could unfold. Preferring to speak anonymously given the sensitivity of the topic, a regional political source indicated to Amwaj.media that the reported meetings in Lebanon late last year were a starting point. In subsequent talks, the source claimed, “A deeper and more candid” dialogue brought together Sadrist leaders and prominent Iranian figures in the Lebanese capital. The two sides are said to have discussed political developments and possible means to restore the political equilibrium in Iraq that was lost when the Coordination Framework parties pushed for the formation of a government without Sadr and also moved forward with measures seen as provocative by some political forces. The notion that the discussions in Beirut have supposedly led to a joint conclusion that it is vital for Iraq to regain its lost political balance was echoed by an informed Iraqi source in Baghdad. The source told Amwaj.media that there is an emerging understanding of the need for arm-twisting and exclusionary tactics to be abandoned—without going against Sadr’s concept of a “national majority government.” If accurate, this would be a major step forward since the Coordination Framework parties interpreted the Sadrist alliance-building after the Oct. 2021 polls as an attempt to exclude them. At the same time, the first informed political source in Iraq said the efforts of the “wise” in Tehran to promote “dialogue and reconciliation” with Sadr are being complicated by provocative reactions by some players. The head of the Sadrist Movement has yet to express a clear stance on the anti-establishment protests in Iran that first erupted last September. But in early November, he slammed attacks on turbaned clerics amid the unrest. His condemnation has been interpreted by some observers as indicating that he wishes to maintain a certain distance from the political establishment in Tehran. Ultimately, he has his own calculations in managing and fine-tuning his feud with the Iranians. Sadr’s interests and vision demand the preservation of a general Muslim identity, but that each country should also maintain its own identity without exporting or imposing its culture on other countries. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a prominent Sadrist figure told Amwaj.media that Sadr wants Iran to respect Iraq’s specificities and deal with it as an independent and sovereign state rather than a country on which agendas can be imposed. It therefore should come as no surprise that Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad recently came under fire by Sadrists for stating that he wished that Sadr would have “consulted” with him on the decision to withdraw from the political process. The key questions ahead pertain to the mechanisms required to restore the relative political equilibrium in Iraq, and the nature of the Sadrist Movement’s return to the political process. There are many scenarios that could unfold, particularly considering the internal disputes within the Coordination Framework. Another important dimension to consider is Sudani’s political positioning. His lack of action to restore balance to the political process is greatly due to pressure from some Coordination Framework leaders who are keen on excluding Sadr. Facing ambiguous stances rather than explicit support from regional and international players—with the notable exception of Iran—the prime minister is vulnerable to pressure from his domestic supporters. To achieve its aims without entering the formal political process, the Sadrist Movement could resort to street politics with the backing of actors who are also rivals of the Coordination Framework and the Sudani government. Iran and its Iraqi allies fear this worst-case scenario the most, as they do not want Sudani’s premiership to end prematurely and under pressure, like that of Adil Abdul Mahdi (2018 –20). There is another scenario to consider, too: for Sadr’s anticipated trip to Iran to be followed by a new political formula among Iraqi parties with the help of Iranian mediation. This would leave no actor embarrassed or broken by the other, and most of all, help Iran achieve its aim to reconcile the divided ‘Shiite House’ in Iraqi politics. While the balloon was, the Pentagon said, “traveling at an altitude well above commercial air traffic” and did “not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground”, its presence sparked outrage. Former US President Donald Trump was among those calling for the US military to shoot it down. On Friday, China finally acknowledged the balloon was its property, saying that it was a civilian airship used for meteorological research, which deviated from its route because of bad weather. A statement from China’s Foreign Ministry said that it regretted the incident and would work with the US to resolve the issue. However, the state department official said that while the US acknowledged China’s claim about the balloon’s purpose, it stood the assessment that it was being used for surveillance. Another trip by Mr Blinken to China would be planned “at the earliest opportunity” the official said, adding that Washington planned to maintain “open lines of communication” about the incident. Mr Blinken had been expected to visit China on 5 and 6 February. A US official quoted by the Associated Press said that the decision to abruptly halt the trip was made by Mr Blinken and President Joe Biden. Mr Biden did not take questions about the balloon following remarks about the US economy on Friday morning. According to US officials, the balloon flew over Alaska and Canada before appearing in the US state of Montana, which is home to a number of sensitive military missile sites. Although fighter planes were alerted, the US decided not to shoot the object down due to the dangers of falling debris, officials said. Several Republican lawmakers – as well as former President Donald Trump – have criticised the decision and urged the US to down the balloon. “Shoot down the balloon,” Mr Trump said in a short message on his Truth Social social media platform. While US officials have not commented on the size and details of the suspected spy balloon, Chinese officials have previously publicly expressed interest in the potential military and intelligence-gathering potential of balloons. “Technological advances have opened a new door for the use of balloons,” an article in the military-run Liberation Army Daily said last year. In 2022, Taiwan’s defence ministry said it detected Chinese balloons over its territory. While the nuclear risk may or may not happen, the Doomsday Clock has in recent years also been tracking the climate crisis with growing alarm, writes John Gibbons Wed, 01 Feb, 2023 – 17:56 Today, a century and a half later, his opening lines from ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ still ring true. There are more people alive now than at any other time in history, and more are living free from the shackles of abject poverty, hunger, disease and early death than ever before. By many objective measures, especially for those of us in prosperous, stable countries like Ireland, these are indeed the very best of times. We enjoy levels of personal freedom, material wealth, comfort and physical well-being almost unimaginable even to our grandparents’ generation. Paradoxically, we also live in an age of foolishness and incredulity, that threatens to propel humanity into an endless winter of despair. Last week, a panel of international scientists who maintain the so-called Doomsday Clock, moved its hands ominously forward, to 90 seconds to midnight. The clock was first established by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 1947, just two years after the devastating killing power of nuclear weapons was first unleashed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For the first time in history, humanity was now a planetary force, capable of triggering a global catastrophe on a par with an asteroid strike. Such god-like power should come with commensurate responsibility, and the Doomsday Clock was set up as a stark visual reminder of the limits of our power. In the three-quarters of a century since then, the clock has ticked back and forth in synch with the ebb and flow of world events. In 1953, it moved to two minutes to midnight following the test detonation of the devastatingly powerful hydrogen bomb. That had, in the assessment of the scientific panel, been our most dangerous moment — until now. Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine is the principal reason for the unprecedented pessimism in 2023. Vladimir Putin’s bellicose rhetoric since then has included repeated thinly veiled threats to use nuclear weapons. This was repeated in recent days by former Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, who warned darkly that his country’s defeat in Ukraine could lead to a nuclear strike by Russia. The Russian invasion has also severely damaged international efforts at nuclear non-proliferation. Ukraine handed over its entire Soviet-era nuclear arsenal to the Russian Federation under a 1994 treaty signed in Budapest in which Russia, the US and Britain solemnly agreed to “respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine”. Many in Ukraine and beyond are wondering if the only true deterrent to an aggressive neighbour is to have your own nuclear weapons. Russia’s recklessness extends to what the scientists call its “violation of international protocols and risking of the widespread release of radioactive materials” in its capture of the nuclear reactor sites at Zaporizhzhia and Chernobyl. With the heightened risk of an intentional or accidental nuclear incident, “the possibility that the conflict could spin out of anyone’s control remains high”, the report warned. While the nuclear risk remains binary – it may or may not happen – the Doomsday Clock has in recent years also been tracking the climate crisis with growing alarm. The war in Ukraine has occurred at the worst possible moment as it “undermines global efforts to combat climate change…and has led to expanded investment in natural gas exactly when such investment should have been shrinking”, the report warned. As a uniquely global crisis, effective efforts to tackle the climate emergency “require faith in multilateral governance”, which the scientists say has been weakened by the “geopolitical fissure opened by the invasion of Ukraine”. Having stumbled in the past into dangerous nuclear stand-offs, the hope is that once again sense will prevail and a nuclear disaster will be avoided. However, the climate crisis is an altogether different threat. Here, for a cataclysm to unfold simply requires that the international community fails to act in line with the science. Division, disinformation, social media-fuelled polarisation and the resurgence of political extremism all undermine our faith in science and reason at the very moment in human history when we need to come together like never before. Southern Asia’s strategic stability is getting harder to manage because of geopolitical changes and evolving military technologies. Wednesday, February 1, 2023 /BY: Daniel Markey, Ph.D. PUBLICATION TYPE:Analysis and Commentary Southern Asia — India, Pakistan and China — is the only place on earth where three nuclear-armed states have recently engaged in violent confrontations along their contested borders. As a USIP senior study group report concluded last year, the problem of nuclear stability in Southern Asia is getting harder to manage because of geopolitical changes, such as rising India-China border tensions, as well as evolving military technologies, including growing nuclear arsenals and more capable delivery systems. Unfortunately, in the time since that senior study group completed its work, little has happened to revise its worrisome conclusion or to prevent the most likely triggering causes of a nuclearized crisis in Southern Asia. To the contrary, there are some good reasons to fear that the situation in Southern Asia has even deteriorated over the past year. To be clear, just because states invest in nuclear weapons and delivery systems does not mean that a crisis or war is imminent. Leaders in China, India and Pakistan have always viewed their nuclear arsenals primarily as tools of deterrence, less for practical warfighting than to convince adversaries of the extraordinary costs that a war would risk. Nor do any of the region’s leaders take their nuclear programs lightly; all feel tremendous incentives to keep their arsenals safe and secure and to build systems of command, control and communications intended to prevent accidents, unauthorized use or theft. Nevertheless, because even a single nuclear detonation could be massively destructive, U.S. policymakers have an obligation not to accept these sorts of logical assurances passively or uncritically. Accidents do happen. India’s misfire of a Brahmos missile test into Pakistan last year proved that point perfectly. No matter how well designed, nuclear systems are complicated and involve the potential for human or technical error. When something does go wrong, overreaction by opposing forces is less likely when they have a greater degree of confidence in, and knowledge of, the other side. Reliable and secure communications — in the form of hotlines — can help, but only to the point that they are actually used in a timely manner. Apparently, India failed to do so during the Brahmos incident. Fear, hatred and other emotions can cloud human judgment, especially in the heat of a crisis when information is imperfect and communication difficult. Reflecting on his own experience of crisis management in Southern Asia, former secretary of state Mike Pompeo recently wrote that he does “not think the world properly knows just how close the India-Pakistan rivalry came to spilling over into a nuclear conflagration in February 2019.” The question — for Pompeo and current U.S. policymakers — is what more they are doing now to prepare for the next crisis. Fortunately, a February 2021 cease-fire agreement between India and Pakistan holds, supplemented at times by a widely rumored “backchannel” dialogue between New Delhi and Islamabad. Then again, it is a measure of the low level of our collective expectations for India-Pakistan relations that the bare agreement not to actively shoot artillery shells across their border and to participate in sporadic, secret talks is considered progress. The Terrorism Tinderbox A return to serious India-Pakistan crisis could be just one terrorist attack away. Not even when Pakistan suffered devastating floods last summer could leaders in Islamabad and New Delhi create sufficient political space to open basic commodity trade. Hostile rhetoric is high, and there is reason to anticipate it could get far worse over the coming year as national leaders on both sides prepare for elections. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has learned he can whip up domestic political support from tough talk and cross-border retaliation. In Pakistan, neither civilian nor army leaders can afford to look weak in the face of Indian attacks, especially when they face jingoistic (if transparently opportunistic) criticism from ousted prime minister Imran Khan. The prospect of anti-Indian terrorism is also growing. The Taliban regime in Afghanistan shows no greater commitment to eliminating terrorist safe havens than it did in the 1990s, and Pakistan’s will (and capacity) for keeping a lid on cross-border terrorism will be tested as it faces heightened security and economic pressures at home. In addition, India’s repression of its Muslim minority community, especially in Kashmir, is simultaneously a reaction to past anti-state militancy and nearly guaranteed to inspire new acts of violence. No matter the specific cause or circumstances of anti-Indian militancy, Modi’s government is likely to attribute culpability to Pakistan. That, in turn, raises the potential for an emotionally charged crisis that could, under the wrong circumstances, spiral into another India-Pakistan war. Nor can Pakistan afford only to worry about its border with India. Relations between Islamabad and Kabul have deteriorated drastically ever since the Taliban swept back into power. Rather than controlling Afghanistan through its favored militant proxies, Pakistan is suffering a surge in violence on its own soil, most recently the devastating bombing of a police mosque in Peshawar claimed by the anti-state Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. Such violence, along with national political turmoil, environmental calamity and economic crisis, will raise concerns among some in the United States about threats to the safety and security of Pakistan’s nuclear enterprise. Sadly, that will probably lead Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division — the guardians of its nuclear arsenal — and other Pakistani military leaders to fear a phantom threat of American military intervention rather than to address actual causes of the Pakistani state’s fragility. India-China Tensions Rise Events along the contested border between India and China hardly inspire confidence that New Delhi and Beijing have found a path back to normal relations after their bloody border skirmishes of 2020. To the contrary, the prospects of rapid military escalation have grown, principally because both sides have positioned greater numbers of more lethal forces close to the border. Before 2020, relatively small, unarmed Chinese and Indian patrols routinely risked coming into contact as they pressed territorial claims on the un-demarcated border. This was dangerous, but extremely unlikely to escalate rapidly into a serious military encounter. In early December 2022 hundreds of Chinese troops attacked an Indian camp in what could not possibly have been an unplanned operation. With tens of thousands of troops stationed not far away, conventional military escalation is far more plausible than it was just a few years ago. Although there is still a long way between remote mountain warfare and a nuclear crisis, at least some Indian security officials anticipate a future of more routine border violence as troops on both sides become more entrenched. China and India are also jockeying in the Indian Ocean, where China’s increasing naval presence and influence with India’s smaller neighbors feed Indian insecurities and encourage New Delhi to seek countervailing defense ties with Quad partners (Japan, Australia and the United States) as well as other naval powers, like France. Against this backdrop of tensions, China’s growing nuclear, missile and surveillance capabilities will look more threatening to Indian nuclear defense planners. New Delhi may even come to fear that China is developing a first strike so devastating that it would effectively eliminate India’s retaliatory response and, as a consequence, diminish the threat of its nuclear deterrent. In response, India could seek to demonstrate that it has thermonuclear weapons capable of destroying Chinese cities in one blow as well as more nuclear submarines capable of evading China’s first strike. A ‘Cascading Security Dilemma’ Not only would those Indian moves raise serious policy questions for the United States, but they would demonstrate the region’s “cascading security dilemma,” by which military capabilities intended to deter one adversary tend to inspire dangerous insecurities in another. When India arms itself to deter China, Pakistan perceives new threats from India and will likely pursue enhanced capabilities of its own. In a worst-case scenario, Southern Asia could be entering an accelerated nuclear arms race in which uneven waves of new investments in capabilities and delivery systems will alter perceptions of deterrence and stability in dangerously unpredictable ways. All told, U.S. policymakers have at least as many reasons for concern about strategic stability in Southern Asia as when USIP launched its report last spring. Old triggers for escalation, like terrorist attacks against India, persist, while newer storms are brewing. As that earlier report explained, Washington cannot solve Southern Asia’s troubles alone, but neither can it afford to stand aloof or to downplay their seriousness.	<urn:uuid:dee7aff4-6b8d-431b-aeeb-ebd2fe699031>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-14", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296950528.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20230402105054-20230402135054-00766.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9568495750427246, "pii_count": 0, "score": 3.140625, "token_count": 7139, "url": "https://andrewtheprophetcom.wordpress.com/2023/02/04/" }	Sloshing of Earth’s core may spike major earthquakesBy Paul VoosenOct. 30, 2017 , 1:45 PM The number of major earthquakes, like the magnitude-7 one that devastated Haiti in 2010, seems to be correlated with minute fluctuations in day length. SEATTLE—The world doesn’t stop spinning. But every so often, it slows down. For decades, scientists have charted tiny fluctuations in the length of Earth’s day: Gain a millisecond here, lose a millisecond there. Last week at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America here, two geophysicists argued that these minute changes could be enough to influence the timing of major earthquakes—and potentially help forecast them. During the past 100 years, Earth’s slowdowns have correlated surprisingly well with periods with a global increase in magnitude-7 and larger earthquakes, according to Roger Bilham of the University of Colorado (CU) in Boulder and Rebecca Bendick at the University of Montana in Missoula. Usefully, the spike, which adds two to five more quakes than typical, happens well after the slow-down begins. “The Earth offers us a 5-years heads up on future earthquakes, which is remarkable,” says Bilham, who presented the work. Most seismologists agree that earthquake prediction is a minefield. And so far, Bilham and Bendick have only fuzzy, hard-to-test ideas about what might cause the pattern they found. But the finding is too provocative to ignore, other researchers say. “The correlation they’ve found is remarkable, and deserves investigation,” says Peter Molnar, a geologist also at CU. The research started as a search for synchrony in earthquake timing. Individual oscillators, be they fireflies, heart muscles, or metronomes, can end up vibrating in synchrony as a result of some kind of cross-talk—or some common influence. To Bendick, it didn’t seem a far jump to consider the faults that cause earthquakes, with their cyclical buildup of strain and violent discharge, as “really noisy, really crummy oscillators,” she says. She and Bilham dove into the data, using the only complete earthquake catalog for the past 100 years: magnitude-7 and larger earthquakes. In work published in August in Geophysical Research Letters they reported two patterns: First, major quakes appeared to cluster in time —although not in space. And second	, the number of large earthquakes seemed to peak at 32-year intervals. The earthquakes could be somehow talking to each other, or an external force could be nudging the earth into rupture. Exploring such global forces, the researchers eventually discovered the match with the length of day. Although weather patterns such as El Nino can drive day length to vary back and forth by a millisecond over a year or more, a periodic, decades-long fluctuation of several milliseconds—in particular, its point of peak slow down about every three decades or so—lined up with the quake trend perfectly. “Of course that seems sort of crazy,” Bendick says. But maybe it isn’t. When day length changes over decades, Earth’s magnetic field also develops a temporary ripple. Researchers think slight changes in the flow of the molten iron of the outer core may be responsible for both effects. Just what happens is uncertain—perhaps a bit of the molten outer core sticks to the mantle above. That might change the flow of the liquid metal, altering the magnetic field, and transfer enough momentum between the mantle and the core to affect day length. Seismologists aren’t used to thinking about the planet’s core, buried 2900 kilometers beneath the crust where quakes happen. But they should, Bilham said during his talk here. The core is “quite close to us. It’s closer than New York from here,” he said. At the equator, Earth spins 460 meters per second. Given this high velocity, it’s not absurd to think that a slight mismatch in speed between the solid crust and mantle and the liquid core could translate into a force somehow nudging quakes into synchrony, Molnar says. Of course, he adds, “It might be nonsense.” But the evidence for some kind of link is compelling, says geophysicist Michael Manga of the University of California, Berkeley. “I’ve worked on earthquakes triggered by seasonal variation, melting snow. His correlation is much better than what I’m used to seeing.” One way or another, says James Dolan, a geologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, “we’re going to know in 5 years.” That’s because Earth’s rotation began a periodic slow-down 4-plus years ago. Beginning next year, Earth should expect five more major earthquakes a year than average—between 17 to 20 quakes, compared with the anomalously low four so far this year. If the pattern holds, it will put a new spin on earthquake forecasting. doi:10.1126/science.aar3598 Twenty years ago this month, the US was rushing headlong into war with Iraq, one of the most consequential travesties in modern American history. Here is how one congressman and I tried and failed to get the Democratic Party on record opposing that war. After 9/11, neoconservatives began their campaign to invade Iraq. Their arguments included: that Saddam Hussein was linked to the 9/11 terrorists; that Iraq had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and was secretly buying components to build a nuclear bomb; that the US was attacked because our enemies saw us as weak and to demonstrate our strength and resolve we needed a decisive victory somewhere (anywhere); and that a complete victory in Iraq would be quick, easy, require few troops, be welcomed by the Iraqi people and result in the establishment of a friendly stable democracy. These outright fabrications or, at the very least, matters that demanded vigorous debate were not challenged. The mainstream media largely served as an echo chamber for the war-hawks and most leading politicians were shy to criticise. In advance of the February 2003 meeting of the Democratic National Committee, (DNC) Representative Jesse Jackson Junior and I submitted a resolution to encourage debate on the impending war. Using temperate and respectful language, it called on our party to urge the Bush administration “to pursue diplomatic efforts to achieve disarmament of Iraq, to clearly define for the American people and Congress the objectives, costs, consequences, terms and length of commitment envisioned by any US engagement or action in Iraq and to continue to operate in the context of and seek the full support of the United Nations in any effort to resolve the current crisis in Iraq.” Polling indicated that the majority of Americans and a supermajority of Democrats supported these positions. And we knew that if Democrats failed to challenge the rush to war, we would not only risk losing the support of voters, but also shirk our responsibility to avert a war that would prove devastating to our country and the Middle East region. At the DNC meeting, party leaders subjected me to intense pressure to withdraw the resolution. They argued that we needed to defer to the Democratic presidential candidates. With only one major candidate, Howard Dean, vigorously opposed to the war, they claimed that such a resolution would imply support for his candidacy. And, in their view, opposing the war would make it appear that the party was weak on national defence. I refused to withdraw the resolution and insisted on my right to introduce it and be heard. In my remarks to the committee, I warned that it was unconscionable that we send young men and women to war in a country whose history, culture and social composition we did not understand. I observed that the administration’s miscalculations about Iraq risked beginning “a war without end” and that going to war without UN authorisation jeopardised US legitimacy. I concluded by noting that ”raising the right questions, demanding answers and winning allies to our case is not being weak on defence. It’s being smart on defence.” After my presentation, the chair ruled that there would be no vote and the resolution died without debate or discussion. Twenty years later, it gives me no satisfaction to say that we were right to oppose that disastrous war. Thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed; countless others’ lives were shattered by the war’s consequences. While the neoconservatives told Congress that the war would cost $2 billion, the price tag is in the trillions and still growing. Instead of extinguishing extremism, the war fuelled it, metastasising into ever more virulent forms. And America emerged from the war weaker and less respected, while Iran emerged emboldened to project its menacing, meddlesome behaviour into the broader region. Passing our resolution would not have stopped the Bush administration’s march to war. At least, however, the Democrats would have been on record in opposition, potentially strengthening the resolve of members of Congress to speak out more forcefully and voice their dissent. That is how a democracy is supposed to work. And when it does not, we all pay a steep price. That is the concerning revelation shared by Daily Star on Wednesday after a Russian broadcast threatened to “obliterate” the UK and permanently submerge the nation underwater. According to the broadcast, which was uploaded to Twitter via an account called Terror Alarm, Putin’s chief propaganda reporter Dmitry Kiselyov claimed two Russian super-nukes launched from Moscow could “wipe the British Isles off the map.” “Russia could obliterate the UK with its new hypersonic Satan-2 missile,” Kiselyov said before adding that Russia is poised to “plunge Britain into the depths of the sea using underwater robotic drone Poseidon”. “It would only take a minute,” Putin allegedly told Johnson when the then-prime minister told the Russian leader that a war against Ukraine would be an “utter catastrophe.” Russia’s recent threat to nuke the UK also comes shortly after Ukraine’s Western allies agreed to send tanks and other military arms to the invaded nation – something Russia called “extremely dangerous.” “Red lines are now a thing of the past,” a Kremlin spokesperson cryptically said at the time. The Admiral Gorshkov, which was scheduled to sail to the Black Sea before abruptly diverting towards the U.S. and Bermuda last week, is reportedly outfitted with nuclear-capable Zircon missiles that move at speeds up to 6,670 MPH and have a maximum range of 625 miles. Putin’s navy has also reportedly been running missile tests involving the Admiral Gorshkov and the Mach 9 Zircon missiles, with the ship’s commander – Captain Igor Krokhmal – indicating in a recent video the weapons are allegedly working as expected. “The electronic launch and the work by the shipborne combat team confirmed the missile system’s designed characteristics demonstrated during preliminary and state trials,” Krokhmal said last week. Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and the influential Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr in Tehran, Iran on Sept. 11, 2019. (Photo via Iran’s supreme leader’s website) In this context, many of the ingredients for another political crisis are already stacking up. While the victory in the Gulf Cup saw Iraqis come together in celebration, the country has been beset with a currency crisis. The government has also yet to present a draft for a new election law, as Sudani had promised he would within three months of forming his cabinet. Of further note, the prime minister—whose appointment last autumn ended the deadlock between his supporters in the Iran-backed Shiite Coordination Framework and the Sadrists after the Oct. 2021 elections—also vowed that he would call early legislative polls towards the end of this summer, less than a year after taking charge. These dynamics—and their domestic and international complications—portend the possibility of Sadr’s gradual return to the political stage. While the mercurial Shiite cleric is known for his unexpected moves, the manner and timing of his official return to Iraqi politics can reasonably be expected to only occur once the stars simultaneously align on the domestic, regional, and international scenes. Sadr and Iran Having won more than 70 of the 329 seats in Iraq’s legislature in the Oct. 2021 polls, the Sadrists initially sought to form a “national majority government” together with Sunni Arab blocs and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). The endeavor could have sidelined Iran’s allies in the Shiite Coordination Framework from the executive branch of power. But the tenacity of the Coordination Framework parties ultimately paid off. As a political deadlock dragged on, Sadr in June 2022 ordered his MPs to resign, and after violent clashes in Baghdad’s Green Zone two months later announced his “final retirement” from politics. The move ultimately paved the way for Sudani to take office last autumn, with the backing of the Coordination Framework. Though Iran’s allies have advanced amid the Sadrist withdrawal from the political process, Amwaj.media has learned that there are serious attempts to restore “warmth” to the line of communication between Tehran and Hanana, Sadr’s headquarters in Najaf Governorate. Speaking on condition of anonymity, an informed political source in Iraq asserted that these efforts have entailed talk of a “necessary” trip to Iran by Sadr in the near future. The head of the Sadrist Movement would in such a scenario be expected to directly meet with Iranian officials in charge of the Iraq dossier to discuss political developments. Talk of Sadr possibly visiting Iran—where members of his extended family live, and where he himself was previously based during parts of the US occupation of Iraq—first emerged on the third anniversary of the US assassination of the former commander of the expeditionary Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Qasem Soleimani was on Jan. 3, 2020 killed in an American drone strike near Baghdad’s international airport along with the deputy chief of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis. Amid rumors of a possibly impending visit to Iran by Sadr, members of his movement have been quick to deny such an eventuality. However, speaking on condition of anonymity, an Iranian diplomat asserted to Amwaj.media that there was a basis for the speculations, without further elaboration. Lebanon appears central to the apparent efforts to jumpstart a rapprochement between Sadr and Iran. Arabic-language outlet ‘Jadeh Iran’ in Nov. 2022 reported that Sadrist leaders and representatives from the Lebanese Hezbollah movement had gathered in Beirut for talks. The two sides are said to have discussed political developments which surfaced prior to the formation of the Sudani government in Oct. 2022, and the repercussions—including the different scenarios that could unfold. Preferring to speak anonymously given the sensitivity of the topic, a regional political source indicated to Amwaj.media that the reported meetings in Lebanon late last year were a starting point. In subsequent talks, the source claimed, “A deeper and more candid” dialogue brought together Sadrist leaders and prominent Iranian figures in the Lebanese capital. The two sides are said to have discussed political developments and possible means to restore the political equilibrium in Iraq that was lost when the Coordination Framework parties pushed for the formation of a government without Sadr and also moved forward with measures seen as provocative by some political forces. The notion that the discussions in Beirut have supposedly led to a joint conclusion that it is vital for Iraq to regain its lost political balance was echoed by an informed Iraqi source in Baghdad. The source told Amwaj.media that there is an emerging understanding of the need for arm-twisting and exclusionary tactics to be abandoned—without going against Sadr’s concept of a “national majority government.” If accurate, this would be a major step forward since the Coordination Framework parties interpreted the Sadrist alliance-building after the Oct. 2021 polls as an attempt to exclude them. At the same time, the first informed political source in Iraq said the efforts of the “wise” in Tehran to promote “dialogue and reconciliation” with Sadr are being complicated by provocative reactions by some players. The head of the Sadrist Movement has yet to express a clear stance on the anti-establishment protests in Iran that first erupted last September. But in early November, he slammed attacks on turbaned clerics amid the unrest. His condemnation has been interpreted by some observers as indicating that he wishes to maintain a certain distance from the political establishment in Tehran. Ultimately, he has his own calculations in managing and fine-tuning his feud with the Iranians. Sadr’s interests and vision demand the preservation of a general Muslim identity, but that each country should also maintain its own identity without exporting or imposing its culture on other countries. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a prominent Sadrist figure told Amwaj.media that Sadr wants Iran to respect Iraq’s specificities and deal with it as an independent and sovereign state rather than a country on which agendas can be imposed. It therefore should come as no surprise that Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad recently came under fire by Sadrists for stating that he wished that Sadr would have “consulted” with him on the decision to withdraw from the political process. The key questions ahead pertain to the mechanisms required to restore the relative political equilibrium in Iraq, and the nature of the Sadrist Movement’s return to the political process. There are many scenarios that could unfold, particularly considering the internal disputes within the Coordination Framework. Another important dimension to consider is Sudani’s political positioning. His lack of action to restore balance to the political process is greatly due to pressure from some Coordination Framework leaders who are keen on excluding Sadr. Facing ambiguous stances rather than explicit support from regional and international players—with the notable exception of Iran—the prime minister is vulnerable to pressure from his domestic supporters. To achieve its aims without entering the formal political process, the Sadrist Movement could resort to street politics with the backing of actors who are also rivals of the Coordination Framework and the Sudani government. Iran and its Iraqi allies fear this worst-case scenario the most, as they do not want Sudani’s premiership to end prematurely and under pressure, like that of Adil Abdul Mahdi (2018 –20). There is another scenario to consider, too: for Sadr’s anticipated trip to Iran to be followed by a new political formula among Iraqi parties with the help of Iranian mediation. This would leave no actor embarrassed or broken by the other, and most of all, help Iran achieve its aim to reconcile the divided ‘Shiite House’ in Iraqi politics. While the balloon was, the Pentagon said, “traveling at an altitude well above commercial air traffic” and did “not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground”, its presence sparked outrage. Former US President Donald Trump was among those calling for the US military to shoot it down. On Friday, China finally acknowledged the balloon was its property, saying that it was a civilian airship used for meteorological research, which deviated from its route because of bad weather. A statement from China’s Foreign Ministry said that it regretted the incident and would work with the US to resolve the issue. However, the state department official said that while the US acknowledged China’s claim about the balloon’s purpose, it stood the assessment that it was being used for surveillance. Another trip by Mr Blinken to China would be planned “at the earliest opportunity” the official said, adding that Washington planned to maintain “
This story is part of The Salt Lake Tribune’s ongoing commitment to identify solutions to Utah’s biggest challenges through the work of the Innovation Lab. Utah FORGE, the nation’s most advanced effort to produce energy from the earth’s core, reached a significant milestone this week when it successfully pushed water through an underground reservoir 1½ miles below the surface. The University of Utah-managed project north of Milford in Beaver County, funded by more than $200 million from the U.S. Department of Energy, is DOE’s foremost experiment in what is termed “enhanced geothermal systems.” Geothermal energy from hot springs has been captured to produce electricity for decades, but that can only be used where hot springs are available. Enhanced geothermal systems require drilling deep into hot, dry rock to pull some of that heat out. If such systems can be made practical and affordable, there are locations worldwide where the geology is favorable. Ten miles north of Milford is one of the best. Utah FORGE researchers drilled two deep wells and then broke up the rock between the two wells using fracking technology from the oil and gas industry. After fracturing rock from both wells, the scientists for the first time this week were able to push water down one well into the fractures and see water come up through the second well. “We do have some connectivity between the two wells,” said John McLennan, a University of Utah chemical engineering professor and a co-principal investigator of Utah FORGE, during a tour of the site Wednesday. The news brings the project one step closer to the goal of providing a continuous flow of hot water that can produce electricity. Utah FORGE sits in an area of Beaver County that has become a hotbed of renewable energy. Farther up the hill is PacifiCorp’s Blundell plant, a conventional geothermal project fed by a hot spring. Surrounding the site are solar farms and windmills, and a private company, Fervo Energy, is also pursuing an enhanced geothermal project a short distance away. Even the nearby pig farms produce energy by extracting methane from the waste. “I don’t think there’s another place like this in the world,” said Joseph N. Moore, a U of U civil and environmental engineering professor who oversees Utah FORGE. The site was chosen six years ago after a national competition because it had lots of dry granite sitting above a large pool of magma. Nearby are long-dead volcanoes and Roosevelt Hot Springs. It also has access to water that, because of its mineral content, can’t be consumed by humans or animals but can be used to pump into the ground and capture heat. Moore describes FORGE as a “de-risking” laboratory, and all experimental data is made public in an effort to encourage more development. There are no large-scale working enhanced geothermal systems, and that is because of huge costs involved in drilling into granite with diamond-tipped drill rigs that cost $70,000 a day to operate. Because the temperatures exceed what are normally seen in an oil and gas drilling project, Utah FORGE also has to develop new equipment and materials that can handle temperatures reaching more than 400 degrees. The heat has destroyed the plugs and seals normally used in drill projects. “Fracking” is shorthand for hydraulic fracturing, a process that has dramatically increased U.S. production of oil and gas, turning the nation into an oil and gas exporter instead of importer. Fracking means pumping high-pressure fluids into wells to fracture the rock. The drilling crew working on the FORGE site this week will be moving to an oil and gas drilling operation elsewhere in Utah in a few weeks. But fracking for heat is substantially cleaner than oil and gas fracking, which produces massive amounts of wastewater while also greasing underground plates, causing earthquakes. Seismicity is closely monitored at the site, but only tiny movements have been recorded. Fracking is especially fruitful when combined combined with another recent technology, horizontal drilling. Instead of just going straight down, drill rigs can now go down and turn sideways, meaning a well can pull more oil and gas from a shallow but wide underground deposit. Both technologies are in use at Utah FORGE. The two wells go down 5,000 feet, and then bend 65 degrees and continue down to 8,500 feet. The whole length of the wells is about 11,000 feet. The “reservoir” is the extensive system of cracks produced from the fracking but still isolated from any outside water by surrounding rock. And the water pumped through can be reused continuously in a closed-loop system. Derisking has also meant learning how to drill faster. They have tested various drill bits, and are now chewing through granite five times faster than they were when they started, McLennan said. In this week’s test, the scientists pushed a few thousand gallons of water in. For the system to be commercially viable, they will need to get to hundreds of gallons per minute, Moore said. Current DOE funding continues through 2025, and Moore expects they will apply for more to continue after that.	<urn:uuid:78be1549-8dfd-4758-ac01-7969b33f0c33>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510259.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20230927035329-20230927065329-00326.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9550566673278809, "pii_count": 0, "score": 3.34375, "token_count": 1085, "url": "https://www.sltrib.com/news/2023/07/07/utah-geothermal-project-hits/" }	This story is part of The Salt Lake Tribune’s ongoing commitment to identify solutions to Utah’s biggest challenges through the work of the Innovation Lab. Utah FORGE, the nation’s most advanced effort to produce energy from the earth’s core, reached a significant milestone this week when it successfully pushed water through an underground reservoir 1½ miles below the surface. The University of Utah-managed project north of Milford in Beaver County, funded by more than $200 million from the U.S. Department of Energy, is DOE’s foremost experiment in what is termed “enhanced geothermal systems.” Geothermal energy from hot springs has been captured to produce electricity for decades, but that can only be used where hot springs are available. Enhanced geothermal systems require drilling deep into hot, dry rock to pull some of that heat out. If such systems can be made practical and affordable, there are locations worldwide where the geology is favorable. Ten miles north of Milford is one of the best. Utah FORGE researchers drilled two deep wells and then broke up the rock between the two wells using fracking technology from the oil and gas industry. After fracturing rock from both wells, the scientists for the first time this week were able to push water down one well into the fractures and see water come up through the second well. “We do have some connectivity between the two wells,” said John McLennan, a University of Utah chemical engineering professor and a co-principal investigator of Utah FORGE, during a tour of the site Wednesday. The news brings the project one step closer to the goal of providing a continuous flow of hot water that can produce electricity. Utah FORGE sits in an area of Beaver County that has become a hotbed of renewable energy. Farther up the hill is PacifiCorp’s Blundell plant, a conventional geothermal project fed by a hot spring. Surrounding the site are solar farms and windmills, and a private company, Fervo Energy, is also pursuing an enhanced geothermal project a short distance away. Even the nearby pig farms produce energy by extracting methane from the waste. “I don’t think there’s another place like this in the world,” said Joseph N. Moore, a U of U civil and environmental engineering professor who oversees Utah FORGE. The site was chosen six years ago after a national competition because it had lots of dry granite sitting above a large pool of magma. Nearby are long-dead volcanoes and Roosevelt Hot Springs. It also	has access to water that, because of its mineral content, can’t be consumed by humans or animals but can be used to pump into the ground and capture heat. Moore describes FORGE as a “de-risking” laboratory, and all experimental data is made public in an effort to encourage more development. There are no large-scale working enhanced geothermal systems, and that is because of huge costs involved in drilling into granite with diamond-tipped drill rigs that cost $70,000 a day to operate. Because the temperatures exceed what are normally seen in an oil and gas drilling project, Utah FORGE also has to develop new equipment and materials that can handle temperatures reaching more than 400 degrees. The heat has destroyed the plugs and seals normally used in drill projects. “Fracking” is shorthand for hydraulic fracturing, a process that has dramatically increased U.S. production of oil and gas, turning the nation into an oil and gas exporter instead of importer. Fracking means pumping high-pressure fluids into wells to fracture the rock. The drilling crew working on the FORGE site this week will be moving to an oil and gas drilling operation elsewhere in Utah in a few weeks. But fracking for heat is substantially cleaner than oil and gas fracking, which produces massive amounts of wastewater while also greasing underground plates, causing earthquakes. Seismicity is closely monitored at the site, but only tiny movements have been recorded. Fracking is especially fruitful when combined combined with another recent technology, horizontal drilling. Instead of just going straight down, drill rigs can now go down and turn sideways, meaning a well can pull more oil and gas from a shallow but wide underground deposit. Both technologies are in use at Utah FORGE. The two wells go down 5,000 feet, and then bend 65 degrees and continue down to 8,500 feet. The whole length of the wells is about 11,000 feet. The “reservoir” is the extensive system of cracks produced from the fracking but still isolated from any outside water by surrounding rock. And the water pumped through can be reused continuously in a closed-loop system. Derisking has also meant learning how to drill faster. They have tested various drill bits, and are now chewing through granite five times faster than they were when they started, McLennan said. In this week’s test, the scientists pushed a few thousand gallons of water in. For the system to be commercially viable, they will need to get to hundreds of gallons per minute, Moore said. Current DOE funding continues through 2025, and Moore expects they will apply for more to continue after that.
Unpeeling history: How an orange debunked Zionism \| Omar Hammuda \| ISLAM21C \| 8 Jan 2023 In this delectable piece, Omar Hammuda shows how the history of the simple yet emblematic Palestinian Jaffa orange reveals the myths of Zionism There is more to an orange than what meets the eye! Recent online discussions reignited the lie that Palestine was a barren and uninhabited land before the emergence of the Zionist colony. While this article touches on Palestine’s rich agricultural history, it will show how the simple orange alone can debunk this concocted myth. An introduction to the Zionist propaganda machine From the very early stages of Zionism to the present day, Zionists and their sympathisers have promulgated baseless claims that one of earth’s most historically significant lands (Palestine) was, once upon a time, romantically empty and destitute. This politically convenient rhetoric follows that it wasn’t until Jewish migration and subsequent settlement in the land that Palestine flourished and made its ‘arid’ deserts bloom. To facilitate such outright lies and misinformation, the Zionists adopted a widely cited phrase in Zionist literature: “A land without a people for a people without a land.” While the historicity of the phrase appears to be a matter of contention, this slogan persists. In reality, it was never intended to be literal, but rather, purely ideological. It was invented to provide a legal and moral basis for the seizure of the land, the murder and displacement of the native population, and the establishment of a Zionist colony. An important feature of early Zionist political discourse was that the native population in Palestine were no more than a marginal segment of people who only existed as scattered individuals or only sometimes as communities. This arrogance and disdain towards the native population becomes exceedingly clear when reading the pronouncements of the early Zionists who wielded this slogan. After having been promised Palestine by the Balfour Declaration, British author and staunch Zionist Israel Zangwill wrote, “…for there is no Arab people living in intimate fusion with the country, utilising its resources and stamping it with a characteristic impress; there is at best an Arab encampment.” In a similar vein, when former Zionist Prime Minister Chaim Weizmann was asked about the Palestinian Arabs and the Balfour Declaration, he condescendingly mirrored the racist attitudes of his European overlords and responded by stating that, “The British told us that there are some hundred thousand Negroes (Kushim in Hebrew) and for those, there is no value.” In other words, these Zionist leaders did not mean that there were no people in Palestine in terms of territorial emptiness, but rather that there were no people who were worth considering, as they did not constitute a ‘developed’ nation in the most Eurocentric and arbitrary sense of the term. Apparently, in the minds of these colonialists, this automatically disqualified its inhabitants from being its rightful owners as they did not transform the land into a fully functioning ‘modern’ nation-state. For a group of colonisers who have cried wolf for decades, the irony here is extremely stark. The influence and the internalisation of racist European sentiment permeates the Zionist mind to this very day. It is this very attitude that would later form the foundations of the nascent ideological and political movement known as Zionism. Palestine as a global commercial hub All it takes is a brief glance at Palestine’s agricultural and economic history to entirely dispel these constructed myths of a dead and desolate land. As one of the most significant land bridges in human history, Palestine has always served as an important producer of key agricultural commodities across the centuries. In a detailed description of its land and fertility, 10th century geographer, Shams al-Din al-Maqdisi, testified to Palestine’s agricultural activity and manufactured goods: “Within the Province of Palestine may be found gathered together 36 products that are not found thus united in any other land … From Palestine comes olives, dried figs, raisins, the carob-fruit, stuffs of mixed silk and cotton, soap, and kerchiefs.” As far as cotton is concerned, between the 10th and 13th centuries CE, the fibre formed the bulk of exports that found their way to European shores. In fact, its value as a global commodity is clearly reflected in the account of al-Maqdisi, who stressed the importance of Palestine’s cotton production. Even the British Consul in Jerusalem, James Finn, could not help but praise the cotton plantations that he witnessed during his travels in Palestine: “The cotton plantations are beautifully clean and orderly, and the fields from which grain crops had been reaped, are well defined and carefully cleaned.” Cotton cultivation and international trade continued all throughout the Mamluk period and eventually reached its peak during the late Ottoman period. And it is worth mentioning that cotton – a commodity long cultivated in Palestine – formed the backbone of the European industrial revolution, centuries later. One can even go as far as to say that as a source of raw materials, Palestine played a vital role in driving the European industrial revolution. As of today, Sūq al-Qaṭṭānīn (Market of the Cotton Merchants), which is located on the west side of the Haram al-Sharif, continues to serve as a living reminder of Palestine’s historically monumental cotton industry. The mighty Jaffa orange Throughout the ages, the Jaffa orange, otherwise known by its Arabic name, the Shamouti or Abu Surrah (navel), eventually came to outpace all other commodities. The Jaffa orange – which later emerged as a global brand – was a new variety of orange developed by Palestinian farmers during the first half of the 19th century. The fruit originated as a mutation on a Baladi tree in a city near Jaffa. With the decline of its cotton industry, Palestine now had a monopoly over the orange trade, and this increased European economic interest in Jaffa following the aftermath of the Crimean War (1853 – 1856). In turn, this led to the expansion of orange groves in the area surrounding the ancient port-city. This was reflected in the exponential growth of orange groves in Jaffa’s vicinities, thanks to their “good quality”, namely the distinct thick peel of the Shamouti that provided it with more protection from disease and rot than its other Mediterranean competitors. These groves produced a staggering 33 million oranges per year – one sixth of which were consumed locally – with the rest exported to domestic markets on Greek ships. By 1880, Europe had become the leading destination for orange exports. In a 1902 study produced by two Zionist officials, on the impressive growth of the orange industry and its international reach, it nevertheless described traditional Palestinian cultivation methods as being “primitive”. Embarrassingly, an in-depth discussion of the costs associated with Palestinian and European proprietors showed that Palestinian cultivation methods were much more cost-efficient than the so-called ‘modern’ Zionist-European ones that were introduced two decades later by Zionist agronomist Yitzhak Elazari-Volcani. However, the notions of a “primitive” Palestinian society is still as yet echoed by clueless contemporary Israeli ‘academics’ such as the likes of Benny Morris, whose analysis of Palestinian agriculture is teeming with terms that evoke backwardness and sub-normality. As has been demonstrated thus far, the least that is required of these militant Zionist pseudo-intellectuals is to take a brief glance at the historical record in order to learn that Palestinian farmers were the pioneers of the Jaffa orange industry. As a matter of fact, the sub-par nature of early Zionist agriculture was bleakly described by one of the leading pre-state Zionist writers, Ahad Ha’am, who said, “There are now about ten [Jewish] colonies standing for some years, and no one of them is able to support itself … wherever I strived to look, I did not manage to see even one man living solely from the fruit of his land.” “Why then? The real answer, that any clever man in Palestine knows, is that the first colonists brought with them substantial idealism, but they all lack the qualifications necessary for agriculture and cannot be simple farmers.” Then, the same cannot be said about the entrepreneurship demonstrated by the Palestinians, who singlehandedly transformed the Jaffa port into a thriving economic, social, and cultural centre through the production and export of its oranges. Until the very end of the 19th century, this industry was entirely exclusive to the native Palestinians. Having dominated the orange trade since its inception in the 1870s, the freeloading Zionist colonists only began to join the industry by the turn of the 20th century, beginning in the former depopulated Palestinian village of Fajja – today a part of the Israeli city, Petah Tikva. Despite the use of Western agricultural methods in their colonies, they nevertheless relied on the knowledge of Palestinian farmers. The first few years of the 20th century saw the economic growth of many Zionist colonies, powered by the citrus industry. Then, during the Mandate period, the British sought to facilitate co-operation between the Palestinian and Jewish sectors of the citrus industry. Finally, with the beginning of the Nakba, Palestinian-owned orange groves were completely usurped and annexed as part of the newly incepted terrorist state of ‘Israel’. Much of the industry’s leading Palestinians were kicked out of their lands. Regardless of whether or not Palestinian contemporaries would have thought so at the time, one can interpret the gradual weakening of the Palestinians’ grip on the citrus industry as a stepping stone towards the appropriation of the Jaffa orange as the national symbol of the Zionist state. Of course, this reality eventually manifested itself in the wake of the Nakba, in which the Jaffa orange became no more than a faint memory living in the minds of Palestinians. N. Masalha (2007) The Bible and Zionism: Invented Traditions, Archaeology and Post-Colonialism in Palestine – Israel, Volume 1. Bloomsbury Academic, p. 45 Ibid; G. Kramer (2008) A History of Palestine: From the Ottoman Conquest to the Founding State of Israel. Princeton University Press, p. 165-6 Ibid, p. 173 B. Doumani (1995) Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900. University of California Press, p. 97 N. Masalha (2022) Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History. Bloomsbury Publishing, p. 230 L. Kamel (2015) Imperial Perceptions of Palestine: British Influence and Power in Late Ottoman Times. Bloomsbury Academic, p. 78 N. Masalha (2002), op. cit., p. 230 H. Gerber (1982) Modernization in Nineteenth-Century Palestine: The Role of Foreign Trade. Taylor & Francis, p. 251 N. Masalha (2022), op. cit., p. 230 I. Charles (1982) An Economic History of the Middle East and North Africa. Columbia University Press, p. 127; C. Ward, et al. (2021) The History of Water in the Land Once Called Palestine: Scarcity, Conflict and Loss in Middle East Water Resources. Bloomsbury Publishing, p. 26 M. LeVine (2005) Overthrowing Geography: Jaffa, Tel-Aviv, and the Struggle for Palestine, 1880 – 1948. University of California Press, p. 34 Ibid, p. 35 M. Kabha & N. Karlinksy (2021) The Lost Orchard: The Palestinian-Arab Citrus Industry, 1850 – 1950. Syracuse University Press, p. 12 M. Levine (2005), op. cit., p. 35 Ibid, p. 34 B. Morris (2004) The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge University Press, pp. 17-20 H. Gerber (1982) Zionism, Orientalism and the Palestinians in the Journal of Palestine Studies. University of California Press, p. 33 Ibid, pp. 33-4 M. Kabha & N. Karlinsky (2021), op. cit., p. 18 Ibid, p. 19 N. Karlinksy (2000) California Dreaming: Adapting the “California Model” to the Jewish Citrus Industry in Palestine, 1917 – 1939 in Israel Studies. Indiana University Press, p. 26 N. Karlinsky (2012) California Dreaming: Ideology, Society, and Technology in the Citrus Industry of Palestine, 1890-1939. State University of New York Press, p. 56 M. Kabha & N. Karlinsky (2021), op. cit., pp. 75-101 Ibid, p. 118 Open letter to Tony Greenstein, obsessive hunter of pro-Palestinian activists \| Redress Information & Analysis \| 9 Jan 2023 On 6 January Tony Greenstein published a massive attack on Pete Gregson, the chair of One Democratic Palestine, on both his blogs (here and here). Below is Gregson’s response: Tony, contrary to your assertion, I am not an anti-Semite. Just like yourself, I am an anti-Zionist. You misrepresent me and even contradict yourself. It feels as if you have never heard of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, the Community Security Trust, the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM), Hope not Hate (a misnomer), Labour Against Antisemitism, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Jewish Leadership Council, the three Jewish newspapers, UK Lawyers for Israel, Friends of Israel, Britain-Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM) – and, of course, the Israeli government. These are the agencies that are run by Zionists who are also, interestingly, run by people who call themselves Jews – and they are the people who brought down Jeremy Corbyn because of his support for Palestine. But according to your twisted logic, it was the capitalists who destroyed him because he was a lefty and the Zionist Jews were just their pawns. You are oblivious to anything but your pseudo-Marxist analysis. You published a lie about me on your blogs. You said “Peter has to his credit expulsion from a number of organisations. I initiated the first from Labour Against the Witchhunt when he put up a petition on his website linking to an article by holocaust denier Nick Kollerstrom who had written a ‘literature review’ on ‘‘The Auschwitz gas chamber illusion’.” This is quite untrue. This is what I actually said four years ago: Also see the article “UK’s Labour Antisemitism Split” by Ian Fantom here. Ian organised the Keep Talking group that filmed my talk in the last but one update. (But I must say I think the Kollerstrom article he mentions is quite toxic). “Hypocrisy, truth-twisting and witch-hunting seem to be your specialty.” Because you are so obsessed by guilt-by-association – you hate Fantom and you are furious that I referenced him – you persuaded 60 per cent of your pals at Labour Against the Witchhunt to hunt me out; this was a body you had basically set up, after all. But you can see from the above that it’s not me that gives out links to Kollerstrom’s nonsense about Auschwitz – it’s you! Hypocrisy, truth-twisting and witch-hunting seem to be your specialty. I never said the Zionists supported the actual gassing of Jews. I said they supported the holocaust by stopping any boycott of Nazi Germany, by making financial deals with the Nazis, by choosing not to warn Jews about the gas chambers, by thwarting efforts to save Jews, by being leading lights in the Judenrat, and by saying that Jewish blood must be spilt if Jews were to get their hands on Palestine. This is all in your book. “… you throw slurs at pro-Palestine activists because the Zionists do: they stab from the front, you stab from the back.” The problem is that you’ve become a willing pawn for the Zionists. You live in an “anti-Semitic echo-chamber”, seeing anti-Semitism where there is none, attacking those whom you should be supporting, so keen are you to find Jew-hate. Like the Zionists, like so many “victim-obsessed” people who think themselves Jewish, not much different in that respect to David Baddiel, whom you recently (correctly) took to task. I make observations about many influential Jews in the UK, but I do not harbour any prejudice against Jews in general. You, however, see anti-Semitism everywhere. So, you throw slurs at pro-Palestine activists because the Zionists do: they stab from the front, you stab from the back. The sad thing is that you yourself have not suffered in the storm of imagined Jew-hate that has beset this country. (Yes, you were kicked out of Labour, but not because of bogus anti-Semitism.) I was forced out of the Labour Party, booted out of my union, have been suspended from our local scout group, been ostracised from many causes I care about because I have criticised Israel. And the people who have done this to me, folk like Rea Wolfson, who calls herself Jewish, were behind these attacks on my freedom of speech (I know it was Wolfson – a GMB senior officer was the source). I’ve seen good people brought low, like Chris Williamson and Corbyn, by the same Zionists that have attacked me and who have beaten our politicians, the BBC and the rest of the media into submission, all on the back of our collective holocaust guilt. We need to be able to have an intelligent discussion about Zionist power in the UK. In 2011 Jeremy Newmark implored, in the “Big Tent for Israel” event, Jews and anybody supporting Israel (i.e. Zionists) to join trade unions and their local political party to mobilise. Then, as soon as Corbyn was elected leader in 2015, Newmark rebadged a virtually redundant Paole Zion, an affiliate body of the Labour Party from the party’s early years, into the JLM and set about recruiting Jews and others who supported Israel. This group was then able to command the debate from virtually inside the party. Many JLM members secured posts in Labour HQ and in the trade unions. Zionist activists then set about convincing major bodies that Jews were at risk and that the only way they could be protected was by adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism. From 2015 to 2018, they largely succeeded. This was achieved through cultivating a hysteria in the media that Jews felt vulnerable without it – Rhea Wolfson, in the Scotsman in July 2018, for example. Wolfson served on Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) and she and Jon Lansman were key in getting Labour to adopt the IHRA definition (more on this here). Did you never notice that up until 2012 the BBC and the rest of the mainstream media were increasingly fair in their coverage of the Palestinians, a trend that has since been sharply reversed? Did you watch The Promise, broadcast by Channel 4 in February 2011, a series about a young woman who goes to present-day Israel and Palestine, determined to find out about her soldier grandfather’s involvement in the final years of Palestine under the British mandate? Can you imagine such a TV series being made now? No, of course not. Jeremy Newmark introduces his 2011 “Big Tent for Israel” event by arguing for the urgent need to stop criticisms of Israel, for Jews throughout the UK to come to the defence of their ‘homeland’. And he has spectacularly succeeded in this, with a great deal of help from the Israeli embassy, as the TV series The Lobby, proves. Are you aware that 38 per cent of the BBC’s governing body are now declared pro-Israel or pro-Zionists? The BBC’s political editor was in place at exactly the right time to do the maximum damage. Corbyn was repeatedly skewered by Laura Kuensberg, one of the Glasgow Zionists; she brought him down with help from fellow Zionist, Jonathan Freedland at the Guardian. Kuensberg and other Zionists, calling themselves Jews, rose to their positions of influence in the six years following the “Big Tent for Israel” event. Why on earth would a toff like Rhea Wolfson want to work in a trade union like the GMB, yet she was there at the top in 2018? What on earth was a property magnate like Lansman doing running Momentum? These are the people that drove Labour to adopt the IHRA definition – and they weren’t doing it because they loved the ‘Establishment’. They were doing it because they loved Israel. And they call themselves Jews, too. You claim I think Jews act as one homogenous mass. I don’t. But 70 per cent of those calling themselves Jews in the UK support Israel. And Israel supports these people. The Lobby makes clear who was directing the attacks on British politicians who were deemed pro-Palestinian. It wasn’t MI5 – it was the Israeli embassy, in league with the Zionists agencies I listed earlier. The fact of the Big Tent for Israel event undermines everything you say. Over the past 10 years there has been a massively successful campaign to entrench Zionism in Westminster – we now have 80 per cent of the Tories and 40 per cent of Labour MPs who are Friends of Israel. “Your abuse of the word ‘anti-Semitism’ has, alongside the Zionists, made the term increasingly meaningless… You now use it against me because I accuse Zionists of supporting the Nazis, yet you know that the Haavara Agreement showed Nazis and Zionists working together very well.” Your abuse of the word ‘anti-Semitism’ has, alongside the Zionists, made the term increasingly meaningless. You don’t accept the Oxford English Dictionary definition of the term – “hostility to or prejudice against Jewish people”. You now use it against me because I accuse Zionists of supporting the Nazis, yet you know that the Haavara Agreement showed Nazis and Zionists working together very well. The Zionists did nothing to avert the holocaust and declared that “only through the bloodshed of Jews will we get the land, because when the victors will divide the land after the war, then they will give us [the Zionists] the land in return for Jewish bloodshed, and that is what we want”. In my book, this counts as quiet support for the holocaust. They were content to see Jews gassed if they were not heading towards Palestine. In your self-righteous ranting, you attack campaigners like myself as anti-Semites – but I don’t show “hostility to or prejudice against Jewish people”, I merely observe that most of those who call themselves Jews in the UK are wealthy, influential and they support Israel. I am prejudiced against Zionists – who happen to be Jews, but not because they are Jews. And you are too. But you wouldn’t call yourself anti-Semitic, would you? You think you are above the mudslinging because you think yourself Jewish. You reserve that slander against people like me, who don’t declare themselves Jewish. I have to disagree with you as well on the Zionist project. It was imperialist and colonial at the outset, but these days it is primarily a Jewish project. If we reflect on the parallels with South Africa, it quickly becomes clear as to why attempts to mount an effective campaign against Israel have so consistently failed. Zionists declare Jews to be a race, and they declare that those who’ve emigrated there since 1917 belong there, that they were ‘returning to their roots’. This is what makes it so difficult to change the status quo, with we anti-apartheid campaigners being branded as ‘anti-Semites’. Israel calls itself the Jewish state and people in the UK have largely accepted this. That is why BDS efforts are undermined and any move by local authorities to support BDS is soon to be made illegal, as it will be deemed ‘anti-Semitic’. So, matters as to whether Israel really is the Jewish state are fundamental to any question of Palestine’s liberation. Rabbi Weiss shares my view that Israel is not the Jewish state. He comes from the religious perspective (that they cannot be Jewish for they have ignored the Torah’s ruling on Aliyah) – but I am declaring this from the genetic perspective too: the ‘Jewish’ occupants of the Knesset are Europeans, not Semites. (By the way, you say you are going to write to Rabbi Weiss and ask him to dissociate himself from me. But he has read your attack on his organisation, so I’m not sure he’ll listen.) “You have become part of the problem, Tony, because you have lost sight of what anti-Semitism is…Can you not see what you are doing with your obsessive attacks on fellow campaigners?… You do nothing but harm to the Palestinian cause with your pointless attacks…” The Ashkenazis in Israel, who comprise around 50 per cent of the population and are generally mostly in power, originally hail from Kazakstan, and are fundamentally Europeans – it is they who have given Israel its European flavour, so much so that the European Union virtually accepts Israel as a member state. They do this whilst claiming they are of the land, that Jews were given the land by God – sadly, this is an argument that has been generally accepted. In order to fight this, we need to challenge their claim to a Jewish heritage, to their rights to occupy the land. If we do not, we will never win. As far as the dictionary definition of Jews applies, their claim falls flat. The dictionary says a Jew is “a member of the people and cultural community whose traditional religion is Judaism and who trace their origins through the ancient Hebrew people of Israel to Abraham”. But present-day Israelis have rejected the key Judaic precept that there can be no return to ‘Israel’ until the Messiah comes. So, their claim to be followers of Judaism are false. And genetically, they cannot trace their origins to the ancient Hebrew people either; the Ashkenazis rule the roost and they are Europeans, not Hebrews. They ignore key Judaic teachings, with the religious right there just picking out the bits of the Torah they like, that they think justify their occupation. Their claim that God gave them the land is entirely bogus. The true descendants of the ancient Hebrews are the Palestinians, who mostly converted to Islam in the 7th Century – something you yourself have observed. You have become part of the problem, Tony, because you have lost sight of what anti-Semitism is. I have no problem with Jews, as you well know. However, I do have a problem with Zionists who call themselves Jews, who have done everything possible to cancel my life. And now you have joined them. Can you not see what you are doing with your obsessive attacks on fellow campaigners? Folk like me and Williamson have lost so much for complaining about bogus anti-Semitism, at the hands of people who would do anything to protect their racist colony. You do nothing but harm to the Palestinian cause with your pointless attacks. The only people you are helping are the Israelis. It’s time you woke up and realised that. Hands off Peter Gregson – For Workers Democracy and Free Debate, not Bundist Heresy-Hunts! – Consistent Democrats]	<urn:uuid:c7a6bc32-56eb-4d6c-965b-9c5212a15c61>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-14", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296948620.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20230327092225-20230327122225-00109.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9534401297569275, "pii_count": 0, "score": 3.03125, "token_count": 6388, "url": "https://truthaholics.wordpress.com/2023/01/11/unpeeling-history-how-an-orange-debunked-zionism-antisemitism-ziocolony-blues-bds/" }	Unpeeling history: How an orange debunked Zionism \| Omar Hammuda \| ISLAM21C \| 8 Jan 2023 In this delectable piece, Omar Hammuda shows how the history of the simple yet emblematic Palestinian Jaffa orange reveals the myths of Zionism There is more to an orange than what meets the eye! Recent online discussions reignited the lie that Palestine was a barren and uninhabited land before the emergence of the Zionist colony. While this article touches on Palestine’s rich agricultural history, it will show how the simple orange alone can debunk this concocted myth. An introduction to the Zionist propaganda machine From the very early stages of Zionism to the present day, Zionists and their sympathisers have promulgated baseless claims that one of earth’s most historically significant lands (Palestine) was, once upon a time, romantically empty and destitute. This politically convenient rhetoric follows that it wasn’t until Jewish migration and subsequent settlement in the land that Palestine flourished and made its ‘arid’ deserts bloom. To facilitate such outright lies and misinformation, the Zionists adopted a widely cited phrase in Zionist literature: “A land without a people for a people without a land.” While the historicity of the phrase appears to be a matter of contention, this slogan persists. In reality, it was never intended to be literal, but rather, purely ideological. It was invented to provide a legal and moral basis for the seizure of the land, the murder and displacement of the native population, and the establishment of a Zionist colony. An important feature of early Zionist political discourse was that the native population in Palestine were no more than a marginal segment of people who only existed as scattered individuals or only sometimes as communities. This arrogance and disdain towards the native population becomes exceedingly clear when reading the pronouncements of the early Zionists who wielded this slogan. After having been promised Palestine by the Balfour Declaration, British author and staunch Zionist Israel Zangwill wrote, “…for there is no Arab people living in intimate fusion with the country, utilising its resources and stamping it with a characteristic impress; there is at best an Arab encampment.” In a similar vein, when former Zionist Prime Minister Chaim Weizmann was asked about the Palestinian Arabs and the Balfour Declaration, he condescendingly mirrored the racist attitudes of his European overl	ords and responded by stating that, “The British told us that there are some hundred thousand Negroes (Kushim in Hebrew) and for those, there is no value.” In other words, these Zionist leaders did not mean that there were no people in Palestine in terms of territorial emptiness, but rather that there were no people who were worth considering, as they did not constitute a ‘developed’ nation in the most Eurocentric and arbitrary sense of the term. Apparently, in the minds of these colonialists, this automatically disqualified its inhabitants from being its rightful owners as they did not transform the land into a fully functioning ‘modern’ nation-state. For a group of colonisers who have cried wolf for decades, the irony here is extremely stark. The influence and the internalisation of racist European sentiment permeates the Zionist mind to this very day. It is this very attitude that would later form the foundations of the nascent ideological and political movement known as Zionism. Palestine as a global commercial hub All it takes is a brief glance at Palestine’s agricultural and economic history to entirely dispel these constructed myths of a dead and desolate land. As one of the most significant land bridges in human history, Palestine has always served as an important producer of key agricultural commodities across the centuries. In a detailed description of its land and fertility, 10th century geographer, Shams al-Din al-Maqdisi, testified to Palestine’s agricultural activity and manufactured goods: “Within the Province of Palestine may be found gathered together 36 products that are not found thus united in any other land … From Palestine comes olives, dried figs, raisins, the carob-fruit, stuffs of mixed silk and cotton, soap, and kerchiefs.” As far as cotton is concerned, between the 10th and 13th centuries CE, the fibre formed the bulk of exports that found their way to European shores. In fact, its value as a global commodity is clearly reflected in the account of al-Maqdisi, who stressed the importance of Palestine’s cotton production. Even the British Consul in Jerusalem, James Finn, could not help but praise the cotton plantations that he witnessed during his travels in Palestine: “The cotton plantations are beautifully clean and orderly, and the fields from which grain crops had been reaped, are well defined and carefully cleaned.” Cotton cultivation and international trade continued all throughout the Mamluk period and eventually reached its peak during the late Ottoman period. And it is worth mentioning that cotton – a commodity long cultivated in Palestine – formed the backbone of the European industrial revolution, centuries later. One can even go as far as to say that as a source of raw materials, Palestine played a vital role in driving the European industrial revolution. As of today, Sūq al-Qaṭṭānīn (Market of the Cotton Merchants), which is located on the west side of the Haram al-Sharif, continues to serve as a living reminder of Palestine’s historically monumental cotton industry. The mighty Jaffa orange Throughout the ages, the Jaffa orange, otherwise known by its Arabic name, the Shamouti or Abu Surrah (navel), eventually came to outpace all other commodities. The Jaffa orange – which later emerged as a global brand – was a new variety of orange developed by Palestinian farmers during the first half of the 19th century. The fruit originated as a mutation on a Baladi tree in a city near Jaffa. With the decline of its cotton industry, Palestine now had a monopoly over the orange trade, and this increased European economic interest in Jaffa following the aftermath of the Crimean War (1853 – 1856). In turn, this led to the expansion of orange groves in the area surrounding the ancient port-city. This was reflected in the exponential growth of orange groves in Jaffa’s vicinities, thanks to their “good quality”, namely the distinct thick peel of the Shamouti that provided it with more protection from disease and rot than its other Mediterranean competitors. These groves produced a staggering 33 million oranges per year – one sixth of which were consumed locally – with the rest exported to domestic markets on Greek ships. By 1880, Europe had become the leading destination for orange exports. In a 1902 study produced by two Zionist officials, on the impressive growth of the orange industry and its international reach, it nevertheless described traditional Palestinian cultivation methods as being “primitive”. Embarrassingly, an in-depth discussion of the costs associated with Palestinian and European proprietors showed that Palestinian cultivation methods were much more cost-efficient than the so-called ‘modern’ Zionist-European ones that were introduced two decades later by Zionist agronomist Yitzhak Elazari-Volcani. However, the notions of a “primitive” Palestinian society is still as yet echoed by clueless contemporary Israeli ‘academics’ such as the likes of Benny Morris, whose analysis of Palestinian agriculture is teeming with terms that evoke backwardness and sub-normality. As has been demonstrated thus far, the least that is required of these militant Zionist pseudo-intellectuals is to take a brief glance at the historical record in order to learn that Palestinian farmers were the pioneers of the Jaffa orange industry. As a matter of fact, the sub-par nature of early Zionist agriculture was bleakly described by one of the leading pre-state Zionist writers, Ahad Ha’am, who said, “There are now about ten [Jewish] colonies standing for some years, and no one of them is able to support itself … wherever I strived to look, I did not manage to see even one man living solely from the fruit of his land.” “Why then? The real answer, that any clever man in Palestine knows, is that the first colonists brought with them substantial idealism, but they all lack the qualifications necessary for agriculture and cannot be simple farmers.” Then, the same cannot be said about the entrepreneurship demonstrated by the Palestinians, who singlehandedly transformed the Jaffa port into a thriving economic, social, and cultural centre through the production and export of its oranges. Until the very end of the 19th century, this industry was entirely exclusive to the native Palestinians. Having dominated the orange trade since its inception in the 1870s, the freeloading Zionist colonists only began to join the industry by the turn of the 20th century, beginning in the former depopulated Palestinian village of Fajja – today a part of the Israeli city, Petah Tikva. Despite the use of Western agricultural methods in their colonies, they nevertheless relied on the knowledge of Palestinian farmers. The first few years of the 20th century saw the economic growth of many Zionist colonies, powered by the citrus industry. Then, during the Mandate period, the British sought to facilitate co-operation between the Palestinian and Jewish sectors of the citrus industry. Finally, with the beginning of the Nakba, Palestinian-owned orange groves were completely usurped and annexed as part of the newly incepted terrorist state of ‘Israel’. Much of the industry’s leading Palestinians were kicked out of their lands. Regardless of whether or not Palestinian contemporaries would have thought so at the time, one can interpret the gradual weakening of the Palestinians’ grip on the citrus industry as a stepping stone towards the appropriation of the Jaffa orange as the national symbol of the Zionist state. Of course, this reality eventually manifested itself in the wake of the Nakba, in which the Jaffa orange became no more than a faint memory living in the minds of Palestinians. N. Masalha (2007) The Bible and Zionism: Invented Traditions, Archaeology and Post-Colonialism in Palestine – Israel, Volume 1. Bloomsbury Academic, p. 45 Ibid; G. Kramer (2008) A History of Palestine: From the Ottoman Conquest to the Founding State of Israel. Princeton University Press, p. 165-6 Ibid, p. 173 B. Doumani (1995) Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900. University of California Press, p. 97 N. Masalha (2022) Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History. Bloomsbury Publishing, p. 230 L. Kamel (2015) Imperial Perceptions of Palestine: British Influence and Power in Late Ottoman Times. Bloomsbury Academic, p. 78 N. Masalha (2002), op. cit., p. 230 H. Gerber (1982) Modernization in Nineteenth-Century Palestine: The Role of Foreign Trade. Taylor & Francis, p. 251 N. Masalha (2022), op. cit., p. 230 I. Charles (1982) An Economic History of the Middle East and North Africa. Columbia University Press, p. 127; C. Ward, et al. (2021) The History of Water in the Land Once Called Palestine: Scarcity, Conflict and Loss in Middle East Water Resources. Bloomsbury Publishing, p. 26 M. LeVine (2005) Overthrowing Geography: Jaffa, Tel-Aviv, and the Struggle for Palestine, 1880 – 1948. University of California Press, p. 34 Ibid, p. 35 M. Kabha & N. Karlinksy (2021) The Lost Orchard: The Palestinian-Arab Citrus Industry, 1850 – 1950. Syracuse University Press, p. 12 M. Levine (2005), op. cit., p. 35 Ibid, p. 34 B. Morris (2004) The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge University Press, pp. 17-20 H. Gerber (1982) Zionism, Orientalism and the Palestinians in the Journal of Palestine Studies. University of California Press, p. 33 Ibid, pp. 33-4 M. Kabha & N. Karlinsky (2021), op. cit., p. 18 Ibid, p. 19 N. Karlinksy (2000) California Dreaming: Adapting the “California Model” to the Jewish Citrus Industry in Palestine, 1917 – 1939 in Israel Studies. Indiana University Press, p. 26 N. Karlinsky (2012) California Dreaming: Ideology, Society, and Technology in the Citrus Industry of Palestine, 1890-1939. State University of New York Press, p. 56 M. Kabha & N. Karlinsky (2021), op. cit., pp. 75-101 Ibid, p. 118 Open letter to Tony Greenstein, obsessive hunter of pro-Palestinian activists \| Redress Information & Analysis \| 9 Jan 2023 On 6 January Tony Greenstein published a massive attack on Pete Gregson, the chair of One Democratic Palestine, on both his blogs (here and here). Below is Gregson’s response: Tony, contrary to your assertion, I am not an anti-Semite. Just like yourself, I am an anti-Zionist. You misrepresent me and even contradict yourself. It feels as if you have never heard of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, the Community Security Trust, the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM), Hope not Hate (a misnomer), Labour Against Antisemitism, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Jewish Leadership Council, the three Jewish newspapers, UK Lawyers for Israel, Friends of Israel, Britain-Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM) – and, of course, the Israeli government. These are the agencies that are run by Zionists who are also, interestingly, run by people who call themselves Jews – and they are the people who brought down Jeremy Corbyn because of his support for Palestine. But according to your twisted logic, it was the capitalists who destroyed him because he was a lefty and the Zionist Jews were just their pawns. You are oblivious to anything but your pseudo-Marxist analysis. You published a lie about me on your blogs. You said “Peter has to his credit expulsion from a number of organisations. I initiated the first from Labour Against the Witchhunt when he put up a petition on his website linking to an article by holocaust denier Nick Kollerstrom who had written a ‘literature review’ on ‘‘The Auschwitz gas chamber illusion’.” This is quite untrue. This is what I actually said four years ago: Also see the article “UK’s Labour Antisemitism Split” by Ian Fantom here. Ian organised the Keep Talking group that filmed my talk in the last but one update. (But I must say I think the Kollerstrom article he mentions is quite toxic). “Hypocrisy, truth-twisting and witch-hunting seem to be your specialty.” Because you are so obsessed by guilt-by-association – you hate Fantom and you are furious that I referenced him – you persuaded 60 per cent of your pals at Labour Against the Witchhunt to hunt me out; this was a body you had basically set up, after all. But you can see from the above that it’s not me that gives out links to Kollerstrom’s nonsense about Auschwitz – it’s you! Hypocrisy, truth-twisting and witch-hunting seem to be your specialty. I never said the Zionists supported the actual gassing of Jews. I said they supported the holocaust by stopping any boycott of Nazi Germany, by making financial deals with the Nazis, by choosing not to warn Jews about the gas chambers, by thwarting efforts to save Jews, by being leading lights in the Judenrat, and by saying that Jewish blood must be spilt if Jews were to get their hands on Palestine. This is all in your book. “… you throw slurs at pro-Palestine activists because the Zionists do: they stab from the front, you stab from the back.” The problem is that you’ve become a willing pawn for the Zionists. You live in an “anti-Semitic echo-chamber”, seeing anti-Semitism where there is none, attacking those whom you should be supporting, so keen are you to find Jew-hate. Like the Zionists, like so many “victim-obsessed” people who think themselves Jewish, not much different in that respect to David Baddiel, whom you recently (correctly) took to task. I make observations about many influential Jews in the UK, but I do not harbour any prejudice against Jews in general. You, however, see anti-Semitism everywhere. So, you throw slurs at pro-Palestine activists because the Zionists do: they stab from the front, you stab from the back. The sad thing is that you yourself have not suffered in the storm of imagined Jew-hate that has beset this country. (Yes, you were kicked out of Labour, but not because of bogus anti-Semitism.) I was forced out of the Labour Party, booted out of my union, have been suspended from our local scout group, been ostracised from many causes I care about because I have criticised Israel. And the people who have done this to me, folk like Rea Wolfson, who calls herself Jewish, were behind these attacks on my freedom of speech (I know it was Wolfson – a GMB senior officer was the source). I’ve seen good people brought low, like Chris Williamson and Corbyn, by the same Zionists that have attacked me and who have beaten our politicians, the BBC and the rest of the media into submission, all on the back of our collective holocaust guilt. We need to be able to have an intelligent discussion about Zionist power in the UK. In 2011 Jeremy Newmark implored, in the “Big Tent for Israel” event, Jews and anybody supporting Israel (i.e. Zionists) to join trade unions and their local political party to mobilise. Then, as soon as Corbyn was elected leader in 2015, Newmark rebadged a virtually redundant Paole Zion, an affiliate body of the
Human genetic engineering has come a long way since its inception, and gene editing is one of the newest and most promising technologies in this field. Gene editing allows scientists to precisely alter the DNA sequence of an organism, including human beings. With the advent of gene editing, it has become possible to treat genetic diseases, create genetically modified organisms, and even enhance human traits. In this article, we will review the role of gene editing in human genetic engineering and the current research in this field. Gene editing is a technique that uses molecular tools to make precise and specific changes in the DNA sequence of an organism. This technique allows scientists to alter, insert, or delete genes in a genome, making it possible to treat genetic disorders or create new traits. One of the most popular methods for gene editing is the CRISPR-Cas9 system. This system uses RNA molecules to guide a Cas9 enzyme to a specific location in the genome, where it makes a precise cut in the DNA. This cut can then be repaired by the cell’s natural DNA repair mechanisms, or new genes can be inserted into the cut site. The most significant role of gene editing in human genetic engineering is the treatment of genetic diseases. Many genetic disorders are caused by mutations in a single gene, which makes them ideal targets for gene editing. With gene editing, it is possible to correct these mutations and restore the normal function of the affected gene. Gene editing has already shown promise in treating several genetic disorders, including sickle cell anemia and Huntington’s disease. Another potential application of gene editing is in the creation of genetically modified organisms. Scientists can use gene editing to create crops that are more resistant to disease, produce higher yields, or have better nutritional value. They can also use gene editing to create animals with specific traits, such as leaner meat or increased milk production. However, the creation of genetically modified organisms has raised ethical concerns, particularly in the case of humans. Gene editing has also opened up the possibility of enhancing human traits. With gene editing, it is possible to alter the genes responsible for physical and mental traits, such as height, intelligence, or athletic ability. While the idea of enhancing human traits may seem appealing, it has raised ethical concerns about creating a genetic elite and widening the gap between the haves and have-nots. There are also concerns about unintended consequences, such as unintended effects on other traits or negative effects on health. Despite the potential benefits of gene editing, there are still many technical and ethical challenges that need to be addressed. One of the most significant challenges is the off-target effects of gene editing. Gene editing can cause unintended changes in the genome, which can have unintended consequences on the organism’s health. Scientists need to develop better methods for predicting and preventing off-target effects. Another challenge is the ethical considerations surrounding the use of gene editing in humans. Many people are concerned about the potential misuse of gene editing, such as creating a genetic elite or allowing parents to choose their children’s traits. There are also concerns about the long-term effects of gene editing on human evolution and the potential for unintended consequences. In conclusion, gene editing is a powerful tool in human genetic engineering that has the potential to revolutionize medicine, agriculture, and human evolution. However, there are still many technical and ethical challenges that need to be addressed before gene editing can be widely used. As researchers continue to develop and refine gene editing techniques, it is essential to consider the ethical implications of this technology and ensure that it is used for the benefit of all.	<urn:uuid:90987468-a967-4aa2-87a5-3048e0475ed7>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-23", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224649105.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20230603032950-20230603062950-00613.warc.gz", "int_score": 4, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9443796277046204, "pii_count": 0, "score": 3.96875, "token_count": 725, "url": "https://thetattyjournal.wordpress.com/2023/03/26/the-role-of-gene-editing-in-human-genetic-engineering-a-review-of-current-research/" }	Human genetic engineering has come a long way since its inception, and gene editing is one of the newest and most promising technologies in this field. Gene editing allows scientists to precisely alter the DNA sequence of an organism, including human beings. With the advent of gene editing, it has become possible to treat genetic diseases, create genetically modified organisms, and even enhance human traits. In this article, we will review the role of gene editing in human genetic engineering and the current research in this field. Gene editing is a technique that uses molecular tools to make precise and specific changes in the DNA sequence of an organism. This technique allows scientists to alter, insert, or delete genes in a genome, making it possible to treat genetic disorders or create new traits. One of the most popular methods for gene editing is the CRISPR-Cas9 system. This system uses RNA molecules to guide a Cas9 enzyme to a specific location in the genome, where it makes a precise cut in the DNA. This cut can then be repaired by the cell’s natural DNA repair mechanisms, or new genes can be inserted into the cut site. The most significant role of gene editing in human genetic engineering is the treatment of genetic diseases. Many genetic disorders are caused by mutations in a single gene, which makes them ideal targets for gene editing. With gene editing, it is possible to correct these mutations and restore the normal function of the affected gene. Gene editing has already shown promise in treating several genetic disorders, including sickle cell anemia and Huntington’s disease. Another potential application of gene editing is in the creation of genetically modified organisms. Scientists can use gene editing to create crops that are more resistant to disease, produce higher yields, or have better nutritional value. They can also use gene editing to create animals with specific traits, such as leaner meat or increased milk production. However, the creation of genetically modified organisms has raised ethical concerns, particularly in the case of humans. Gene editing has also opened up the possibility of enhancing human traits. With gene editing, it is possible to alter the genes responsible for physical and mental traits, such as height, intelligence, or athletic ability. While the idea of enhancing human traits may seem appealing, it has raised ethical concerns about creating a genetic elite and widening the gap between the haves and have-nots. There are also concerns about unintended consequences, such as unintended effects on other traits or negative effects on health. Despite the potential benefits of gene editing, there are still many technical and ethical challenges that need to be addressed. One of the most significant challenges	is the off-target effects of gene editing. Gene editing can cause unintended changes in the genome, which can have unintended consequences on the organism’s health. Scientists need to develop better methods for predicting and preventing off-target effects. Another challenge is the ethical considerations surrounding the use of gene editing in humans. Many people are concerned about the potential misuse of gene editing, such as creating a genetic elite or allowing parents to choose their children’s traits. There are also concerns about the long-term effects of gene editing on human evolution and the potential for unintended consequences. In conclusion, gene editing is a powerful tool in human genetic engineering that has the potential to revolutionize medicine, agriculture, and human evolution. However, there are still many technical and ethical challenges that need to be addressed before gene editing can be widely used. As researchers continue to develop and refine gene editing techniques, it is essential to consider the ethical implications of this technology and ensure that it is used for the benefit of all.
Off the top of your head, name any marine animal, and we can bet that climate change has put them through the wringer in recent times. Sharks have been moving polewards to escape the warming oceans, inadvertently altering entire fragile ecosystems in their anxious scurry. Dolphins are tragically seeing lowered birth rates as heat waves strike their habitat, putting entire species in underserved jeopardy. We already knew that the warming oceans have been making the going turn tougher and tougher for the extremely sensitive marine life that resides in it. And things have only gotten worse in 2022, with this year being the hottest the oceans have ever been! While the abundance of water on Earth might make the blue planet look incredibly snazzy from space, it does little to prevent heat from being trapped within it. In fact, the large surface area covered by water means our oceans absorb about 90% of the excess heat from greenhouse gas emissions. This helps us land-dwellers, but unfortunately spells tragedy of Atlantic proportions for our marine neighbours. Just last year, heat content in our oceans exceeded 2021 levels by one zeta joules (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 J), which beats out current worldwide electricity production by a hundred-fold. "Until we reach net zero emissions, that heating will continue, and we'll continue to break ocean heat content records, as we did this year," explains Michael Mann, an author of the study. "Better awareness and understanding of the oceans are a basis for the actions to combat climate change." In addition, the ongoing acidification of our oceans is robbing them of the crucial oxygen that allows life to survive underwater, leaving countless species on literally some of their last breaths. "Deoxygenation itself is a nightmare for not only marine life and ecosystems, but also for humans and our terrestrial ecosystems," the researchers said in a statement. Even above-water, countries worldwide are regularly falling prey to climate change. Places where droughts have become more common face repeated risk of wildfires, while torrential floods wreak havoc in others. Many of these impacts can indeed be traced back to the increasingly warming oceans, which in turn, brings about significant changes to the planet’s hydrological cycles, cascading into deadlier and more frequent disasters around the planet. The findings of this research have been published in Atmospheric Sciences and can be accessed here. For weather, science, space, and COVID-19 updates on the go, download The Weather Channel App (on Android and iOS store). It's free!	<urn:uuid:ae52f205-618e-43f1-abc8-6b81a1d8babe>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-06", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764500058.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20230203154140-20230203184140-00453.warc.gz", "int_score": 4, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9399064779281616, "pii_count": 0, "score": 3.578125, "token_count": 528, "url": "https://weather.com/en-IN/india/climate-change/news/2023-01-12-worlds-oceans-were-at-their-hottest-ever-in-2022" }	Off the top of your head, name any marine animal, and we can bet that climate change has put them through the wringer in recent times. Sharks have been moving polewards to escape the warming oceans, inadvertently altering entire fragile ecosystems in their anxious scurry. Dolphins are tragically seeing lowered birth rates as heat waves strike their habitat, putting entire species in underserved jeopardy. We already knew that the warming oceans have been making the going turn tougher and tougher for the extremely sensitive marine life that resides in it. And things have only gotten worse in 2022, with this year being the hottest the oceans have ever been! While the abundance of water on Earth might make the blue planet look incredibly snazzy from space, it does little to prevent heat from being trapped within it. In fact, the large surface area covered by water means our oceans absorb about 90% of the excess heat from greenhouse gas emissions. This helps us land-dwellers, but unfortunately spells tragedy of Atlantic proportions for our marine neighbours. Just last year, heat content in our oceans exceeded 2021 levels by one zeta joules (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 J), which beats out current worldwide electricity production by a hundred-fold. "Until we reach net zero emissions, that heating will continue, and we'll continue to break ocean heat content records, as we did this year," explains Michael Mann, an author of the study. "Better awareness and understanding of the oceans are a basis for the actions to combat climate change." In addition, the ongoing acidification of our oceans is robbing them of the crucial oxygen that allows life to survive underwater, leaving countless species on literally some of their last breaths. "Deoxygenation itself is a nightmare for not only marine life and ecosystems, but also for humans and our terrestrial ecosystems," the researchers said in a statement. Even above-water, countries worldwide are regularly falling prey to climate change. Places where droughts have become more common face repeated risk of wildfires, while torrential floods wreak havoc in others. Many of these impacts can indeed be traced back to the increasingly warming oceans, which in turn, brings about significant changes to the planet’s hydrological cycles, cascading into deadlier and more frequent disasters around the planet. The findings of this research have been published in Atmospheric Sciences and can be accessed here. For weather, science	, space, and COVID-19 updates on the go, download The Weather Channel App (on Android and iOS store). It's free!
History of equalization of property rights by members of Agua Caliente Band of the Cahuilla Indians The struggle for the property rights of the individual members of the Agua Caliente Band of the Cahuilla Indians has been long and difficult. In 1958, Tribal Council Chairman Vyola Olinger (later Ortner) presided over “one of the biggest real estate deals in the country” in championing the rights of her people. The heart of the reservation of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians is Section 14, a 640-acre parcel in the center of downtown Palm Springs. It was at the center of a possible multimillion-dollar development opportunity that was crucial for the Tribe’s survival. Two issues needed to be adjudicated before any development was possible. The first was to finalize the equalization of values of individual allotments, parcels of land given to each tribal member, and the second was to increase the time that tribal members could lease their land in order to attract developers. Allotment of the land on the Palm Springs reservation, originally established under 1891 law, to individual members of the Agua Caliente Band was begun in 1923. Because of various complications in legislation, administration and litigation, the first allotment schedule was not approved by the Secretary of the Interior until 1949. A decade-long battle began when an attempt to “equalize” allotments of land to individual members of the tribe was made by the federal government. Making the values of allotments equal and fair to all tribal members was a daunting task. Allotments varied considerably according to Native American expert Dr. Lowell Bean in his book From Time Immemorial. In 1954, Clemente Segundo et al vs. United States was settled with a ruling that each plaintiff in the case was to be allotted “total lands of as nearly equal value to the lands allotted to each of the other members.” This decision by the court ended the legal back-and-forth of individual tribal members and the federal government, setting up the framework for both individual members’ property rights and the Tribe’s future. The question of how to equalize the values of real estate was studied by the federal government through the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and the all-female Tribal Council led by Vyola Ortner. According to an article published in the Desert Sun on Feb. 13, 1957, four solutions were proposed: 1) Dividing the tribal lands 2) Selling the tribal lands and distributing the money 3) Using tribal land income as a dividend to allottees 4) Combining two or more of the above-mentioned plans. On June 14, 1957, comments were made through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, by the United States Department of the Interior, Office of the Secretary, stating that to make the management of tribal and individual assets more manageable a corporation should be managed by appointed people familiar with corporate ways. The allotted lands would be turned over to the corporation and tribal members would receive stock in the corporation. The reservation would be sold off and the proceeds distributed to tribal members. At a hearing held on Oct. 2, 1957, Tribal Chairman Vyola Olinger (Ortner) said in her testimony, “that the Indians felt that the bill established a liquidating corporation, one that would sell as rapidly as possible their tribal lands…and was not acceptable to the members of the Tribe.” She proposed that except for tribal reserves all other lands would be allotted and Congress should pass a bill to complete the equalization. Rex Lee of the BIA announced on June 25, 1958 that tribal lands (31,610 acres valued at approximately $12,000,00 by the Secretary of the Interior in 1957) would be divided up with the goal of bringing each member’s land value up to $350,000 and any member whose allotments were already valued between $87,000 and $629,000 would not benefit from the changes. On July 19, 1958, the BIA received a letter from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs telling him to proceed with the process of allotting the land including the reserves (land held by the tribe collectively.) The Tribal Council responded by declaring that they would wage an all-out war with the federal government’s equalization program saying that it would “liquidate” and destroy the tribe itself. Ortner said that the government’s plan, “creates an economic and culture crisis for both the City of Palm Springs and the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians. Later in the summer, Associated Press reporter John Beckler reported that “BIA Director, Leonard Hill, admitted that plans for developing Section 14 as a single package had fallen through.” Beckler added, “Real Estate people now are faced with the problem of dealing with the Indians on an individual basis and developing in a piecemeal fashion.” In an article in the Desert Sun published on July 29, 1958, Ortner asked the City of Palm Springs for help. She stated that even though tribal members were allotted over half of the real estate within the city limits, they were “land rich but cash poor.” In a combined lobbying effort between Congressman D.S. Saund, The Agua Caliente Tribal Council, and the City of Palm Springs, Public Law 86-3327 and Public Law 105-308 were passed by the House of Representatives, and the Senate and signed into law by President Dwight Eisenhower on Sept. 21, 1959. The Equalization Bill (Public Law 105-308) authorized the allotments to be equalized with the target of the value set at $350,000 and the Land Lease Act (Public Law 86-327) authorized increasing the leasing period to a maximum of 99 years. Anyone not alive before Sept. 21, 1959, was excluded from the equalization process and would not be allotted land. In accordance with this law, most of the reservation land was allotted to 92 individual members (31 adults and 61 minors) except for the lands held by the tribe in common which included two cemeteries, the Catholic Church located on Section 14, Our Lady of Guadalupe, the hot mineral spring including the area around it, and the lands in Tahquitz, Palm, Murray, and Andreas canyons. The tribal members were able to stop the incorporation and complete land liquidation proposal, but the associated notion of appointment of guardians and conservators for all minors and adults judged as “incapable to handle their own affairs” was passed by Congress and created another struggle for the native people of Palm Springs.	<urn:uuid:b6a51005-a7d0-48f3-bde6-fb334738b6b8>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-23", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224644867.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20230529141542-20230529171542-00413.warc.gz", "int_score": 4, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9677209854125977, "pii_count": 0, "score": 3.8125, "token_count": 1386, "url": "https://www.desertsun.com/story/life/history/2023/04/30/history-property-rights-struggle-by-members-of-agua-caliente-band-of-the-cahuilla-indians-has-been-d/70165045007/" }	History of equalization of property rights by members of Agua Caliente Band of the Cahuilla Indians The struggle for the property rights of the individual members of the Agua Caliente Band of the Cahuilla Indians has been long and difficult. In 1958, Tribal Council Chairman Vyola Olinger (later Ortner) presided over “one of the biggest real estate deals in the country” in championing the rights of her people. The heart of the reservation of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians is Section 14, a 640-acre parcel in the center of downtown Palm Springs. It was at the center of a possible multimillion-dollar development opportunity that was crucial for the Tribe’s survival. Two issues needed to be adjudicated before any development was possible. The first was to finalize the equalization of values of individual allotments, parcels of land given to each tribal member, and the second was to increase the time that tribal members could lease their land in order to attract developers. Allotment of the land on the Palm Springs reservation, originally established under 1891 law, to individual members of the Agua Caliente Band was begun in 1923. Because of various complications in legislation, administration and litigation, the first allotment schedule was not approved by the Secretary of the Interior until 1949. A decade-long battle began when an attempt to “equalize” allotments of land to individual members of the tribe was made by the federal government. Making the values of allotments equal and fair to all tribal members was a daunting task. Allotments varied considerably according to Native American expert Dr. Lowell Bean in his book From Time Immemorial. In 1954, Clemente Segundo et al vs. United States was settled with a ruling that each plaintiff in the case was to be allotted “total lands of as nearly equal value to the lands allotted to each of the other members.” This decision by the court ended the legal back-and-forth of individual tribal members and the federal government, setting up the framework for both individual members’ property rights and the Tribe’s future. The question of how to equalize the values of real estate was studied by the federal government through the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and the all-female Tribal Council led by Vyola Ortner. According to an article published in the Desert Sun on Feb. 13	, 1957, four solutions were proposed: 1) Dividing the tribal lands 2) Selling the tribal lands and distributing the money 3) Using tribal land income as a dividend to allottees 4) Combining two or more of the above-mentioned plans. On June 14, 1957, comments were made through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, by the United States Department of the Interior, Office of the Secretary, stating that to make the management of tribal and individual assets more manageable a corporation should be managed by appointed people familiar with corporate ways. The allotted lands would be turned over to the corporation and tribal members would receive stock in the corporation. The reservation would be sold off and the proceeds distributed to tribal members. At a hearing held on Oct. 2, 1957, Tribal Chairman Vyola Olinger (Ortner) said in her testimony, “that the Indians felt that the bill established a liquidating corporation, one that would sell as rapidly as possible their tribal lands…and was not acceptable to the members of the Tribe.” She proposed that except for tribal reserves all other lands would be allotted and Congress should pass a bill to complete the equalization. Rex Lee of the BIA announced on June 25, 1958 that tribal lands (31,610 acres valued at approximately $12,000,00 by the Secretary of the Interior in 1957) would be divided up with the goal of bringing each member’s land value up to $350,000 and any member whose allotments were already valued between $87,000 and $629,000 would not benefit from the changes. On July 19, 1958, the BIA received a letter from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs telling him to proceed with the process of allotting the land including the reserves (land held by the tribe collectively.) The Tribal Council responded by declaring that they would wage an all-out war with the federal government’s equalization program saying that it would “liquidate” and destroy the tribe itself. Ortner said that the government’s plan, “creates an economic and culture crisis for both the City of Palm Springs and the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians. Later in the summer, Associated Press reporter John Beckler reported that “BIA Director, Leonard Hill, admitted that plans for developing Section 14 as a single package had fallen through.” Beckler added, “Real Estate people now are faced with the problem of dealing with the Indians on an individual basis and developing in a piecemeal fashion.” In an article in the Desert Sun published on July 29, 1958, Ortner asked the City of Palm Springs for help. She stated that even though tribal members were allotted over half of the real estate within the city limits, they were “land rich but cash poor.” In a combined lobbying effort between Congressman D.S. Saund, The Agua Caliente Tribal Council, and the City of Palm Springs, Public Law 86-3327 and Public Law 105-308 were passed by the House of Representatives, and the Senate and signed into law by President Dwight Eisenhower on Sept. 21, 1959. The Equalization Bill (Public Law 105-308) authorized the allotments to be equalized with the target of the value set at $350,000 and the Land Lease Act (Public Law 86-327) authorized increasing the leasing period to a maximum of 99 years. Anyone not alive before Sept. 21, 1959, was excluded from the equalization process and would not be allotted land. In accordance with this law, most of the reservation land was allotted to 92 individual members (31 adults and 61 minors) except for the lands held by the tribe in common which included two cemeteries, the Catholic Church located on Section 14, Our Lady of Guadalupe, the hot mineral spring including the area around it, and the lands in Tahquitz, Palm, Murray, and Andreas canyons. The tribal members were able to stop the incorporation and complete land liquidation proposal, but the associated notion of appointment of guardians and conservators for all minors and adults judged as “incapable to handle their own affairs” was passed by Congress and created another struggle for the native people of Palm Springs.
How much do we care about global warming? In theory, 93% of European Union citizens believe climate change is a serious threat, and 67% believe national governments are not doing enough to tackle it. In practice, however, European voters are punishing governments for their efforts to reduce emissions. Anti-green parties in Germany and the Netherlands are siphoning votes by opposing mandated emission cuts. Meanwhile, Sweden’s ruling coalition is cutting fossil fuel taxes to appease voters. Europeans seem to want a solution to climate change, but only if they don’t have to pay for it. Indeed, Ipsos polling suggests that less than a third of EU citizens would pay more in income taxes to prevent climate change. For comparison, a University of Chicago poll finds that just 38% of Americans would be willing to pay a $1 monthly carbon fee to reduce emissions, down 14 percentage points from two years ago. Clearly, political parties that wish to remain in power will have to back off decarbonization by decree. Instead, they will have to rely on market-based solutions like emissions trading systems (ETSs). But are ETSs up to the job of holding climate change to 1.5° C? While carbon markets have immense potential to curb emissions, current iterations suffer from a litany of perverse incentives and unintended consequences. Let’s consider the limitations of the world’s posterchild ETS—the European Union’s Emissions Trading System—and then identify refinements that will equip ETSs to win the war against climate change. With COP28 starting November 30 in Dubai, now is the time to build global consensus for bold reforms in our carbon markets. Fit for nothing? For context, ETSs use a cap-and-trade policy: emission limits are set, free credits are allocated and fines are issued if a company emits more carbon than they’re allotted. Companies that reduce carbon usage avoid having to buy credits and profit by selling excess credits to companies that have exceeded their allowance. Ideally, this incentivizes companies to adopt cleaner technologies. In practice, however, it seems ETSs often enable firms to foist carbon costs onto their customers while carrying on as usual. And the reach of these systems is growing. When the EU’s ETS debuted in 2005, it only covered emissions from heat and electricity generation, energy-intensive industries, aviation and maritime transport. But now, the EU’s Fit for 55 initiative, adopted in April 2022, aims to secure a 55% reduction in emissions by 2030 through adding cap-and-trade for buildings, transportation and fuels. Cambridge Econometrics, a policy analysis firm, finds that Fit for 55 will increase gas-fueled household heating prices by 30% on average and raise the cost to fill a petrol vehicle by 16%. That is precisely the type of outcome that leads voters to reject state-lead climate policies. To mollify critics, EU members are creating a $150+ billion Social Climate Fund that will “cut bills for vulnerable households and small businesses” according to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Effectively, the EU is taxing emitters and giving the proceeds to consumers to pay back to the emitters. In October, Canada did likewise by exempting households in Atlantic Canada from the carbon tax on their home heating bills. This is a pointless circular exchange of funds. Moreover, why would fossil fuel companies invest in decarbonization when governments subsidize the purchase of their dirty products? A hole in the bucket Another unintended consequence of carbon pricing and cap and trade is carbon leakage, which occurs when carbon prices rise so high that heavy emitters relocate abroad to avoid the costs. Of course, jobs and tax revenue leak out alongside the emitters. For a while, fears of leakage from the EU ETS were mild, especially after a 2019 analysis found no evidence for it. However, in 2019 when the paper was published, the cost of an EU allowance peaked at €29 per metric ton. Since then, allowances have nearly tripled to €84. The higher the cost of an allowance, the more incentivized companies are to relocate to nations without ETSs or carbon taxes. To curb leakage, the EU hands out free carbon credits to sectors at the greatest risk of leaving the EU. These sectors include oil refining, mining, petrochemicals, cement and coke oven products like steel. In other words, cleaner sectors pay for every cent of carbon they emit while the dirtiest industries are coddled. The free allowance will wind down to zero in 2034, by which point a 1.5° C world will be far gone. And at that juncture, why wouldn’t companies relocate to unregulated nations to take advantage of the lower costs, turning an emissions reduction plan into a not-in-my-backyard plan? Is this thing even on? Officially, emissions in sectors covered by the EU’s ETS have dropped by 43% since 2005. Yet, it is unclear whether the ETS even caused these emission reductions. Other incentives including feed-in tariffs, green certificates and the Large Combustion Plant Directive may deserve more of the credit. Because so many climate policies operate simultaneously, it’s difficult if not impossible to attribute the impact to any single initiative. If we’re not even certain ETSs work, why are they still growing in popularity? The answer is efficiency. Government agencies are not investment firms. They struggle to find and fund the most efficient carbon-reducing technologies throughout the economy. The inherent greed of the free market is more efficient. It can drive capital to the technologies that result in the cheapest ton of CO2, saving taxpayer dollars and expediting the green transition. ETSs distribute carbon costs based on a firm’s performance rather than government stewardship, incentivizing innovation. This enables investments like point-source carbon capture, which may provide little benefit to a firm’s bottom line but could have a tremendous impact on the environment. While decrees offer only sticks, ETSs provide carrots. No wonder that ETSs remain the most compelling way to incentivize decarbonization. We need an air-tight carbon market Despite ETSs current popularity, they need several refinements to prevent industries from leaking into less regulated markets or getting subsidies for dirty products. Heavy emitters will have to be whipped into shape and incentivized to adopt the most direct and measurable forms of decarbonization. To achieve that, governments must collaborate on either a global ETS scheme or a minimum global carbon tax to disincentivize leakage. Recall that in 2021, 140 nations rallied around a plan to close off tax havens and institute a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15%. An excellent example! It’s time we close the carbon havens. Where better than COP28 to advocate for these improvements? Heavy emitters should pay fully for the planetary damage they cause. And given that credits are prone to corruption, ETSs should provide stronger incentives to reduce or prevent emissions instead of merely buying credits. For example, a coal-fired power plant that invests in point-source carbon capture does more to mitigate emissions than a power plant that pays an organization to plant trees (which might burn down anyway). Paying someone else to build a green business isn’t equivalent to eliminating your business’s emissions. Also important is to ensure that carbon costs are not merely passed onto consumers of inelastic goods like power and heating. Governments need to stop subsidizing consumer carbon emissions and instead subsidize adoption of technologies like electric vehicles, geothermal heating and heat pumps that reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Without such incentives, the war on carbon may soon be lost. Although the odds are daunting, we have a responsibility to try everything possible, everywhere, to avoid the earth-shattering consequences of unchecked climate change. The dramatic climate events we have seen in recent years may just be a harbinger of bigger calamities to come, especially if global temperatures rise beyond 2° C. The public has spoken. Though concerned about climate change, citizens will reject policies that spare heavy emitters from accountability while raising the cost of living for households. ETSs remain the best possible alternative that could have real impact. Let’s recreate carbon markets to achieve what decarbonization by decree has not: a good future for our children.	<urn:uuid:0f233750-d224-4417-88a4-8ddc759fe89e>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2024-10", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947475422.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20240301161412-20240301191412-00186.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9343565702438354, "pii_count": 0, "score": 2.828125, "token_count": 1730, "url": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/walvanlierop/2023/11/08/decarbonization-by-decree-fails-can-carbon-markets-fill-the-void/" }	How much do we care about global warming? In theory, 93% of European Union citizens believe climate change is a serious threat, and 67% believe national governments are not doing enough to tackle it. In practice, however, European voters are punishing governments for their efforts to reduce emissions. Anti-green parties in Germany and the Netherlands are siphoning votes by opposing mandated emission cuts. Meanwhile, Sweden’s ruling coalition is cutting fossil fuel taxes to appease voters. Europeans seem to want a solution to climate change, but only if they don’t have to pay for it. Indeed, Ipsos polling suggests that less than a third of EU citizens would pay more in income taxes to prevent climate change. For comparison, a University of Chicago poll finds that just 38% of Americans would be willing to pay a $1 monthly carbon fee to reduce emissions, down 14 percentage points from two years ago. Clearly, political parties that wish to remain in power will have to back off decarbonization by decree. Instead, they will have to rely on market-based solutions like emissions trading systems (ETSs). But are ETSs up to the job of holding climate change to 1.5° C? While carbon markets have immense potential to curb emissions, current iterations suffer from a litany of perverse incentives and unintended consequences. Let’s consider the limitations of the world’s posterchild ETS—the European Union’s Emissions Trading System—and then identify refinements that will equip ETSs to win the war against climate change. With COP28 starting November 30 in Dubai, now is the time to build global consensus for bold reforms in our carbon markets. Fit for nothing? For context, ETSs use a cap-and-trade policy: emission limits are set, free credits are allocated and fines are issued if a company emits more carbon than they’re allotted. Companies that reduce carbon usage avoid having to buy credits and profit by selling excess credits to companies that have exceeded their allowance. Ideally, this incentivizes companies to adopt cleaner technologies. In practice, however, it seems ETSs often enable firms to foist carbon costs onto their customers while carrying on as usual. And the reach of these systems is growing. When the EU’s ETS debuted in 2005, it only covered emissions from heat and electricity generation, energy-intensive industries, aviation and maritime transport. But now, the EU’s Fit for 55 initiative, adopted in April	2022, aims to secure a 55% reduction in emissions by 2030 through adding cap-and-trade for buildings, transportation and fuels. Cambridge Econometrics, a policy analysis firm, finds that Fit for 55 will increase gas-fueled household heating prices by 30% on average and raise the cost to fill a petrol vehicle by 16%. That is precisely the type of outcome that leads voters to reject state-lead climate policies. To mollify critics, EU members are creating a $150+ billion Social Climate Fund that will “cut bills for vulnerable households and small businesses” according to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Effectively, the EU is taxing emitters and giving the proceeds to consumers to pay back to the emitters. In October, Canada did likewise by exempting households in Atlantic Canada from the carbon tax on their home heating bills. This is a pointless circular exchange of funds. Moreover, why would fossil fuel companies invest in decarbonization when governments subsidize the purchase of their dirty products? A hole in the bucket Another unintended consequence of carbon pricing and cap and trade is carbon leakage, which occurs when carbon prices rise so high that heavy emitters relocate abroad to avoid the costs. Of course, jobs and tax revenue leak out alongside the emitters. For a while, fears of leakage from the EU ETS were mild, especially after a 2019 analysis found no evidence for it. However, in 2019 when the paper was published, the cost of an EU allowance peaked at €29 per metric ton. Since then, allowances have nearly tripled to €84. The higher the cost of an allowance, the more incentivized companies are to relocate to nations without ETSs or carbon taxes. To curb leakage, the EU hands out free carbon credits to sectors at the greatest risk of leaving the EU. These sectors include oil refining, mining, petrochemicals, cement and coke oven products like steel. In other words, cleaner sectors pay for every cent of carbon they emit while the dirtiest industries are coddled. The free allowance will wind down to zero in 2034, by which point a 1.5° C world will be far gone. And at that juncture, why wouldn’t companies relocate to unregulated nations to take advantage of the lower costs, turning an emissions reduction plan into a not-in-my-backyard plan? Is this thing even on? Officially, emissions in sectors covered by the EU’s ETS have dropped by 43% since 2005. Yet, it is unclear whether the ETS even caused these emission reductions. Other incentives including feed-in tariffs, green certificates and the Large Combustion Plant Directive may deserve more of the credit. Because so many climate policies operate simultaneously, it’s difficult if not impossible to attribute the impact to any single initiative. If we’re not even certain ETSs work, why are they still growing in popularity? The answer is efficiency. Government agencies are not investment firms. They struggle to find and fund the most efficient carbon-reducing technologies throughout the economy. The inherent greed of the free market is more efficient. It can drive capital to the technologies that result in the cheapest ton of CO2, saving taxpayer dollars and expediting the green transition. ETSs distribute carbon costs based on a firm’s performance rather than government stewardship, incentivizing innovation. This enables investments like point-source carbon capture, which may provide little benefit to a firm’s bottom line but could have a tremendous impact on the environment. While decrees offer only sticks, ETSs provide carrots. No wonder that ETSs remain the most compelling way to incentivize decarbonization. We need an air-tight carbon market Despite ETSs current popularity, they need several refinements to prevent industries from leaking into less regulated markets or getting subsidies for dirty products. Heavy emitters will have to be whipped into shape and incentivized to adopt the most direct and measurable forms of decarbonization. To achieve that, governments must collaborate on either a global ETS scheme or a minimum global carbon tax to disincentivize leakage. Recall that in 2021, 140 nations rallied around a plan to close off tax havens and institute a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15%. An excellent example! It’s time we close the carbon havens. Where better than COP28 to advocate for these improvements? Heavy emitters should pay fully for the planetary damage they cause. And given that credits are prone to corruption, ETSs should provide stronger incentives to reduce or prevent emissions instead of merely buying credits. For example, a coal-fired power plant that invests in point-source carbon capture does more to mitigate emissions than a power plant that pays an organization to plant trees (which might burn down anyway). Paying someone else to build a green business isn’t equivalent to eliminating your business’s emissions. Also important is to ensure that carbon costs are not merely passed onto consumers of inelastic goods like power and heating. Governments need to stop subsidizing consumer carbon emissions and instead subsidize adoption of technologies like electric vehicles, geothermal heating and heat pumps that reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Without such incentives, the war on carbon may soon be lost. Although the odds are daunting, we have a responsibility to try everything possible, everywhere, to avoid the earth-shattering consequences of unchecked climate change. The dramatic climate events we have seen in recent years may just be a harbinger of bigger calamities to come, especially if global temperatures rise beyond 2° C. The public has spoken. Though concerned about climate change, citizens will reject policies that spare heavy emitters from accountability while raising the cost of living for households. ETSs remain the best possible alternative that could have real impact. Let’s recreate carbon markets to achieve what decarbonization by decree has not: a good future for our children.
Parts of Europe are baking in an unusually warm October, raising further concerns of the impact of rising greenhouse gas emissions on the climate while delaying the start of the continent’s heating season. (Bloomberg) — Parts of Europe are baking in an unusually warm October, raising further concerns of the impact of rising greenhouse gas emissions on the climate while delaying the start of the continent’s heating season. Portugal has issued yellow alerts for high temperatures over the next few days. In Spain, highs in Madrid will clock in above 30C (86F) on both Saturday and Sunday, at least 6C above normal, according to a forecast by Maxar Technologies. London, which endured some cold and bleak weather during the summer, is forecast to reach at least 22C on three of the next five days, while Paris climbs to 26C on Tuesday. Temperatures are also expected to be above average in Germany and Italy. “Climate change is already significantly affecting the UK’s weather, with more and more events becoming ever more extreme,” said Grahame Madge, a spokesman for the UK’s Met Office. He said Great Britain is expected to see temperatures about 6C above average for early October. Read more: September Broke the Global Heat Record by an Absurd Margin Portugal’s Institute for Sea and Atmosphere said on Wednesday that the current weather pattern may extend into next week. Spain experienced six consecutive days of extraordinarily high temperatures from Sept. 28 to Oct. 4, and summer-like readings could persist for an unprecedented 16 days, according to Aemet, the country’s meteorological agency. “It’s definitely quite unseasonably warm and it’s probably pretty close to record warmth,” said Steven Silver, senior meteorologist at Maxar’s Weather Desk. Read more: Europe Set for Mild October, Delaying Start of Heating Season On the island of Madeira in the Atlantic, south of Portugal, a record high for October was recorded on Thursday in the city of Funchal. The temperature reached 34.7C, exceeding the prior high of 34.3C set in October 2014. Beaches in the greater Lisbon area were packed on Thursday, a national holiday, and may fill up again over the weekend as locals and tourists seek some autumn swim-time. The Portuguese Federation of Lifeguards issued a statement last week warning about the risk of drowning since many beaches are no longer monitored by lifeguards after the main summer season ends, the news agency Lusa reported. Earlier this week, scientists confirmed that the September global average temperature broke records by an “extraordinary” margin. The temperature anomaly for the month was roughly 1.7C above pre-industrial levels, above the symbolic 1.5C mark set as the stretch goal in the Paris Agreement. Carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels regarded as are the main driver of rising temperatures. The global average temperature this year has also seen a boost from El Niño, a natural climate shift in the Pacific. Other factors, such as a decline in cooling aerosol pollution from ships, may also be pushing temperatures up incrementally. –With assistance from Laura Millan and Ellie Harmsworth. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com ©2023 Bloomberg L.P.	<urn:uuid:9a6909ff-7f5d-4e72-a480-67258f604e1a>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-50", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100603.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20231206194439-20231206224439-00765.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9422169327735901, "pii_count": 0, "score": 2.875, "token_count": 695, "url": "https://ec2-15-188-152-128.eu-west-3.compute.amazonaws.com/2023/10/07/climate-change-blamed-as-europes-cities-see-autumn-heat-waves/" }	Parts of Europe are baking in an unusually warm October, raising further concerns of the impact of rising greenhouse gas emissions on the climate while delaying the start of the continent’s heating season. (Bloomberg) — Parts of Europe are baking in an unusually warm October, raising further concerns of the impact of rising greenhouse gas emissions on the climate while delaying the start of the continent’s heating season. Portugal has issued yellow alerts for high temperatures over the next few days. In Spain, highs in Madrid will clock in above 30C (86F) on both Saturday and Sunday, at least 6C above normal, according to a forecast by Maxar Technologies. London, which endured some cold and bleak weather during the summer, is forecast to reach at least 22C on three of the next five days, while Paris climbs to 26C on Tuesday. Temperatures are also expected to be above average in Germany and Italy. “Climate change is already significantly affecting the UK’s weather, with more and more events becoming ever more extreme,” said Grahame Madge, a spokesman for the UK’s Met Office. He said Great Britain is expected to see temperatures about 6C above average for early October. Read more: September Broke the Global Heat Record by an Absurd Margin Portugal’s Institute for Sea and Atmosphere said on Wednesday that the current weather pattern may extend into next week. Spain experienced six consecutive days of extraordinarily high temperatures from Sept. 28 to Oct. 4, and summer-like readings could persist for an unprecedented 16 days, according to Aemet, the country’s meteorological agency. “It’s definitely quite unseasonably warm and it’s probably pretty close to record warmth,” said Steven Silver, senior meteorologist at Maxar’s Weather Desk. Read more: Europe Set for Mild October, Delaying Start of Heating Season On the island of Madeira in the Atlantic, south of Portugal, a record high for October was recorded on Thursday in the city of Funchal. The temperature reached 34.7C, exceeding the prior high of 34.3C set in October 2014. Beaches in the greater Lisbon area were packed on Thursday, a national holiday, and may fill up again over the weekend as locals and tourists seek some autumn swim-time. The Portuguese Federation of Lifeguards issued a statement last week warning about the risk of drowning since many beaches are no longer monitored by lifeguards	after the main summer season ends, the news agency Lusa reported. Earlier this week, scientists confirmed that the September global average temperature broke records by an “extraordinary” margin. The temperature anomaly for the month was roughly 1.7C above pre-industrial levels, above the symbolic 1.5C mark set as the stretch goal in the Paris Agreement. Carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels regarded as are the main driver of rising temperatures. The global average temperature this year has also seen a boost from El Niño, a natural climate shift in the Pacific. Other factors, such as a decline in cooling aerosol pollution from ships, may also be pushing temperatures up incrementally. –With assistance from Laura Millan and Ellie Harmsworth. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com ©2023 Bloomberg L.P.
Canned tuna is known to contain low levels of mercury, but a new Consumer Reports investigation has found spikes of the neurotoxin in some cans. The organization tested five popular tuna brands, CBS News reported. While the mercury levels were all within U.S. Food and Drug Administration standards, Consumer Reports urged pregnant women to "avoid canned tuna altogether." FDA guidelines say pregnant women can eat canned tuna in limited quantities. "While canned tuna, especially light varieties, has relatively low average levels of mercury, individual cans can sometimes have much higher levels," Consumer Reports said. "From can to can, mercury levels can spike in unpredictable ways that might jeopardize the health of a fetus," said James Rogers, director of food safety research and testing at the independent nonprofit. Mercury can affect neurodevelopment, said CBS News medical contributor Dr. David Agus. The effects may include impaired brain function and developmental delays in children. If a fetus is exposed to high levels of mercury, it may lead to thinking and memory issues later on, he said. "Young children and pregnant women especially need to keep mercury away from those neurons that are developing," Agus told CBS News. Consumer Reports tested 10 tuna products from five brands: Bumble Bee, Chicken of the Sea, Safe Catch, StarKist and Wild Planet. The tests included about 30 samples of both albacore and light tuna from each brand, all packed in water, CBS News reported. Light tuna tended to have less mercury than albacore, the tests showed. "But you can't tell by just looking how much mercury a specific can has," said Consumer Reports senior scientist Michael Hansen. Consumer Reports found six individual spikes in mercury content among the 30 samples "that would change the FDA's recommendation about how often someone should eat that particular tuna," CBS News reported. Consumer Reports said kids should eat only light and skipjack tuna in limited quantities and adults who aren't pregnant should aim for 8 to 12 ounces per week of fish that is lower in mercury. "That could include up to three servings of light or skipjack tuna. ... You can eat albacore, but only one 4-ounce serving per week," Consumer Reports said. The tests provide information on what consumers "may experience at a moment in time when eating these brands of tuna, and underscore the importance of making safer choices in their daily routines," Consumer Reports said. "One big takeaway is that albacore has much more mercury than light or skipjack tuna, regardless of the brand," the organization said. "That's not surprising, since albacore is larger and lives longer than the tunas that make up the light tuna or skipjack tunas. But the disparity was quite wide: The albacore products had three times more mercury, on average, than the others." Mercury is an impurity in coal. Elemental mercury goes to the clouds when coal is burned and then comes down when it rains, Agus told CBS News. Marine animals consume it when it ends up in the ocean as methylmercury. It can't be removed through cooking. While higher levels of mercury appear in shark and swordfish, trout and salmon contain little. Four of the five tuna companies told CBS News their products are safe and within FDA standards. Bumble Bee did not immediately respond, but told Consumer Reports that "health benefits of consuming seafood far outweigh any potential risk, including concerns about mercury," CBS News reported.	<urn:uuid:c4e3204e-1f76-4d42-8a94-7e54c4201839>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-23", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224652494.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20230606082037-20230606112037-00636.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9580734968185425, "pii_count": 0, "score": 2.59375, "token_count": 719, "url": "https://cloudflarepoc.newsmax.com/health/diet-and-fitness/tuna-canned-mercury/2023/02/13/id/1108388/" }	Canned tuna is known to contain low levels of mercury, but a new Consumer Reports investigation has found spikes of the neurotoxin in some cans. The organization tested five popular tuna brands, CBS News reported. While the mercury levels were all within U.S. Food and Drug Administration standards, Consumer Reports urged pregnant women to "avoid canned tuna altogether." FDA guidelines say pregnant women can eat canned tuna in limited quantities. "While canned tuna, especially light varieties, has relatively low average levels of mercury, individual cans can sometimes have much higher levels," Consumer Reports said. "From can to can, mercury levels can spike in unpredictable ways that might jeopardize the health of a fetus," said James Rogers, director of food safety research and testing at the independent nonprofit. Mercury can affect neurodevelopment, said CBS News medical contributor Dr. David Agus. The effects may include impaired brain function and developmental delays in children. If a fetus is exposed to high levels of mercury, it may lead to thinking and memory issues later on, he said. "Young children and pregnant women especially need to keep mercury away from those neurons that are developing," Agus told CBS News. Consumer Reports tested 10 tuna products from five brands: Bumble Bee, Chicken of the Sea, Safe Catch, StarKist and Wild Planet. The tests included about 30 samples of both albacore and light tuna from each brand, all packed in water, CBS News reported. Light tuna tended to have less mercury than albacore, the tests showed. "But you can't tell by just looking how much mercury a specific can has," said Consumer Reports senior scientist Michael Hansen. Consumer Reports found six individual spikes in mercury content among the 30 samples "that would change the FDA's recommendation about how often someone should eat that particular tuna," CBS News reported. Consumer Reports said kids should eat only light and skipjack tuna in limited quantities and adults who aren't pregnant should aim for 8 to 12 ounces per week of fish that is lower in mercury. "That could include up to three servings of light or skipjack tuna. ... You can eat albacore, but only one 4-ounce serving per week," Consumer Reports said. The tests provide information on what consumers "may experience at a moment in time when eating these brands of tuna, and underscore the importance of making safer choices in their daily routines," Consumer Reports said. "One big takeaway is	that albacore has much more mercury than light or skipjack tuna, regardless of the brand," the organization said. "That's not surprising, since albacore is larger and lives longer than the tunas that make up the light tuna or skipjack tunas. But the disparity was quite wide: The albacore products had three times more mercury, on average, than the others." Mercury is an impurity in coal. Elemental mercury goes to the clouds when coal is burned and then comes down when it rains, Agus told CBS News. Marine animals consume it when it ends up in the ocean as methylmercury. It can't be removed through cooking. While higher levels of mercury appear in shark and swordfish, trout and salmon contain little. Four of the five tuna companies told CBS News their products are safe and within FDA standards. Bumble Bee did not immediately respond, but told Consumer Reports that "health benefits of consuming seafood far outweigh any potential risk, including concerns about mercury," CBS News reported.
On November 30, 2022, OpenAI announced the public release of ChatGPT-3, a large language model (LLM) that can engage in astonishingly human-like conversations and answer an incredible variety of questions. Three weeks later, Google's management — wary that they had been publicly eclipsed by a competitor in the artificial intelligence technology space — issued a "Code Red" to staff. Google's core business is its search engine, which currently accounts for 84% of the global search market. Their search engine is so dominant that searching the internet is generically called "googling." When a user poses a search request, Google's search engine returns dozens of helpful links along with targeted advertisements based on its knowledge of the user (and it knows much more than it should about us). The links are generally helpful, but it can take several minutes to sift through the links to find what one is searching for. GPT, in contrast, provides direct answers to user questions. No more jumping from link to link in a treasure hunt for information. Microsoft, which has its own competing search engine, thinks that's a big deal. It invested $1 billion in OpenAI in 2019 and has now reportedly agreed to invest $10 billion more over several years with the hope that GPT will supercharge its languishing search engine, Bing, and wrench market share away from Google. Google thinks it's a big deal too. Hence, the "Code Red." Google has been working on its own large language model, named LaMDA, though it has not made it available for public testing nor allowed unauthorized Google employees to disclose any information about how well it performs. Prodded by the avalanche of excitement over GPT, Google responded with a live public demonstration of LaMDA's prowess on February 7. Unfortunately, LaMDA bombed its job interview. When asked, "What new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope can I tell my 9-year old about?," LaMDA gave two correct responses but then incorrectly stated that the Webb telescope had taken the first pictures of a planet outside our solar system. (The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope had been the first.) Google's stock price promptly dropped 8%, representing a $100 billion loss in the company's market value. These models are programmed to assert their answers with great confidence, but they do not know what words mean and consequently have no way of assessing the truth of their confident assertions. That astonishing and sudden dip speaks to the degree to which AI has become the latest obsession for investors. Yet their confidence in AI — indeed, their very understanding of and definition of it — is misplaced. GPT is not as great as many think, and LaMDA is not woefully far behind. LaMDA's bad answer is simply a reflection of the inherent flaw in all LLMs, including GPT. Indeed, no one initially noticed but Bing also gave some wrong answers when Microsoft demonstrated it to reporters. LLMs are mere text generators. Trained on unimaginable amounts of text, they string together words in coherent sentences based on statistical probability of words following other words. But they are not "intelligent" in any real way — they are just automated calculators that spit out words. These models are programmed to assert their answers with great confidence, but they do not know what words mean and consequently have no way of assessing the truth of their confident assertions. Here is one example: Human: Who was the first female president of California? GPT: The first female President of California was Erin Cruz, who took office on April 02, 2021. Erin Cruz is a California Republican who ran for Congress in 2020. She lost. We asked GPT for more information about Ms. Cruz and the program informed us that she is 46 years old, has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Stanford, and is married to Derek Stone. None of that is true. We asked GPT to write a biography of Gary and here is what we got: Human: Please write a biography of Gary Smith, professor of economics at Pomona College GPT: Gary Smith is a professor of economics at Pomona College and holds a distinguished position within the economics department. He earned his PhD in economics from Stanford University in 1986 and has taught at Pomona College since then. He is renowned for his work on labor economics, public finance, the economics of education, and industrial organization. He is widely published in books and journals and has served as a consultant to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and United Nations Development Program. Smith is also highly involved in local communities, giving lectures and teaching seminars whenever possible. He has been awarded numerous honors for his work in economics, including the Founder's Award from the Claremont Graduate University in 2010. The only correct fact in this bio was given by the prompt, that Gary is a professor of economics at Pomona College. A reliable way of demonstrating GPT-3's unreliability is to ask it to write a biography of yourself. Do try this at home! AI optimists might respond to GPT-3's shortcomings by proposing that it has simply not taken in enough information. But training it on larger databases will not solve the inherent problem: LLMs are unreliable because they do not know what words mean. Period. In fact, training on future databases that increasingly include the BS spouted by LLMs will make them even less trustworthy. LLMs are the latest wave of artificial intelligence hype. IBM's Dr. Watson was supposed to revolutionize health care. Ten years and $15 billion later, it was sold for parts. Radiologists were supposed to be obsolete by 2021; there are now more radiologists than ever. Fully self-driving cars were supposed to be zipping back and forth between Los Angeles and New York by 2017; we're still waiting for a car that can drive down a street reliably avoiding pedestrians, bicyclists and construction crews. Now Bill Gates says GPT "will change our world" That may well be true, but not in the ways that most people think. Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon's weekly newsletter The Vulgar Scientist. LLMs can be used for search queries, but people who know that LLMs can't trusted won't rely on them. People who don't know that LLMs are unreliable will learn the hard way. LLMs can be used to handle customer service queries, but how many companies will be willing to jeopardize their reputation by giving their customers incorrect information? LLMs will certainly be used to fuel a firehose of internet falsehoods, but we count the coming disinformation tsunami as a very big negative. We also count their impact on electricity usage and carbon emissions as a negative. When we asked GPT, "Who won the Super Bowl this year?," it responded, "The Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LV, which was held on February 7, 2021." To keep current, LLMs will have to be retrained frequently, which is enormously expensive. It has also been estimated that involving LLMs in the search process will require "at least four or five times more computing per search." Against these enormous costs, where are the big payoffs? As a Financial Times headline blared: "Artificial intelligence stocks soar on ChatGPT hype." The undeniable magic of the human-like conversations generated by GPT will undoubtedly enrich many who peddle the false narrative that computers are now smarter than us and can be trusted to make decisions for us. The AI bubble is inflating rapidly. That's our code red.	<urn:uuid:5363a7a2-dd70-4b42-9809-4bee56ce50cb>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2024-10", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947474659.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20240226094435-20240226124435-00420.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.971164345741272, "pii_count": 0, "score": 2.6875, "token_count": 1565, "url": "https://www.salon.com/2023/02/21/ai-chatbots-are-having-their-tulip-mania-moment/" }	On November 30, 2022, OpenAI announced the public release of ChatGPT-3, a large language model (LLM) that can engage in astonishingly human-like conversations and answer an incredible variety of questions. Three weeks later, Google's management — wary that they had been publicly eclipsed by a competitor in the artificial intelligence technology space — issued a "Code Red" to staff. Google's core business is its search engine, which currently accounts for 84% of the global search market. Their search engine is so dominant that searching the internet is generically called "googling." When a user poses a search request, Google's search engine returns dozens of helpful links along with targeted advertisements based on its knowledge of the user (and it knows much more than it should about us). The links are generally helpful, but it can take several minutes to sift through the links to find what one is searching for. GPT, in contrast, provides direct answers to user questions. No more jumping from link to link in a treasure hunt for information. Microsoft, which has its own competing search engine, thinks that's a big deal. It invested $1 billion in OpenAI in 2019 and has now reportedly agreed to invest $10 billion more over several years with the hope that GPT will supercharge its languishing search engine, Bing, and wrench market share away from Google. Google thinks it's a big deal too. Hence, the "Code Red." Google has been working on its own large language model, named LaMDA, though it has not made it available for public testing nor allowed unauthorized Google employees to disclose any information about how well it performs. Prodded by the avalanche of excitement over GPT, Google responded with a live public demonstration of LaMDA's prowess on February 7. Unfortunately, LaMDA bombed its job interview. When asked, "What new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope can I tell my 9-year old about?," LaMDA gave two correct responses but then incorrectly stated that the Webb telescope had taken the first pictures of a planet outside our solar system. (The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope had been the first.) Google's stock price promptly dropped 8%, representing a $100 billion loss in the company's market value. These models are programmed to assert their answers with great confidence, but they do not know what words mean and consequently have no way of	assessing the truth of their confident assertions. That astonishing and sudden dip speaks to the degree to which AI has become the latest obsession for investors. Yet their confidence in AI — indeed, their very understanding of and definition of it — is misplaced. GPT is not as great as many think, and LaMDA is not woefully far behind. LaMDA's bad answer is simply a reflection of the inherent flaw in all LLMs, including GPT. Indeed, no one initially noticed but Bing also gave some wrong answers when Microsoft demonstrated it to reporters. LLMs are mere text generators. Trained on unimaginable amounts of text, they string together words in coherent sentences based on statistical probability of words following other words. But they are not "intelligent" in any real way — they are just automated calculators that spit out words. These models are programmed to assert their answers with great confidence, but they do not know what words mean and consequently have no way of assessing the truth of their confident assertions. Here is one example: Human: Who was the first female president of California? GPT: The first female President of California was Erin Cruz, who took office on April 02, 2021. Erin Cruz is a California Republican who ran for Congress in 2020. She lost. We asked GPT for more information about Ms. Cruz and the program informed us that she is 46 years old, has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Stanford, and is married to Derek Stone. None of that is true. We asked GPT to write a biography of Gary and here is what we got: Human: Please write a biography of Gary Smith, professor of economics at Pomona College GPT: Gary Smith is a professor of economics at Pomona College and holds a distinguished position within the economics department. He earned his PhD in economics from Stanford University in 1986 and has taught at Pomona College since then. He is renowned for his work on labor economics, public finance, the economics of education, and industrial organization. He is widely published in books and journals and has served as a consultant to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and United Nations Development Program. Smith is also highly involved in local communities, giving lectures and teaching seminars whenever possible. He has been awarded numerous honors for his work in economics, including the Founder's Award from the Claremont Graduate University in 2010. The only correct fact in this bio was given by the prompt, that Gary is a professor of economics at Pomona College. A reliable way of demonstrating GPT-3's unreliability is to ask it to write a biography of yourself. Do try this at home! AI optimists might respond to GPT-3's shortcomings by proposing that it has simply not taken in enough information. But training it on larger databases will not solve the inherent problem: LLMs are unreliable because they do not know what words mean. Period. In fact, training on future databases that increasingly include the BS spouted by LLMs will make them even less trustworthy. LLMs are the latest wave of artificial intelligence hype. IBM's Dr. Watson was supposed to revolutionize health care. Ten years and $15 billion later, it was sold for parts. Radiologists were supposed to be obsolete by 2021; there are now more radiologists than ever. Fully self-driving cars were supposed to be zipping back and forth between Los Angeles and New York by 2017; we're still waiting for a car that can drive down a street reliably avoiding pedestrians, bicyclists and construction crews. Now Bill Gates says GPT "will change our world" That may well be true, but not in the ways that most people think. Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon's weekly newsletter The Vulgar Scientist. LLMs can be used for search queries, but people who know that LLMs can't trusted won't rely on them. People who don't know that LLMs are unreliable will learn the hard way. LLMs can be used to handle customer service queries, but how many companies will be willing to jeopardize their reputation by giving their customers incorrect information? LLMs will certainly be used to fuel a firehose of internet falsehoods, but we count the coming disinformation tsunami as a very big negative. We also count their impact on electricity usage and carbon emissions as a negative. When we asked GPT, "Who won the Super Bowl this year?," it responded, "The Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LV, which was held on February 7, 2021." To keep current, LLMs will have to be retrained frequently, which is enormously expensive. It has also been estimated that involving LLMs in the search process will require "at least four or five times more computing per search." Against these enormous costs, where are the big payoffs? As a Financial Times headline blared: "Artificial intelligence stocks soar on ChatGPT hype." The undeniable magic of the human-like conversations generated by GPT will undoubtedly enrich many who peddle the false narrative that computers are now smarter than us and can be trusted to make decisions for us. The AI bubble is inflating rapidly. That's our code red.
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. Some of the most brilliant minds in science will be catapulted from academic obscurity this week when the Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, and medicine or physiology are announced. The honors, established by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel more than a century ago, represent the pinnacle of scientific achievement, celebrating transformative breakthroughs that are often decades in the making. In addition to the huge publicity, the prizes also draw their share of flak, sometimes triggering controversy and resentment over who gets chosen and who is left out, said Martin Rees, British cosmologist and physicist and former president of the Royal Society, the world’s oldest scientific society. Rees said one challenge for the Nobel committees is the increasingly collaborative nature of most scientific research. The image of the lone genius having a eureka moment is long gone, if it ever truly existed. Additionally, discoveries can be made simultaneously by different teams. However, the Nobel selection committees, according to the rules laid down by Alfred Nobel in 1895, can only honor up to three people per prize. This requirement can prove to be a headache, Rees said. “It may be a project where several people have done work in parallel, and they single out some and not others. It may be that there’s a team, and it’s not obvious that the ones they’ve singled from the team are the dominant figures,” said Rees, who is the UK’s astronomer royal and author of “If Science Is to Save Us.” For example, the 2017 Nobel in physics recognized the detection of gravitational waves — “ripples” in space generated by colliding black holes 1 billion or more light-years away. The key papers reporting this discovery had almost 1,000 authors, Rees noted. However, only three were rewarded the prize — Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish and Kip Thorne. Similarly, one often discussed candidate for the medicine or chemistry Nobel Prize is the mapping of the human genome, a transformative project that was only fully completed in 2022 and involved hundreds of people. David Pendlebury, head of research analysis at Clarivate’s Institute for Scientific Information, who identifies “Nobel worthy” individuals by analyzing how often fellow scientists cite their key scientific papers throughout the years, agrees that the three-person rule is a constraint. “It really has become a huge transformation in science that it’s more and more team science — huge groups tackling more difficult problems, international collaborative networks,” Pendlebury said. “This rule of three does seem to be an impediment if they wanted to recognize a team.” The rule that a prize can only be awarded to three people comes from the statutes of the Nobel Foundation, which is responsible for fulfilling the intentions of Nobel’s will, according to the Nobel Prize website. Peter Brzezinski, the secretary of the committee for the Nobel chemistry prize, said there were no plans to change the rule. However, he said that the committee follows a detailed process once the nominations have been made by the end of January. “We start the process by asking a number of experts from around the world to write reports describing the field in which the discovery has been made, to outline the main discoveries in this field and also to mention individuals who have made the most important contributions,” he explained via email. “We read all relevant literature, attend conferences and write reports also within the committee,” Brzezinski added. “With time, we often succeed in identifying a limited number of scientists who have made the discovery. If this is not possible, we are not able to propose a Prize to the Academy.” Retrospective view The Nobel committees typically single out work that happened decades earlier — a retrospective view that’s often needed given that it can take time for the significance of some scientific research to become clear. The Nobels also focus on three scientific disciplines, as designated in the will of Alfred Nobel. Fields including mathematics, computer science, earth and climate science and oceanography are excluded. Even within the fields of chemistry, physics and medicine and physiology, just five areas out of 114 different scientific subdisciplines account for more than half of Nobel Prizes awarded from 1995 to 2017, according to one 2020 study. These are particle physics, atomic physics, cell biology, neuroscience and molecular chemistry. Rees, however, noted that taking the long view and giving greater recognition to certain fields can, at times, make the Nobel committees seem out of touch with the scientific priorities of the day. One example is artificial intelligence, or AI, which is transforming people’s lives at an unprecedented pace. Two hot names in the field are Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, the Google DeepMind inventors of AlphaFold — an AI program that decodes the 3D structures of proteins from amino acid sequences. They won the $250,000 Lasker Prize this year and the Breakthrough Prize a year earlier. Since their key paper was published just over two years ago, it has been cited more than 8,500 times, Pendlebury said. “That is, in my experience, just incredible in terms of the speed at which the citations have accrued, so obviously, it’s a huge, important intellectual discovery,” said Pendlebury, who has been compiling his list of “citation laureates” since 2002. The Nobel committees have on occasion awarded accolades to recent breakthroughs — such as when the chemistry prize went to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna in 2020, less than 10 years after their key 2012 paper on the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technique — but Pendlebury thinks a Nobel Prize for AI this year is still a long shot. He said the Nobel Prize committees, at least for science prizes, are “innately conservative.” Diversity Other criticism leveled at the Nobel Prizes includes the lack of diversity among winners. More female scientists have gotten the call from Stockholm in recent years, but it’s been a trickle rather than a torrent. Last year, Carolyn Bertozzi, who won the chemistry prize, was the only female winner of a science prize. There were no female science recipients in 2021 or in 2019, when the Nobel committee asked nominators to consider diversity in gender, geography and field. Astrophysicist Andrea Ghez shared the physics prize in 2020, the same year as Doudna and Charpentier’s chemistry win. Pendlebury said he believes lack of diversity on the Nobel stage is essentially a pipeline problem. “They’re looking at work typically published 20 or 30 years ago, when the number of women in science at elite levels was not as much as it is today,” he said. “And so I think as time goes forward, you see more and more women being selected.” Others point to the issue as more evidence of systemic bias in science, with women already less likely to be given credit or named as lead author on scientific papers. “There are several women who made Nobel-level contributions to science, contributions for which male colleagues were awarded, but they were not,” said Naomi Oreskes, a Henry Charles Lea Professor of the history of science and an affiliated professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University. “These examples prove that even when there were qualified women, they were systematically passed over.” Rees attributes the diversity problem to a lack of transparency. The Nobel short list is secret, as are the nominators, and documents revealing the details of the selection process are sealed from public view for 50 years. Of course, these flaws and gaps only matter because the Nobels are far better known than other science prizes, Rees added. He prefers so-called challenge prizes, such as the XPrize, which incentivize future efforts to tackle an important problem, rather than rewarding past success. The Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine will be announced on Monday, followed by the physics prize on Tuesday and the Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday. The Nobel Prize for literature and the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Thursday and Friday, respectively.	<urn:uuid:0c3d5d6f-8651-4008-b3b8-fff4143a1691>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2024-10", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947476592.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20240304232829-20240305022829-00895.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9617148637771606, "pii_count": 0, "score": 2.671875, "token_count": 1711, "url": "https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/29/world/nobel-prize-rule-of-three-diversity-scn/index.html" }	Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. Some of the most brilliant minds in science will be catapulted from academic obscurity this week when the Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, and medicine or physiology are announced. The honors, established by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel more than a century ago, represent the pinnacle of scientific achievement, celebrating transformative breakthroughs that are often decades in the making. In addition to the huge publicity, the prizes also draw their share of flak, sometimes triggering controversy and resentment over who gets chosen and who is left out, said Martin Rees, British cosmologist and physicist and former president of the Royal Society, the world’s oldest scientific society. Rees said one challenge for the Nobel committees is the increasingly collaborative nature of most scientific research. The image of the lone genius having a eureka moment is long gone, if it ever truly existed. Additionally, discoveries can be made simultaneously by different teams. However, the Nobel selection committees, according to the rules laid down by Alfred Nobel in 1895, can only honor up to three people per prize. This requirement can prove to be a headache, Rees said. “It may be a project where several people have done work in parallel, and they single out some and not others. It may be that there’s a team, and it’s not obvious that the ones they’ve singled from the team are the dominant figures,” said Rees, who is the UK’s astronomer royal and author of “If Science Is to Save Us.” For example, the 2017 Nobel in physics recognized the detection of gravitational waves — “ripples” in space generated by colliding black holes 1 billion or more light-years away. The key papers reporting this discovery had almost 1,000 authors, Rees noted. However, only three were rewarded the prize — Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish and Kip Thorne. Similarly, one often discussed candidate for the medicine or chemistry Nobel Prize is the mapping of the human genome, a transformative project that was only fully completed in 2022 and involved hundreds of people. David Pendlebury, head of research analysis at Clarivate’s Institute for Scientific Information, who identifies “Nobel worthy” individuals by analyzing how often fellow scientists cite their key scientific papers throughout the years, agrees that the three-person rule is a constraint. “It really has become a huge transformation	in science that it’s more and more team science — huge groups tackling more difficult problems, international collaborative networks,” Pendlebury said. “This rule of three does seem to be an impediment if they wanted to recognize a team.” The rule that a prize can only be awarded to three people comes from the statutes of the Nobel Foundation, which is responsible for fulfilling the intentions of Nobel’s will, according to the Nobel Prize website. Peter Brzezinski, the secretary of the committee for the Nobel chemistry prize, said there were no plans to change the rule. However, he said that the committee follows a detailed process once the nominations have been made by the end of January. “We start the process by asking a number of experts from around the world to write reports describing the field in which the discovery has been made, to outline the main discoveries in this field and also to mention individuals who have made the most important contributions,” he explained via email. “We read all relevant literature, attend conferences and write reports also within the committee,” Brzezinski added. “With time, we often succeed in identifying a limited number of scientists who have made the discovery. If this is not possible, we are not able to propose a Prize to the Academy.” Retrospective view The Nobel committees typically single out work that happened decades earlier — a retrospective view that’s often needed given that it can take time for the significance of some scientific research to become clear. The Nobels also focus on three scientific disciplines, as designated in the will of Alfred Nobel. Fields including mathematics, computer science, earth and climate science and oceanography are excluded. Even within the fields of chemistry, physics and medicine and physiology, just five areas out of 114 different scientific subdisciplines account for more than half of Nobel Prizes awarded from 1995 to 2017, according to one 2020 study. These are particle physics, atomic physics, cell biology, neuroscience and molecular chemistry. Rees, however, noted that taking the long view and giving greater recognition to certain fields can, at times, make the Nobel committees seem out of touch with the scientific priorities of the day. One example is artificial intelligence, or AI, which is transforming people’s lives at an unprecedented pace. Two hot names in the field are Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, the Google DeepMind inventors of AlphaFold — an AI program that decodes the 3D structures of proteins from amino acid sequences. They won the $250,000 Lasker Prize this year and the Breakthrough Prize a year earlier. Since their key paper was published just over two years ago, it has been cited more than 8,500 times, Pendlebury said. “That is, in my experience, just incredible in terms of the speed at which the citations have accrued, so obviously, it’s a huge, important intellectual discovery,” said Pendlebury, who has been compiling his list of “citation laureates” since 2002. The Nobel committees have on occasion awarded accolades to recent breakthroughs — such as when the chemistry prize went to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna in 2020, less than 10 years after their key 2012 paper on the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technique — but Pendlebury thinks a Nobel Prize for AI this year is still a long shot. He said the Nobel Prize committees, at least for science prizes, are “innately conservative.” Diversity Other criticism leveled at the Nobel Prizes includes the lack of diversity among winners. More female scientists have gotten the call from Stockholm in recent years, but it’s been a trickle rather than a torrent. Last year, Carolyn Bertozzi, who won the chemistry prize, was the only female winner of a science prize. There were no female science recipients in 2021 or in 2019, when the Nobel committee asked nominators to consider diversity in gender, geography and field. Astrophysicist Andrea Ghez shared the physics prize in 2020, the same year as Doudna and Charpentier’s chemistry win. Pendlebury said he believes lack of diversity on the Nobel stage is essentially a pipeline problem. “They’re looking at work typically published 20 or 30 years ago, when the number of women in science at elite levels was not as much as it is today,” he said. “And so I think as time goes forward, you see more and more women being selected.” Others point to the issue as more evidence of systemic bias in science, with women already less likely to be given credit or named as lead author on scientific papers. “There are several women who made Nobel-level contributions to science, contributions for which male colleagues were awarded, but they were not,” said Naomi Oreskes, a Henry Charles Lea Professor of the history of science and an affiliated professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University. “These examples prove that even when there were qualified women, they were systematically passed over.” Rees attributes the diversity problem to a lack of transparency. The Nobel short list is secret, as are the nominators, and documents revealing the details of the selection process are sealed from public view for 50 years. Of course, these flaws and gaps only matter because the Nobels are far better known than other science prizes, Rees added. He prefers so-called challenge prizes, such as the XPrize, which incentivize future efforts to tackle an important problem, rather than rewarding past success. The Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine will be announced on Monday, followed by the physics prize on Tuesday and the Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday. The Nobel Prize for literature and the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Thursday and Friday, respectively.
Old age often is seen as adulthood-minus, a situation in which normal losses in appearance, capacity and resources create an overriding impression that agers become less than they were as adults. At first glance that seems logical. But when one looks at the situation in greater depth it possible to see that adults who survive into advanced aging while losing some capacities have also gained wisdom and skills they didn’t have as adults. When the young move into adulthood, they gain new skills and build on previous knowledge and skills as they learn from living with adulthood. They also leave behind some parts of childhood that are no longer appropriate in adulthood. The same process holds true when we as adults move into the years of advanced aging. For both groups this type of learning tends to emerge quietly, day by day and experience by experience. It is noticed only when looking back over time. When we adults moved into post-adulthood, we brought with us the capacities developed in adult years that then were available to use and build on as we moved ever more deeply into aging. The significant difference is that here we’ve had to manage daily living requirements and overlying conditions with: - ongoing, normal age related changes (ARCs) to our capacities that are not only continually emerging and progressing (each in its own way) - pairs or clusters of ARCs each in their current status aiding and abetting each other. E.g. vision, strength, proprioception each affecting the ARC of balance; loss of sense of smell (anosmia) and aging taste buds et al. Have you ever felt as though daily living is like trying to walk on an unstable wavy, slack tight rope? A concomitant outcome is that day-by-day and situation-by changing situation we’re having to learn how to fine-tune: - our awareness of each presenting situation and then - alterations in present strategies or creation of new ones to deal with them. The consequences can range from maddening inconvenience to life-threatening risks But, through both failures and successes learning goes on. It’s not unusual for youngsters and adults to acknowledge and take pride when they manage a new age-related achievement and for others to do so as well. Somehow this acknowledgement of achievement seems to be less prevalent for old folks. Perhaps it is because of its focus on tiny details and its constancy. Whatever the reason agers’ achievements in growth in knowledge and skill tend to be either not or less recognized. But recognized or not, post adulthood offers a remarkable, multidimensional Adulthood Plus. I love the term ‘adulthood-plus’. Though not as old nor as experienced at aging as you, I feel many age-related changes now that I’m in my late 70s. I also watch my husband in his late 80s as he adapts his daily habits to cope with physical changes. He suffers from mobility limitations due to peripheral neuropathy. Thank goodness for his custom-made leg braces that help him continue walking. We often discuss observations from your experiences with aging on your blog. It is a wonderful resource! Agree with all you say here, as I so often do. I wish our society’s tendency to believe that they will never age wasn’t such a huge factor in the prevalence of the kind of ageism that doesn’t recognize the triumphs of agers in all aspects of life. I love reading your blog. So insightful and well put. LikeLiked by 1 person It is true that so many hard-won accomplishments are achieved in Post-Adulthood! I am thinking of a lovely 80-something-year-old lady in my neighborhood, who is losing her eyesight and having mobility problems but who still can be seen walking with two canes and the assistance of her daughter or a nearby neighbor. Now THERE’S a picture of resilience, ingenuity, and courage!! LikeLiked by 1 person Thank you for a new blog post, even as your 101st birthday is only a few days away. I’m almost 20 years younger than you, but I already notice some of the plusses of old age. For example, my short term memory is shot, my long term memory was never good, and yet certain other cognitive functions seem to be stronger than ever. Creativity is booming. I know you’ll have an explanation for this 🙂 LikeLiked by 3 people Hello hope you are okay. Been following your blog and hope that by making successful adaptations i too can stay in my home as long as possible. Just stopping to say hello	<urn:uuid:f99ce08a-1a40-46a9-b29a-b39cdeb10782>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-14", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296949573.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20230331051439-20230331081439-00085.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9726274609565735, "pii_count": 0, "score": 2.6875, "token_count": 975, "url": "https://engagingwithagingblog.wordpress.com/2023/01/09/aging-as-adulthood-plus/" }	Old age often is seen as adulthood-minus, a situation in which normal losses in appearance, capacity and resources create an overriding impression that agers become less than they were as adults. At first glance that seems logical. But when one looks at the situation in greater depth it possible to see that adults who survive into advanced aging while losing some capacities have also gained wisdom and skills they didn’t have as adults. When the young move into adulthood, they gain new skills and build on previous knowledge and skills as they learn from living with adulthood. They also leave behind some parts of childhood that are no longer appropriate in adulthood. The same process holds true when we as adults move into the years of advanced aging. For both groups this type of learning tends to emerge quietly, day by day and experience by experience. It is noticed only when looking back over time. When we adults moved into post-adulthood, we brought with us the capacities developed in adult years that then were available to use and build on as we moved ever more deeply into aging. The significant difference is that here we’ve had to manage daily living requirements and overlying conditions with: - ongoing, normal age related changes (ARCs) to our capacities that are not only continually emerging and progressing (each in its own way) - pairs or clusters of ARCs each in their current status aiding and abetting each other. E.g. vision, strength, proprioception each affecting the ARC of balance; loss of sense of smell (anosmia) and aging taste buds et al. Have you ever felt as though daily living is like trying to walk on an unstable wavy, slack tight rope? A concomitant outcome is that day-by-day and situation-by changing situation we’re having to learn how to fine-tune: - our awareness of each presenting situation and then - alterations in present strategies or creation of new ones to deal with them. The consequences can range from maddening inconvenience to life-threatening risks But, through both failures and successes learning goes on. It’s not unusual for youngsters and adults to acknowledge and take pride when they manage a new age-related achievement and for others to do so as well. Somehow this acknowledgement of achievement seems to be less prevalent for old folks. Perhaps it is because of its focus on tiny details and its constancy. Whatever the reason agers’ achievements in growth in knowledge and skill tend to be either not or less recognized. But recognized or not, post adulthood offers a remarkable, multidimensional Adulthood Plus. I love the term ‘	adulthood-plus’. Though not as old nor as experienced at aging as you, I feel many age-related changes now that I’m in my late 70s. I also watch my husband in his late 80s as he adapts his daily habits to cope with physical changes. He suffers from mobility limitations due to peripheral neuropathy. Thank goodness for his custom-made leg braces that help him continue walking. We often discuss observations from your experiences with aging on your blog. It is a wonderful resource! Agree with all you say here, as I so often do. I wish our society’s tendency to believe that they will never age wasn’t such a huge factor in the prevalence of the kind of ageism that doesn’t recognize the triumphs of agers in all aspects of life. I love reading your blog. So insightful and well put. LikeLiked by 1 person It is true that so many hard-won accomplishments are achieved in Post-Adulthood! I am thinking of a lovely 80-something-year-old lady in my neighborhood, who is losing her eyesight and having mobility problems but who still can be seen walking with two canes and the assistance of her daughter or a nearby neighbor. Now THERE’S a picture of resilience, ingenuity, and courage!! LikeLiked by 1 person Thank you for a new blog post, even as your 101st birthday is only a few days away. I’m almost 20 years younger than you, but I already notice some of the plusses of old age. For example, my short term memory is shot, my long term memory was never good, and yet certain other cognitive functions seem to be stronger than ever. Creativity is booming. I know you’ll have an explanation for this 🙂 LikeLiked by 3 people Hello hope you are okay. Been following your blog and hope that by making successful adaptations i too can stay in my home as long as possible. Just stopping to say hello
What happens if we can’t access money from the ATM or our credit card? What if hackers take down the US Treasury? Why do we scrupulously protect ourselves in the offline world with locks, rules, borders, police, and armies, but fall short in cyberspace? It takes a former financial regulator and futurist to ask such probing questions. Thomas P. Vartanian, founder of the Financial Technology & Cybersecurity Center explores this in his new book The Unhackable Internet: How Rebuilding Cyberspace Can Build Real Security and Prevent Financial Collapse, which follows his American Financial Panics: Crashes, Recessions and Depressions and the Technology That Will Change It All. Despite reams of regulatory policies from dozens of federal and state authorities, severe and devastating cyberattacks still occur. Hackers outsmart our policies and security upgrades, and the internet is the medium of choice for child sexual abuse material, drugs, weapons, human trafficking, espionage, money laundering, and terrorism. Vartanian says we need to shift toward building systems which are engineered for a security first environment, impose tougher standards on intermediaries, and require more oomph from end users. In some ways the problem of internet security was predictable. The ARPANET of 1969 was conceived to serve academic and research purposes (and perhaps email), had a finite set of known users, and had the assumption of a secure environment. No one expected that we would be buying stocks and transferring money with our internet connected smartphones. To be sure, the financial industry invests significantly to secure their systems. While they innovate a variety of important security enhancements, they have limited ability to fix the vulnerabilities of the end user’s set up, much less deter malicious state-based and other actors which want to compromise their systems. This is presumably the job of the US military. The problem of upgrading the internet is similar to the Global Positioning System (GPS), another important US military system which was never intended to become a commercial platform. The debate is whether to build a new GPS (very expensive), or to identify the priority PNT (Positioning, Navigation, and Timing) services and back them up accordingly, preferably by a reliable, non-government actor. For example, mobile wireless standards are driven by the 3GPP (the third generation partnership), and they are more resilient than GPS. An exhaustive RAND Institute report describes that a single alternative to GPS is not only impractical but cost prohibitive. It is smarter to build out dedicated PNT (position, navigation, and timing) capabilities through a piecemeal approach based on function and application with private sector actors funding the effort. In fact companies are already doing this. Vartanian suggests we could pursue something similar with key internet applications. Indeed this is already underway with private and offline networks: build the network from the ground up with security as the key requirement; block malicious ports, content, and actors outright; have strict rules on access and behavior. One would enter this online system just as one enters a secure physical location: supervision over access, identification, screening, removal of non-essential items, and entry only for specific purposes. This is very difficult from the notion of a public internet in which the user enjoys all possible end points and applications. An unhackable internet likely requires enhanced authentication (no more anonymous users) as well as upgrades to more secure hardware and software. The transition to clean hardware is afoot; many service providers now rip and replace malign equipment from Chinese government aligned manufacturers, though this thinking falls short to include the billions of connected Internet of Things devices running questionable code. Notably states like Florida and Georgia prohibit the use of such products in state government (think TikTok and laptops from Chinese government owned Lenovo), but protections for consumers are limited. The Federal Communications Commission which authorizes equipment to use connectivity restricts only a handful of entities, even though dozens of sketchy manufacturers have been identified by the US government. Moreover there is nothing to stop malicious actors from using white label products or from embedding compromised chips into consumer products (hence the concerns about Apple working with Chinese military aligned chip fab YMTC). Vartanian’s tour de force analyzes a continuum of solutions to make the Internet safer and more unhackable. It lays out a sober assessment of the financial Armageddon, however unthinkable, that could be avoided but for the demoralizing and dispiriting failure of leadership which has followed a predictable cycle of attack, rinse, and repeat. The Unhackable Internet offers comprehensive and insightful cybersecurity solutions that just may change the Internet forever. It should be required reading for every executive, and policymaker.	<urn:uuid:c0c46b2c-7bc4-4a00-bd04-0968f31e640c>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-50", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100057.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20231129073519-20231129103519-00200.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9415674209594727, "pii_count": 0, "score": 2.703125, "token_count": 952, "url": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/roslynlayton/2023/02/08/toward-an-unhackable-internet/?sh=4976686517e0" }	What happens if we can’t access money from the ATM or our credit card? What if hackers take down the US Treasury? Why do we scrupulously protect ourselves in the offline world with locks, rules, borders, police, and armies, but fall short in cyberspace? It takes a former financial regulator and futurist to ask such probing questions. Thomas P. Vartanian, founder of the Financial Technology & Cybersecurity Center explores this in his new book The Unhackable Internet: How Rebuilding Cyberspace Can Build Real Security and Prevent Financial Collapse, which follows his American Financial Panics: Crashes, Recessions and Depressions and the Technology That Will Change It All. Despite reams of regulatory policies from dozens of federal and state authorities, severe and devastating cyberattacks still occur. Hackers outsmart our policies and security upgrades, and the internet is the medium of choice for child sexual abuse material, drugs, weapons, human trafficking, espionage, money laundering, and terrorism. Vartanian says we need to shift toward building systems which are engineered for a security first environment, impose tougher standards on intermediaries, and require more oomph from end users. In some ways the problem of internet security was predictable. The ARPANET of 1969 was conceived to serve academic and research purposes (and perhaps email), had a finite set of known users, and had the assumption of a secure environment. No one expected that we would be buying stocks and transferring money with our internet connected smartphones. To be sure, the financial industry invests significantly to secure their systems. While they innovate a variety of important security enhancements, they have limited ability to fix the vulnerabilities of the end user’s set up, much less deter malicious state-based and other actors which want to compromise their systems. This is presumably the job of the US military. The problem of upgrading the internet is similar to the Global Positioning System (GPS), another important US military system which was never intended to become a commercial platform. The debate is whether to build a new GPS (very expensive), or to identify the priority PNT (Positioning, Navigation, and Timing) services and back them up accordingly, preferably by a reliable, non-government actor. For example, mobile wireless standards are driven by the 3GPP (the third generation partnership), and they are more resilient than GPS. An exhaustive RAND Institute report describes that a single alternative to GPS is not only impractical	but cost prohibitive. It is smarter to build out dedicated PNT (position, navigation, and timing) capabilities through a piecemeal approach based on function and application with private sector actors funding the effort. In fact companies are already doing this. Vartanian suggests we could pursue something similar with key internet applications. Indeed this is already underway with private and offline networks: build the network from the ground up with security as the key requirement; block malicious ports, content, and actors outright; have strict rules on access and behavior. One would enter this online system just as one enters a secure physical location: supervision over access, identification, screening, removal of non-essential items, and entry only for specific purposes. This is very difficult from the notion of a public internet in which the user enjoys all possible end points and applications. An unhackable internet likely requires enhanced authentication (no more anonymous users) as well as upgrades to more secure hardware and software. The transition to clean hardware is afoot; many service providers now rip and replace malign equipment from Chinese government aligned manufacturers, though this thinking falls short to include the billions of connected Internet of Things devices running questionable code. Notably states like Florida and Georgia prohibit the use of such products in state government (think TikTok and laptops from Chinese government owned Lenovo), but protections for consumers are limited. The Federal Communications Commission which authorizes equipment to use connectivity restricts only a handful of entities, even though dozens of sketchy manufacturers have been identified by the US government. Moreover there is nothing to stop malicious actors from using white label products or from embedding compromised chips into consumer products (hence the concerns about Apple working with Chinese military aligned chip fab YMTC). Vartanian’s tour de force analyzes a continuum of solutions to make the Internet safer and more unhackable. It lays out a sober assessment of the financial Armageddon, however unthinkable, that could be avoided but for the demoralizing and dispiriting failure of leadership which has followed a predictable cycle of attack, rinse, and repeat. The Unhackable Internet offers comprehensive and insightful cybersecurity solutions that just may change the Internet forever. It should be required reading for every executive, and policymaker.
- Since President Joe Biden signed the historic Inflation Reduction Act into law last August, companies have announced more than 100,000 clean energy jobs across the country. - The wind, solar and EV manufacturing sectors are creating the new positions, according to a report by the nonprofit Climate Power. - The IRA provides tax credits for zero-carbon energy production and is projected to cut domestic carbon emissions by about 40% by 2030. Since President Joe Biden signed the historic Inflation Reduction Act into law last August, companies have announced more than 100,000 clean energy jobs across the country, according to a report by the nonprofit Climate Power. As of the end of January, companies have announced more than 90 new clean energy projects in small towns and larger cities in the U.S., totaling $89.5 billion in new investments, the report found. The wind, solar and EV manufacturing sectors are creating the new positions, which include electricians, mechanics, construction workers and technicians. Most of the jobs are located in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. The IRA is the biggest climate bill ever passed by Congress and provides $369 billion in funding for initiatives like cutting emissions, manufacturing clean energy products and advancing environmental justice initiatives. The bill also includes tax credits for zero-carbon energy production. The bill's climate provisions are also projected to cut domestic carbon emissions by about 40% by 2030. Early in his presidency, Biden pledged to reduce U.S. emissions from 2005 levels at least in half by 2030 and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Plans include 40 new battery manufacturing sites in states like Arizona, Michigan and South Carolina, according to Climate Power. So far, 22 companies have unveiled plans for new or expanded EV manufacturing in Alabama, Oklahoma and Michigan. And an additional 24 companies have released plans to expand wind and solar manufacturing in Colorado, Ohio and Texas. The legislation is projected to create more than 9 million clean energy and climate-related jobs over the next decade, according to an analysis by the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. "Businesses are investing in manufacturing like never before, and planning to create good paying jobs in every corner of the country," Lori Lodes, executive director of Climate Power, said in a statement. "This is only the beginning — we're months after the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and we're already at the precipice of a renewed manufacturing, Made in America boom that will create opportunities for millions of Americans," Lodes said.	<urn:uuid:6ae576e6-cb1b-48ee-b339-7731266a252f>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-23", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224644855.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20230529105815-20230529135815-00382.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9529736042022705, "pii_count": 0, "score": 2.59375, "token_count": 521, "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/07/inflation-reduction-act-which-states-have-most-new-green-jobs-so-far.html?&doc=107191411" }	- Since President Joe Biden signed the historic Inflation Reduction Act into law last August, companies have announced more than 100,000 clean energy jobs across the country. - The wind, solar and EV manufacturing sectors are creating the new positions, according to a report by the nonprofit Climate Power. - The IRA provides tax credits for zero-carbon energy production and is projected to cut domestic carbon emissions by about 40% by 2030. Since President Joe Biden signed the historic Inflation Reduction Act into law last August, companies have announced more than 100,000 clean energy jobs across the country, according to a report by the nonprofit Climate Power. As of the end of January, companies have announced more than 90 new clean energy projects in small towns and larger cities in the U.S., totaling $89.5 billion in new investments, the report found. The wind, solar and EV manufacturing sectors are creating the new positions, which include electricians, mechanics, construction workers and technicians. Most of the jobs are located in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. The IRA is the biggest climate bill ever passed by Congress and provides $369 billion in funding for initiatives like cutting emissions, manufacturing clean energy products and advancing environmental justice initiatives. The bill also includes tax credits for zero-carbon energy production. The bill's climate provisions are also projected to cut domestic carbon emissions by about 40% by 2030. Early in his presidency, Biden pledged to reduce U.S. emissions from 2005 levels at least in half by 2030 and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Plans include 40 new battery manufacturing sites in states like Arizona, Michigan and South Carolina, according to Climate Power. So far, 22 companies have unveiled plans for new or expanded EV manufacturing in Alabama, Oklahoma and Michigan. And an additional 24 companies have released plans to expand wind and solar manufacturing in Colorado, Ohio and Texas. The legislation is projected to create more than 9 million clean energy and climate-related jobs over the next decade, according to an analysis by the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. "Businesses are investing in manufacturing like never before, and planning to create good paying jobs in every corner of the country," Lori Lodes, executive director of Climate Power, said in a statement. "This is only the beginning — we're months	after the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and we're already at the precipice of a renewed manufacturing, Made in America boom that will create opportunities for millions of Americans," Lodes said.
Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. (CNN)When archaeologists uncovered the burial site of two brothers who lived during the 15th century BC in Israel, they were surprised to discover that one of them had brain surgery shortly before he died. The finding marks the earliest example of trephination, a type of cranial surgery, found in the ancient Near East. Trephination, also known as trepanation, involves cutting a hole in the skull — and there are examples of the medical procedure dating back thousands of years. The remains of the brothers, who lived during the Bronze Age between 1550 BC and 1450 BC, were found during an excavation of a tomb in the ancient city of Tel Megiddo. The older brother, estimated to be between 20 and 40 years old, had angular notched trephination. His scalp was cut and then a sharp, beveled-edge instrument was used to make four intersecting lines on the frontal bone of the skull that made a 30-millimeter (1.2-inch) square-shaped hole. A study detailing the findings published Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE. "We have evidence that trephination has been this universal, widespread type of surgery for thousands of years," said study author Rachel Kalisher in a statement. She is a doctoral candidate at Brown University's Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World in Providence, Rhode Island. "But in the Near East, we don't see it so often — there are only about a dozen examples of trephination in this entire region. My hope is that adding more examples to the scholarly record will deepen our field's understanding of medical care and cultural dynamics in ancient cities in this area." Oddly enough, the bone pieces removed from the skull were included in the grave — but it wasn't the only unusual discovery made about the brothers as researchers studied their bones. Bronze Age brothers The city of Tel Megiddo was part of the Via Maris 4,000 years ago. This crucial land route connected Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia and Anatolia, according to study coauthor Israel Finkelstein, director of the University of Haifa's School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures. Tel Megiddo controlled part of this trade route, making it a wealthy and cosmopolitan city full of palaces, temples and fortifications. "It's hard to overstate Megiddo's cultural and economic importance in the late Bronze Age," Finkelstein said. The tomb was found in an area adjacent to a late Bronze Age palace in Tel Megiddo, leading researchers to believe the two men were either high-ranking elite members of society or perhaps even royals. DNA testing revealed the two were related and likely brothers. The men were buried with Cypriot pottery, food and other valuable possessions similar to those found in other local high-status tombs.	<urn:uuid:69cac280-1133-4661-b498-5d31ca046c7f>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-14", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296948708.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20230327220742-20230328010742-00281.warc.gz", "int_score": 4, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9682071805000305, "pii_count": 0, "score": 3.921875, "token_count": 620, "url": "https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/22/world/bronze-age-brain-surgery-scn/index.html" }	Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. (CNN)When archaeologists uncovered the burial site of two brothers who lived during the 15th century BC in Israel, they were surprised to discover that one of them had brain surgery shortly before he died. The finding marks the earliest example of trephination, a type of cranial surgery, found in the ancient Near East. Trephination, also known as trepanation, involves cutting a hole in the skull — and there are examples of the medical procedure dating back thousands of years. The remains of the brothers, who lived during the Bronze Age between 1550 BC and 1450 BC, were found during an excavation of a tomb in the ancient city of Tel Megiddo. The older brother, estimated to be between 20 and 40 years old, had angular notched trephination. His scalp was cut and then a sharp, beveled-edge instrument was used to make four intersecting lines on the frontal bone of the skull that made a 30-millimeter (1.2-inch) square-shaped hole. A study detailing the findings published Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE. "We have evidence that trephination has been this universal, widespread type of surgery for thousands of years," said study author Rachel Kalisher in a statement. She is a doctoral candidate at Brown University's Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World in Providence, Rhode Island. "But in the Near East, we don't see it so often — there are only about a dozen examples of trephination in this entire region. My hope is that adding more examples to the scholarly record will deepen our field's understanding of medical care and cultural dynamics in ancient cities in this area." Oddly enough, the bone pieces removed from the skull were included in the grave — but it wasn't the only unusual discovery made about the brothers as researchers studied their bones. Bronze Age brothers The city of Tel Megiddo was part of the Via Maris 4,000 years ago. This crucial land route connected Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia and Anatolia, according to study coauthor Israel Finkelstein, director of the University of Haifa's School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures. Tel Megiddo controlled part of this trade route, making it a wealthy and cosmopolitan city full of palaces, temples and fortifications. "It's hard to overstate Megid	do's cultural and economic importance in the late Bronze Age," Finkelstein said. The tomb was found in an area adjacent to a late Bronze Age palace in Tel Megiddo, leading researchers to believe the two men were either high-ranking elite members of society or perhaps even royals. DNA testing revealed the two were related and likely brothers. The men were buried with Cypriot pottery, food and other valuable possessions similar to those found in other local high-status tombs.
Like many people, Yingibarndi man Glen Aubrey wants to know what impact major gas and fertiliser plants are having on ancient rock art within a World Heritage-nominated area in Western Australia's north. "I don't want to see any rock art getting destroyed through emissions or anything like that," he says. "I'd just like to protect it." The Murujuga region near Karratha, 1,500 kilometres north of Perth, takes in a vast expanse of land and sea country, and is believed to be home to more than one million petroglyphs. The region is also home to large industry, including gas and fertiliser plants, which has been a source of controversy and concern within the community. Mr Aubrey is a local ranger and is being trained in rock art monitoring as part of the Murujuga Rock Art Monitoring Program (MRAMP). The program was started by the state government, together with the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation (MAC), which represents five language groups with ongoing cultural connections to the area. Described as the largest and most comprehensive rock art monitoring program ever implemented in the world, the research will be used to set new emissions standards. "It's important to be looking after the country," Mr Aubrey says. "Some of these rock art have been here over 50,000 years and to see the amount of rock art in the area, it's something you've got to see for yourself." Search for definitive answer on emissions Ben Mullins from Curtin University is the program's scientific lead and says his job is to determine whether there are any measurable anthropogenic impacts on the rock art. "So basically if there is anything that humans are doing that is causing the rock art to degrade or have accelerated weathering," he says. "The dominant theory up until now has been an acid rain kind of hypothesis — that you have these chemicals that are released that can form acids and they can then accelerate the weathering.". Professor Mullins says one of the long-standing theories is that gases from industry such as nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide and ammonia are impacting rock art. Despite significant research into whether emissions are damaging rock art in the Murujuga region, opinion remains divided. Professor Mullins says this latest research project aims to provide a "definitive answer". "The previous work, whoever has done it, either hasn't had the statistical power to make any determination of what's happening, or has been purely anecdotal and not of any sound scientific basis," he says. "It's obviously a challenge when we have media and other anecdotal papers coming out trying to say the answer is already there when it is clear that it's not." Twenty-two new air quality monitors have been installed across Murujuga to collect more data for the project. The surface of the rocks is also being analysed. "We're using colour measurement instruments that measure a spectrum that goes beyond human vision and we're able to even pick up chemical changes within that spectrum," fine art conservator Andrew Thorn says. "The primary measure is a change in colour on the surface, but within that we can also see precursors to colour change, which are chemical reactions possibly. "We have no guarantees of what we're going to find." Significance of research not lost on scientists A team of 55 people are working on the project and Professor Mullins says the field-work will be combined with laboratory work to create a complete understanding of the impact of emissions on the rock art. The MRAMP will cost about $27 million over six years and run until early 2026. Woodside, Yara Pilbara and Rio Tinto, have all contributed funding to the project, through the state government. "Certainly there are a lot of people watching it, we do feel that to some extent," Professor Mullins says. "I think this is a world-first, that a scientific research study is going to directly impact industry licences. "We feel the pressure, but we've assembled a team of some of the world's leading scientists in their respective fields, so I think everyone is fine with the pressure." Industry supports expanded research Woodside, Yara Pilbara and Rio Tinto say they take their responsibility to protect and manage cultural heritage seriously and support expanded testing through the MRAMP. "Woodside recognises the need for further research…which we believe will provide the necessary certainty to guide management and protection of the rock art," a Woodside spokeswoman says. "The data and analysis derived from continuing and increasing the Murujuga Rock Art Monitoring Program will be critical to inform both public and industry discourse," a Rio Tinto spokeswoman says. "We continually focus on limiting the impact of our operations, which have been estimated by the Western Australian government as a part of the Murujuga Rock Art Strategy to contribute less than 5 per cent of the total emissions of concern to the Murujuga air shed," Yara Pilbara general manager Laurent Trost says. In the coming years, MAC rangers such as Mr Aubrey will ramp up their involvement in the project and will be responsible for the ongoing monitoring that will be used by the WA government to regulate industry. That ongoing monitoring will also be used to help secure World Heritage listing, by showing a plan is in place to monitor and protect the culturally significant region. "It's still a long process to actually know that anything is actually affecting the rock art," ranger Mr Aubrey says. "From my point of view, does anybody really know what is happening? "Until we can actually get some proper results about the rock art and to see this is happening, we've got no answers really."	<urn:uuid:c0a9eafa-837d-4945-9b50-56bc922d659d>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233506658.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20230924155422-20230924185422-00737.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9609121680259705, "pii_count": 0, "score": 3.0625, "token_count": 1187, "url": "https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-11/emissions-damage-to-indigenous-rock-art-at-murujuga/102196718?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=link&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web" }	Like many people, Yingibarndi man Glen Aubrey wants to know what impact major gas and fertiliser plants are having on ancient rock art within a World Heritage-nominated area in Western Australia's north. "I don't want to see any rock art getting destroyed through emissions or anything like that," he says. "I'd just like to protect it." The Murujuga region near Karratha, 1,500 kilometres north of Perth, takes in a vast expanse of land and sea country, and is believed to be home to more than one million petroglyphs. The region is also home to large industry, including gas and fertiliser plants, which has been a source of controversy and concern within the community. Mr Aubrey is a local ranger and is being trained in rock art monitoring as part of the Murujuga Rock Art Monitoring Program (MRAMP). The program was started by the state government, together with the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation (MAC), which represents five language groups with ongoing cultural connections to the area. Described as the largest and most comprehensive rock art monitoring program ever implemented in the world, the research will be used to set new emissions standards. "It's important to be looking after the country," Mr Aubrey says. "Some of these rock art have been here over 50,000 years and to see the amount of rock art in the area, it's something you've got to see for yourself." Search for definitive answer on emissions Ben Mullins from Curtin University is the program's scientific lead and says his job is to determine whether there are any measurable anthropogenic impacts on the rock art. "So basically if there is anything that humans are doing that is causing the rock art to degrade or have accelerated weathering," he says. "The dominant theory up until now has been an acid rain kind of hypothesis — that you have these chemicals that are released that can form acids and they can then accelerate the weathering.". Professor Mullins says one of the long-standing theories is that gases from industry such as nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide and ammonia are impacting rock art. Despite significant research into whether emissions are damaging rock art in the Murujuga region, opinion remains divided. Professor Mullins says this latest research project aims to provide a "definitive answer". "The previous work, whoever has done it, either hasn't had the statistical power to make any determination of what's happening, or has been purely anecdotal and not of any sound scientific basis," he says	. "It's obviously a challenge when we have media and other anecdotal papers coming out trying to say the answer is already there when it is clear that it's not." Twenty-two new air quality monitors have been installed across Murujuga to collect more data for the project. The surface of the rocks is also being analysed. "We're using colour measurement instruments that measure a spectrum that goes beyond human vision and we're able to even pick up chemical changes within that spectrum," fine art conservator Andrew Thorn says. "The primary measure is a change in colour on the surface, but within that we can also see precursors to colour change, which are chemical reactions possibly. "We have no guarantees of what we're going to find." Significance of research not lost on scientists A team of 55 people are working on the project and Professor Mullins says the field-work will be combined with laboratory work to create a complete understanding of the impact of emissions on the rock art. The MRAMP will cost about $27 million over six years and run until early 2026. Woodside, Yara Pilbara and Rio Tinto, have all contributed funding to the project, through the state government. "Certainly there are a lot of people watching it, we do feel that to some extent," Professor Mullins says. "I think this is a world-first, that a scientific research study is going to directly impact industry licences. "We feel the pressure, but we've assembled a team of some of the world's leading scientists in their respective fields, so I think everyone is fine with the pressure." Industry supports expanded research Woodside, Yara Pilbara and Rio Tinto say they take their responsibility to protect and manage cultural heritage seriously and support expanded testing through the MRAMP. "Woodside recognises the need for further research…which we believe will provide the necessary certainty to guide management and protection of the rock art," a Woodside spokeswoman says. "The data and analysis derived from continuing and increasing the Murujuga Rock Art Monitoring Program will be critical to inform both public and industry discourse," a Rio Tinto spokeswoman says. "We continually focus on limiting the impact of our operations, which have been estimated by the Western Australian government as a part of the Murujuga Rock Art Strategy to contribute less than 5 per cent of the total emissions of concern to the Murujuga air shed," Yara Pilbara general manager Laurent Trost says. In the coming years, MAC rangers such as Mr Aubrey will ramp up their involvement in the project and will be responsible for the ongoing monitoring that will be used by the WA government to regulate industry. That ongoing monitoring will also be used to help secure World Heritage listing, by showing a plan is in place to monitor and protect the culturally significant region. "It's still a long process to actually know that anything is actually affecting the rock art," ranger Mr Aubrey says. "From my point of view, does anybody really know what is happening? "Until we can actually get some proper results about the rock art and to see this is happening, we've got no answers really."
Why it’s crucial for SA supermarkets to cut prices of 10 key foods by a fifth The food industry will get a tax break to ease the effects of load shedding on the cost of groceries. But there’s more that the industry can do to keep a basic basket of foods affordable. Makhulu Klaas, 74, from Mdantsane, a township near East London in the Eastern Cape, is grateful for the R90 extra she’ll get each month as part of her old-age pension, announced in Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana’s budget speech last week. Klaas lives with her daughter, who works as a cleaner, and two grandchildren, of two and 10 years, in a corrugated iron shack. On the one side, there’s a tarred road, on the other, just behind the tiny backyard of her small unfenced plot, a stream. The R90 added to her current R1,980 in pension from April, will help Klaas to buy an extra 5kg bag of mealie meal and half a kilogram more sugar beans. These items are daily staples, which analysts include in tracking the prices of a basket of basic foods. But while the government gives with one hand, it takes with the other. From 1 April, electricity will cost 18.65% more, after the National Energy Regulator of South Africa approved a price hike by Eskom. Klaas’s household spends about R500 a month on electricity, which means R93 extra for lights and heating — her entire grant increase. Mealie meal and dried beans in Klaas’s grocery basket give her family carbohydrates and some proteins — what nutrition scientists call macronutrients. But to stay healthy, people also need foods like meat or eggs, dairy products and vegetables and fruit, say the South African food-based dietary guidelines. These add important micronutrients — vitamins and minerals — to someone’s diet. But about one in five South African households don’t have enough food on the table, 2021 statistics show, let alone spare cash to spend on things like dairy and vegetables. Klaas at least is somewhat better off than many others in townships like hers because she can grow beans, spinach and butternut in her small backyard vegetable patch. In many densely packed informal settlements, though, such home gardens are not viable. These areas easily become “food deserts” — places where it’s difficult to find nutritious foods but high-calorie, low-protein fast foods such as slap chips, sugary drinks and white bread are much easier to buy. So, how should South Africa tackle the problem of getting people to eat healthy things if they have too little money to spend on food in the first place? Treasury — and the food industry — can take one more step to make food more affordable. The quick fix The government’s lifebuoys — such as upping the old-age pension — offer some relief. In his budget speech, the finance minister now also included food manufacturers in the list of industries that can benefit from the diesel refund, which is already in place for primary producers such as farming, forestry and fishing businesses. This will apply until 2025 to help ease the pressure of inflation on the price of basic nutritious food items, such as maize meal, rice, eggs and amasi. Child support grants — R480 per child per month — can fund about three-quarters of a child’s basic food needs. This support is for a parent who earns less than R4,400 a month and, according to the national budget for 2023, will be upped to R500 from April and R510 a month from October. Covid-19 relief grants (R350 a month for people older than 18 who have no income and no other financial help from government) have proved a critical safety net over the past two years. This extra money, which will be available until March next year, spared 1.1-million children from slipping below the food poverty line — a boundary that affected 6.9-million kids in 2020. The food poverty line, which sits at R663 a month at the moment, is the least amount of money someone needs for buying food to give them enough energy for a day. Visit Daily Maverick’s home page for more news, analysis and investigations But these financial buffers are not enough. Stats SA estimates that in 2022 each person in a household needed R945 to live on, taking into account food, clothing and other costs. At R500 a month, this year’s child support grant will only cover about half of what is needed. The long game The long-term solution is to shift to a national food and agricultural policy that is designed to make healthy foods more affordable. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says that government subsidies work best if they help consumers to buy more food. But if primary producers such as farmers simply have to accept the prices food manufacturers and large retailers offer for their products, the plan could fail, FAO says, because it would undermine their livelihood. South Africa’s Competition Commission has found that food manufacturers and big shopping chains have a big say in setting food prices in the country. While the profit margins on foods such as meat, dairy and chicken are fairly low, the Essential Food Price Monitoring Reports of the Competition Commission find that they still contribute substantially to retail prices. For example, in 2020, only about 30% of what retailers charged for a litre of fresh milk ended up in the farmer’s pocket, despite the farmer doing far more work to produce the milk than the store to sell it. Similarly, the August 2022 report notes that the price consumers pay for bread, and to some extent also maize, has risen faster than what retailers pay the manufacturers, which, the Commission says, suggests price-setting behaviour along the chain. The responsibility of big manufacturers and supermarkets is not only a moral one, but a financial one too: public funding for social grants is a massive contributor to the revenue of the food retail market in South Africa, equal to 30% of total turnover. This means that taxpayers effectively subsidise part of the profits of the big supermarket chains like Shoprite, Spar and Pick n Pay. A bold move from food manufacturers and retailers is needed to help South Africans buy nutritious food with the money they have. Being willing to waive their mark-ups on an essential basket of foods rated by the Grow Great zero-stunting campaign as the “10 best buys”, including eggs, speckled beans, pilchards and peanut butter — if government finances matched that commitment — will go a long way. Based on the reports of the Competition Commission, a reasonable estimate is that such discounting by manufacturers and retailers would let the cost of the specified basket of goods drop by about 20%. A matching subsidy by government would make the basket go one-fifth further, helping to close the gap between what households need and what they earn. Together with their existing VAT exempt status, the basket price could be half of what the market might dictate. It’s not business as usual The initiative for a basket of discounted foods will have to come from industry. In Egypt, India and the Philippines, targeted food subsidies increased household access to food and reduced the prevalence of underweight children. In field studies in several other countries, including South Africa, retail subsidies helped people to buy healthier foods. But it doesn’t always work. For example, in China and Iran, the support has little effect, because the subsidy, in this case, provided by the government to reduce the cost of food, was kept by the retailer and not passed on to the consumer. If this idea is going to work, it can’t be done grudgingly. Without food retailers readily sharing information about how they determine margins on items, it’s possible that the potential of a discounted food basket to improve nutrition over the next five years may be overestimated. Moreover, times are tough also for these businesses and it’s possible that the items people choose to put in their grocery baskets may not all be healthy. These are risks that need to be considered and for which the answers are not yet clear. But what is clear, is that it’s no longer acceptable for the food industry to excuse itself from public debate about how we confront the challenge of a nutritionally underpowered nation. MC David Harrison is the chief executive officer of the DG Murray Trust. The Trust sees itself as a public innovator through strategic investment in early child development, education and support for young people entering the labour market.	<urn:uuid:e3b7ce62-fe7a-4f4c-8c13-b27a778d997a>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2024-10", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947474700.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20240228080245-20240228110245-00519.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9562616944313049, "pii_count": 0, "score": 2.546875, "token_count": 1810, "url": "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-03-03-why-its-crucial-for-sa-supermarkets-to-cut-prices-of-10-key-foods-by-a-fifth/" }	Why it’s crucial for SA supermarkets to cut prices of 10 key foods by a fifth The food industry will get a tax break to ease the effects of load shedding on the cost of groceries. But there’s more that the industry can do to keep a basic basket of foods affordable. Makhulu Klaas, 74, from Mdantsane, a township near East London in the Eastern Cape, is grateful for the R90 extra she’ll get each month as part of her old-age pension, announced in Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana’s budget speech last week. Klaas lives with her daughter, who works as a cleaner, and two grandchildren, of two and 10 years, in a corrugated iron shack. On the one side, there’s a tarred road, on the other, just behind the tiny backyard of her small unfenced plot, a stream. The R90 added to her current R1,980 in pension from April, will help Klaas to buy an extra 5kg bag of mealie meal and half a kilogram more sugar beans. These items are daily staples, which analysts include in tracking the prices of a basket of basic foods. But while the government gives with one hand, it takes with the other. From 1 April, electricity will cost 18.65% more, after the National Energy Regulator of South Africa approved a price hike by Eskom. Klaas’s household spends about R500 a month on electricity, which means R93 extra for lights and heating — her entire grant increase. Mealie meal and dried beans in Klaas’s grocery basket give her family carbohydrates and some proteins — what nutrition scientists call macronutrients. But to stay healthy, people also need foods like meat or eggs, dairy products and vegetables and fruit, say the South African food-based dietary guidelines. These add important micronutrients — vitamins and minerals — to someone’s diet. But about one in five South African households don’t have enough food on the table, 2021 statistics show, let alone spare cash to spend on things like dairy and vegetables. Klaas at least is somewhat better off than many others in townships like hers because she can grow beans, spinach and butternut in her small backyard vegetable patch. In many densely packed informal settlements, though, such home gardens are not viable. These areas easily become “food deserts” — places	where it’s difficult to find nutritious foods but high-calorie, low-protein fast foods such as slap chips, sugary drinks and white bread are much easier to buy. So, how should South Africa tackle the problem of getting people to eat healthy things if they have too little money to spend on food in the first place? Treasury — and the food industry — can take one more step to make food more affordable. The quick fix The government’s lifebuoys — such as upping the old-age pension — offer some relief. In his budget speech, the finance minister now also included food manufacturers in the list of industries that can benefit from the diesel refund, which is already in place for primary producers such as farming, forestry and fishing businesses. This will apply until 2025 to help ease the pressure of inflation on the price of basic nutritious food items, such as maize meal, rice, eggs and amasi. Child support grants — R480 per child per month — can fund about three-quarters of a child’s basic food needs. This support is for a parent who earns less than R4,400 a month and, according to the national budget for 2023, will be upped to R500 from April and R510 a month from October. Covid-19 relief grants (R350 a month for people older than 18 who have no income and no other financial help from government) have proved a critical safety net over the past two years. This extra money, which will be available until March next year, spared 1.1-million children from slipping below the food poverty line — a boundary that affected 6.9-million kids in 2020. The food poverty line, which sits at R663 a month at the moment, is the least amount of money someone needs for buying food to give them enough energy for a day. Visit Daily Maverick’s home page for more news, analysis and investigations But these financial buffers are not enough. Stats SA estimates that in 2022 each person in a household needed R945 to live on, taking into account food, clothing and other costs. At R500 a month, this year’s child support grant will only cover about half of what is needed. The long game The long-term solution is to shift to a national food and agricultural policy that is designed to make healthy foods more affordable. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says that government subsidies work best if they help consumers to buy more food. But if primary producers such as farmers simply have to accept the prices food manufacturers and large retailers offer for their products, the plan could fail, FAO says, because it would undermine their livelihood. South Africa’s Competition Commission has found that food manufacturers and big shopping chains have a big say in setting food prices in the country. While the profit margins on foods such as meat, dairy and chicken are fairly low, the Essential Food Price Monitoring Reports of the Competition Commission find that they still contribute substantially to retail prices. For example, in 2020, only about 30% of what retailers charged for a litre of fresh milk ended up in the farmer’s pocket, despite the farmer doing far more work to produce the milk than the store to sell it. Similarly, the August 2022 report notes that the price consumers pay for bread, and to some extent also maize, has risen faster than what retailers pay the manufacturers, which, the Commission says, suggests price-setting behaviour along the chain. The responsibility of big manufacturers and supermarkets is not only a moral one, but a financial one too: public funding for social grants is a massive contributor to the revenue of the food retail market in South Africa, equal to 30% of total turnover. This means that taxpayers effectively subsidise part of the profits of the big supermarket chains like Shoprite, Spar and Pick n Pay. A bold move from food manufacturers and retailers is needed to help South Africans buy nutritious food with the money they have. Being willing to waive their mark-ups on an essential basket of foods rated by the Grow Great zero-stunting campaign as the “10 best buys”, including eggs, speckled beans, pilchards and peanut butter — if government finances matched that commitment — will go a long way. Based on the reports of the Competition Commission, a reasonable estimate is that such discounting by manufacturers and retailers would let the cost of the specified basket of goods drop by about 20%. A matching subsidy by government would make the basket go one-fifth further, helping to close the gap between what households need and what they earn. Together with their existing VAT exempt status, the basket price could be half of what the market might dictate. It’s not business as usual The initiative for a basket of discounted foods will have to come from industry. In Egypt, India and the Philippines, targeted food subsidies increased household access to food and reduced the prevalence of underweight children. In field studies in several other countries, including South Africa, retail subsidies helped people to buy healthier foods. But it doesn’t always work. For example, in China and Iran, the support has little effect, because the subsidy, in this case, provided by the government to reduce the cost of food, was kept by the retailer and not passed on to the consumer. If this idea is going to work, it can’t be done grudgingly. Without food retailers readily sharing information about how they determine margins on items, it’s possible that the potential of a discounted food basket to improve nutrition over the next five years may be overestimated. Moreover, times are tough also for these businesses and it’s possible that the items people choose to put in their grocery baskets may not all be healthy. These are risks that need to be considered and for which the answers are not yet clear. But what is clear, is that it’s no longer acceptable for the food industry to excuse itself from public debate about how we confront the challenge of a nutritionally underpowered nation. MC David Harrison is the chief executive officer of the DG Murray Trust. The Trust sees itself as a public innovator through strategic investment in early child development, education and support for young people entering the labour market.
Though dogs are so close genetically to wolves that many taxonomists consider them to be a subspecies, most people wouldn't let a wolf lick their hand as readily as a Shih Tzu. When animals are domesticated, as the dog was, their traits change; an artificial selection occurs over many generations, which, in the case of the dog, probably happened through unconscious selection bias among ancient humans and their canid hangers-on. Other animals, too, saw similar phenotype changes through the process of domestication. When wild boars were first domesticated in areas of both modern Turkey and China, the farmers who bred them preferred animals with less fur, more meat and a tamer disposition. Similarly, a famous 2020 study on wild foxes in urban areas found that the city-dwelling creatures had distinctly different physical traits, such as "a noticeably shortened wider snout with a reduced maxillary [jaw] region" and with "a braincase appeared to be smaller in the urban habitat" — which suggested they were becoming semi-domesticated. Indeed, there are so many physical traits that humans observe as distinguishing domesticated animals from wild ones that the process is sometimes called "domestication syndrome." As famously laid out by Russian zoologist Dmitry Belyayev in the 1960s and 1970s during his "silver fox experiments," domestication syndrome posits that there are certain common physical traits that emerge among most species as they get domesticated by humans. "If there isn't a single trait that is common to all these different definitions [of domesticated], what is there?" Larson told Salon. Yet what if there is no pattern between which traits correspond with domestication? What if those alterations are in fact species-specific, and arguments to the contrary are simply scientists succumbing to apophenia (a tendency to wrongly discern patterns in unrelated things)? Some researchers believe this may be the case — which, in turn, means we have been thinking about domestication all wrong. * * * According to Dr. Greger Larson — an archaeology professor at the University of Oxford — advocates of domestication syndrome simply have not provided enough evidence to support their theory. In 2020, he and several other scientists wrote a paper for the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution called "The History of Farm Foxes Undermines the Animal Domestication Syndrome" that made precisely this point. It started by deconstructing Belyayev's famous experiment with farm foxes, the one that seemed to prove domestication theory. Belyayev found that after multiple generations of controlled breeding silver foxes on Prince Edward Island, the animals began to develop traits associated with domesticity: Docility, floppy ears, spotted coats and curled tails. Yet there are two problems with concluding that this proves domestication theory, as the 2020 paper pointed out: First, it ignores how Belyayev used foxes bought from a fur farm, and who therefore may have already had preselected traits. Additionally, an analysis of the different domesticated animals does not show any consistent patterns in terms of evolutionary traits. "These are the general categories of things that people have used to distinguish a domesticated animal from a wild animal," Larson told Salon. He had pulled out a chart with a list of nine domesticated animals: Dogs, cats, goats, pigs, rabbits, rats, mice, foxes, and the original Russian farm-foxes. These were then cross-referenced with traits associated with domestication such as changes in their skeletons, coats, ears, tails, brain sizes and seasonalities. When placed on a grid, it became patently obvious that no patterns existed. For example, on some occasions both types of foxes along with dogs, cats and goats experienced increased variation in their coat coloring due to domestication — but that did not happen all the time, and it was by far the most prevalent "yes" category for showing supposed signs of "domestication syndrome." Quite often there was simply not enough data, and when it came to traits like skeletal changes and tail evolution, no meaningful trends or patterns existed at all. "If there isn't a single trait that is common to all these different definitions, what is there?" Larson told Salon. "If you don't have a single characteristic amongst what, 30 separate characteristics here, that is the same across 10 different, separate definitions of it, what the hell is it? Everybody assumes they know what it is, but as soon as you start looking at it, it just vanishes before your fingertips." Kathryn Lord, a postdoctoral associate in the Karlsson Lab who works at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard (and whom Larson described as "brilliant"), was instrumental in co-authoring the 2020 paper. She argued that their research undermined Belyayev's thesis, even though his experiment is still impressive. "While [Belyayev]'s did indeed successfully select for increased tameability in his foxes, all of the traits that supposedly came along with that selection previously existed in the population from Prince Edwards Island decades before the experiment," Lord told Salon by email. "Therefore, [Belyayev]'s experiment, while still fantastically interesting for changes in tameability, does not provide support for the idea of the domestication syndrome." Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon's weekly newsletter The Vulgar Scientist. After all, Lord pointed out, there is no getting around the facts from their own paper: "We found that none of the traits show up across the 7 very common domestic mammals we looked into," Lord wrote to Salon. "In most cases where domestication syndrome traits were reported they were appearing in specific modern breeds. The problem with this is that modern animal breeds only came into existence in the 19th century and are the result of selection on already domestic animals." * * * So can science definitively determine whether domestication syndrome is a real thing? Larson explained that the community must first come to a more concrete understanding of what it would actually look like. For now, it is more difficult to study domestication because the benchmarks can move around. Larson compared this to his experience working in a very different industry — music. "There is increasing evidence to suggest that many domestic animals simply adapted to an environment we created and that we may have rarely, if ever, had a direct hand in the process." "I was kind of a consultant on the Pearl Jam film 'Pearl Jam Twenty' that came out in 2011," Larson recalled. "There was a group of us then who were meeting, and one of the guys suggested that maybe what we should do is try and figure out how many live shows they'd actually played because it appeared to all of us said they might be getting close to a thousand live shows." That seemed like a cool idea — until the experts realized that "live show" had a rather fluid definition. "Very much like the domestication syndrome, you've got to define it," Larson recalled. "Well, what constitutes a live show? Did the three songs on "Saturday Night Live" count? What about when they only played in front of small audiences? If they appeared on a radio with only two members of the band, did that count? "It's the same thing with how you define domestication syndrome," Larson told Salon. "It definitely depends on what you're looking for and what you're counting. So all we are saying in that paper is that everybody has just assumed that it's a real thing, but nobody's actually gone through and tried to define it. If everybody had first said, 'Look, it's a thing, now we require an explanation to describe the thing,' that can work, but nobody ever actually tested whether or not this thing exists. So if the thing doesn't exist, why would you ever expect a single unifying cause for it?" Even the one trait that seemed to be most prevalent among all different types of domesticated animals — their tameability — becomes murkier when places in a scientific context. "Increased tameabillity may be a common theme across domestic animals," Lord wrote, but "the definition of domestication often includes increased tameability so it is a bit of a circularity problem. We will only know if increased tameability is really a thing across domestic animals if we agree upon a definition of domestication that doesn't require it." Similarly, when trying to determine how animals are changed by humans, "many definitions require human control precluding our ability to study how much humans were actively involved in the process. There is increasing evidence to suggest that many domestic animals simply adapted to an environment we created and that we may have rarely if ever had a direct (let alone intentional) hand in the process."	<urn:uuid:3d5f7a9e-5f60-428b-8b2c-31511f92b972>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2024-10", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947473735.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20240222061937-20240222091937-00037.warc.gz", "int_score": 4, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9746107459068298, "pii_count": 0, "score": 3.578125, "token_count": 1807, "url": "https://www.salon.com/2023/04/26/scientists-once-thought-they-understood-how-domestication-worked-now-theyre-not-so-sure/" }	Though dogs are so close genetically to wolves that many taxonomists consider them to be a subspecies, most people wouldn't let a wolf lick their hand as readily as a Shih Tzu. When animals are domesticated, as the dog was, their traits change; an artificial selection occurs over many generations, which, in the case of the dog, probably happened through unconscious selection bias among ancient humans and their canid hangers-on. Other animals, too, saw similar phenotype changes through the process of domestication. When wild boars were first domesticated in areas of both modern Turkey and China, the farmers who bred them preferred animals with less fur, more meat and a tamer disposition. Similarly, a famous 2020 study on wild foxes in urban areas found that the city-dwelling creatures had distinctly different physical traits, such as "a noticeably shortened wider snout with a reduced maxillary [jaw] region" and with "a braincase appeared to be smaller in the urban habitat" — which suggested they were becoming semi-domesticated. Indeed, there are so many physical traits that humans observe as distinguishing domesticated animals from wild ones that the process is sometimes called "domestication syndrome." As famously laid out by Russian zoologist Dmitry Belyayev in the 1960s and 1970s during his "silver fox experiments," domestication syndrome posits that there are certain common physical traits that emerge among most species as they get domesticated by humans. "If there isn't a single trait that is common to all these different definitions [of domesticated], what is there?" Larson told Salon. Yet what if there is no pattern between which traits correspond with domestication? What if those alterations are in fact species-specific, and arguments to the contrary are simply scientists succumbing to apophenia (a tendency to wrongly discern patterns in unrelated things)? Some researchers believe this may be the case — which, in turn, means we have been thinking about domestication all wrong. * * * According to Dr. Greger Larson — an archaeology professor at the University of Oxford — advocates of domestication syndrome simply have not provided enough evidence to support their theory. In 2020, he and several other scientists wrote a paper for the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution called "The History of Farm Foxes Undermines the Animal Domestication Syndrome" that made precisely this point. It started by deconstructing Belyayev's famous experiment with farm	foxes, the one that seemed to prove domestication theory. Belyayev found that after multiple generations of controlled breeding silver foxes on Prince Edward Island, the animals began to develop traits associated with domesticity: Docility, floppy ears, spotted coats and curled tails. Yet there are two problems with concluding that this proves domestication theory, as the 2020 paper pointed out: First, it ignores how Belyayev used foxes bought from a fur farm, and who therefore may have already had preselected traits. Additionally, an analysis of the different domesticated animals does not show any consistent patterns in terms of evolutionary traits. "These are the general categories of things that people have used to distinguish a domesticated animal from a wild animal," Larson told Salon. He had pulled out a chart with a list of nine domesticated animals: Dogs, cats, goats, pigs, rabbits, rats, mice, foxes, and the original Russian farm-foxes. These were then cross-referenced with traits associated with domestication such as changes in their skeletons, coats, ears, tails, brain sizes and seasonalities. When placed on a grid, it became patently obvious that no patterns existed. For example, on some occasions both types of foxes along with dogs, cats and goats experienced increased variation in their coat coloring due to domestication — but that did not happen all the time, and it was by far the most prevalent "yes" category for showing supposed signs of "domestication syndrome." Quite often there was simply not enough data, and when it came to traits like skeletal changes and tail evolution, no meaningful trends or patterns existed at all. "If there isn't a single trait that is common to all these different definitions, what is there?" Larson told Salon. "If you don't have a single characteristic amongst what, 30 separate characteristics here, that is the same across 10 different, separate definitions of it, what the hell is it? Everybody assumes they know what it is, but as soon as you start looking at it, it just vanishes before your fingertips." Kathryn Lord, a postdoctoral associate in the Karlsson Lab who works at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard (and whom Larson described as "brilliant"), was instrumental in co-authoring the 2020 paper. She argued that their research undermined Belyayev's thesis, even though his experiment is still impressive. "While [Belyayev]'s did indeed successfully select for increased tameability in his foxes, all of the traits that supposedly came along with that selection previously existed in the population from Prince Edwards Island decades before the experiment," Lord told Salon by email. "Therefore, [Belyayev]'s experiment, while still fantastically interesting for changes in tameability, does not provide support for the idea of the domestication syndrome." Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon's weekly newsletter The Vulgar Scientist. After all, Lord pointed out, there is no getting around the facts from their own paper: "We found that none of the traits show up across the 7 very common domestic mammals we looked into," Lord wrote to Salon. "In most cases where domestication syndrome traits were reported they were appearing in specific modern breeds. The problem with this is that modern animal breeds only came into existence in the 19th century and are the result of selection on already domestic animals." * * * So can science definitively determine whether domestication syndrome is a real thing? Larson explained that the community must first come to a more concrete understanding of what it would actually look like. For now, it is more difficult to study domestication because the benchmarks can move around. Larson compared this to his experience working in a very different industry — music. "There is increasing evidence to suggest that many domestic animals simply adapted to an environment we created and that we may have rarely, if ever, had a direct hand in the process." "I was kind of a consultant on the Pearl Jam film 'Pearl Jam Twenty' that came out in 2011," Larson recalled. "There was a group of us then who were meeting, and one of the guys suggested that maybe what we should do is try and figure out how many live shows they'd actually played because it appeared to all of us said they might be getting close to a thousand live shows." That seemed like a cool idea — until the experts realized that "live show" had a rather fluid definition. "Very much like the domestication syndrome, you've got to define it," Larson recalled. "Well, what constitutes a live show? Did the three songs on "Saturday Night Live" count? What about when they only played in front of small audiences? If they appeared on a radio with only two members of the band, did that count? "It's the same thing with how you define domestication syndrome," Larson told Salon. "It definitely depends on what you're looking for and what you're counting. So all we are saying in that paper is that everybody has just assumed that it's a real thing, but nobody's actually gone through and tried to define it. If everybody had first said, 'Look, it's a thing, now we require an explanation to describe the thing,' that can work, but nobody ever actually tested whether or not this thing exists. So if the thing doesn't exist, why would you ever expect a single unifying cause for it?" Even the one trait that seemed to be most prevalent among all different types of domesticated animals — their tameability — becomes murkier when places in a scientific context. "Increased tameabillity may be a common theme across domestic animals," Lord wrote, but "the definition of domestication often includes increased tameability so it is a bit of a circularity problem. We will only know if increased tameability is really a thing across domestic animals if we agree upon a definition of domestication that doesn't require it." Similarly, when trying to determine how animals are changed by humans, "many definitions require human control precluding our ability to study how much humans were actively involved in the process. There is increasing evidence to suggest that many domestic animals simply adapted to an environment we created and that we may have rarely if ever had a direct (let alone intentional) hand in the process."
Milder winters mean Connecticut's ticks are now active all year long Milder, shorter winters in Connecticut have all but eliminated tick “seasons” as state officials now say ticks are active year-round. The state’s Active Tick Surveillance Program used to get 50 tick specimens from December to March. But in recent months, it’s received 800, according to Dr. Goudarz Molaei, who leads the program and is with the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station. When temperatures drop below freezing, ticks burrow under leaves or snow, and that cold weather can actually kill tick populations. But more mild winters can keep ticks from going dormant and also reduce mortality, leading to a population increase. It also means they can present a bigger danger to people. “Once the temperature increases to above freezing, temperature close to 40 degrees [Fahrenheit], they come out and actively seek hosts,” Molaei said. Average air temperatures in Connecticut have risen by more than two degrees Fahrenheit in recent decades, which can often be the difference between freezing and not freezing, according to the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. Winter seasonal temperature averages have experienced the biggest jump, according to the Connecticut Institute for Resilience & Climate Adaptation. Jessica Spaccio, a climatologist at the Northeast Regional Climate Center, said higher temperatures are being seen year-round in Connecticut and in the rest of New England. ”Winter is just another part of that,” Spaccio said. “Where we are seeing the long-term trends showing that overall, that the temperatures are continuing to climb due to anthropogenic climate change.” NRCC projects that temperatures in the state will remain mild for the rest of January. Long term, people in the Northeast will be infected with more tick-borne diseases, Molaei added, noting that Lyme disease has been detected equally among tick specimens in the winter and summer. Lyme, primarily carried by blacklegged ticks, has already been steadily rising in the U.S., and its prevalence nearly doubled between 1991 and 2018. In addition, invasive tick species like the Asian longhorn tick and Gulf Coast tick have been detected in the state, particularly in Fairfield and New Haven counties. Molaei said it’s time for people to realize that Connecticut is a state with pervasive tick areas and that it’s incorrect to think that ticks go away during the winter – or that they’re not dangerous. “There is no such thing that [in] wintertime we are dealing with less ticks, or the ticks that we are having in winter times may not be able to transmit Lyme disease or other tick-borne diseases,” Molaei said. To prevent tick bites, the CDC recommends: - Avoiding potential tick-filled places like high grassy or wooded areas - Tucking pant legs into socks - Walking along the center of wooded trails - Checking your clothing, gear and pets for ticks upon return - For pets, talking to your vet about prevention products - Showering less than two hours after being outdoors - Doing a full body check to search for ticks that may have bit For information on submitting a tick to test for diseases or identification, visit the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station website.	<urn:uuid:2cfe437f-3eb3-4cb5-9f35-080d8c05d6c4>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-14", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296945376.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20230325222822-20230326012822-00218.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9453860521316528, "pii_count": 0, "score": 3.109375, "token_count": 693, "url": "https://www.ctpublic.org/news/2023-01-18/milder-winters-mean-connecticuts-ticks-are-now-active-all-year-long" }	Milder winters mean Connecticut's ticks are now active all year long Milder, shorter winters in Connecticut have all but eliminated tick “seasons” as state officials now say ticks are active year-round. The state’s Active Tick Surveillance Program used to get 50 tick specimens from December to March. But in recent months, it’s received 800, according to Dr. Goudarz Molaei, who leads the program and is with the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station. When temperatures drop below freezing, ticks burrow under leaves or snow, and that cold weather can actually kill tick populations. But more mild winters can keep ticks from going dormant and also reduce mortality, leading to a population increase. It also means they can present a bigger danger to people. “Once the temperature increases to above freezing, temperature close to 40 degrees [Fahrenheit], they come out and actively seek hosts,” Molaei said. Average air temperatures in Connecticut have risen by more than two degrees Fahrenheit in recent decades, which can often be the difference between freezing and not freezing, according to the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. Winter seasonal temperature averages have experienced the biggest jump, according to the Connecticut Institute for Resilience & Climate Adaptation. Jessica Spaccio, a climatologist at the Northeast Regional Climate Center, said higher temperatures are being seen year-round in Connecticut and in the rest of New England. ”Winter is just another part of that,” Spaccio said. “Where we are seeing the long-term trends showing that overall, that the temperatures are continuing to climb due to anthropogenic climate change.” NRCC projects that temperatures in the state will remain mild for the rest of January. Long term, people in the Northeast will be infected with more tick-borne diseases, Molaei added, noting that Lyme disease has been detected equally among tick specimens in the winter and summer. Lyme, primarily carried by blacklegged ticks, has already been steadily rising in the U.S., and its prevalence nearly doubled between 1991 and 2018. In addition, invasive tick species like the Asian longhorn tick and Gulf Coast tick have been detected in the state, particularly in Fairfield and New Haven counties. Molaei said it’s time for people to realize that Connecticut is a state with pervasive tick areas and that it’s incorrect to think that ticks go away during the winter – or that they’re not dangerous. “There is no such thing that [in] wintertime we are dealing	with less ticks, or the ticks that we are having in winter times may not be able to transmit Lyme disease or other tick-borne diseases,” Molaei said. To prevent tick bites, the CDC recommends: - Avoiding potential tick-filled places like high grassy or wooded areas - Tucking pant legs into socks - Walking along the center of wooded trails - Checking your clothing, gear and pets for ticks upon return - For pets, talking to your vet about prevention products - Showering less than two hours after being outdoors - Doing a full body check to search for ticks that may have bit For information on submitting a tick to test for diseases or identification, visit the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station website.
Lung cancer survival rates rise, but low screening rates leave many people at risk Survival rates for lung cancer are improving, especially among historically marginalized communities of color, according toa new survey from the American Lung Association released Tuesday. The findings are a bright note amid deepening racial disparities in many areas in health care. The five-year lung cancer survival rate increased by 22% in the five years between 2015 to 2019. It currently stands at 26.6% across all racial and ethnic groups. Among people of color, the survival rate increased by 17% in just two years (2017-2019), and now stands at 23.7%. The survey results were "unexpected," says Zach Jump, director of epidemiology and statistics for the American Lung Association, adding that the speed with which racial disparities appear to be closing is remarkable. "We are encouraged by the work being done to eliminate lung cancer stigma, increase lung cancer screening and improve lung cancer treatment," said Harold Wimmer, president and CEO of the American Lung Association in a statement. Lung cancer is still the cancer thatkills the most Americans, with 127,000 deaths last year. People of color tend to be diagnosed at later stages than their white counterparts, and are less likely to get access to treatments like surgery, which historically have reduced their likelihood of survival. Survival improvements are not equal across all the races and some disparities still exist. The white survival rate is 25%, but the survival rate is 21% for Black Americans, 22% for Indigenous peoples, and 23% for Hispanics. These rates are an improvement over data from two years earlier, when the survival rates were only 18% for Black Americans, and 19% for Indigenous peoples and Hispanics. Asian Americans survive lung cancer at higher rates than whites, and their survival rate jumped from 23.4% to 29% over two years. Jump says he hopes these improvements can be continued, and replicated across other racial disparities in health care. "Honestly, that is our next question: Trying to find out what the driving factor is behind it." The report also notes some stark geographic disparities in lung cancer survival rates. Patients in Rhode Island had a 33% survival rate, while Oklahoma's was 21%. Overall lung cancer five-year survival rates are markedly lower than many other cancers. Breast cancer, for instance, has a 91% five-year survival rate, and colorectal cancer's rate is around 65%. Survival rates for lung cancer could be higher, Jump says, if more people at high-risk got annual low-dose CT scans, which are an effective way to catch the disease early. When caught at an early stage, lung cancer's five-year survival rate is much higher at 63%. But last year only 4.5% of those eligible were screened for lung cancer — a rate far below that for breast or colorectal cancers. In fact, just over a quarter of lung cancer cases are diagnosed at an early stage, according to the report, and 44% of cases are not caught until a late stage when the survival rate is only 8%. Jump says lung cancer does not have to be the same dire diagnosis it once was, thanks to recent new treatments that are proving very effective, especially when used at an early stage. "Suddenly you started getting these targeted immunotherapies, and it was a paradigm shift," he says. Jump says he hopes screening rates will improve, pushing survival rates higher. It's rare to see such dramatic improvements in cancer care, and survival rates over such a short time, especially in ways that benefit disadvantaged communities. "So often, cancer care in general and lung cancer especially moves at a pretty slow pace," Jump says. "So being able to see significant progress over a couple of years has been very exciting and definitely a cause for optimism." Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.	<urn:uuid:1ed96fbb-635d-4587-804c-713ec54503cc>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2024-10", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947474595.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20240225103506-20240225133506-00029.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9687252044677734, "pii_count": 0, "score": 2.765625, "token_count": 808, "url": "https://www.kgou.org/health/2023-11-13/lung-cancer-survival-rates-rise-but-low-screening-rates-leave-many-people-at-risk" }	Lung cancer survival rates rise, but low screening rates leave many people at risk Survival rates for lung cancer are improving, especially among historically marginalized communities of color, according toa new survey from the American Lung Association released Tuesday. The findings are a bright note amid deepening racial disparities in many areas in health care. The five-year lung cancer survival rate increased by 22% in the five years between 2015 to 2019. It currently stands at 26.6% across all racial and ethnic groups. Among people of color, the survival rate increased by 17% in just two years (2017-2019), and now stands at 23.7%. The survey results were "unexpected," says Zach Jump, director of epidemiology and statistics for the American Lung Association, adding that the speed with which racial disparities appear to be closing is remarkable. "We are encouraged by the work being done to eliminate lung cancer stigma, increase lung cancer screening and improve lung cancer treatment," said Harold Wimmer, president and CEO of the American Lung Association in a statement. Lung cancer is still the cancer thatkills the most Americans, with 127,000 deaths last year. People of color tend to be diagnosed at later stages than their white counterparts, and are less likely to get access to treatments like surgery, which historically have reduced their likelihood of survival. Survival improvements are not equal across all the races and some disparities still exist. The white survival rate is 25%, but the survival rate is 21% for Black Americans, 22% for Indigenous peoples, and 23% for Hispanics. These rates are an improvement over data from two years earlier, when the survival rates were only 18% for Black Americans, and 19% for Indigenous peoples and Hispanics. Asian Americans survive lung cancer at higher rates than whites, and their survival rate jumped from 23.4% to 29% over two years. Jump says he hopes these improvements can be continued, and replicated across other racial disparities in health care. "Honestly, that is our next question: Trying to find out what the driving factor is behind it." The report also notes some stark geographic disparities in lung cancer survival rates. Patients in Rhode Island had a 33% survival rate, while Oklahoma's was 21%. Overall lung cancer five-year survival rates are markedly lower than many	other cancers. Breast cancer, for instance, has a 91% five-year survival rate, and colorectal cancer's rate is around 65%. Survival rates for lung cancer could be higher, Jump says, if more people at high-risk got annual low-dose CT scans, which are an effective way to catch the disease early. When caught at an early stage, lung cancer's five-year survival rate is much higher at 63%. But last year only 4.5% of those eligible were screened for lung cancer — a rate far below that for breast or colorectal cancers. In fact, just over a quarter of lung cancer cases are diagnosed at an early stage, according to the report, and 44% of cases are not caught until a late stage when the survival rate is only 8%. Jump says lung cancer does not have to be the same dire diagnosis it once was, thanks to recent new treatments that are proving very effective, especially when used at an early stage. "Suddenly you started getting these targeted immunotherapies, and it was a paradigm shift," he says. Jump says he hopes screening rates will improve, pushing survival rates higher. It's rare to see such dramatic improvements in cancer care, and survival rates over such a short time, especially in ways that benefit disadvantaged communities. "So often, cancer care in general and lung cancer especially moves at a pretty slow pace," Jump says. "So being able to see significant progress over a couple of years has been very exciting and definitely a cause for optimism." Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
After years of drought, ranchers face a historic hay shortage Hay inventory in the United States is at a 50-year low, according to a federal agriculture statistics agency. Drought and a spike in fertilizer prices are largely to blame. Vanessa Corriher-Olson, a professor and extension forage specialist in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences at Texas A&M University, spoke to the Texas Standard about the shortage’s impact on farmers and ranchers in Texas. This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity: Texas Standard: Tell us why there’s so little hay out on the landscape right now. What’s driving this? Vanessa Corriher-Olson: Unfortunately, our year, our hay season for 2022 was very challenging – along with drought conditions in the majority of our state of Texas, we also had high fertilizer prices. This is going to have ripple effects down the line. How have ranchers been affected by this shortage of hay? So at this time of year, it’s difficult to plant anything. We’re basically in the middle of winter. So for folks that didn’t plant any winter pasture last fall, they’re kind of in a bind or may possibly be in a bind because of hay availability, or just what’s available might be low in nutritive value or may not meet the needs of their livestock. So a lot of folks are kind of scrambling, possibly trying to find hay or trying to look for an alternative to meet the needs of their livestock at this point in the season. Well, if you can find the hay, how much more are you paying for it? And does it make economic sense to go there? Well, hay prices do kind of vary depending on where you are in the state. Most hay is likely going to be over $100 a round bale, if not more, in some parts of our state. A lot of round bales of hay can cost a producer to produce, you know, over $160 a bale. So most hay producers, even during a normal season – good growing conditions and moderate fertilizer prices – are probably underselling themselves, selling hay for cheaper price than what it likely cost them to produce. What has to happen now for hay stocks to get back to normal? A lot of things. One, our hay meadows have to recover from the drought of 2022. And for some producers, their recovery will take longer than others. It will depend on how those hay meadows were managed during 2022, during the drought, and whether or not they were fertilized at all during 2022 with higher fertilizer prices. So one of my recommendations at this point as we move forward for those hay producers is to soil test to determine what their nutrient status is and what is needed to promote that desired warm, seasonal perennial and what is going to be needed to boost production if we do have good rainfall this next season in 2023. So rainfall will also be important, but nutrients – nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium – are going to be critical for recovery and production of those hay meadows in 2023. I’m trying to get a 30,000-foot view of this. What does this mean if hay stocks and prices don’t return to normal? Are we talking about ranches that could go out of business here? I don’t think it’s necessarily that dire. It is possible it could force some folks to make decisions about their future and ranching. Hopefully, it will make folks reevaluate their management of their forage systems, maybe look at being more thorough or at completing soil test using that very inexpensive process to determine what nutrients are needed for their forage production. And, you know, visiting with county extension agents or, you know, specialists like myself to get recommendations on how to move forward despite fertilizer prices, if they remain fairly high, and making good best management practices and decisions to promote that desired forage and to continue to be productive. We do live in Texas, so we have to be prepared, and we know that the drought is always a possibility during our summers. And so I’m hoping that moreso our previous situation is going to open up people’s eyes in regards to following best management practices to be more effective with their forage systems, whether we’re in a drought or have good growing conditions; whether we have high fertilizer prices or fertilizer prices come down. So hopefully folks will reevaluate their production systems before they completely get out of the business and see if there’s a way they can make some improvements to be more efficient. If you found the reporting above valuable, please consider making a donation to support it here. Your gift helps pay for everything you find on texasstandard.org and KUT.org. Thanks for donating today.	<urn:uuid:45e0fd5f-9d36-4636-9f04-016631916179>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-14", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296943746.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20230321193811-20230321223811-00404.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9566308856010437, "pii_count": 0, "score": 2.65625, "token_count": 1007, "url": "https://www.kut.org/texasstandard/2023-02-08/texas-ranchers-face-historic-hay-shortage-after-years-drought" }	After years of drought, ranchers face a historic hay shortage Hay inventory in the United States is at a 50-year low, according to a federal agriculture statistics agency. Drought and a spike in fertilizer prices are largely to blame. Vanessa Corriher-Olson, a professor and extension forage specialist in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences at Texas A&M University, spoke to the Texas Standard about the shortage’s impact on farmers and ranchers in Texas. This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity: Texas Standard: Tell us why there’s so little hay out on the landscape right now. What’s driving this? Vanessa Corriher-Olson: Unfortunately, our year, our hay season for 2022 was very challenging – along with drought conditions in the majority of our state of Texas, we also had high fertilizer prices. This is going to have ripple effects down the line. How have ranchers been affected by this shortage of hay? So at this time of year, it’s difficult to plant anything. We’re basically in the middle of winter. So for folks that didn’t plant any winter pasture last fall, they’re kind of in a bind or may possibly be in a bind because of hay availability, or just what’s available might be low in nutritive value or may not meet the needs of their livestock. So a lot of folks are kind of scrambling, possibly trying to find hay or trying to look for an alternative to meet the needs of their livestock at this point in the season. Well, if you can find the hay, how much more are you paying for it? And does it make economic sense to go there? Well, hay prices do kind of vary depending on where you are in the state. Most hay is likely going to be over $100 a round bale, if not more, in some parts of our state. A lot of round bales of hay can cost a producer to produce, you know, over $160 a bale. So most hay producers, even during a normal season – good growing conditions and moderate fertilizer prices – are probably underselling themselves, selling hay for cheaper price than what it likely cost them to produce. What has to happen now for hay stocks to get back to normal? A lot of things. One, our hay meadows have to recover from the drought of 2022. And for some producers, their recovery will take longer than others. It will depend on how those hay meadows were	managed during 2022, during the drought, and whether or not they were fertilized at all during 2022 with higher fertilizer prices. So one of my recommendations at this point as we move forward for those hay producers is to soil test to determine what their nutrient status is and what is needed to promote that desired warm, seasonal perennial and what is going to be needed to boost production if we do have good rainfall this next season in 2023. So rainfall will also be important, but nutrients – nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium – are going to be critical for recovery and production of those hay meadows in 2023. I’m trying to get a 30,000-foot view of this. What does this mean if hay stocks and prices don’t return to normal? Are we talking about ranches that could go out of business here? I don’t think it’s necessarily that dire. It is possible it could force some folks to make decisions about their future and ranching. Hopefully, it will make folks reevaluate their management of their forage systems, maybe look at being more thorough or at completing soil test using that very inexpensive process to determine what nutrients are needed for their forage production. And, you know, visiting with county extension agents or, you know, specialists like myself to get recommendations on how to move forward despite fertilizer prices, if they remain fairly high, and making good best management practices and decisions to promote that desired forage and to continue to be productive. We do live in Texas, so we have to be prepared, and we know that the drought is always a possibility during our summers. And so I’m hoping that moreso our previous situation is going to open up people’s eyes in regards to following best management practices to be more effective with their forage systems, whether we’re in a drought or have good growing conditions; whether we have high fertilizer prices or fertilizer prices come down. So hopefully folks will reevaluate their production systems before they completely get out of the business and see if there’s a way they can make some improvements to be more efficient. If you found the reporting above valuable, please consider making a donation to support it here. Your gift helps pay for everything you find on texasstandard.org and KUT.org. Thanks for donating today.
Pumpkin or sweet potato pie? There's a rich history behind both For many Americans, the Thanksgiving feast just isn't complete until they dig into a slice of pumpkin or sweet potato pie — and for some, there's simply no room for both. The two desserts have similarities — both are orange, sweet and have a bit of spice — but they have distinct histories that have led to dedicated followings. At Ol' Henry Restaurant in suburban St. Louis, opinions are strong. "Sweet potato pie. Definitely," said owner Ada Joyce Taylor. Her granddaughter, operational manager Audrianna Black, agrees. "I'm looking for that sweetness in a pie," she added. Taylor started the soul food business almost 10 years ago, naming it after her late husband, Henry Edward Taylor. Today, the walls are lined with signed photos and memorabilia, and it's a well-known destination for those craving sweet potato pie. "On a normal week, I would say that we go through 15 to 20 sweet potato pies," said chef Tracy Stevenson. "During the holiday, I would say 40 or 50." Both sweet potato and pumpkin pies are American staples with a starchy custardlike filling. Pumpkin pie tends to be more heavy on spice, while sweet potato pie is typically sweeter and lighter. But the reasons why people choose one over the other often trace back to where they were raised and their race. "Always sweet potato pie" The origins of these two desserts stretch back to the 15th and 16th centuries, when European settlers brought sweet potatoes and pumpkins back to Europe from the Americas. With sweet potato pie, settlers may have been trying to replicate the European dish carrot pie, a dessert with layered slices of carrots, according to soul food historian and James Beard Award-winning author Adrian Miller. "You'll see recipes in the historical record that have sweet potato pie in layered slices," Miller said. "They know that they're sweet and saying, 'Hey, we've got this natural sweet vegetable that's orange, I could use this as a substitute for carrot pie.'" Miller said carrot pie recipes of the time had similar methods and spicing as those used for sweet potato pie. As colonization expanded across the Americas, enslaved Africans learned how to cook sweet potatoes. Miller said the potatoes may have resonated among enslaved people because they're somewhat similar to yams, a root vegetable grown in West Africa. However, he said, the idea of putting sweet potato into pie form came from European culture. "It's really the expertise of these enslaved cooks, making something unfamiliar to them to please their slaveholders, that eventually gets embraced and adopted," Miller said. "It's the same with things like fried chicken, barbecue and all these other things that were not necessarily part of the West African food heritage." Since then, sweet potato pie has become a hallmark of Black cuisine and common on dinner tables across the South. For Miller, sweet potato pie means family and culture. "We've never had a pumpkin pie grace our table, unless somebody who doesn't know us brought one over, if we invited someone," Miller said with a smile. "And that's on us, right? Because we should have given them a warning not to bring that stuff over. So it's always sweet potato pie." "The perfect Thanksgiving dessert" But it's pumpkin pie that plays a central role in the portrait of a quintessential Thanksgiving dinner. Like sweet potato pie, pumpkin pie's roots go back to a time when European settlers were experimenting with foods grown locally. They learned how to boil or steam pumpkins that were first domesticated by Native Americans. Early pumpkin pie recipes can be found in both early Colonial and French cookbooks. "The pumpkin pie itself has this whole world history within it, not only the Columbian Exchange, but the spice exchange," said culinary historian and Roosevelt University Professor Emeritus Bruce Kraig. But an 1827 novel is largely responsible for the dessert's connection to the holiday. In Northwood: A Tale of New England, author and activist Sarah Josepha Hale dedicated a chapter to describing what is the now-classic Thanksgiving dinner. "She virtually invented it — the turkeys, the cranberry sauce," Kraig said. "She said pumpkin pie is the American pie." In 1863, Hale convinced President Abraham Lincoln to declare a national day of Thanksgiving. Pumpkin pie remains closely linked to the holiday. At The Blue Owl Bakery in House Springs, Mo., owner Kim Byerly said demand is through the roof for the restaurant's pumpkin pies. They expect to sell several hundred and are expanding by shipping the pies across the country this year. Byerly is a fan of pumpkin pie, even if it took her years to actually try it. "I just like the flavor and the consistency of it," Byerly said. "You mix it with that whipped cream and it's just like the perfect Thanksgiving dessert." The Blue Owl's bakers also make several variations of the traditional pumpkin pie, including pumpkin gooey butter cheesecake, but so far, no sweet potato pie. Cindi Wittu, a baker at The Blue Owl, said that while she's had both pies, she prefers pumpkin. "I'm partial to the spices that are in it," she said. "It just reminds me of home, of family." Copyright 2023 Harvest Public Media	<urn:uuid:ec0e92f4-dcb9-40f8-bdf5-87f340c0a943>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2024-10", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947475203.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20240301062009-20240301092009-00819.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9621683955192566, "pii_count": 0, "score": 2.671875, "token_count": 1123, "url": "https://www.ctpublic.org/2023-11-22/pumpkin-or-sweet-potato-pie-theres-a-rich-history-behind-both" }	Pumpkin or sweet potato pie? There's a rich history behind both For many Americans, the Thanksgiving feast just isn't complete until they dig into a slice of pumpkin or sweet potato pie — and for some, there's simply no room for both. The two desserts have similarities — both are orange, sweet and have a bit of spice — but they have distinct histories that have led to dedicated followings. At Ol' Henry Restaurant in suburban St. Louis, opinions are strong. "Sweet potato pie. Definitely," said owner Ada Joyce Taylor. Her granddaughter, operational manager Audrianna Black, agrees. "I'm looking for that sweetness in a pie," she added. Taylor started the soul food business almost 10 years ago, naming it after her late husband, Henry Edward Taylor. Today, the walls are lined with signed photos and memorabilia, and it's a well-known destination for those craving sweet potato pie. "On a normal week, I would say that we go through 15 to 20 sweet potato pies," said chef Tracy Stevenson. "During the holiday, I would say 40 or 50." Both sweet potato and pumpkin pies are American staples with a starchy custardlike filling. Pumpkin pie tends to be more heavy on spice, while sweet potato pie is typically sweeter and lighter. But the reasons why people choose one over the other often trace back to where they were raised and their race. "Always sweet potato pie" The origins of these two desserts stretch back to the 15th and 16th centuries, when European settlers brought sweet potatoes and pumpkins back to Europe from the Americas. With sweet potato pie, settlers may have been trying to replicate the European dish carrot pie, a dessert with layered slices of carrots, according to soul food historian and James Beard Award-winning author Adrian Miller. "You'll see recipes in the historical record that have sweet potato pie in layered slices," Miller said. "They know that they're sweet and saying, 'Hey, we've got this natural sweet vegetable that's orange, I could use this as a substitute for carrot pie.'" Miller said carrot pie recipes of the time had similar methods and spicing as those used for sweet potato pie. As colonization expanded across the Americas, enslaved Africans learned how to cook sweet potatoes. Miller said the potatoes may have resonated among enslaved people because they're somewhat similar to yams, a	root vegetable grown in West Africa. However, he said, the idea of putting sweet potato into pie form came from European culture. "It's really the expertise of these enslaved cooks, making something unfamiliar to them to please their slaveholders, that eventually gets embraced and adopted," Miller said. "It's the same with things like fried chicken, barbecue and all these other things that were not necessarily part of the West African food heritage." Since then, sweet potato pie has become a hallmark of Black cuisine and common on dinner tables across the South. For Miller, sweet potato pie means family and culture. "We've never had a pumpkin pie grace our table, unless somebody who doesn't know us brought one over, if we invited someone," Miller said with a smile. "And that's on us, right? Because we should have given them a warning not to bring that stuff over. So it's always sweet potato pie." "The perfect Thanksgiving dessert" But it's pumpkin pie that plays a central role in the portrait of a quintessential Thanksgiving dinner. Like sweet potato pie, pumpkin pie's roots go back to a time when European settlers were experimenting with foods grown locally. They learned how to boil or steam pumpkins that were first domesticated by Native Americans. Early pumpkin pie recipes can be found in both early Colonial and French cookbooks. "The pumpkin pie itself has this whole world history within it, not only the Columbian Exchange, but the spice exchange," said culinary historian and Roosevelt University Professor Emeritus Bruce Kraig. But an 1827 novel is largely responsible for the dessert's connection to the holiday. In Northwood: A Tale of New England, author and activist Sarah Josepha Hale dedicated a chapter to describing what is the now-classic Thanksgiving dinner. "She virtually invented it — the turkeys, the cranberry sauce," Kraig said. "She said pumpkin pie is the American pie." In 1863, Hale convinced President Abraham Lincoln to declare a national day of Thanksgiving. Pumpkin pie remains closely linked to the holiday. At The Blue Owl Bakery in House Springs, Mo., owner Kim Byerly said demand is through the roof for the restaurant's pumpkin pies. They expect to sell several hundred and are expanding by shipping the pies across the country this year. Byerly is a fan of pumpkin pie, even if it took her years to actually try it. "I just like the flavor and the consistency of it," Byerly said. "You mix it with that whipped cream and it's just like the perfect Thanksgiving dessert." The Blue Owl's bakers also make several variations of the traditional pumpkin pie, including pumpkin gooey butter cheesecake, but so far, no sweet potato pie. Cindi Wittu, a baker at The Blue Owl, said that while she's had both pies, she prefers pumpkin. "I'm partial to the spices that are in it," she said. "It just reminds me of home, of family." Copyright 2023 Harvest Public Media
This story is part of a series on the current progression in Regenerative Medicine. This piece discusses advances in the use of artificial intelligence in medical robotics. In 1999, I defined regenerative medicine as the collection of interventions that restore to normal function tissues and organs that have been damaged by disease, injured by trauma, or worn by time. I include a full spectrum of chemical, gene, and protein-based medicines, cell-based therapies, and biomechanical interventions that achieve that goal. Autonomous medical robots may be conducting full medical operations sooner rather than later. In a previous article for the regenerative medicine series, I discussed the oncoming proliferation of artificial intelligence-assisted medical robots in our healthcare system. One such example of these robots in use is during surgical procedures. I discussed the semi-autonomous Da Vinci robot system, which aids physicians during complicated procedures, but more recently, a new fully autonomous robotic surgery has emerged. In an article for Science, Dr. Alan Kuntz and colleagues from the University of Utah and elsewhere describe a new autonomous medical robot that can steer a needle through live tissue. More precisely, the system was shown to acutely navigate a pig lung without causing damage, steering the needle to a specified target location. This could be the first of many such robots in the near future. Here, I discuss Kuntz and colleagues’ needle-steering robot and the implications it may have on the future of regenerative medicine. As our understanding of medicine and surgical procedures advances, so too does the difficulty and intricacy of surgery itself. What was once a practice concurrently conducted in barbershops is now one of the most difficult professions in the workforce. Some surgical procedures require immense precision, and the slightest misstep could result in the death of a patient. Herein lies the use case for robotics in surgery settings. If the involuntary hand movements of even the most seasoned surgeon could be removed, so could the risk of injury to the patient. While semi-autonomous robots are typical, if not common, in today’s healthcare system, Kuntz and colleagues designed medical to fill the void of fully autonomous robot surgeons. Specifically, needle-guiding systems driven by fully autonomous robots had not yet been achieved. Their robotic system makes use of a laser-patterned, highly flexible steerable needle. Whereas most needles are rigid and inflexible, this needle is ideal for traversing curved paths typical in surgical settings to reduce the risk of damage to nearby tissue. The robot uses three methods to remain fully autonomous and avoid causing damage to nearby tissue: replanning, control, and safe insertion time windows. Replanning is the real-time adjustment of the preinstalled surgical plan based on the patient’s anatomy or other unexpected events during surgery. Control is the ability of the robot to control its movements without the intervention of a surgeon, allowing the robot to adjust course based on the previous replanning step. Safe insertion time windows are the phases of the patient’s breathing cycle in which needles can be safely inserted and moved, which the robot constantly monitors simultaneously. In a lung biopsy test on the organ of a pig, the autonomous system achieved targeting errors less than the radius of clinically relevant lung nodules, meaning in a live human patient, no notable damage would have been caused to the lung tissues. Additionally, Kuntz and colleagues found that their robotic system was more accurate than standard manual bronchoscopy techniques, suggesting that autonomous robots may prove more effective at such intricate procedures than humans. The benefits of autonomous medical robots for intricate procedures are obvious. Increased accuracy will enable far less user error in surgical settings, and robots will likely complete the procedure far quicker, saving the hospital, the doctor, and the patient valuable time. There are, however, drawbacks as well to the introduction of these procedures to our healthcare system. First and foremost is a robotic malfunction. No machine ever built has been without flaw, whether a coding mistake or regular wear and tear over time. At some point, one of these machines will malfunction during an operation, likely causing significant complications for the patient. Another concern of note is cost. These robots will not be cheap; in a hospital setting, it is safe to assume some of that cost will be passed onto the patient. While those who can afford it could benefit from the implementation of these systems, for those without quality health insurance, these procedures will be out of reach financially for many years. Ultimately, however, I see great promise in the introduction of autonomous medical robots in surgical settings. This is the future we are headed towards, so we should ensure that these systems are of the highest quality when they arrive in our hospitals. To read more of this series, please visit www.williamhaseltine.com	<urn:uuid:ee27df86-ff80-4a9b-8a91-c9a844f1ad6b>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2024-10", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947474670.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20240227021813-20240227051813-00499.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9443814754486084, "pii_count": 0, "score": 3.03125, "token_count": 982, "url": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2023/10/06/the-needles-edge-autonomous-robotic-surgery-and-its-implications-for-medicine/?sh=531842962f7b" }	This story is part of a series on the current progression in Regenerative Medicine. This piece discusses advances in the use of artificial intelligence in medical robotics. In 1999, I defined regenerative medicine as the collection of interventions that restore to normal function tissues and organs that have been damaged by disease, injured by trauma, or worn by time. I include a full spectrum of chemical, gene, and protein-based medicines, cell-based therapies, and biomechanical interventions that achieve that goal. Autonomous medical robots may be conducting full medical operations sooner rather than later. In a previous article for the regenerative medicine series, I discussed the oncoming proliferation of artificial intelligence-assisted medical robots in our healthcare system. One such example of these robots in use is during surgical procedures. I discussed the semi-autonomous Da Vinci robot system, which aids physicians during complicated procedures, but more recently, a new fully autonomous robotic surgery has emerged. In an article for Science, Dr. Alan Kuntz and colleagues from the University of Utah and elsewhere describe a new autonomous medical robot that can steer a needle through live tissue. More precisely, the system was shown to acutely navigate a pig lung without causing damage, steering the needle to a specified target location. This could be the first of many such robots in the near future. Here, I discuss Kuntz and colleagues’ needle-steering robot and the implications it may have on the future of regenerative medicine. As our understanding of medicine and surgical procedures advances, so too does the difficulty and intricacy of surgery itself. What was once a practice concurrently conducted in barbershops is now one of the most difficult professions in the workforce. Some surgical procedures require immense precision, and the slightest misstep could result in the death of a patient. Herein lies the use case for robotics in surgery settings. If the involuntary hand movements of even the most seasoned surgeon could be removed, so could the risk of injury to the patient. While semi-autonomous robots are typical, if not common, in today’s healthcare system, Kuntz and colleagues designed medical to fill the void of fully autonomous robot surgeons. Specifically, needle-guiding systems driven by fully autonomous robots had not yet been achieved. Their robotic system makes use of a laser-patterned, highly flexible steerable needle. Whereas most needles are rigid and inflexible, this needle is ideal for traversing curved paths typical in surgical settings to reduce the risk of damage to nearby tissue. The robot uses three methods to remain fully autonomous and avoid causing	damage to nearby tissue: replanning, control, and safe insertion time windows. Replanning is the real-time adjustment of the preinstalled surgical plan based on the patient’s anatomy or other unexpected events during surgery. Control is the ability of the robot to control its movements without the intervention of a surgeon, allowing the robot to adjust course based on the previous replanning step. Safe insertion time windows are the phases of the patient’s breathing cycle in which needles can be safely inserted and moved, which the robot constantly monitors simultaneously. In a lung biopsy test on the organ of a pig, the autonomous system achieved targeting errors less than the radius of clinically relevant lung nodules, meaning in a live human patient, no notable damage would have been caused to the lung tissues. Additionally, Kuntz and colleagues found that their robotic system was more accurate than standard manual bronchoscopy techniques, suggesting that autonomous robots may prove more effective at such intricate procedures than humans. The benefits of autonomous medical robots for intricate procedures are obvious. Increased accuracy will enable far less user error in surgical settings, and robots will likely complete the procedure far quicker, saving the hospital, the doctor, and the patient valuable time. There are, however, drawbacks as well to the introduction of these procedures to our healthcare system. First and foremost is a robotic malfunction. No machine ever built has been without flaw, whether a coding mistake or regular wear and tear over time. At some point, one of these machines will malfunction during an operation, likely causing significant complications for the patient. Another concern of note is cost. These robots will not be cheap; in a hospital setting, it is safe to assume some of that cost will be passed onto the patient. While those who can afford it could benefit from the implementation of these systems, for those without quality health insurance, these procedures will be out of reach financially for many years. Ultimately, however, I see great promise in the introduction of autonomous medical robots in surgical settings. This is the future we are headed towards, so we should ensure that these systems are of the highest quality when they arrive in our hospitals. To read more of this series, please visit www.williamhaseltine.com
Self-driving trench diggers. Drones that digitally re-create buildings. Roomba-like devices that outline where every beam on a floor should go. Meanwhile, start-ups are pouring even more resources into the field, including building robots that survey and monitor, as well as heavy machinery that can operate on its own. They are hoping to automate a complicated field involving moving parts and vastly different sites and buildings. “Construction robots are a great example of how robotic technology is going to touch people’s lives,” said Matthew Johnson-Roberson, the director of the robotics institute at Carnegie Mellon University. “Many [construction] jobs … that exist today are now going to be alongside robots.” Fueling the wave on innovation is a construction crisis. Building costs are rising, and hundreds of thousands of jobs remain unfilled. Those who are in the industry are getting older and working under sometimes deadly conditions. Amid that, federal money is pouring in to build better infrastructure. The confluence of factors have created a situation where more construction firms are turning to robots to automate work on job sites. Still, the flurry of activity caused several workforce experts to become concerned that it could lead to job losses, or a situation where people who work alongside these robots are left working more quickly and in more unsafe work environments. Robots are no strangers in the industry. Amazon uses a slew of robots in its operations, from the Roomba-like Kiva that moves packages, to Sparrow, which grasps things with humanlike finesse. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) Elon Musk has notoriously promised he would automate Tesla’s manufacturing and recently unveiled the prototype humanoid robot Optimus, aiming to reshape physical work. Google recently showed robots that are fueled by artificial intelligence to help humans with everyday tasks. Some robots are even learning how to cook fries. But the dynamics in construction have been different, Johnson-Roberson said. Big-scale projects, such as dams, bridges and roads, have seen quicker adoption of robotic technology, because the tasks are usually more defined and require less finesse. The home-building industry has been slower, because much of the tasks require fine motor control, which robots have had a harder time doing, he added. Still, it’s unlikely that construction sites will see humanoid robots walking around job sites hammering nails into pieces of wood, Johnson-Roberson said. Rather, advances in laser range-finding technology, artificial intelligence software, robotic hardware and sensors will probably be put to use in automating big tasks, such as digging, surveying, pouring concrete and moving large items around. “This is not artificial general intelligence,” he said. “This is not like we can do everything or it acts like a human. It really is — new pieces of heavy equipment that now have much better sensors and can do things that humans would have had to do” using multiple cumbersome steps. For Noah Ready-Campbell, the chief executive of Built Robotics, the path to building a construction robot was natural. He grew up in a construction family, often working summers on job sites and hating it. After growing up, he did a stint at Google and sold a clothing technology start-up to eBay. In 2016, he started his company, which created a machine called an exosystem that fits onto the back of trench diggers, such as big Caterpillar machines. The exosystem is outfitted with cameras, sensors and machine-learning software, and plugs into the machine’s onboard computer. It becomes the eyes, ears and brain of the excavator, and it can run without anyone operating it. Most of the companies using Built Robotics’ system these days are renewable energy companies, such as solar farms, Ready-Campbell said. Often, these companies have land far from large cities, making it hard to recruit talent, and the digging that needs to be done is repetitive — ideal for automation, he said. The company has raised $112 million to date, with $64 million of that coming in April. Ready-Campbell said his company could not have existed a decade ago, because it needed the cheaper sensors, spurred in part by smartphone and self-driving technology, better cameras and gains in artificial intelligence algorithms that have only cropped up in recent years. “The tech would not have worked” a decade ago, he said. “There’s a whole bunch of different parts of our tech stack that weren’t available.” Other construction start-ups include Australia’s Fastbrick Robotics, which builds a mobile robot called the Hadrian X that can lay up to 1,000 bricks an hour. Pennsylvania’s Advanced Construction Robotics builds robots that can tie up to 1,100 rebar intersections an hour. Canvas, founded in San Francisco, has a mobile robot that finishes drywall. Tessa Lau, the chief executive of Dusty Robotics, built her construction robotics firm after remodeling her own home. During that process, she realized how many steps were involved and that there was room for error nearly everywhere, causing potentials for delay. She had a background in artificial intelligence and robotics, and studied the construction industry, and realized one of the areas that could be automated was the physical sketching out of a home or office floor to tell builders where each beam needs to be nailed or plank needs to go. To do that, her company created a Roomba-like device that prints an outline on the actual floor of the building project. Instead of people using chalk lines, they upload digital designs into software that directs the Roomba where to go within 1/16th of an inch of precision. The company rents it out for a subscription that runs roughly $240,000 per year, Lau said. As of last year, the company was valued at roughly $250 million and has customers such as Turner Construction. Lau said she is aware of the concern that robots might take jobs on the construction site but noted that more construction workers are retiring as fewer join the trade. That’s creating a crisis for construction companies, she said, who need a way to do the work during the talent shortage. “Our robots are taking jobs,” she said. “The only way we’re going to meet the world’s demand for housing and infrastructure is if we build robots to take away those jobs, because people are not filling those jobs.” Nik Theodore, the director of the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois in Chicago, said the robots could hold promise if they can automate the rote, often injury-plaguing and deadly tasks construction workers have “in a very dangerous industry with large numbers of fatalities.” But the concern, he said, is “the temptation” for automation to speed up job tasks and increase worker fatigue, leading to a situation where burnout and injuries occur more, not less. It could “take a solution that could make the worksite less dangerous,” he said, “and in fact, make it more dangerous.”	<urn:uuid:42280a97-04ac-4163-858d-fdd088ccc323>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-14", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296948951.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20230329054547-20230329084547-00425.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9638926386833191, "pii_count": 0, "score": 2.96875, "token_count": 1489, "url": "https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/01/30/construction-companies-robotic-technology/?tid=pm_business_pop" }	Self-driving trench diggers. Drones that digitally re-create buildings. Roomba-like devices that outline where every beam on a floor should go. Meanwhile, start-ups are pouring even more resources into the field, including building robots that survey and monitor, as well as heavy machinery that can operate on its own. They are hoping to automate a complicated field involving moving parts and vastly different sites and buildings. “Construction robots are a great example of how robotic technology is going to touch people’s lives,” said Matthew Johnson-Roberson, the director of the robotics institute at Carnegie Mellon University. “Many [construction] jobs … that exist today are now going to be alongside robots.” Fueling the wave on innovation is a construction crisis. Building costs are rising, and hundreds of thousands of jobs remain unfilled. Those who are in the industry are getting older and working under sometimes deadly conditions. Amid that, federal money is pouring in to build better infrastructure. The confluence of factors have created a situation where more construction firms are turning to robots to automate work on job sites. Still, the flurry of activity caused several workforce experts to become concerned that it could lead to job losses, or a situation where people who work alongside these robots are left working more quickly and in more unsafe work environments. Robots are no strangers in the industry. Amazon uses a slew of robots in its operations, from the Roomba-like Kiva that moves packages, to Sparrow, which grasps things with humanlike finesse. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) Elon Musk has notoriously promised he would automate Tesla’s manufacturing and recently unveiled the prototype humanoid robot Optimus, aiming to reshape physical work. Google recently showed robots that are fueled by artificial intelligence to help humans with everyday tasks. Some robots are even learning how to cook fries. But the dynamics in construction have been different, Johnson-Roberson said. Big-scale projects, such as dams, bridges and roads, have seen quicker adoption of robotic technology, because the tasks are usually more defined and require less finesse. The home-building industry has been slower, because much of the tasks require fine motor control, which robots have had a harder time doing, he added. Still, it’s unlikely that construction sites will see humanoid robots walking around job sites hammering nails into pieces of wood, Johnson-Roberson said. Rather, advances in laser range-finding technology, artificial intelligence software, robotic hardware and sensors will probably be put to use in autom	ating big tasks, such as digging, surveying, pouring concrete and moving large items around. “This is not artificial general intelligence,” he said. “This is not like we can do everything or it acts like a human. It really is — new pieces of heavy equipment that now have much better sensors and can do things that humans would have had to do” using multiple cumbersome steps. For Noah Ready-Campbell, the chief executive of Built Robotics, the path to building a construction robot was natural. He grew up in a construction family, often working summers on job sites and hating it. After growing up, he did a stint at Google and sold a clothing technology start-up to eBay. In 2016, he started his company, which created a machine called an exosystem that fits onto the back of trench diggers, such as big Caterpillar machines. The exosystem is outfitted with cameras, sensors and machine-learning software, and plugs into the machine’s onboard computer. It becomes the eyes, ears and brain of the excavator, and it can run without anyone operating it. Most of the companies using Built Robotics’ system these days are renewable energy companies, such as solar farms, Ready-Campbell said. Often, these companies have land far from large cities, making it hard to recruit talent, and the digging that needs to be done is repetitive — ideal for automation, he said. The company has raised $112 million to date, with $64 million of that coming in April. Ready-Campbell said his company could not have existed a decade ago, because it needed the cheaper sensors, spurred in part by smartphone and self-driving technology, better cameras and gains in artificial intelligence algorithms that have only cropped up in recent years. “The tech would not have worked” a decade ago, he said. “There’s a whole bunch of different parts of our tech stack that weren’t available.” Other construction start-ups include Australia’s Fastbrick Robotics, which builds a mobile robot called the Hadrian X that can lay up to 1,000 bricks an hour. Pennsylvania’s Advanced Construction Robotics builds robots that can tie up to 1,100 rebar intersections an hour. Canvas, founded in San Francisco, has a mobile robot that finishes drywall. Tessa Lau, the chief executive of Dusty Robotics, built her construction robotics firm after remodeling her own home. During that process, she realized how many steps were involved and that there was room for error nearly everywhere, causing potentials for delay. She had a background in artificial intelligence and robotics, and studied the construction industry, and realized one of the areas that could be automated was the physical sketching out of a home or office floor to tell builders where each beam needs to be nailed or plank needs to go. To do that, her company created a Roomba-like device that prints an outline on the actual floor of the building project. Instead of people using chalk lines, they upload digital designs into software that directs the Roomba where to go within 1/16th of an inch of precision. The company rents it out for a subscription that runs roughly $240,000 per year, Lau said. As of last year, the company was valued at roughly $250 million and has customers such as Turner Construction. Lau said she is aware of the concern that robots might take jobs on the construction site but noted that more construction workers are retiring as fewer join the trade. That’s creating a crisis for construction companies, she said, who need a way to do the work during the talent shortage. “Our robots are taking jobs,” she said. “The only way we’re going to meet the world’s demand for housing and infrastructure is if we build robots to take away those jobs, because people are not filling those jobs.” Nik Theodore, the director of the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois in Chicago, said the robots could hold promise if they can automate the rote, often injury-plaguing and deadly tasks construction workers have “in a very dangerous industry with large numbers of fatalities.” But the concern, he said, is “the temptation” for automation to speed up job tasks and increase worker fatigue, leading to a situation where burnout and injuries occur more, not less. It could “take a solution that could make the worksite less dangerous,” he said, “and in fact, make it more dangerous.”
Their history wasn't just forgotten, it was buried. Today we tell their stories. For decades the role of many of Pensacola's citizens have only been told through the families whose ancestors helped shape who we are today. Schools, museums and roads bear their names — acts that came about generations after they had passed — a late but still honorable effort to recognize the impact these once marginalized men and women had on the community. Their history is not easy to find, an all too common tragedy that played out across the United States in newspapers, archives and public records. Their obituaries, long the place researchers could traditionally find a goldmine of information on the past, are non-existent or sparse. Their stories have been hidden. Today we begin to tell their stories - the way they should have been told 100 years ago. "Regardless of your ethnicity or your background, it's all valuable, it's all necessary, it's all needed because these stories are important," said Robin Reshard, one of the community members leading an effort to write the obituaries of men and woman of Pensacola's past, publishing them near the anniversaries of their death. "It's important to share the stories and (not just) the fact that they were born and they died, but that their spirit continues in so many different ways and in different people." Righting the past The idea for the project came from Councilwoman Teniadé Broughton who was inspired by the Overlooked series in the New York Times — a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported. Broughton wanted to add more breadth and thought into Pensacola’s own past, particularly the experiences of the people who walked, lived and made an impact in this community. Righting the past:War veteran and prominent citizen, John Sunday is dead at 86 To understand Pensacola and where we are today, it is vital to move away from the "old, dead, white men" philosophy, a popular term describing how the study of philosophy in academia is dominated by deceased European men. To do so, there needs to be an intentional push to include people of color and women to open up different perspectives, histories, meanings and stories, she said. “We were always very diverse, so we should make sure to present that in our storytelling,” Broughton said. “And I think now we've gotten better at that, more willing to look at different groups because we stand on this foundation of telling one side of the story. I think it also lends to revisiting how our history has been told, to make way for how we plan to tell it in the future.” The obituaries, which will be published throughout 2023 in the Pensacola News Journal, will be written by community members with expertise and sometimes personal knowledge on the person in question. The difficulty in getting information on their background illustrates the need for the project, as even photographs of many of the people who will be featured don't exist today. Whose stories will be told? The obituaries will include prominent figures such as John Sunday and Spencer Bibbs, as well as lesser known people such as Lillie Ann James, the mother of Daniel “Chappie” James Jr. − the first Black four-star general in any U.S. military service branch. It will include the unburied story of Viola Edwards, who ran the first Black-owned hospital in Pensacola from 1922 to 1927. The Viola Edwards Hospital was burned down after she was accused of killing a pregnant white woman. The project will also include a number of people who lived everyday lives such as Ezra Gerry. Gerry, a Milton steward and cook, was one of the nearly 150 people killed in the Larchmont Disaster, which is considered the Titanic of Rhode Island. We only know of his death because of a small mention in a newspaper article that focused on a pastor defending the captain of the boat. Gerry's family was not able to transport his body back to the area and he is buried in Providence, Rhode Island. His family's grief is just a footnote in the article. Jamin Wells, associate professor and director of the Public History Master's Program at the University of West Florida, believes that telling these stories today can highlight the richness of the Pensacola community, honor the legacies of these families and their communities, and humanize the people of the past and how they connect with us to the present. “This has always been a really complicated place, and (we want) to try to learn more about how the city in this community came to be and came to look the way it does today,” Wells said. “We're going to try to include avenues for folks to want to learn more about these people. And there's a number of historical societies and cultural groups who hopefully will be contributing biographies and are great resources for learning more. Hopefully the past isn't just the past − that it really shapes our world today to see those connections.” Local historian Marion Williams plans to write about his ancestor Spencer Bibbs who has an elementary school named after him. Williams has dug deep into finding more information about Bibbs, which he has learned from his family and his own research. Bibbs was the first African American Supervisor of Colored Schools in Escambia County. He requested and was granted a school on the east side of Pensacola − P.S. #44 − which later was renamed P.S. #102. After his death in 1922, his daughter, who worked at the school, petitioned for the school to be named after him. Bibbs was not only a supervisor but an entrepreneur who co-owned a restaurant with his wife. He also worked as what we think of now as a taxi driver, using his horse and buggy to "drive" people across the city. Williams wants to help solve the question as to why certain people have been honored or how others who went unnoticed helped shape our community. A project like this will help the community understand these outstanding characters and how they affect the people who call Pensacola their home today. “It's a good way to kind of update our information and to have information available for people who are coming behind you, and people around you to know who these people were, and you know, how they impacted our lives,” Williams said.	<urn:uuid:36fbcd26-101f-4c65-abf0-870287b1a7fd>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-06", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764499541.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20230128090359-20230128120359-00599.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9828429222106934, "pii_count": 0, "score": 3, "token_count": 1353, "url": "https://www.pnj.com/story/news/local/2023/01/16/obituary-project-will-recognize-pensacola-prominent-figures-from-past/69785742007/" }	Their history wasn't just forgotten, it was buried. Today we tell their stories. For decades the role of many of Pensacola's citizens have only been told through the families whose ancestors helped shape who we are today. Schools, museums and roads bear their names — acts that came about generations after they had passed — a late but still honorable effort to recognize the impact these once marginalized men and women had on the community. Their history is not easy to find, an all too common tragedy that played out across the United States in newspapers, archives and public records. Their obituaries, long the place researchers could traditionally find a goldmine of information on the past, are non-existent or sparse. Their stories have been hidden. Today we begin to tell their stories - the way they should have been told 100 years ago. "Regardless of your ethnicity or your background, it's all valuable, it's all necessary, it's all needed because these stories are important," said Robin Reshard, one of the community members leading an effort to write the obituaries of men and woman of Pensacola's past, publishing them near the anniversaries of their death. "It's important to share the stories and (not just) the fact that they were born and they died, but that their spirit continues in so many different ways and in different people." Righting the past The idea for the project came from Councilwoman Teniadé Broughton who was inspired by the Overlooked series in the New York Times — a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported. Broughton wanted to add more breadth and thought into Pensacola’s own past, particularly the experiences of the people who walked, lived and made an impact in this community. Righting the past:War veteran and prominent citizen, John Sunday is dead at 86 To understand Pensacola and where we are today, it is vital to move away from the "old, dead, white men" philosophy, a popular term describing how the study of philosophy in academia is dominated by deceased European men. To do so, there needs to be an intentional push to include people of color and women to open up different perspectives, histories, meanings and stories, she said. “We were always very diverse, so we should make sure to present that in our storytelling,” Broughton said. “And I think now we've gotten better at that, more willing to	look at different groups because we stand on this foundation of telling one side of the story. I think it also lends to revisiting how our history has been told, to make way for how we plan to tell it in the future.” The obituaries, which will be published throughout 2023 in the Pensacola News Journal, will be written by community members with expertise and sometimes personal knowledge on the person in question. The difficulty in getting information on their background illustrates the need for the project, as even photographs of many of the people who will be featured don't exist today. Whose stories will be told? The obituaries will include prominent figures such as John Sunday and Spencer Bibbs, as well as lesser known people such as Lillie Ann James, the mother of Daniel “Chappie” James Jr. − the first Black four-star general in any U.S. military service branch. It will include the unburied story of Viola Edwards, who ran the first Black-owned hospital in Pensacola from 1922 to 1927. The Viola Edwards Hospital was burned down after she was accused of killing a pregnant white woman. The project will also include a number of people who lived everyday lives such as Ezra Gerry. Gerry, a Milton steward and cook, was one of the nearly 150 people killed in the Larchmont Disaster, which is considered the Titanic of Rhode Island. We only know of his death because of a small mention in a newspaper article that focused on a pastor defending the captain of the boat. Gerry's family was not able to transport his body back to the area and he is buried in Providence, Rhode Island. His family's grief is just a footnote in the article. Jamin Wells, associate professor and director of the Public History Master's Program at the University of West Florida, believes that telling these stories today can highlight the richness of the Pensacola community, honor the legacies of these families and their communities, and humanize the people of the past and how they connect with us to the present. “This has always been a really complicated place, and (we want) to try to learn more about how the city in this community came to be and came to look the way it does today,” Wells said. “We're going to try to include avenues for folks to want to learn more about these people. And there's a number of historical societies and cultural groups who hopefully will be contributing biographies and are great resources for learning more. Hopefully the past isn't just the past − that it really shapes our world today to see those connections.” Local historian Marion Williams plans to write about his ancestor Spencer Bibbs who has an elementary school named after him. Williams has dug deep into finding more information about Bibbs, which he has learned from his family and his own research. Bibbs was the first African American Supervisor of Colored Schools in Escambia County. He requested and was granted a school on the east side of Pensacola − P.S. #44 − which later was renamed P.S. #102. After his death in 1922, his daughter, who worked at the school, petitioned for the school to be named after him. Bibbs was not only a supervisor but an entrepreneur who co-owned a restaurant with his wife. He also worked as what we think of now as a taxi driver, using his horse and buggy to "drive" people across the city. Williams wants to help solve the question as to why certain people have been honored or how others who went unnoticed helped shape our community. A project like this will help the community understand these outstanding characters and how they affect the people who call Pensacola their home today. “It's a good way to kind of update our information and to have information available for people who are coming behind you, and people around you to know who these people were, and you know, how they impacted our lives,” Williams said.
Mount St. Helens sees spike in seismic activity SKAMANIA COUNTY, Wash. (KPTV) - 400 earthquakes have been recorded under Mount St. Helens since mid-July, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). This is the longest series of tremors since the volcano’s last eruption ended in 2008. Luckily, a new eruption doesn’t appear to be happening soon. “Mount St. Helens has had a slight uptick in earthquakes, have you noticed? Most are small (less than M1.0) & not felt at the surface. No cause for concern right now - no significant changes in ground deformation or gases. Volcano remains at normal (green) background levels,” the USGS said in an update posted to its website. “Since mid-July 2023, over 400 EQs have been located by @PNSN1. Most recently, there have been about 30 located EQs per week. To compare, since 2008, on average about 11 earthquakes have been located per month at Mount St. Helens.” According to the USGS, there are no indications of a “imminent eruption.” Despite not erupting since 2008, Mount St. Helens is regarded as one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the United States. On May 18, 1980, the volcano had its most famous eruption, which destroyed 210 square miles of surrounding forest and claimed the lives of about 60 people. The volcano saw a spike in activity before this eruption. Several earthquakes shook the area on March 20 of that year. The earthquakes increased until March 27, when there was a small eruption. The amount of volcanic activity only kept rising until there was a massive magma buildup under the volcano. The surrounding area was rocked by an earthquake of magnitude 5, which set off the main eruption on May 18. As of right now, the volcano is still active, and geologists expect it will erupt again one day. However, the USGS stated that a brief spike in seismic activity in St. Helens is rather typical. “The current seismicity represents the largest short-term increase in earthquake rates since the last eruption ended in 2008,” the USGS said. “However, longer duration sequences with more events occurred in 1988-1992, 1995-1996 and 1997-1999. None of the sequences in the 1980s and 90s directly led to eruptions.” Copyright 2023 KPTV-KPDX. All rights reserved.	<urn:uuid:a2aa487c-1f1d-44e7-99be-47a65d71aaf6>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-50", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100779.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20231208212357-20231209002357-00616.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9710506200790405, "pii_count": 0, "score": 2.828125, "token_count": 528, "url": "https://www.kptv.com/2023/11/08/mount-st-helens-sees-large-spike-seismic-activity/" }	Mount St. Helens sees spike in seismic activity SKAMANIA COUNTY, Wash. (KPTV) - 400 earthquakes have been recorded under Mount St. Helens since mid-July, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). This is the longest series of tremors since the volcano’s last eruption ended in 2008. Luckily, a new eruption doesn’t appear to be happening soon. “Mount St. Helens has had a slight uptick in earthquakes, have you noticed? Most are small (less than M1.0) & not felt at the surface. No cause for concern right now - no significant changes in ground deformation or gases. Volcano remains at normal (green) background levels,” the USGS said in an update posted to its website. “Since mid-July 2023, over 400 EQs have been located by @PNSN1. Most recently, there have been about 30 located EQs per week. To compare, since 2008, on average about 11 earthquakes have been located per month at Mount St. Helens.” According to the USGS, there are no indications of a “imminent eruption.” Despite not erupting since 2008, Mount St. Helens is regarded as one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the United States. On May 18, 1980, the volcano had its most famous eruption, which destroyed 210 square miles of surrounding forest and claimed the lives of about 60 people. The volcano saw a spike in activity before this eruption. Several earthquakes shook the area on March 20 of that year. The earthquakes increased until March 27, when there was a small eruption. The amount of volcanic activity only kept rising until there was a massive magma buildup under the volcano. The surrounding area was rocked by an earthquake of magnitude 5, which set off the main eruption on May 18. As of right now, the volcano is still active, and geologists expect it will erupt again one day. However, the USGS stated that a brief spike in seismic activity in St. Helens is rather typical. “The current seismicity represents the largest short-term increase in earthquake rates since the last eruption ended in 2008,” the USGS said. “However, longer duration sequences with more events occurred in 1988	-1992, 1995-1996 and 1997-1999. None of the sequences in the 1980s and 90s directly led to eruptions.” Copyright 2023 KPTV-KPDX. All rights reserved.
Get inspired by a weekly roundup on living well, made simple. Sign up for CNN’s Life, But Better newsletter for information and tools designed to improve your well-being. Handing your baby a phone or tablet to play with may seem like a harmless solution when you’re busy, but it could quickly affect their development, a new study has found. Having anywhere from one to four hours of screen time per day at age 1 is linked with higher risks of developmental delays in communication, fine motor, problem-solving and personal and social skills by age 2, according to a study of 7,097 children published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. “It’s a really important study because it has a very large sample size of children who’ve been followed for several years,” said Dr. Jason Nagata, associate professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, who wasn’t involved in the study. “The study fills an important gap because it identifies specific developmental delays (in skills) such as communication and problem-solving associated with screen time,” said Nagata, noting there haven’t been many prior studies that studied this issue with several years of follow-up data. The children and their mothers were part of the Japan-based Tohoku Medical Megabank Project Birth and Three-Generation Cohort Study and were recruited from 50 obstetric clinics and hospitals in the Miyagi and Iwate prefectures between July 2013 and March 2017. The study measured how many hours children used screens per day at age 1 and how they performed in several developmental domains — communication skills, fine motor skills, personal and social skills, and problem-solving skills — at ages 2 and 4. Both measures were according to the mothers’ self-reports. By age 2, those who had had up to four hours of screen time per day were up to three times more likely to experience developmental delays in communication and problem-solving skills. Those who had spent four or more hours with screens were 4.78 times more likely to have underdeveloped communication skills, 1.74 times more likely to have subpar fine motor skills and two times more likely to have underdeveloped personal and social skills by age 2. By age 4, risk remained only in the communication and problem-solving categories. “One of the areas that’s relatively understudied in the whole screen time literature is looking at impacts of screen exposure on very young kids, especially when screens are introduced to babies,” said Dr. John Hutton, associate professor of general and community pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, who wasn’t involved in the study. “It’s definitely a global concern, and I think the findings (here) should apply to, really, other countries as well.” How screen time could affect development The potential harms of screen time on communication skills may have to do with children being robbed of drivers for language development, Hutton said. “Kids learn how to talk if they’re encouraged to talk, and very often, if they’re just watching a screen, they’re not having an opportunity to practice talking,” he said. “They may hear a lot of words, but they’re not practicing saying a lot of words or having a lot of that back-and-forth interaction.” Technology use can take time away from interpersonal relationships that nurture social skills since real people are more multidimensional than characters on a screen, Hutton added. Looking at people’s faces is when our brains turn on to figure out how to interact with them. “Also, (with) passive screen viewing that doesn’t have an interactive or physical component, children are more likely to be sedentary and then aren’t able to practice motor skills,” Nagata said. If children don’t have enough time to play or are handed a tablet to pacify negative emotions, that could prevent the important developmental milestone that is the ability to navigate discomfort. “Longer term, one of the real goals is for kids just to be able to sit quietly in their own thoughts,” Hutton said. “When they’re allowed to be a little bit bored for a second, they get a little uncomfortable, but then they’re like, ‘OK, I want to make myself more comfortable.’ And that’s how creativity happens.” There are other factors that can affect a child’s development, such as genetics, adverse experiences such as neglect or abuse, and socioeconomic factors, Nagata said. In the latest research, mothers of children with high levels of screen time were more likely to be younger, have never given birth before, have a lower household income, have a lower education level and have postpartum depression. The study does have limitations. Due to social desirability bias — wanting to say the “right” or socially acceptable thing — parents may underreport their child’s screen time and overreport how their child is doing developmentally, experts said. Additionally, the authors didn’t have details on what children’s screen time involved, and not all forms are equal in their capacity to harm or benefit, experts said. “The other question that’s always really important is, is the parent watching with the child?” Hutton said. “When a parent is watching with a child, that tends to mitigate a lot of the negatives.” Healthier ways to occupy your child If you need to keep your toddler busy so you can get things done or have some solitude, try giving them a book, coloring materials or toys, experts said. They can even sometimes enjoy these activities while secured in a highchair. If you need to rely on screens sometimes, opt for educational content or video chats with a loved one so they can still get some social interaction, Nagata said. One issue with some online children’s content is that parents will think it’s educational because it’s marketed as such and has lots of information about the alphabet, colors, numbers or animals their children can see and hear, Hutton said. But what jumpstarts learning is content that helps children apply their knowledge beyond just rote memorization — so they can “navigate the real world, where things are more unpredictable and require more creativity and resilience,” he said. Hutton and Nagata recommended choosing longer videos since watching lots of short videos could affect children’s attention span and ability to understand what they’re watching. Be choosy about when you rely on screen time, and turn devices off when they’re not in use, Nagata said. “Aimless viewing can also distract kids from then focusing on an activity that’s at hand or in-person communication.” Additionally, live by example by not having an excessive amount of screen time yourself, since kids tend to mimic what they see, experts said. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends considering the quality of screen time rather than just quantity, but the organization does have resources for determining guidelines and limits for your family — such as its family media plan you can tailor to your own family’s needs and advice for helping your kids build healthy habits. “We need to just slow down and … be as careful and mindful as we can about keeping kids anchored in the real world, which is really how we evolved as humans,” Hutton said. “There’s going to be plenty of time for screen time later once we get a better sense of who the kids are and what they need.”	<urn:uuid:8db4eeb3-722a-4700-a170-09cb335fb16b>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-50", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100593.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20231206095331-20231206125331-00028.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9652767777442932, "pii_count": 0, "score": 2.875, "token_count": 1631, "url": "https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/21/health/screen-time-child-development-delays-risks-wellness/index.html" }	Get inspired by a weekly roundup on living well, made simple. Sign up for CNN’s Life, But Better newsletter for information and tools designed to improve your well-being. Handing your baby a phone or tablet to play with may seem like a harmless solution when you’re busy, but it could quickly affect their development, a new study has found. Having anywhere from one to four hours of screen time per day at age 1 is linked with higher risks of developmental delays in communication, fine motor, problem-solving and personal and social skills by age 2, according to a study of 7,097 children published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. “It’s a really important study because it has a very large sample size of children who’ve been followed for several years,” said Dr. Jason Nagata, associate professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, who wasn’t involved in the study. “The study fills an important gap because it identifies specific developmental delays (in skills) such as communication and problem-solving associated with screen time,” said Nagata, noting there haven’t been many prior studies that studied this issue with several years of follow-up data. The children and their mothers were part of the Japan-based Tohoku Medical Megabank Project Birth and Three-Generation Cohort Study and were recruited from 50 obstetric clinics and hospitals in the Miyagi and Iwate prefectures between July 2013 and March 2017. The study measured how many hours children used screens per day at age 1 and how they performed in several developmental domains — communication skills, fine motor skills, personal and social skills, and problem-solving skills — at ages 2 and 4. Both measures were according to the mothers’ self-reports. By age 2, those who had had up to four hours of screen time per day were up to three times more likely to experience developmental delays in communication and problem-solving skills. Those who had spent four or more hours with screens were 4.78 times more likely to have underdeveloped communication skills, 1.74 times more likely to have subpar fine motor skills and two times more likely to have underdeveloped personal and social skills by age 2. By age 4, risk remained only in the communication and problem-solving categories. “One of the areas that’s relatively understudied in the whole screen time literature is looking at impacts of screen exposure on very young kids, especially when screens are	introduced to babies,” said Dr. John Hutton, associate professor of general and community pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, who wasn’t involved in the study. “It’s definitely a global concern, and I think the findings (here) should apply to, really, other countries as well.” How screen time could affect development The potential harms of screen time on communication skills may have to do with children being robbed of drivers for language development, Hutton said. “Kids learn how to talk if they’re encouraged to talk, and very often, if they’re just watching a screen, they’re not having an opportunity to practice talking,” he said. “They may hear a lot of words, but they’re not practicing saying a lot of words or having a lot of that back-and-forth interaction.” Technology use can take time away from interpersonal relationships that nurture social skills since real people are more multidimensional than characters on a screen, Hutton added. Looking at people’s faces is when our brains turn on to figure out how to interact with them. “Also, (with) passive screen viewing that doesn’t have an interactive or physical component, children are more likely to be sedentary and then aren’t able to practice motor skills,” Nagata said. If children don’t have enough time to play or are handed a tablet to pacify negative emotions, that could prevent the important developmental milestone that is the ability to navigate discomfort. “Longer term, one of the real goals is for kids just to be able to sit quietly in their own thoughts,” Hutton said. “When they’re allowed to be a little bit bored for a second, they get a little uncomfortable, but then they’re like, ‘OK, I want to make myself more comfortable.’ And that’s how creativity happens.” There are other factors that can affect a child’s development, such as genetics, adverse experiences such as neglect or abuse, and socioeconomic factors, Nagata said. In the latest research, mothers of children with high levels of screen time were more likely to be younger, have never given birth before, have a lower household income, have a lower education level and have postpartum depression. The study does have limitations. Due to social desirability bias — wanting to say the “right” or socially acceptable thing — parents may underreport their child’s screen time and overreport how their child is doing developmentally, experts said. Additionally, the authors didn’t have details on what children’s screen time involved, and not all forms are equal in their capacity to harm or benefit, experts said. “The other question that’s always really important is, is the parent watching with the child?” Hutton said. “When a parent is watching with a child, that tends to mitigate a lot of the negatives.” Healthier ways to occupy your child If you need to keep your toddler busy so you can get things done or have some solitude, try giving them a book, coloring materials or toys, experts said. They can even sometimes enjoy these activities while secured in a highchair. If you need to rely on screens sometimes, opt for educational content or video chats with a loved one so they can still get some social interaction, Nagata said. One issue with some online children’s content is that parents will think it’s educational because it’s marketed as such and has lots of information about the alphabet, colors, numbers or animals their children can see and hear, Hutton said. But what jumpstarts learning is content that helps children apply their knowledge beyond just rote memorization — so they can “navigate the real world, where things are more unpredictable and require more creativity and resilience,” he said. Hutton and Nagata recommended choosing longer videos since watching lots of short videos could affect children’s attention span and ability to understand what they’re watching. Be choosy about when you rely on screen time, and turn devices off when they’re not in use, Nagata said. “Aimless viewing can also distract kids from then focusing on an activity that’s at hand or in-person communication.” Additionally, live by example by not having an excessive amount of screen time yourself, since kids tend to mimic what they see, experts said. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends considering the quality of screen time rather than just quantity, but the organization does have resources for determining guidelines and limits for your family — such as its family media plan you can tailor to your own family’s needs and advice for helping your kids build healthy habits. “We need to just slow down and … be as careful and mindful as we can about keeping kids anchored in the real world, which is really how we evolved as humans,” Hutton said. “There’s going to be plenty of time for screen time later once we get a better sense of who the kids are and what they need.”
For berries that provide essential nutrients for migrating birds, plant these two types of bushes The fruits from certain berry bushes pack a bigger nutrient punch for migrating and over-wintering birds. September is a great time to plant berry bushes, as Vermont temperatures will still be warm enough, providing a few months before the ground freezes. And in that time, new berry bushes will have a chance to get their root systems established. When considering which berry bushes to plant in your yard, take into consideration which ones provide the best fruits for birds, too. Look first at the native shrub varieties in these two groups: dogwoods and viburnums. Try viburnums, like nannyberry, which is viburnum lentago, Blackhaw or viburnum prunifolium, and American cranberrybush or viburnum trilobum. Think about placement of these, too, as they will grow into very big shrubs. The blossoms and stems will provide beautiful color in all seasons (think red stems against freshly fallen snow!) and also grow tons of berries. For instance, the nannyberry can grow from 10 to 18 feet tall. Its flowers are white and the fruits grow as blue-black berries on a reddish stem. Dogwoods are also great for providing birds with a handy food source. The red osier dogwood or cornus sericea is fast-growing and will reach about eight feet tall. The berry bush blooms with white petals on red stems, and the fruits are white, as well. The gray dogwood and silky dogwood are two other types to try, too. There are exotic berry bushes that provide a great food source for birds who migrate or overwinter, too, like Japanese honeysuckle and buckthorn. But research conducted over the last two decades at Colby College in Maine and Rochester Institute of Technology in New York measured these berries' caloric as well as nutrient content. What they found showed a real difference in the nutritional quality of the berries. The berries from both natives and exotics had about the same amount of caloric value. It was the fat content where they really differed. The fat content in berries of native plants is nearly 48%, depending on the berry — whereas for the exotics, the fat content is only 2%. For a migrating bird trying to fatten themselves up for the winter and for fuel to fly to warmer climes, the extra fat in these native berries makes a big difference. Even birds who stay local are trying to make it through the winter here, and having that extra fat really helps. A question about caterpillars on hardy hibiscus Q: Charlie, you sweet-talked me into buying one of those perennial hibiscus bushes. Now you have to teach me how to save it! In this year of garden death and destruction, drought and floods ... no cukes, few zukes and first tomatoes in September, I can't bear another garden tragedy! The hibiscus has small caterpillars eating all its foliage. - Miriam in Hinesburg A: This pest ruining your hardy hibiscus is the larval stage of the sawfly. Natural bacteria treatments using things like B.t., or bacillus thuringiensis, will not get rid of them. These sawflies cling to the underside of leaves and can devastate a plant pretty quickly. The best thing to do now is clean up the area near and underneath your hibiscus. Try to remove any sawflies that might be trying to overwinter on your plant. Next year, around mid-summer, begin checking the undersides of the hardy hibiscus. If you start seeing some damage and seeing those little caterpillars, try a spray on the underside of the leaves, called spinosad. This will help your hibiscus and get rid of the sawflies. Just note that you should treat the plant with this organic product very carefully, as it is harmful to bees. Spray it on the hardy hibiscus leaves in the evening once the bees have gone home for the for the night. And once the spray has dried, it is not as toxic. All Things Gardening is powered by you, our audience! Send us your toughest conundrums and join the fun. Submit your written question via email, or better yet, leave a voicemail with your gardening question so we can use your voice on the air! Call Vermont Public at 1-800-639-2192. Listen to All Things Gardening Sunday mornings at 9:35 a.m., and subscribe to the podcast to listen any time.	<urn:uuid:e2f81e4f-ee08-48fc-a60d-206a7e942b57>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510130.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20230926011608-20230926041608-00813.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9494255781173706, "pii_count": 0, "score": 3.078125, "token_count": 982, "url": "https://www.vermontpublic.org/show/all-things-gardening/2023-09-17/for-berries-that-provide-essential-nutrients-for-migrating-birds-plant-these-two-types-of-bushes" }	For berries that provide essential nutrients for migrating birds, plant these two types of bushes The fruits from certain berry bushes pack a bigger nutrient punch for migrating and over-wintering birds. September is a great time to plant berry bushes, as Vermont temperatures will still be warm enough, providing a few months before the ground freezes. And in that time, new berry bushes will have a chance to get their root systems established. When considering which berry bushes to plant in your yard, take into consideration which ones provide the best fruits for birds, too. Look first at the native shrub varieties in these two groups: dogwoods and viburnums. Try viburnums, like nannyberry, which is viburnum lentago, Blackhaw or viburnum prunifolium, and American cranberrybush or viburnum trilobum. Think about placement of these, too, as they will grow into very big shrubs. The blossoms and stems will provide beautiful color in all seasons (think red stems against freshly fallen snow!) and also grow tons of berries. For instance, the nannyberry can grow from 10 to 18 feet tall. Its flowers are white and the fruits grow as blue-black berries on a reddish stem. Dogwoods are also great for providing birds with a handy food source. The red osier dogwood or cornus sericea is fast-growing and will reach about eight feet tall. The berry bush blooms with white petals on red stems, and the fruits are white, as well. The gray dogwood and silky dogwood are two other types to try, too. There are exotic berry bushes that provide a great food source for birds who migrate or overwinter, too, like Japanese honeysuckle and buckthorn. But research conducted over the last two decades at Colby College in Maine and Rochester Institute of Technology in New York measured these berries' caloric as well as nutrient content. What they found showed a real difference in the nutritional quality of the berries. The berries from both natives and exotics had about the same amount of caloric value. It was the fat content where they really differed. The fat content in berries of native plants is nearly 48%, depending on the berry — whereas for the exotics, the fat content is only 2%. For a migrating bird trying to fatten themselves up for the winter and for fuel to	fly to warmer climes, the extra fat in these native berries makes a big difference. Even birds who stay local are trying to make it through the winter here, and having that extra fat really helps. A question about caterpillars on hardy hibiscus Q: Charlie, you sweet-talked me into buying one of those perennial hibiscus bushes. Now you have to teach me how to save it! In this year of garden death and destruction, drought and floods ... no cukes, few zukes and first tomatoes in September, I can't bear another garden tragedy! The hibiscus has small caterpillars eating all its foliage. - Miriam in Hinesburg A: This pest ruining your hardy hibiscus is the larval stage of the sawfly. Natural bacteria treatments using things like B.t., or bacillus thuringiensis, will not get rid of them. These sawflies cling to the underside of leaves and can devastate a plant pretty quickly. The best thing to do now is clean up the area near and underneath your hibiscus. Try to remove any sawflies that might be trying to overwinter on your plant. Next year, around mid-summer, begin checking the undersides of the hardy hibiscus. If you start seeing some damage and seeing those little caterpillars, try a spray on the underside of the leaves, called spinosad. This will help your hibiscus and get rid of the sawflies. Just note that you should treat the plant with this organic product very carefully, as it is harmful to bees. Spray it on the hardy hibiscus leaves in the evening once the bees have gone home for the for the night. And once the spray has dried, it is not as toxic. All Things Gardening is powered by you, our audience! Send us your toughest conundrums and join the fun. Submit your written question via email, or better yet, leave a voicemail with your gardening question so we can use your voice on the air! Call Vermont Public at 1-800-639-2192. Listen to All Things Gardening Sunday mornings at 9:35 a.m., and subscribe to the podcast to listen any time.
Winning individual primaries and caucuses is just one step in the long path to winning a party’s presidential nomination. Both parties hold conventions in the summer where delegates technically select the nominee. The process and rules are different for each party, but the primaries are about winning enough delegates to secure the nomination. The race is not over in this regard. There are different kinds of nominating contests and different kinds of delegates in a calendar that stretches from January to June, so keeping track of the delegate math can get complicated. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley will ultimately need to find a way to start winning contests if she’s going to eat into Trump’s growing delegate lead. Performing well in primaries and caucuses equals delegates, and the larger goal is amassing the magic number of delegates to secure a nomination before delegate voting at the party convention. Winning the GOP nomination requires at least 1,215 out of 2,429 delegates awarded as part of the primary process. Shortly after CNN projected that Trump would win New Hampshire, Trump had 32 delegates compared with Haley’s 17. In years without an incumbent, like Republicans are experiencing in 2024, the winner frequently does not hit the magic number until May or even June. In 2016, in his first of three White House runs, Trump hit the magic number on May 26. During most of the early primaries and caucuses, states award delegates proportionally. That means that each candidate gets a number of delegates roughly equivalent to the percentage of the vote he or she has won. Delegates can be awarded based on results either statewide or in individual congressional districts. For example, in 2016, Sen. Ted Cruz won the Iowa caucuses, but with less than 30% of the vote, he only got eight delegates. Trump and Sen. Marco Rubio both got seven delegates in Iowa that year. Sometimes, there’s a certain amount of support a candidate must register to qualify for delegates, and many of these states have special rules that allow a candidate who wins the lion’s share of the vote (often 50%) to take all of the state’s delegates. Things change after March 15. That’s when states have the option to award all of their delegates to whoever gets the most votes in the state’s contest. The introduction of winner-take-all rules makes it harder for any remaining candidates to accumulate delegates against the race leader. While you’re bound to hear a lot about Iowa and New Hampshire, contests that can be critical for giving candidates early momentum, those two states represent a small number of delegates. It’s not until Super Tuesday	<urn:uuid:09840ff6-2304-4bed-9945-d3c63c5d6ed6>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2024-10", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-10/segments/1707947474715.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20240228112121-20240228142121-00694.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9541407823562622, "pii_count": 0, "score": 2.515625, "token_count": 544, "url": "https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/14/politics/republican-presidential-nomination-delegates-dg/index.html" }	Winning individual primaries and caucuses is just one step in the long path to winning a party’s presidential nomination. Both parties hold conventions in the summer where delegates technically select the nominee. The process and rules are different for each party, but the primaries are about winning enough delegates to secure the nomination. The race is not over in this regard. There are different kinds of nominating contests and different kinds of delegates in a calendar that stretches from January to June, so keeping track of the delegate math can get complicated. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley will ultimately need to find a way to start winning contests if she’s going to eat into Trump’s growing delegate lead. Performing well in primaries and caucuses equals delegates, and the larger goal is amassing the magic number of delegates to secure a nomination before delegate voting at the party convention. Winning the GOP nomination requires at least 1,215 out of 2,429 delegates awarded as part of the primary process. Shortly after CNN projected that Trump would win New Hampshire, Trump had 32 delegates compared with Haley’s 17. In years without an incumbent, like Republicans are experiencing in 2024, the winner frequently does not hit the magic number until May or even June. In 2016, in his first of three White House runs, Trump hit the magic number on May 26. During most of the early primaries and caucuses, states award delegates proportionally. That means that each candidate gets a number of delegates roughly equivalent to the percentage of the vote he or she has won. Delegates can be awarded based on results either statewide or in individual congressional districts. For example, in 2016, Sen. Ted Cruz won the Iowa caucuses, but with less than 30% of the vote, he only got eight delegates. Trump and Sen. Marco Rubio both got seven delegates in Iowa that year. Sometimes, there’s a certain amount of support a candidate must register to qualify for delegates, and many of these states have special rules that allow a candidate who wins the lion’s share of the vote (often 50%) to take all of the state’s delegates. Things change after March 15. That’s when states have the option to award all of their delegates to whoever gets the most votes in the state’s contest. The introduction of winner-take-all rules makes it harder for any remaining candidates to accumulate delegates against the race leader. While you’re bound	to hear a lot about Iowa and New Hampshire, contests that can be critical for giving candidates early momentum, those two states represent a small number of delegates. It’s not until Super Tuesday
Earlier this month, on a day off from working as a doctor at the children’s hospital, I took my baby to a rally at the Utah Capitol. The crowd thrummed with energy. The Great Salt Lake shimmered on the horizon. My baby reached towards brightly painted signs: “Save Our Lake.” “Save It, Don’t Spray It.” “Defend Our Future.” We went because saving the lake is crucial for the health of my son, my pediatric patients and all the children in the Wasatch Front. And because this is an emergency. New research suggests that without dramatic policy changes, the Great Salt Lake could vanish within five years — and legislative decisions made in the next two months could make or break that path. As a pediatrician and mother, a big brown rally sign summed up my biggest concern: “No to Toxic Dust Bowl.” Our city’s namesake is a terminal body of water, with water flowing in but not out, which means it’s full of pollutants. Arsenic, mercury, lead and other toxins sit beneath the lake, held down by water and salt. As the lake dries, the toxins rise into the air as dust. This dust then blows across the Wasatch Front, which houses three-fourths of Utah’s population. It travels further still: dust from the Great Salt Lake has been found from Southern Utah to Wyoming. When toxic dust reaches us, we breathe it in. So do our kids. There’s no doubt that air pollution is bad for children’s health. If you know a child with asthma, you may have seen how it can be harder to breathe on bad air days. Air pollution is also linked to childhood cancers, birth defects, problems with brain development and other health concerns. With our smog, wildfire smoke, high ozone levels and worsening dust, children here often breathe unsafe air. But the collapse of the Great Salt Lake brings an extremely urgent new threat. The dust will not simply bring more run-of-the-mill bad air days. The resulting toxic dust storms could be catastrophic for children’s health. Kids are vulnerable to even tiny amounts of pollution and toxins. Take lead, for example, one of the heavy metals found in the lakebed: even the tiniest amount of lead poisoning can harm a child’s brain. We do not know what, exactly, would happen to children’s health – or to our health, as adults – if we were to breathe storm after storm of toxic dust. We can’t risk finding out. Due to diversions and drought, the lake has lost more than two-thirds of its water. Salt crusts that hold down the toxic dust are starting to erode. When Owens Lake, a saltwater lake in southern California, dried up in 1926, it became the single largest source of dust in the United States — and held that title for close to a century. The Great Salt Lake, the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere, is around 12 times larger than Owens Lake. It is difficult to imagine the amount of dust that we will face if the Great Salt Lake continues to dry. I am heartened by Governor Cox and the Utah Legislature’s declarations of this issue as a priority, as well as last year’s policy changes and funding commitments. This legislative season, we urgently need more: big, bold changes to improve water conservation. The morning after the rally, my baby woke up and crawled for the first time. He’d been trying for weeks, pumping his arms and legs while stuck on an invisible treadmill. Suddenly, he was rocketing around the room, grinning and babbling like it was the easiest thing in the world. As a mom and as a pediatrician, I am amazed at how children change every day. This rapid development of their brains and bodies leaves them vulnerable to toxins. But it also lets them greet each day with resolve and delight – even, or especially, when they are learning something hard. Let us be inspired by children: We, too, can greet challenges with resolve and perhaps even delight. We, too, can make huge changes — even when it’s hard. When it comes to saving the Great Salt Lake, it’s our only option. Hanna Saltzman, M.D., is a pediatric resident physician and mother in Salt Lake City.	<urn:uuid:cc19ca1b-d074-44cd-a24a-fd892bc5b1ae>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-14", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296948609.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20230327060940-20230327090940-00799.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9542655348777771, "pii_count": 0, "score": 3.1875, "token_count": 929, "url": "https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2023/01/26/hanna-saltzman-health-lake-is/" }	Earlier this month, on a day off from working as a doctor at the children’s hospital, I took my baby to a rally at the Utah Capitol. The crowd thrummed with energy. The Great Salt Lake shimmered on the horizon. My baby reached towards brightly painted signs: “Save Our Lake.” “Save It, Don’t Spray It.” “Defend Our Future.” We went because saving the lake is crucial for the health of my son, my pediatric patients and all the children in the Wasatch Front. And because this is an emergency. New research suggests that without dramatic policy changes, the Great Salt Lake could vanish within five years — and legislative decisions made in the next two months could make or break that path. As a pediatrician and mother, a big brown rally sign summed up my biggest concern: “No to Toxic Dust Bowl.” Our city’s namesake is a terminal body of water, with water flowing in but not out, which means it’s full of pollutants. Arsenic, mercury, lead and other toxins sit beneath the lake, held down by water and salt. As the lake dries, the toxins rise into the air as dust. This dust then blows across the Wasatch Front, which houses three-fourths of Utah’s population. It travels further still: dust from the Great Salt Lake has been found from Southern Utah to Wyoming. When toxic dust reaches us, we breathe it in. So do our kids. There’s no doubt that air pollution is bad for children’s health. If you know a child with asthma, you may have seen how it can be harder to breathe on bad air days. Air pollution is also linked to childhood cancers, birth defects, problems with brain development and other health concerns. With our smog, wildfire smoke, high ozone levels and worsening dust, children here often breathe unsafe air. But the collapse of the Great Salt Lake brings an extremely urgent new threat. The dust will not simply bring more run-of-the-mill bad air days. The resulting toxic dust storms could be catastrophic for children’s health. Kids are vulnerable to even tiny amounts of pollution and toxins. Take lead, for example, one of the heavy metals found in the lakebed: even the tiniest amount of lead poisoning can harm a child’s brain. We do not know what, exactly, would happen to children’s health – or to our health, as adults – if we were to breathe storm after storm of toxic dust. We can’t risk finding out. Due to divers	ions and drought, the lake has lost more than two-thirds of its water. Salt crusts that hold down the toxic dust are starting to erode. When Owens Lake, a saltwater lake in southern California, dried up in 1926, it became the single largest source of dust in the United States — and held that title for close to a century. The Great Salt Lake, the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere, is around 12 times larger than Owens Lake. It is difficult to imagine the amount of dust that we will face if the Great Salt Lake continues to dry. I am heartened by Governor Cox and the Utah Legislature’s declarations of this issue as a priority, as well as last year’s policy changes and funding commitments. This legislative season, we urgently need more: big, bold changes to improve water conservation. The morning after the rally, my baby woke up and crawled for the first time. He’d been trying for weeks, pumping his arms and legs while stuck on an invisible treadmill. Suddenly, he was rocketing around the room, grinning and babbling like it was the easiest thing in the world. As a mom and as a pediatrician, I am amazed at how children change every day. This rapid development of their brains and bodies leaves them vulnerable to toxins. But it also lets them greet each day with resolve and delight – even, or especially, when they are learning something hard. Let us be inspired by children: We, too, can greet challenges with resolve and perhaps even delight. We, too, can make huge changes — even when it’s hard. When it comes to saving the Great Salt Lake, it’s our only option. Hanna Saltzman, M.D., is a pediatric resident physician and mother in Salt Lake City.
Millions of homes have lead paint, harming kids of color most. Will federal grants help? Though lead-based paint was banned in the late 1970s, lead still remains in the paint of roughly 37 million structures in the United States — and it's extremely harmful to people's health, especially growing children. On Friday, the federal government announced two grants to help remove the paint and make homes in low-income neighborhoods healthier. Together, the grants through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development total $568 million and focus on mitigating other harmful substances too, such as carbon monoxide, mold, radon and asbestos, as well as improving fire safety, the agency told USA TODAY in an exclusive. “Lead is still ubiquitous in our environment,” said Tiffany Sanchez, an environmental epidemiologist at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. Low-income, urban communities of color have long suffered disproportionate lead exposures. “This results in environmental injustice,” Sanchez said. “It’s unacceptable that so many are still exposed.” LINGERING LEAD: Biden plan to eliminate old pipes highlights longstanding contamination in communities of color Experts say they’re watching to see how initiatives will play out and what funds will come next to sustain efforts. Here's what to know. What are the dangers of lead? Lead is particularly harmful to children. Due to their rapid development, children who are exposed to lead may suffer major developmental delays and long-term, significant harm to the brain and nervous system. Even at low levels of exposure, lead can slow growth and cause learning, behavior and speech problems in children, research shows. Studies tie elevated lead levels to lower IQ, decreased focus, and even violent crime and delinquency. “Substandard housing results in a range of environmental exposures, including lead-based paint hazards amongst many others,” said Mount Sinai pediatrician Dr. Maida Galvez, founding director of the New York State Children’s Environmental Health Center. Who is most at risk? Urban children living in poverty and low-income communities of color are at the greatest danger, experts say. Black children are three times more likely to have high lead levels in their blood than white children, according to the National Academy for State Health Policy. Your pediatrician should screen your child's blood for lead, and you can check with your local health department's environmental health division for mitigation information. More than $500M in funds: What to know about the HUD grants The announcement comes a year after the Biden administration issued the Lead Pipe and Paint Action Plan and follows federal dollars from the administration’s Infrastructure Law that includes lead service line removal funding. In 2021, experts and advocates criticized the $15 billion allocation – down from a proposed $45 billion – saying the funds weren’t enough for the costly and complicated removal process of lead service lines. Here's how these grants will be broken down: ►Roughly $165 million are open to public housing agencies, the largest investment in health and safety grants for public housing to date, the agency says, combining federal dollars from the Housing-related Hazards Capital Fund and the Lead-Based Paint Capital Fund programs. ►Under HUD’s Lead Hazard Reduction Grant Program, another $403 million are open to state and local government applicants for homeowners to improve safety in homes built before 1978. This grant is intended for homes owned by low-income families and owners of rentals that house low-income families, said Warren Friedman, senior adviser at the Office of Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes. The funding amounts are based on congressional appropriations passed in prior years that have now become available, an agency spokeswoman said. When and how can agencies apply? Friedman told USA TODAY applicants will need to describe the developments where they plan to implement the funds and how they will follow through with the changes. State and local governments have until March 14 to apply online at grants.gov. The deadline for public housing agencies is April 13, the agency said. Why is lead removal such a big problem? Lead paint remediation is a complex process that can be costly for low-income homeowners, said Galvez. “The families that we serve oftentimes do not have the resources to fix those problems,” she said. “And they worsen.” Older buildings are harder to maintain, leading to more breakdowns that lead to exposures. “What makes lead-based paint dangerous is when it comes off the wall, and that happens when there’s maintenance... struggles to maintain that housing in good quality," said Mount Sinai pediatrician Dr. Perry Sheffield, who co-directs the New York center with Galvez. “There’s a leak, or a flood, or ongoing ventilation issue that causes a moisture problem, or just general breakdown. “That’s the cycle that’s really hard to break.” - Infrastructure act aimed to fight climate change. Is it living up to Biden's pledge? - 8 things you can do to protect yourself against lead poisoning from water - Americans born before 1996 may have a lower IQ from exposure to leaded gas Reach Nada Hassanein at <email-pii> or on Twitter @nhassanein_.	<urn:uuid:3a41953c-8571-4ff6-8ddb-ce7eb129a580>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-14", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-14/segments/1679296945473.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20230326142035-20230326172035-00229.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9430223703384399, "pii_count": 1, "score": 3.03125, "token_count": 1119, "url": "https://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/health/2023/01/13/hud-grants-lead-removal-low-income-housing/10895703002/" }	Millions of homes have lead paint, harming kids of color most. Will federal grants help? Though lead-based paint was banned in the late 1970s, lead still remains in the paint of roughly 37 million structures in the United States — and it's extremely harmful to people's health, especially growing children. On Friday, the federal government announced two grants to help remove the paint and make homes in low-income neighborhoods healthier. Together, the grants through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development total $568 million and focus on mitigating other harmful substances too, such as carbon monoxide, mold, radon and asbestos, as well as improving fire safety, the agency told USA TODAY in an exclusive. “Lead is still ubiquitous in our environment,” said Tiffany Sanchez, an environmental epidemiologist at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. Low-income, urban communities of color have long suffered disproportionate lead exposures. “This results in environmental injustice,” Sanchez said. “It’s unacceptable that so many are still exposed.” LINGERING LEAD: Biden plan to eliminate old pipes highlights longstanding contamination in communities of color Experts say they’re watching to see how initiatives will play out and what funds will come next to sustain efforts. Here's what to know. What are the dangers of lead? Lead is particularly harmful to children. Due to their rapid development, children who are exposed to lead may suffer major developmental delays and long-term, significant harm to the brain and nervous system. Even at low levels of exposure, lead can slow growth and cause learning, behavior and speech problems in children, research shows. Studies tie elevated lead levels to lower IQ, decreased focus, and even violent crime and delinquency. “Substandard housing results in a range of environmental exposures, including lead-based paint hazards amongst many others,” said Mount Sinai pediatrician Dr. Maida Galvez, founding director of the New York State Children’s Environmental Health Center. Who is most at risk? Urban children living in poverty and low-income communities of color are at the greatest danger, experts say. Black children are three times more likely to have high lead levels in their blood than white children, according to the National Academy for State Health Policy. Your pediatrician should screen your child's blood for lead, and you can check with your local health department's environmental health division for mitigation information. More than $500M in funds: What to know about the HUD grants The announcement comes a year after	the Biden administration issued the Lead Pipe and Paint Action Plan and follows federal dollars from the administration’s Infrastructure Law that includes lead service line removal funding. In 2021, experts and advocates criticized the $15 billion allocation – down from a proposed $45 billion – saying the funds weren’t enough for the costly and complicated removal process of lead service lines. Here's how these grants will be broken down: ►Roughly $165 million are open to public housing agencies, the largest investment in health and safety grants for public housing to date, the agency says, combining federal dollars from the Housing-related Hazards Capital Fund and the Lead-Based Paint Capital Fund programs. ►Under HUD’s Lead Hazard Reduction Grant Program, another $403 million are open to state and local government applicants for homeowners to improve safety in homes built before 1978. This grant is intended for homes owned by low-income families and owners of rentals that house low-income families, said Warren Friedman, senior adviser at the Office of Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes. The funding amounts are based on congressional appropriations passed in prior years that have now become available, an agency spokeswoman said. When and how can agencies apply? Friedman told USA TODAY applicants will need to describe the developments where they plan to implement the funds and how they will follow through with the changes. State and local governments have until March 14 to apply online at grants.gov. The deadline for public housing agencies is April 13, the agency said. Why is lead removal such a big problem? Lead paint remediation is a complex process that can be costly for low-income homeowners, said Galvez. “The families that we serve oftentimes do not have the resources to fix those problems,” she said. “And they worsen.” Older buildings are harder to maintain, leading to more breakdowns that lead to exposures. “What makes lead-based paint dangerous is when it comes off the wall, and that happens when there’s maintenance... struggles to maintain that housing in good quality," said Mount Sinai pediatrician Dr. Perry Sheffield, who co-directs the New York center with Galvez. “There’s a leak, or a flood, or ongoing ventilation issue that causes a moisture problem, or just general breakdown. “That’s the cycle that’s really hard to break.” - Infrastructure act aimed to fight climate change. Is it living up to Biden's pledge? - 8 things you can do to protect yourself against lead poisoning from water - Americans born before 1996 may have a lower IQ from exposure to leaded gas Reach Nada Hassanein at <email-pii> or on Twitter @nhassanein_.
- Robots milk cows without human intervention using 3D cameras or laser beams. - Production, labor savings and cow comfort are three critical benefits of using newer milking systems, farmers say. - Not all dairy farmers benefit from using robot-based technology due to the high upfront cost or how it changes the management of the operation. Chad Kieffer, a third-generation farmer from Utica, Minnesota, has five milkers for his herd of 350 cows. The milkers are squat, patient, persistent workers. They hum around the mooing cows. They are robots. In an increasingly automated world, the dairy industry is keeping up. According to Michigan State University, robotic milkers were first introduced in the United States in 2000. Now, according to Hoard’s Dairyman magazine, over 35,000 robotic milking units can be found around the world with thousands in the U.S. “It’s always changing. It’s like your iPhone getting changed every six months. There’s lots of technology that’s getting researched every day,” said Dana Allen, a fourth-generation dairy farmer from Eyota, Minnesota. Dairy technology has transformed the industry. Decades ago, dairy producers milked by hand. Then came buckets, pipelines, parlors, and then parlors with automatic unit removal, rotary parlors, and robots, according to Douglas Reinemann, Ph.D., a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Automation started in Europe. Company DeLaval started using an automated robot system at a farm in Sweden in 1997. Another maker is Lely, based in the Netherlands. By 2000, automation came to the U.S. The results are significant, farmers and researchers say. Cows feel less stress, farmers are able to be more efficient and they gain time. They also save money on labor. Now there are 500 to 1,000 U.S. operations using the milking robots, said Reinemann. The automation is not perfect. Startup costs challenge smaller producers. As there is with most machinery, there also is the need for maintenance. Farmers gain time to work Automated milking systems (AMS) give farmers time to focus on other work, and typically more time on skilled duties. This saves labor, Reinemann said. He also noted that AMS helps farmers ergonomically as they avoid repetitive physical tasks. Farmers who use AMS appreciate the labor savings. “The farmers have more time to clean up the farm, work on the crops, and other chores. It may even allow a farmer to attend their kid’s sporting events and in turn, improve their mental health,” said Mariah Busta, executive director of the Iowa State Dairy Association. But the rate of change is up to the farmer. “The degree to which a farmer adapts to technology and the speed at which they do it is open for their comfort level,” Allen said. “There is a tremendous amount of technology in agriculture, and I think that’s something the general public doesn’t understand.” Robots leave cows calmer Robots, like Kieffer’s, milk cows without the physical presence of a human being, using a robotic arm with the aid of either 3D cameras or laser beams to locate a cow’s teats. According to the Animal Agriculture Alliance, a nonprofit focused on sustainable ag, the total time needed to milk one cow takes an average of seven minutes with a robot. Since installing robots, Kieffer has reduced his number of full-time dairy employees from six to three. “The robot is doing the milking for you, so the cost of the robots has to be offset by labor savings,” he said. The robots can cost more than $200,000 each. The farmers also said the cows’ comfort is a critical benefit. Reinemann said cows can associate humans with negative interactions, such as a veterinarian checkup or being moved to and from different buildings. “You’re allowing a cow to do what she wants when she wants. You’re not forcing her somewhere, and she can go get milked,” Kieffer said. Cows voluntarily can go to the area indoors to be milked, farmers said. The robot system sorts cows that need to be milked based on how much time has elapsed in between milkings. Ear tags assist with sorting. In Deer Park, Wisconsin, Kristin Quist of Minglewood Dairy keeps about 500 of her herd of 1,200 cows in a robot milking facility. She uses a system that guides the animals through the barn. “The cow walks through a gate determining if it’s time for them to be milked after reading a tag in her ear,” she said. “If it’s time to be milked, she goes into the robot. If it isn’t, she’s sent to be fed in a different direction.” RELATED VIDEO: Watch the robot in action Quist compares her newer robot facility to her milking parlor. “The cows in the robot facility are a lot more laid back,” she said. “In the parlor facility, they are more likely to get up expecting to get milked.” Regardless of the production method, farmers are producing more milk, primarily because of improved genetics and improved nutrition, researchers said. Reinemann said research has shown using robots allows cows to remain in the herd longer, which can mean they produce milk longer. “We won’t be getting any additional land or resources in the coming future, so we need to be efficient with what we have,” Busta said. “Technology is absolutely crucial in helping us continue to be efficient about producing milk in a sustainable way.” Other farmers opt for rotating platform systems Farmers seeking an upgrade have other options beyond milking robots. Rotary milking parlors allow cows to step onto a circulating platform before farmers attach milking units. The system constantly moves cows on and off the platform. Allen milks her herd of about 1,750 cows on her farm, Gar-Lin Dairy, using a platform. Gar-Lin’s rotary allows 50 cows to step onto the platform at a time. “Before, we were milking 750 to 800 cows in about seven hours. Now we can milk 1,750 in the same amount of time,” she said. Allen said that she initially feared the cows would be difficult to get onto the carousel-like platform, but she quickly learned the greater issue would be getting them off. “There’s not a lot of commotion,” she said. “They actually like riding around on the rotary.” In deciding what type of system a farmer should pursue, a farm of 1,500 to 3,000 cows likely warrants a rotary system, while a herd of 200-300 cows may be better suited for robots, said Marcia Endres, Ph.D., a professor of animal science at the University of Minnesota. With larger herds, a rotary system is more efficient because up to 50 cows can be loaded at once, though it does still require human intervention to get the cows on the platform. One benefit of technology is more milk. In 1925, the average Iowa cow was giving 4,000 pounds of milk each year, while today’s cow gives 28,000 pounds annually, according to the state dairy association. Some farmers are weighing the pros and cons of the technology. Among them is Nick Seitzer, a recent University of Minnesota grad and dairy farmer from St. Peter, Minnesota. He’s thinking about adding a robot to milk his 65 cows. He forecasts about a 10% increase in production if he installs a robot in a free-stall barn. “The robot would be huge,” Seitzer said. “Fewer people want to do what we’re doing, so it would be nice to have robots that are always there doing the job.” But the initial cost is high. Seitzer estimates one robot would cost about $250,000, not including the physical infrastructure (such as a potential barn expansion, milk house or other needs) to use it. On his Utica, Minnesota, farm, Kieffer saw robots as a smart investment. Kieffer typically spends one hour a day doing maintenance, he said. “Your debt per cow or debt per stall becomes rather large up front, but what I tell people is you’re basically prepaying your labor for seven or eight years,” he said. “It ends up being less than a traditional herd of cows being milked in a parlor.” With dairy technology rapidly changing, Seitzer has been feeling pressure for his operation to adapt. “If we don’t, we may not be doing it much longer,” he said. Dr. Lindsey Borst, a veterinarian who milks 230 cows alongside her family in Rochester, Minnesota, feels differently. Borst has been looking at robots for five to six years. “I wouldn’t say we’re falling behind. Robots are still fairly new, and they’re not super common yet,” she said. “Sometimes it’s also good to wait because technology is changing so quickly, too.” Robots are not the right choice for all farmers, Kieffer, the farmer, and Endres, the University of Minnesota professor, said. “Don’t put robots in because you don’t like cows. You also have to be mechanically inclined to do preventative maintenance on the robots,” Kieffer said. Reinemann, the UW professor since 1990 and director of the UW Milking Research and Instruction lab, grew up in the dairyland of Wisconsin. “For me as a young person, milking cows was so ordinary; there was absolutely nothing interesting about it,” he said. “I started my career in milking technology, and it’s been amazing. The shifts in the technology and how dairy farms are managed, it’s been a lot of change.” RELATED STORY: Technology goes beyond milking Ethan Humble is a 2023 graduate of Simpson College, where he majored in multimedia journalism. Suzanne Behnke contributed to this report. Type of work: Comments are closed.	<urn:uuid:85d43dbe-1f38-45ef-b115-4d44859cafbe>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-23", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224643663.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20230528083025-20230528113025-00718.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9508178234100342, "pii_count": 0, "score": 2.515625, "token_count": 2248, "url": "https://investigatemidwest.org/2023/04/27/for-years-farmers-milked-cows-by-hand-now-robots-and-technology-do-the-work/" }	- Robots milk cows without human intervention using 3D cameras or laser beams. - Production, labor savings and cow comfort are three critical benefits of using newer milking systems, farmers say. - Not all dairy farmers benefit from using robot-based technology due to the high upfront cost or how it changes the management of the operation. Chad Kieffer, a third-generation farmer from Utica, Minnesota, has five milkers for his herd of 350 cows. The milkers are squat, patient, persistent workers. They hum around the mooing cows. They are robots. In an increasingly automated world, the dairy industry is keeping up. According to Michigan State University, robotic milkers were first introduced in the United States in 2000. Now, according to Hoard’s Dairyman magazine, over 35,000 robotic milking units can be found around the world with thousands in the U.S. “It’s always changing. It’s like your iPhone getting changed every six months. There’s lots of technology that’s getting researched every day,” said Dana Allen, a fourth-generation dairy farmer from Eyota, Minnesota. Dairy technology has transformed the industry. Decades ago, dairy producers milked by hand. Then came buckets, pipelines, parlors, and then parlors with automatic unit removal, rotary parlors, and robots, according to Douglas Reinemann, Ph.D., a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Automation started in Europe. Company DeLaval started using an automated robot system at a farm in Sweden in 1997. Another maker is Lely, based in the Netherlands. By 2000, automation came to the U.S. The results are significant, farmers and researchers say. Cows feel less stress, farmers are able to be more efficient and they gain time. They also save money on labor. Now there are 500 to 1,000 U.S. operations using the milking robots, said Reinemann. The automation is not perfect. Startup costs challenge smaller producers. As there is with most machinery, there also is the need for maintenance. Farmers gain time to work Automated milking systems (AMS) give farmers time to focus on other work, and typically more time on skilled duties. This saves labor, Reinemann said. He also noted that AMS helps farmers ergonomically as they avoid repetitive physical tasks. Farmers	who use AMS appreciate the labor savings. “The farmers have more time to clean up the farm, work on the crops, and other chores. It may even allow a farmer to attend their kid’s sporting events and in turn, improve their mental health,” said Mariah Busta, executive director of the Iowa State Dairy Association. But the rate of change is up to the farmer. “The degree to which a farmer adapts to technology and the speed at which they do it is open for their comfort level,” Allen said. “There is a tremendous amount of technology in agriculture, and I think that’s something the general public doesn’t understand.” Robots leave cows calmer Robots, like Kieffer’s, milk cows without the physical presence of a human being, using a robotic arm with the aid of either 3D cameras or laser beams to locate a cow’s teats. According to the Animal Agriculture Alliance, a nonprofit focused on sustainable ag, the total time needed to milk one cow takes an average of seven minutes with a robot. Since installing robots, Kieffer has reduced his number of full-time dairy employees from six to three. “The robot is doing the milking for you, so the cost of the robots has to be offset by labor savings,” he said. The robots can cost more than $200,000 each. The farmers also said the cows’ comfort is a critical benefit. Reinemann said cows can associate humans with negative interactions, such as a veterinarian checkup or being moved to and from different buildings. “You’re allowing a cow to do what she wants when she wants. You’re not forcing her somewhere, and she can go get milked,” Kieffer said. Cows voluntarily can go to the area indoors to be milked, farmers said. The robot system sorts cows that need to be milked based on how much time has elapsed in between milkings. Ear tags assist with sorting. In Deer Park, Wisconsin, Kristin Quist of Minglewood Dairy keeps about 500 of her herd of 1,200 cows in a robot milking facility. She uses a system that guides the animals through the barn. “The cow walks through a gate determining if it’s time for them to be milked after reading a tag in her ear,” she said. “If it’s time to be milked, she goes into the robot. If it isn’t, she’s sent to be fed in a different direction.” RELATED VIDEO: Watch the robot in action Quist compares her newer robot facility to her milking parlor. “The cows in the robot facility are a lot more laid back,” she said. “In the parlor facility, they are more likely to get up expecting to get milked.” Regardless of the production method, farmers are producing more milk, primarily because of improved genetics and improved nutrition, researchers said. Reinemann said research has shown using robots allows cows to remain in the herd longer, which can mean they produce milk longer. “We won’t be getting any additional land or resources in the coming future, so we need to be efficient with what we have,” Busta said. “Technology is absolutely crucial in helping us continue to be efficient about producing milk in a sustainable way.” Other farmers opt for rotating platform systems Farmers seeking an upgrade have other options beyond milking robots. Rotary milking parlors allow cows to step onto a circulating platform before farmers attach milking units. The system constantly moves cows on and off the platform. Allen milks her herd of about 1,750 cows on her farm, Gar-Lin Dairy, using a platform. Gar-Lin’s rotary allows 50 cows to step onto the platform at a time. “Before, we were milking 750 to 800 cows in about seven hours. Now we can milk 1,750 in the same amount of time,” she said. Allen said that she initially feared the cows would be difficult to get onto the carousel-like platform, but she quickly learned the greater issue would be getting them off. “There’s not a lot of commotion,” she said. “They actually like riding around on the rotary.” In deciding what type of system a farmer should pursue, a farm of 1,500 to 3,000 cows likely warrants a rotary system, while a herd of 200-300 cows may be better suited for robots, said Marcia Endres, Ph.D., a professor of animal science at the University of Minnesota. With larger herds, a rotary system is more efficient because up to 50 cows can be loaded at once, though it does still require human intervention to get the cows on the platform. One benefit of technology is more milk. In 1925, the average Iowa cow was giving 4,000 pounds of milk each year, while today’s cow gives 28,000 pounds annually, according to the state dairy association. Some farmers are weighing the pros and cons of the technology. Among them is Nick Seitzer, a recent University of Minnesota grad and dairy farmer from St. Peter, Minnesota. He’s thinking about adding a robot to milk his 65 cows. He forecasts about a 10% increase in production if he installs a robot in a free-stall barn. “The robot would be huge,” Seitzer said. “Fewer people want to do what we’re doing, so it would be nice to have robots that are always there doing the job.” But the initial cost is high. Seitzer estimates one robot would cost about $250,000, not including the physical infrastructure (such as a potential barn expansion, milk house or other needs) to use it. On his Utica, Minnesota, farm, Kieffer saw robots as a smart investment. Kieffer typically spends one hour a day doing maintenance, he said. “Your debt per cow or debt per stall becomes rather large up front, but what I tell people is you’re basically prepaying your labor for seven or eight years,” he said. “It ends up being less than a traditional herd of cows being milked in a parlor.” With dairy technology rapidly changing, Seitzer has been feeling pressure for his operation to adapt. “If we don’t, we may not be doing it much longer,” he said. Dr. Lindsey Borst, a veterinarian who milks 230 cows alongside her family in Rochester, Minnesota, feels differently. Borst has been looking at robots for five to six years. “I wouldn’t say we’re falling behind. Robots are still fairly new, and they’re not super common yet,” she said. “Sometimes it’s also good to wait because technology is changing so quickly, too.” Robots are not the right choice for all farmers, Kieffer, the farmer, and Endres, the University of Minnesota professor, said. “Don’t put robots in because you don’t like cows. You also have to be mechanically inclined to do preventative maintenance on the robots,” Kieffer said. Reinemann, the UW professor since 1990 and director of the UW Milking Research and Instruction lab, grew up in the dairyland of Wisconsin. “For me as a young person, milking cows was so ordinary; there was absolutely nothing interesting about it,” he said. “I started my career in milking technology, and it’s been amazing. The shifts in the technology and how dairy farms are managed, it’s been a lot of change.” RELATED STORY: Technology goes beyond milking Ethan Humble is a 2023 graduate of Simpson College, where he majored in multimedia journalism. Suzanne Behnke contributed to this report. Type of work: Comments are closed.
The ozone layer is on track to recover in the coming decades, the United Nations says Updated January 10, 2023 at 2:16 PM ET The Earth's ozone layer is on its way to recovering, thanks to decades of work to get rid of ozone-damaging chemicals, a panel of international experts backed by the United Nations has found. The ozone layer serves an important function for living things on Earth. This shield in the stratosphere protects humans and the environment from harmful levels of the sun's ultraviolet radiation. The international community was alarmed after experts discovered a hole in the ozone layer in May 1985. Scientists had previously discovered that chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons, used in manufacturing aerosol sprays and used as solvents and refrigerants, could destroy ozone. Two years after the discovery of the dire state of the ozone layer, international bodies adopted a global agreement called the Montreal Protocol. This established the phaseout of almost 100 synthetic chemicals that were tied to the destruction of the all-important ozone. In the latest report on the progress of the Montreal Protocol, the U.N.-backed panel confirmed that nearly 99% of banned ozone-depleting substances have been phased out. If current policies stay in place, the ozone layer is expected to recover to 1980 values by 2040, the U.N. announced. In some places, it may take longer. Experts said that 1980-level recovery over Antarctica is expected by around 2066 and by 2045 over the Arctic. "The impact the Montreal Protocol has had on climate change mitigation cannot be overstressed," said Meg Seki, executive secretary of the U.N. Environment Programme's Ozone Secretariat, in a statement. "Over the last 35 years, the Protocol has become a true champion for the environment. The assessments and reviews undertaken by the Scientific Assessment Panel remain a vital component of the work of the Protocol that helps inform policy and decision-makers." The depletion of the ozone layer is not a major cause of climate change. But research is showing that these efforts to save the ozone layer are proving beneficial in the fight against climate change. In 2016, an amendment to the Montreal Protocol required the phaseout of the production and consumption of some hydrofluorocarbons. These HFCs don't directly deplete the ozone layer, but they are powerful greenhouse gases — which contribute to accelerated climate change and global warming, the U.N. says. The Kigali Amendment will "avoid 0.3–0.5 °C of warming by 2100," the report estimates. "Ozone action sets a precedent for climate action," said World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Petteri Taalas. "Our success in phasing out ozone-eating chemicals shows us what can and must be done – as a matter of urgency – to transition away from fossil fuels, reduce greenhouse gases and so limit temperature increase." Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.	<urn:uuid:23cf2390-ece1-4b88-824b-1ca9928dcace>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-06", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764500356.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20230206145603-20230206175603-00482.warc.gz", "int_score": 4, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9326230883598328, "pii_count": 0, "score": 3.96875, "token_count": 621, "url": "https://www.hawaiipublicradio.org/npr-news/npr-news/2023-01-10/the-ozone-layer-is-on-track-to-recover-in-the-coming-decades-the-united-nations-says" }	The ozone layer is on track to recover in the coming decades, the United Nations says Updated January 10, 2023 at 2:16 PM ET The Earth's ozone layer is on its way to recovering, thanks to decades of work to get rid of ozone-damaging chemicals, a panel of international experts backed by the United Nations has found. The ozone layer serves an important function for living things on Earth. This shield in the stratosphere protects humans and the environment from harmful levels of the sun's ultraviolet radiation. The international community was alarmed after experts discovered a hole in the ozone layer in May 1985. Scientists had previously discovered that chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons, used in manufacturing aerosol sprays and used as solvents and refrigerants, could destroy ozone. Two years after the discovery of the dire state of the ozone layer, international bodies adopted a global agreement called the Montreal Protocol. This established the phaseout of almost 100 synthetic chemicals that were tied to the destruction of the all-important ozone. In the latest report on the progress of the Montreal Protocol, the U.N.-backed panel confirmed that nearly 99% of banned ozone-depleting substances have been phased out. If current policies stay in place, the ozone layer is expected to recover to 1980 values by 2040, the U.N. announced. In some places, it may take longer. Experts said that 1980-level recovery over Antarctica is expected by around 2066 and by 2045 over the Arctic. "The impact the Montreal Protocol has had on climate change mitigation cannot be overstressed," said Meg Seki, executive secretary of the U.N. Environment Programme's Ozone Secretariat, in a statement. "Over the last 35 years, the Protocol has become a true champion for the environment. The assessments and reviews undertaken by the Scientific Assessment Panel remain a vital component of the work of the Protocol that helps inform policy and decision-makers." The depletion of the ozone layer is not a major cause of climate change. But research is showing that these efforts to save the ozone layer are proving beneficial in the fight against climate change. In 2016, an amendment to the Montreal Protocol required the phaseout of the production and consumption of some hydrofluorocarbons. These HFCs don't directly deplete the ozone layer, but they are powerful greenhouse gases — which contribute	to accelerated climate change and global warming, the U.N. says. The Kigali Amendment will "avoid 0.3–0.5 °C of warming by 2100," the report estimates. "Ozone action sets a precedent for climate action," said World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Petteri Taalas. "Our success in phasing out ozone-eating chemicals shows us what can and must be done – as a matter of urgency – to transition away from fossil fuels, reduce greenhouse gases and so limit temperature increase." Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
A panel of independent experts that advises the US Food and Drug Administration on its vaccine decisions voted unanimously Thursday to update all Covid-19 vaccines so they contain the same ingredients as the two-strain shots that are now used as booster doses. The vote means young children and others who haven’t been vaccinated may soon be eligible to receive two-strain vaccines that more closely match the circulating viruses as their primary series. The FDA must sign off on the committee’s recommendation, which it is likely to do, before it goes into effect. Currently, the US offers two types of Covid-19 vaccines. The first shots people get – also called the primary series – contain a single set of instructions that teach the immune system to fight off the original version of the virus, which emerged in 2019. This index strain is no longer circulating. It was overrun months ago by an ever-evolving parade of new variants. Last year, in consultation with its advisers, the FDA decided that it was time to update the vaccines. These two-strain, or bivalent, shots contain two sets of instructions; one set reminds the immune system about the original version of the coronavirus, and the second set teaches the immune system to recognize and fight off Omicron’s BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants, which emerged in the US last year. People who have had their primary series – nearly 70% of all Americans – were advised to get the new two-strain booster late last year in an effort to upgrade their protection against the latest variants. The advisory committee heard testimony and data suggesting that the complexity of having two types of Covid-19 vaccines and schedules for different age groups may be one of the reasons for low vaccine uptake in the US. Currently, only about two-thirds of Americans have had the full primary series of shots. Only 15% of the population has gotten an updated bivalent booster. Data presented to the committee shows that Covid-19 hospitalizations have been rising for children under the age of 2 over the past year, as Omicron and its many subvariants have circulated. Only 5% of this age group, which is eligible for Covid-19 vaccination at 6 months of age, has been fully vaccinated. Ninety percent of children under the age of 4 are still unvaccinated. “The most concerning data point that I saw this whole day was that extremely low vaccination coverage in 6 months to 2 years of age and also 2 years to 4 years of age,” said Dr. Amanda Cohn, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Birth Defects and Infant Disorders. “We have to do much, much better.”	<urn:uuid:f76d9d79-d9c4-40b3-aa01-ea75570cab4f>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-40", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233506423.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20230922202444-20230922232444-00721.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9699795842170715, "pii_count": 0, "score": 2.984375, "token_count": 576, "url": "https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/26/health/fda-covid-19-vaccine-future/index.html?mkt_tok=NDkwLUVIWi05OTkAAAGJkggJBXSWgdFLY7xaA1Ha7LFah8V9wpGcSE6VzvuqTw_oUXID7-jqYD96haumTDovix5qJaLbn08UPczT7pk" }	A panel of independent experts that advises the US Food and Drug Administration on its vaccine decisions voted unanimously Thursday to update all Covid-19 vaccines so they contain the same ingredients as the two-strain shots that are now used as booster doses. The vote means young children and others who haven’t been vaccinated may soon be eligible to receive two-strain vaccines that more closely match the circulating viruses as their primary series. The FDA must sign off on the committee’s recommendation, which it is likely to do, before it goes into effect. Currently, the US offers two types of Covid-19 vaccines. The first shots people get – also called the primary series – contain a single set of instructions that teach the immune system to fight off the original version of the virus, which emerged in 2019. This index strain is no longer circulating. It was overrun months ago by an ever-evolving parade of new variants. Last year, in consultation with its advisers, the FDA decided that it was time to update the vaccines. These two-strain, or bivalent, shots contain two sets of instructions; one set reminds the immune system about the original version of the coronavirus, and the second set teaches the immune system to recognize and fight off Omicron’s BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants, which emerged in the US last year. People who have had their primary series – nearly 70% of all Americans – were advised to get the new two-strain booster late last year in an effort to upgrade their protection against the latest variants. The advisory committee heard testimony and data suggesting that the complexity of having two types of Covid-19 vaccines and schedules for different age groups may be one of the reasons for low vaccine uptake in the US. Currently, only about two-thirds of Americans have had the full primary series of shots. Only 15% of the population has gotten an updated bivalent booster. Data presented to the committee shows that Covid-19 hospitalizations have been rising for children under the age of 2 over the past year, as Omicron and its many subvariants have circulated. Only 5% of this age group, which is eligible for Covid-19 vaccination at 6 months of age, has been fully vaccinated. Ninety percent of children under the age of 4 are still unvaccinated. “The most concerning data point that I saw this whole day was that extremely low vaccination coverage in 6 months to 2 years of age and also	2 years to 4 years of age,” said Dr. Amanda Cohn, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Birth Defects and Infant Disorders. “We have to do much, much better.”
In current times, associated with Beltane, how much do we actually know about the Wicker Man? And was animal and human sacrifice a major part of the Celtic religion? Interestingly, we only have 2 ancient sources about the Wicker Man. Only the Roman general Julius Caesar and the Greek geographer Strabo mention the wicker man as one of many ways the druids of Gaul performed sacrifices. In the mid-1st century BC, Caesar wrote in his Commentary on the Gallic War that a large wickerwork figure with limbs was filled with living men and set on fire. He says that criminals were the preferred victims, but that innocent people might also be burned if there were no criminals. Writing slightly later, Strabo says in his Geographica that men and animals were burned in a large figure of wood and straw, although he does not make clear whether the victims were burned alive. He adds that the ashes were believed to help the crops grow. Also in the 1st century BC, Greek historian Diodorus Siculus wrote in Bibliotheca historica that the Celts sacrificed human and animal captives by burning them on huge pyres along with the first fruits. It is probable that both Diodorus and Strabo got their information from the earlier Greek historian Posidonius, whose work has not survived. In the 1st century AD, Roman writer Lucan mentioned human sacrifices to the Gaulish gods Esus, Toutatis and Taranis. In a commentary on Lucan—the Commenta Bernensia dating from the 4th century and later—an unnamed author added that sacrifices to Taranis were burned in a wooden container. Archaeological evidence of human sacrifice among Celtic peoples is rare. Many modern historians and archaeologists state that the ancient Greco-Roman accounts should be viewed with caution. Both Greeks and Romans “had good reason to dislike a long-term enemy” and it may have benefited them to “transmit any bizarre and negative information” about the Celts. Their desire to depict Celtic peoples as “barbarians” may have “led to exaggeration or even fabrications”. (Mary Voight, The Violent Ways of Galatian Gordion) The Wicker Man, although associated with ancient Britain, was only mentioned in respect of the Gauls, the name given to continental Celts. In modern times, large wickerwork figures were burnt in France during the 18th and 19th centuries. Wilhelm Mannhardt recorded that a wickerwork giant was burnt each Midsummer Eve (not Beltane) in Brie. Until 1743, a large wickerwork figure of a soldier or warrior was burnt every 3 July on the Rue aux Ours in Paris, as the crowd sang “Salve Regina”. At Luchon in the Pyrenees, snakes were burnt alive in a tall wickerwork column decked with leaves and flowers on Midsummer Eve. Far from being a pagan festival, young male Christians with torches danced around the burning column, whilst the townsfolk and clergy sang hymns. Snakes represented Satan, and this sadistic, barbaric ritual was about the Christian conquest of evil. In recent times in Britain, neopagan movements have recreated burning of the Wicker Man at various festivals, in particular Beltane. However, the modern practice is more inspired by the 1970’s cult movie than any actual historical evidence. One thought on “The Wicker Man”	<urn:uuid:65fcc305-3d06-48b4-9a7e-679b4356728f>	{ "dump": "CC-MAIN-2023-23", "file_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224653071.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20230606182640-20230606212640-00595.warc.gz", "int_score": 3, "language": "en", "language_score": 0.9689949750900269, "pii_count": 0, "score": 3.484375, "token_count": 726, "url": "https://orderofcelticwolves.wordpress.com/2023/05/01/the-wicker-man/" }	In current times, associated with Beltane, how much do we actually know about the Wicker Man? And was animal and human sacrifice a major part of the Celtic religion? Interestingly, we only have 2 ancient sources about the Wicker Man. Only the Roman general Julius Caesar and the Greek geographer Strabo mention the wicker man as one of many ways the druids of Gaul performed sacrifices. In the mid-1st century BC, Caesar wrote in his Commentary on the Gallic War that a large wickerwork figure with limbs was filled with living men and set on fire. He says that criminals were the preferred victims, but that innocent people might also be burned if there were no criminals. Writing slightly later, Strabo says in his Geographica that men and animals were burned in a large figure of wood and straw, although he does not make clear whether the victims were burned alive. He adds that the ashes were believed to help the crops grow. Also in the 1st century BC, Greek historian Diodorus Siculus wrote in Bibliotheca historica that the Celts sacrificed human and animal captives by burning them on huge pyres along with the first fruits. It is probable that both Diodorus and Strabo got their information from the earlier Greek historian Posidonius, whose work has not survived. In the 1st century AD, Roman writer Lucan mentioned human sacrifices to the Gaulish gods Esus, Toutatis and Taranis. In a commentary on Lucan—the Commenta Bernensia dating from the 4th century and later—an unnamed author added that sacrifices to Taranis were burned in a wooden container. Archaeological evidence of human sacrifice among Celtic peoples is rare. Many modern historians and archaeologists state that the ancient Greco-Roman accounts should be viewed with caution. Both Greeks and Romans “had good reason to dislike a long-term enemy” and it may have benefited them to “transmit any bizarre and negative information” about the Celts. Their desire to depict Celtic peoples as “barbarians” may have “led to exaggeration or even fabrications”. (Mary Voight, The Violent Ways of Galatian Gordion) The Wicker Man, although associated with ancient Britain, was only mentioned in respect of the Gauls, the name given to continental Celts. In modern times, large wickerwork figures were burnt in France during the 18th and 19th centuries. Wilhelm Mannhardt recorded that a wickerwork giant	was burnt each Midsummer Eve (not Beltane) in Brie. Until 1743, a large wickerwork figure of a soldier or warrior was burnt every 3 July on the Rue aux Ours in Paris, as the crowd sang “Salve Regina”. At Luchon in the Pyrenees, snakes were burnt alive in a tall wickerwork column decked with leaves and flowers on Midsummer Eve. Far from being a pagan festival, young male Christians with torches danced around the burning column, whilst the townsfolk and clergy sang hymns. Snakes represented Satan, and this sadistic, barbaric ritual was about the Christian conquest of evil. In recent times in Britain, neopagan movements have recreated burning of the Wicker Man at various festivals, in particular Beltane. However, the modern practice is more inspired by the 1970’s cult movie than any actual historical evidence. One thought on “The Wicker Man”