Moderna reaches deal to build vaccine factory in Kenya


Moderna announced Monday, it has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Kenyan government that will see the biotech company invest $500 million in a factory in that country to produce its mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, with a goal of 500 million annual doses. 

File Photo by Debbie Hill/UPI | License Photo


March 7 (UPI) -- Moderna reached a preliminary deal Monday to build an mRNA manufacturing facility in Kenya, which would produce doses of its COVID-19 vaccine.

The Massachusetts-based biotech company will invest $500 million under a memorandum of understanding it signed with the Government of the Republic of Kenya.

The U.S. government helped facilitate the agreement.

Once built, Moderna's mRNA facility in Africa will have a goal of producing up to 500 million doses of vaccines annually. It will focus on providing vaccines for the entire continent of Africa and could eventually be expanded to include packaging and other capabilities.

"Battling the COVID-19 pandemic over the last two years has provided a reminder of the work that must be done to ensure global health equity," Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said in a statement. "Moderna is committed to being a part of the solution and today, we announce another step in this journey -- an investment in the Republic of Kenya to build a drug substance mRNA manufacturing facility capable of supplying up to 500 million doses for the African continent each year.

"With our mRNA global public health vaccine program, including our vaccine programs against HIV and Nipah, and with this partnership with the Republic of Kenya, the African Union and the U.S. Government, we believe that this step will become one of many on a journey to ensure sustainable access to transformative mRNA innovation on the African continent and positively impact public health."

Moderna's mRNA pipeline includes 28 vaccine programs including vaccines against respiratory viruses, vaccines against latent viruses and vaccines against threats to global public health.

"Ending COVID-19 is a top priority of the Biden Administration and this can be achieved with increased global cooperation and investment. The agreement announced today between Moderna and the Government of Kenya to build a vaccine production facility in Kenya will not only contribute to ending this pandemic, but to long-term advancements in research and development on the African continent to combat future ones," said U.S. Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment Jose W. Fernandez

FLATLAND

Drone footage shows scope of deadly outbreak of tornadoes in Iowa
By Renee Duff, Accuweather.com

An outbreak of severe weather over the weekend spawned a preliminary count of more than three dozen tornadoes on Saturday across Iowa, Wisconsin and Indiana. Photo courtesy Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds via Accuweather

March 8 -- Less than 36 hours after a tornado swarm struck Iowa and killed at least seven people, including two young children, fresh snow blanketed the destruction as biting winds pushed temperatures into the single digits.

Forecasters say Mother Nature could deliver another bitter blow of snow and cold later this week, adding further hardships to residents left picking up the pieces

The outbreak of severe weather over the weekend spawned a preliminary count of more than three dozen tornadoes on Saturday across Iowa, Wisconsin and Indiana. To complicate matters further on Saturday, the National Weather Service suffered technical difficulties that caused delays in disseminating tornado warnings as the extreme weather threat escalated.

And by Monday, a widespread 2- to 4-inch snowfall blanketed much of Iowa, the hardest-hit state

The towns of Winterset and Patterson, Iowa, located to the southwest of Des Moines, saw significant damage as at least three tornado-producing thunderstorms ravaged the area Saturday. Initial assessments by the National Weather Service revealed that the damage was caused by a tornado of at least EF3 force, meaning wind speeds were as high as 136-165 mph. Later, the NWS said the tornado was actually an EF4 twister with peak winds reaching 170 mph.

The massive tornado had a width of 800 yards and traveled nearly 70 miles, creating the second-longest tornado path in Iowa since 1980. It was also the first EF4 tornado to touch down in Iowa since 2013.

Two children under the age of five and four adults were among those killed by the twister in the town of Winterset, with another reported fatality in Lucas County, Iowa, making this the deadliest tornado to hit Iowa since 2008, according to the Des Moines Register.

RELATED At least 7 people killed by tornadoes near Des Moines

Drone footage showed the path of destruction the tornado cut through Winterset, a small city that's home to a little more than 5,000 residents. Homes could be seen with roofs ripped off and debris scattered in all directions and some were almost completely leveled, the video showed.

Tornado warnings sent out by the NWS on Saturday were delayed by as many as seven minutes, the NWS said in a statement to AccuWeather.

"The communications delay stemmed from a damaged fiber optic cable that serves our Dallas-Ft. Worth forecast office, which is co-located with a river forecast center," Susan Buchanan, NWS director of public affairs, said in an email.

The glitch caused "that office to switch from its primary, land-based communication network to a backup satellite-based network that serves every NWS field office," Buchanan continued, adding that the result was a "brief backlog across multiple offices."

"Delays in the NWS distributing tornado warnings to the public, especially of between five and 10 minutes is very problematic because it means that people relying on government warnings have that much less time to seek safe shelter prior to the tornado reaching their area," AccuWeather Senior Vice President of Forecasting Jonathan Porter said.

Des Moines International Airport was in the path of the tornadic storm as it moved to the northeast, threatening air traffic and those inside the airport. As the dangers of the storm became clear, the airport decided to stop all air traffic and evacuate everyone to tornado shelters under the airport.

Dramatic footage from a traffic camera showed the fury of the thunderstorm along Interstate 35 near Cumming, Iowa, with headlights from an oncoming vehicle barely visible due to the wind-driven rain.

After impacting the Des Moines metro area, the tornado headed toward the northwest side of Newton, Iowa. While the storm was crossing I-80, a semi-truck flipped over just west of Newton as the tornado-warned cell moved through.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds issued a disaster proclamation for Madison County late Saturday to deploy state resources to assist with response and recovery efforts.

"Our hearts go out to all those affected by the deadly storms that tore through our state today," Reynolds said in a statement. "Our hearts ache during this time, but I know Iowans will step up and come together to help in this time of need-they already are."

Reynolds toured the damage in Madison County on Sunday, calling it "absolutely heartbreaking" to see the destruction in person but stating that the "outpouring of support from volunteers" was "even more overwhelming" to witness.

Mother Nature hit relief and volunteer efforts hard at the start of this week as winter descended upon the region with snow and 20-degree temperatures. The wintry weather forced the Madison County Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency to delay debris removal operations.

"Roads are still snow-covered and we do not want volunteers to be injured due to not knowing what is under the snow," the agency said on Twitter.

Cleanup and recovery may again be hampered later on this week, AccuWeather meteorologists say, as yet another storm with snow and a reinforcing wave of cold air is expected to arrive late Wednesday into Thursday.

In total, four tornadoes were confirmed on Sunday, with three sweeping through Arkansas and one in Missouri. One injured five people and damaged two homes east of Zion, Arkansas, and structures were also reported damaged north of Dover, about 80 miles northwest of Little Rock.

Late Monday, a second EF-1 tornado was confirmed by the NWS to have hit Arkansas. Maximum winds of the tornado were estimated to be between 86 and 110 mph. At least two people were reported injured and power outages occurred in the Theodosia, Mo., area.

Video footage showed a tornado swirling through nearby London, which left several flattened structures, twisted metal and uprooted trees.

Porter said that a solution for the warning delays caused by the technical glitch is of urgent importance. "This is a topic, with Saturday being the latest example, that should be immediately prioritized due to the potential impact on lives and property if public safety warnings from the NWS are delayed or fail to be delivered," he said.

Buchanan, the NWS public affairs director, told AccuWeather that the agency is looking to immediately implement "procedural changes to avoid a repeat" of what happened on Saturday -- even a potential short-term option could be deployed before a more sweeping change can be made.

"The deadly tornado outbreak in Iowa on March 5 was heartbreaking," Buchanan said, "and our thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones."

ALL WOMEN PAY THE PINK TAX
GAO: Military women have higher out-of-pocket expenses

Women in the U.S. military pay more in out-of-pocket expenses than do men, a General Accountability Office report concluded. 

Photo by LCpl. Paul Martinez/U.S. Marine Corps

March 5 (UPI) -- Female service members pay significantly more out-of-pocket expenses than male counterparts, notably in uniform costs, the General Accountability Office said.

The 52-page report noted that over a 20-year military career, female members could pay as much as $8,300 more than male personnel for uniforms not covered by clothing allowances. It cited the Army policy of not offering an all-weather coat to women, although it does to men. The Air Force and Marines provide a coat to members of both genders.

The discrepancies amount to a "pink tax" on females, the GAO report, released last week, concluded, making recommendations to address cost inequities.

The Department of Defense announced that it agreed with the findings and will work to reduce the differences in out-of-pocket expenses, develop more consistent criteria, arrange periodic reviews of clothing lists and review plans for military uniform changes and the related out-of-pocket expenses to service members.

Female Marines can spend up to 10 times as much as male Marines, female Navy personnel pay three times as much as men, female Army members pay twice as much, and men in the Air Force typically have a funding surplus while women do not, the report noted.

"Beginning in fiscal year 2021, enlisted [Marine] males will no longer receive an annualized standard cash clothing replacement allowance for underwear, according to the officials," GAO officials wrote in their report. "Currently, males receive an annualized standard cash clothing replacement allowance for their underwear, but females do not."

The report also mentioned that female Marines have no replacement allowance for shoes known as "dress pumps," although the shoes are listed as a required uniform item. It added that the shoes example was an oversight and the Marine Corps plans to rectify the matter.

The Marines have also been paying for military underwear for male personnel, although "drawers" have not been on the Marine Corps Minimum Requirement List for over 20 years, the GAO study found.

"We found these differences in replacement allowances can also contribute to differences in out-of-pocket costs by service and gender for enlisted service members," the report said in part. Developing consistent criteria for uniquely military items and periodically reviewing uniform replacement allowances could strengthen DOD's ability to identify and address any out-of-pocket cost differences across the services as well as between female and male enlisted service members."

Senate sends Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act to Biden's desk


The Emmett Till Ant-lynching Act, which the Senate passed Monday, was named after the 14-year-old boy who was killed in the summer of 1955 by two White men on accusations of whistling at a White woman. 

File Photo courtesy of Rep. Bobby Rush

March 8 (UPI) -- The Senate has sent the Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act 2022 to the desk of President Joe Biden to sign it into law and make lynching a federal hate crime.

The bill was passed by Senate lawmakers through unanimous consent on Monday after the House voted 422-3 in its favor last week.

"After more than 200 failed attempts to outlaw lynching, Congress is finally succeeding in taking a long overdue action by passing the Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act. Hallelujah, it's long overdue," Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said from the floor.

He said the first anti-lynching law was introduced more than a century ago and that it took this long to criminalize lynching is a "bitter stain on America."

"While this will not erase the horrific injustices to which tens of millions of African Americans have been subjected over the generations nor fully heal the terror inflicted on countless others, it is an important step forward as we continue the work on confronting our nation's past in pursuit of a brighter and more just future," the senator from New York said.

The bill specifically amends the main criminal code of the federal government to include lynching as a hate crime, and punishes those convicted of conspiring to commit the offense resulting in death or serious bodily injury to no more than 30 years' imprisonment.

The instrument of lynching was the public killing of a person who has not go through the court system, the NAACP said on its website, adding that it was used by White people to terrorize and control Black people in the United States but particularly in the South during the 19th and 20th centuries.

"A typical lynching involved a criminal accusation, an arrest and the assembly of a mob, followed by seizure, physical torment and murder of the victim," it said, adding that it was often a public spectacle "in celebration of White supremacy."

Emmet Till, the bill's namesake, was a 14-year-old Chicago boy who was visiting family in Money, Miss., in the summer of 1955 when he was kidnapped and brutally beaten by two White men who accused him of whistling at a White woman.

His nude body was retrieved days later from a river. He was shot in the head and weighed down by a 125 pounds of metal.

Following his death, his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, demanded an open casket during his funeral so the more than 50,000 attendees could see the violence inflicted upon her son. A photograph of the deceased boy lying in the coffin was instrumental in galvanizing activists fighting for civil rights.

According to the NAACP, from 1882 to 1968, there were 4,743 lynchings across the United States.

"I am overjoyed with the Senate passage of the Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act," said Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J. "The time is past due to reckon with this dark chapter in our history and I'm proud of the bipartisan support to pass this important piece of legislation."

RELATED Report: Autopsy for Emmett Till's body

The bill being sent to Biden's desk follows Senate lawmakers early this year passing a bill to posthumously award Emmett Till and his mother the Congressional Gold Medal, the U.S. Congress' highest civilian honor.

It has yet to be voted on in the House.

Boric begins Chile presidency alongside student comrades
 

Chilean president-elect Gabriel Boric (R) and his minister of women appointee Antonia Orellana attend an event on International Women's 

Day in Santiago on March 8, 2022 

(AFP/JAVIER TORRES)

 Chile's appointed executive spokeswoman Camila Vallejo arrives for a meeting

 with Chilean President-elect Gabriel Boric in Santiago, in January 2022

 

Chile's incoming minister in charge of relations with parliament, Giorgio Jackson, 

is seen in Santiago on January 2022 

For the first time a woman, Izkia Siches, seen here in January 2022,

 will head Chile's interior ministry 

PHOTOS (AFP/CLAUDIO REYES)

Pedro SCHWARZE
Tue, March 8, 2022, 

Former student leader Gabriel Boric will take on Chile's greatest challenge since the end of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship when he is sworn in as the youngest president in his country's history on Friday.

It is a challenge he will tackle alongside fellow comrades-in-arms who stood beside him in a 2011 student movement that took on outgoing President Sebastian Pinera and exposed the deficiencies of a neoliberal economic model otherwise lauded for its success.

Boric's election emphasizes a generational shift in Chilean politics that began in 2017 with the emergence of the leftist Broad Front coalition, which he leads.

Mostly middle-aged male elites are being replaced by a younger majority-women cabinet: 14 out of 24 ministers that have an average age of just 42.

"Today a new chapter in our democratic history is starting to be written," Boric said in January when announcing his ministers.

"We are not starting from scratch, we know there is a history that lifts and inspires us."

His executive spokeswoman is Camila Vallejo, 33, and his minister in charge of relations with parliament is Giorgio Jackson, 35, both fellow student activist leaders in a movement that denounced the country's expensive and unfair education system and demanded social mobility for the poor.

For the first time a woman, Izkia Siches, 36, will head the interior ministry, while a former cleaner and trade unionist, 48-year-old Luz Vidal, is the new deputy minister for women and gender equality.

"Boric begins with a favorable climate in terms of public opinion thanks to the political capital he achieved in the election and with the naming of his cabinet," Marco Moreno, director of the economy, government and communications faculty at the Central University of Chile, told AFP.

"But he also arrives with very high expectations of what is to come."

- Economic slowdown -

The incoming government will have to work hard to earn the support of a parliament where the ruling coalition, which includes the century-old Communist Party, holds just 37 out of 120 seats in the lower house and five out of 50 in the upper house senate.

Even backing from the Socialist Party and other center-left collectives would not be enough support to achieve a simple majority in parliament.

One of the main issues during Boric's tenure will be a change to the constitution that dates from the 1973-90 rule of former dictator Pinochet.

A constitutional convention -- elected in a referendum last year -- is expected to finish rewriting the new magna carta this year.

The country Boric will lead is one of the most unequal in the world in which the top one percent own a quarter of the country's wealth, according to one UN agency.

That fact -- which was also exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic -- was one of the main drivers behind the social uprising of 2019.

The sustained movement forced Pinera to increase tax spending and expand social programs, resulting in 2021 in the largest increase in public spending in the country's history at 33 percent.

- Responsible growth -

However, Boric inherits an economy in slowdown and inflation of over seven percent that is not expected to drop.

He must also deal with a 2022 budget that included a 22 percent cut in spending following the huge stimulus packages rolled out during the pandemic.

That will make it harder for him to deliver the European-style "welfare state" he promised on the campaign trail.

He knows it will take time to deliver on those promises.

"We must advance responsibly in the structural changes without leaving anyone behind, growing economically," he said in December after his victory was confirmed.

He must also try to quell the spiraling violence in the south where people from the indigenous Mapuche community are demanding a return of ancestral lands that are currently in the hands of forestry companies and private landowners.

And in the north he must tackle the problems created by opposition to a wave of mostly Venezuelan migrants arriving from the porous border with Bolivia.

ps/pb/bc/bfm

The mystery of a disappearing lake and the struggle over water rights in Chile

When a large lagoon in central Chile dried up, climate change seemed the likeliest culprit.

 But researchers found a more insidious threat: 

systematic privatization of water.

Could a new constitution change all that?


Scientists confirmed in 2018 that the Laguna de Aculeo had dried out completely

A wealth of Inca gold lies at the bottom of Laguna de Aculeo, a lake in central Chile, according to old legend. On some nights, locals said, you could even see the gold shining in the pristine waters of the lagoon, which is surrounded by luscious hills and overlooked by the Andes mountains.

But the lagoon, once one of Chile's largest natural bodies of water, is now completely dry, with no signs of life. There was never any gold, as it turns out. But locals have come to realize the true wealth of this water.

"I heard birds singing all day because the flora and fauna in the lagoon was spectacular. You could see the fish swim under the water, it was so clear," said Viola Gonzalez Vera, who has lived by Aculeo, 70 kilometers (43 miles) southwest of the capital, Santiago, for the past 30 years.

The lake bed is now parched and cracked, scarred by frequent drought. Decaying jetties mark where the water used to be, like ghosts left behind to remind locals of what this place once was.

In 2011, the lagoon was full enough for people to enjoy water sports such as windsurfing

Chile has been suffering a megadrought for the past decade, with central regions receiving 30% less rainfall than usual. For years, climate change was believed to be behind Aculeo's disappearance.

The lagoon had survived for over 3,000 years, despite Chile being no stranger to drought. At the start of 2022, hydrology and water management researchers confirmed that the picture was more complex. The main culprit turned out to be overexploitation by humans.

Disappearing lagoon, disappearing livelihoods

A peer-reviewed study published in the journal Sustainability in January 2022 found that, although below-average rainfall had had an effect over the past decade, there was "indisputable evidence" that water had disappeared because of human activity — mainly through diverting rivers and pumping groundwater from aquifers that had replenished the lake.

Even after four droughts with persistent low rainfall in the 20th century, the lagoon never came close to drying out, according to the study.

"But throughout the 1990s agricultural industries started deviating those rivers when the state started assigning 100% of the water rights of one river, and then another, then another," said Pablo Garcia-Chevesich, a Chilean professor at the Colorado School of Mines and the University of Arizona and co-author of the report.

In 2010, the Pintue River — an important tributary — was diverted completely. Large-scale farms producing cherries and avocados also established deep wells and pumped water directly from the lagoon.

A wooden pier is a reminder that a lake once stood here

As a result, "it didn't matter how much it rained anymore; for the first time, the lagoon was unable to support a drought," said Garcia-Chevesich, who is also a member of the Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme of UNESCO.

When the lagoon dried up and the nature around disappeared, so too did the tourists. At the same time, small-scale farmers nearby watched their harvests shrink and animals die.

Over the years, some in the community had lost access to safe drinking water as new summer homes with pristine lawns and swimming pools guzzled up the supply. But this was nothing compared to the exploitation that occurred when the avocado and cherry producers moved in, said locals.

Watch video 02:49 The battle for Chile's water

"I've seen people crying in the street because they didn't have water to brush their teeth," said Gonzalez Vera, who relies on a water tank kept in her backyard — just meters from where the lake once was. She fills up the tank with water that is delivered by truck to the village.

Garcia-Chevesich blames the state for the loss of the lagoon and resulting impact on locals. "It's the out-of-control assignment of water rights without any study or evaluation that includes climate change or social or ecological damage," he said.

It's a story that has played out across the country.

When water is a commodity and not a human right

Chile's constitution, written during Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship, protects private ownership of water, making it an economic good. The 1981 Water Code also enables the government to grant permanent and transferable water rights to private owners free of charge.

This created a market for water and made it difficult for the state to govern Chile's water supplies. In Aculeo, for example, there were no audits carried out to manage consumption levels before the state handed out rights to water.

"The water problem in Chile runs very deep. It's understood as another resource to exploit," said Estefania Gonzalez, campaign coordinator for environmental NGO Greenpeace Chile.

In 2019, large-scale unrest broke out over deep social inequality in Chile

More than 1 million people across the country lack access to safe drinking water, while some parts of Chile are facing more frequent and prolonged droughts because of climate change. All the while, water has been overexploited by individuals and industry for decades.

Thirsty, extractive industries such as lithium and copper mining drive Chile's economy. Nearly 80% of the country's freshwater goes to agriculture, most infamously to the avocado. Each fruit takes around 70 liters (about 18 gallons) of water to produce.

The situation became so bad in Petorca, a town in Chile's Valparaiso region surrounded by avocado production, that the government declared a "water emergency," trucking in water and allocating each resident 50 liters (12 gallons) a day.

But Chileans are challenging the status quo.

A new green vision for the future

Currently, 155 elected delegates chosen from across civil society — the majority of them independent and left-leaning — are redrafting Chile's dictatorship-era constitution, which was a core demand of deadly nationwide protests against deep social inequality in 2019.

An aerial view of the dried out Laguna de Aculeo, which was for decades a big tourist attraction near Santiago

It is a rare chance for a country to create a new vision for the future, and one in which the environment is being given top priority. For example, 81 of the constitutional convention members supported a Greenpeace campaign to protect water rights and ecosystems in the new constitution.

"We will put an end to stockpiling and hoarding water," Carolina Vilches Fuenzalida, a convention member and environmental activist, told DW. "We will restrict land grabbing and water hoarding to stop building up these landscapes of dry valleys."

Vilches Fuenzalida and other delegates said one of their priorities is to create a statute to change the legal nature of water, ensuring safe access and sanitation for all Chilean people. The proposals will be debated over the coming months and each bill will need a two-thirds majority to make it onto the final document, before going to a public referendum later this year.

In March, millennial leftist Gabriel Boric will head up a new government after winning December's presidential election. Boric, who came to power on a campaign pushing for environmental change, has said he will back the constitutional change.

"The whole country is waiting for him. If he doesn't do anything [about the water issues], we're talking about huge social consequences — we might be talking about a new social explosion," said Garcia-Chevesich, referring to the protests in 2019.

"But it will be an estallido ambiental [environmental explosion]," he added.

Watch video 01:26 Chile's unconventional next president

Edited by: Jennifer Collins

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WWW LINKS


https://old.danwatch.dk/en/undersogelseskapitel/how-much-water-does-it-take-to-grow-an-avocado/
AUDIOS AND VIDEOS ON THE TOPIC


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British study projects rise in heat-related deaths due to global warming


Land in hot weather. Photo by Tom Wang/Shutterstock

March 7 (UPI) -- Deaths related to increased temperatures are expected to rise in Britain as global warming rates increase, according to a new study.

A new paper published in the journal Environmental Research Letters concludes that deaths in England and Wales will increase from 117 deaths per day to 166 deaths per day during the 10 hottest days of the year if global warming rates surpass 2 degrees Celsius.

Current global warming levels of 1.21 degrees Celsius have led to a slight decrease in winter death rates caused by temperature levels and have had no significant effect on summer death rates, according to the study.

"Global warming levels beyond around 2.5 degrees Celsius are projected to lead to a non-linear, accelerating increase in summer average mortality over time, reaching a 60% increase by 4 degrees Celsius global warming and 275% by 6 degrees Celsius," the study reads.

The study authors noted that mortality rates in the winter will continue to decrease as global warming increases, though those figures do not consider deaths caused by winter storms.

Dr. Katty Huang, the study's lead author, said in a press release from University College London that current mortality risk is mainly notable during heatwaves.

"With further warming, we would see risk rise on average summer days in addition to escalating risks during heatwaves," she said.

"What this means is that we shouldn't expect past trends of impact per degree of warming to apply in the future."

Ancient 'incantation bowls' seized from Jerusalem home


1/5

Ancient antiquities seized from the home of a Jerusalem resident are displayed by the Israel Antiquities Authority in Beit Shemesh, on Monday. 

Photo by Debbie Hill/UPI | License Photo

March 7 (UPI) -- Israel's Antiquities Authority said Monday it uncovered 1,500-year-old magical "incantation bowls" and other rare and decorated bone and ivory items dating from the biblical period in the home of a Jerusalem resident suspected of participating in the illegal antiquities trade.

The authority's robbery prevention unit along with Israeli police found the items at a home in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood.

The discovered bowls were inscribed with spells and incantations in Hebrew, dating back as early as the fourth century. Officials said the items were known as "swearing bowls."

"The Jewish bowls draw heavily on Jewish tradition, cite verses, and even contain the earliest written attestations we have for Jewish texts like the Mishnah or benedictions," Tel Aviv University professor Matthew Morgenstern told the Times of Israel.

An expert in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic and Classical Mandaic, Morgenstern said similar bowls contained numerous Babylonian Aramaic dialects and were placed around the home for protection. They were placed upside down to trap the demons or evil spirits.

The person in possession of the bowls also had various chemicals at his residence. Police believe he intended to use the chemicals to restore the pottery and sell them.

"Antiquities belong to all of us," Eli Eskosido, director of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said, according to the Times of Israel. "They are our heritage. Unauthorized antiquities dealers encourage looters to go out and destroy ancient sites in search of finds for sale on the antiquities market.

"In the name of greed, they plunder antiquity sites, removing the finds from their historical context, thus obscuring parts of human history."

A peculiar case of age and hunger-defying African ticks

A US-based researcher has made an accidental discovery about longevity in a species of African ticks. The creatures live for nearly 30 years, and can go eight years without food.



It's likely the tick was forced to adapt to a hot desert climate, giving it its ability to live so long without food

It seems a cruel trick that of all of nature's creatures, those that have found ways to be extremely resilient — and even survive for many years without food — are among the most obscure… or annoying and dangerous, like ticks.

Julian Shepherd, a US-based researcher, was gifted a particular species of large African tick in 1976 and observed them over a period of 27 years in his lab.

Almost by accident, Shepherd noticed that some of the female ticks survived without any food for eight of those years. Some even managed to reproduce and give birth more than four years after all the male ticks had died.

The creatures belonged to the Argas brumpti species, a tick that's generally found in eastern and southern parts of Africa.

The fact that this species lives so long breaks records in itself, writes Shepherd in a study published in the Journal of Medical Entomology. But the ability for any living creature to go so long without food is rare in science.

Only a few other animals can live for multiple years in complete "starvation mode." The olm, an aquatic salamander, can do it. Crocodiles can do it, too. Tardigrades, a bizarre-looking micro-animal, can live for as long as 30 years without food.

Tardigrades can live up to 30 years without food

But Shepherd hadn't intended to study this feature with his ticks.

"To tell the truth, I had no specific plans for them. I was just thinking of widening my experience with ticks," Shepherd told DW. "I had no idea that they would [live so long]."
Feeding the ticks on himself

Shepherd's discovery that A. brumpti can survive so long without food was basically a fluke.

He had stopped feeding them because they needed organisms larger than mice as a source for blood and that had created logistical and ethical problems, he said.

"I fed them on rabbits but that wasn't as humane as I had wanted. I fed some on myself — but only once! And then I found I could feed them on blood drawn from rats that were being euthanized at an experimental animal facility."

Soft and hard ticks

The A. brumpti is known as a "soft tick."

Soft ticks are distinct from "hard ticks," which are common in the United States and Europe. Soft ticks are, for example, less likely to feed on humans, said Shepherd.

But they do transmit serious diseases, such as tick-borne relapsing fever (TBRF), which is found in Africa, as well as in the Mediterranean and parts of western North America.

TBRF is a bacterial infection that can cause recurring bouts of fever, headache, muscle and joint aches, and nausea.
Research continues

Shepherd recently sent his nature-defying ticks to South Africa, where he hopes other researchers will continue to look after them.

He said the new researchers believe the ticks he was gifted all those years ago may, in fact, be multiple species. He said they may use DNA technology to further analyze the ticks' genetic relationships.

But did his own work with these ticks reveal any tips on longevity for humans? It appears the answer is "no."

"What enthralls me," said Shepherd, "is just how some obscure organisms have found extraordinary ways to survive."

ELDERLY ELEPHANTS, LONELY GIANTS AND THE SECRET OF AGING

A hundred years, thousands of kilometers

Long body, pointed "snout" and very tasty eggs: sturgeons are mostly known as the source of caviar. They can reach 100 years old - their longevity is even more impressive considering the thousands of kilometers they travel. Sturgeons spawn, meaning they are born in freshwater, swim to the oceans to live out their lives, and return to their home waters to reproduce.

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Edited by: Zulfikar Abbany

ANOTHER FIND IN THE MUSEUM STORAGE ROOM

Octopus ancestors lived before era of dinosaurs, study shows

WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists have found the oldest known ancestor of octopuses – an approximately 330 million-year-old fossil unearthed in Montana.

The researchers concluded the ancient creature lived millions of years earlier than previously believed, meaning that octopuses originated before the era of dinosaurs.

The 4.7-inch (12-centimeter) fossil has 10 limbs — modern octopuses have eight — each with two rows of suckers. It probably lived in a shallow, tropical ocean bay.

“It's very rare to find soft tissue fossils, except in a few places,” said Mike Vecchione, a Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History zoologist who was not involved in the study. “This is a very exciting finding. It pushes back the ancestry much farther than previously known."

The specimen was discovered in Montana's Bear Gulch limestone formation and donated to the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada in 1988.

For decades, the fossil sat overlooked in a drawer while scientists studied fossil sharks and other finds from the site. But then paleontologists noticed the 10 tiny limbs encased in limestone.

The well-preserved fossil also “shows some evidence of an ink sac,” probably used to squirt out a dark liquid cloak to help to evade predators, just like modern octopuses, said Christopher Whalen, an American Museum of Natural History paleontologist and co-author of the study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.

The creature, a vampyropod, was likely the ancestor of both modern octopuses and vampire squid, a confusingly named marine critter that’s much closer to an octopus than a squid. Previously, the “oldest known definitive” vampyropod was from around 240 million years ago, the authors said.

The scientists named the fossil Syllipsimopodi bideni, after President Joe Biden.

Whether or not having an ancient octopus — or vampire squid — bearing your name is actually a compliment, the scientists say they intended admiration for the president's science and research priorities.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Christina Larson, The Associated Press

Fossil of Vampire Squid’s Oldest Ancestor Is Named for Biden

Scientists describe a new species of vampyropod from a 328-million-year-old, 10-armed fossil found in Montana.

Syllipsimopodi bideni, about 12 centimeters long, is the oldest known cephalopod to bear suckers on its 10 arms.

Credit...Christopher Whalen

By Sabrina Imbler
March 8, 2022

About 328 million years ago, Fergus County, Mont., was no stranger to monsoons. Back then, the region was a marine bay, much like the Bay of Bengal in South Asia. The tropical storms regularly flushed the bay with freshwater and fine sediments, feeding algal blooms and depleting the water of oxygen in certain spots. Anything that died in these spots could have the rare posthumous luck of being preserved, undisturbed.

When an ancient octopus died in these waters, its soft, squishy body was buried and pristinely fossilized. The fossil was originally donated to the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada in 1988 but sat in a drawer for decades until Christopher Whalen, a paleontologist from the American Museum of Natural History in New York, pulled it out of a drawer and noticed its preserved arms. When he looked under a microscope, he saw small suckers dimpling the rock.

“That’s incredibly rare,” Dr. Whalen said.

Thomas Clements, a paleobiologist at the University of Birmingham in England, said, “The probability of these tiny little bags of water turning into fossils is just astronomically low.”

Intrigued, Dr. Whalen studied the fossil, expecting it would resemble other cephalopods found in the Montana limestone. But it turned out to be something quite different. Dr. Whalen and colleagues say the fossil represents the oldest known ancestor of vampyropods, a group that includes vampire squids and octopuses, pushing back the earliest evidence of the group by 82 million years. Dr. Whalen and Neil Landman, a curator emeritus at the museum, describe the new species in a paper published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.

They named it Syllipsimopodi bideni, as in President Biden, to commemorate the start of his presidency and because they “were encouraged by his plans to address climate change and to fund scientific research,” Dr. Whalen said in an email. Mr. Biden is not the first president to have a species named after him. A wormlike caecilian and a moth with a yellow crown of scales were named after President Donald J. Trump. Nine species were named after President Barack Obama, including several fish and a lichen.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

But there’s a lot more to the discovery — including some dispute — than its presidential name.

An artist’s reconstruction of Syllipsimopodi in Montana about 330 million year ago, when the area was submerged beneath a tropical bay.

Credit...K. Whalen/Christopher Whalen

The new fossil, which has 10 arms, is the oldest known cephalopod to have suckers on its arms. Modern squids and cuttlefish have 10 arms and octopuses have eight. Vampire squids (which are not squids but close relatives of octopuses) have eight arms and two stringy filaments, thought to be vestigial arms. So the 10-armed S. bideni shows that all cephalopods once had 10 arms, before they were reduced to filaments and ultimately lost.

Christian Klug, a paleontologist at the University of Zurich in Switzerland who was not involved with the research, expressed reservations about the new paper. He says the fossil most likely represents a specimen of a known species of ancient cephalopods, Gordoniconus beargulchensis. In 2019, Dr. Klug published a paper on the anatomy of G. beargulchensis with Dr. Landman.

“It’s the exact same size, the exact same age, the exact same locality, the exact same proportions and it’s just preserved a little bit differently,” Dr. Klug said.

The new paper relies heavily on visual methods of analysis, and these questions could be resolved with chemical analyses, said Dr. Clements, who was not involved with the research. “With a full suite of techniques, we would definitely have more clues or a lot more answers,” he said, noting that these techniques can be expensive.

When Dr. Whalen first examined the fossil, he looked for the phragmocone, a chambered shell characteristic of most fossil cephalopods that helps them control buoyancy. A nautilus’s phragmocone is its coiled shell; a cuttlefish’s is its cuttlebone. The fossilized chambers of a phragmocone are divided by mineralized sheets, which are very distinctive and generally well-preserved, Dr. Whalen said.

The fossil of G. beargulchensis, which is held at the American Museum of Natural History, preserves these distinct sheets, Dr. Whalen said. Because that fossil and S. bideni were preserved at the same site and in the same environment, both should have preserved lines, the authors argue. But S. bideni had no trace of these lines, suggesting the creature never had an inner chambered shell.

Dr. Whalen also expected to see evidence of a primordial rostrum, a mineralized counterweight to ensure early cephalopods could swim horizontally. But the fossil of S. bideni had no rostrum, suggesting “it was never there to begin with,” Dr. Whalen said.

Instead, the researchers’ analysis found that S. bideni’s inner shell is a gladius, a triangular shell-like remnant found in squids and vampire squids. “It’s really not something that anyone expected to see in an animal this old,” Dr. Whalen said. “We knew we were looking at an early vampyropod.”

Dr. Klug disputed this conclusion, suggesting the shell is instead a deformed phragmocone and body chamber of G. beargulchensis, the known cephalopod.

Dr. Whalen disagreed. He said the measurements of the new fossil are distinct enough to mark a new species, “even if you disagree with our interpretation that we’re looking at gladius and not a phragmocone and looking at a vampyropod and not something else.”

Dr. Clements hopes a future chemical analysis can confirm the presence of the suckers, which he said were hard to discern from the images included in the study.

The suckers may be a small part of S. bideni’s story, but Dr. Whalen is indebted to them. “This was sitting in a museum since the ’80s, and no one realized it was important,” he said. “We chanced on that importance because I happened to notice the arm suckers.”

Katie Rogers contributed reporting.