Cheating birds mimic host nestlings to deceive foster parents

by University of Cambridge

A parasitic purple indigobird nestling (right) alongside two nestlings of its host, the jamesons firefinch. Credit: Claire Spottiswoode

The common cuckoo is known for its deceitful nesting behavior—by laying eggs in the nests of other bird species, it fools host parents into rearing cuckoo chicks alongside their own. While common cuckoos mimic their host's eggs, new research has revealed that a group of parasitic finch species in Africa have evolved to mimic their host's chicks—and with astonishing accuracy. The study is published in the journal Evolution.


Working in the savannahs of Zambia, a team of international researchers collected images, sounds and videos over four years to reveal a striking and highly specialized form of mimicry. They focused on a group of finches occurring across much of Africa called the indigobirds and whydahs, of the genus Vidua.

Like cuckoos, the 19 different species within this group of finches forego their parental duties and instead lay their eggs in the nests of other birds. Each species of indigobird and whydah chooses to lay its eggs in the nests of a particular species of grassfinch. Their hosts then incubate the foreign eggs, and feed the young alongside their own when they hatch.

Grassfinches are unusual in having brightly colored and distinctively patterned nestlings, and nestlings of different grassfinch species have their own unique appearance, begging calls and begging movements. Vidua finches are extremely specialized parasites, with each species mostly exploiting a single host species.

Nestlings of these 'brood-parasitic' Vidua finches were found to mimic the appearance, sounds and movements of their grassfinch host's chicks, right down to the same elaborately colorful patterns on the inside of their mouths.

"The mimicry is astounding in its intricacy and is highly species-specific," said Dr. Gabriel Jamie, lead author on the paper and a research scientist in the University of Cambridge's Department of Zoology, and at the FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, University of Cape Town.

He added: "We were able to test for mimicry using statistical models that approximate the vision of birds. Birds process color and pattern differently to humans so it is important to analyze the mimicry from their perspective rather than just relying on human assessments."

While the mimicry is very precise, the researchers did find some minor imperfections. These may exist due to insufficient time for more precise mimicry to evolve, or because current levels of mimicry are already good enough to fool the host parents. The researchers think that some imperfections might actually be enhanced versions of the hosts' signal, forcing it to feed the parasite chick even more than it would its own.


The mimetic adaptations to different hosts identified in the study may also be critical in the formation of new species, and in preventing species collapse through hybridisation.

"The mimicry is not only amazing in its own right but may also have important implications for how new species of parasitic finches evolve," added Professor Claire Spottiswoode, an author of the paper and a research scientist at both the University of Cambridge and Cape Town.

Vidua nestlings imprint on their hosts, altering their mating and host preferences based on early life experiences. These preferences strongly influence the host environment in which their offspring grow up, and therefore the evolutionary selection pressures they experience from foster parents. When maintained over multiple generations, these selection pressures generate the astounding host-specific mimetic adaptations observed in the study.


Explore further  Cuckoos mimic 'harmless' species as a disguise to infiltrate host nests
More information: Gabriel A. Jamie et al, Multimodal mimicry of hosts in a radiation of parasitic finches, Evolution (2020). DOI: 10.1111/evo.14057
Journal information: Evolution


Provided by University of Cambridge

Unique vine 'greenhouses' found by 91-year-old nature volunteer

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

An unusual vine discovered by a 91-year-old volunteer nature guide in Japan has a "unique" way of using its leaves to curl around its fruits to envelop them in a protective microclimate, scientists said on Wednesday.

The cucurbitaceous vine, a type found in East Asia, is an oddity because while leaves come in all shapes and sizes and perform a crucial role in photosynthesis, they are rarely associated with reproduction.

But a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences found that the vine had specialised leaves able to enclose fruit and enhance seed production in colder conditions.

The research was co-authored by Nobuyuki Nagaoka, the 91-year-old guide at Yamagata Prefectural Natural Museum Park, who first spotted the leaf behaviour in 2008 and has observed it every autumn since.

Intrigued by the strange leaf "greenhouses", he looked online for information about the vine, said co-author of the study Shoko Sakai, a professor at the Center for Ecological Research at Kyoto University.

"Our newsletter published in 1998 had an article about this plant. He saw the article and sent me a letter in 2008," Sakai told AFP.

He said initially when he saw a picture of the leaf enclosure he thought "it was a maldeveloped or pest-infected shoot".

But "when we read subsequent observation records he sent to us, it became clear that this was an interesting phenomenon worth further investigation," he said, adding that it was only when the researchers examined the real thing that they could confirm what it was.

"When I saw it, I was excited to find out that they were indeed leaves," Sakai said.

Cold-weather protection

The researchers looked at plants at different altitudes at the foot of Mount Gassan, in the southern part of the Dewa Mountains, in an area partly within Yamagata park.

They describe the vine as a slender, annual plant that often inhabits the edges of deciduous forests with disturbances like roads, rivers or mountains.

It can either be hermaphrodite or male and produces small, white flowers pollinated from August to September and later develop into fruits, each with a single seed.

The study, which also included experts from Japan's Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, reported "for the first time, a unique function of leaves that enclose immature fruits in an annual vine".

They noted some leaves on hermaphrodite plants that were undeveloped in summer "expanded and overlapped with each other" to create a sort of cocoon around immature fruit.

The study found that these specialised "enclosure leaves" are produced towards the end of the growing season and produced a microclimate of up to 4.6 degrees Celsius warmer than was recorded around fruit where the leaves had been plucked off.

Removing the leaf enclosures negatively affected the survival and growth of the vine's fruit, although they were unable to identify the mechanism, said the authors.

They also found that the leaves grew thicker protective layers in colder areas and said the results suggest that the vine enclosures allow the plant to produce seeds under the cold weather the plant encounters at the end of its life.

Scientific first

These enclosure leaves were found to have less photosynthetic ability and were different in greenness and structure from others.

Previous research has described some functions of leaves that aid reproduction, such as the plant Saururus chinensis, whose leaves can temporarily turn white to attract pollinators.

But the study said such traits were likely "in conflict with traits that promote photosynthesis, the primary function of leaves".

"Plants produce many leaves in their lifetime. Size, shape, and thickness among the leaves are often very diverse within an individual," said Sakai, adding that previously this had been viewed in terms of photosynthesis.

"In this study, we found that some leaves play more important roles in reproduction rather than photosynthesis."

The research was Nagaoka's first scientific paper, Sakai said, adding that he was still guiding tours at the park and observing vines.

"I think he should be proud of his paper, but he is very humble," he added.

Explore furtherSunfleck use research needs appropriate experimental leaves

More information: Nobuyuki Nagaoka et al. Green greenhouse: leaf enclosure for fruit development of an androdioecious vine, Schizopepon bryoniifolius, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2020). DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2020.1718

Journal information: Proceedings of the Royal Society B

© 2020 AFP

Logistics logic to reducing hotel food waste

by David Bradley, Inderscience

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Food waste is a growing problem for humanity. Vast tonnages of fresh food is lost because it never reaches consumers for myriad reasons, and similarly, food that reaches individual consumers and food outlets is often not eaten before it perishes and must be disposed of.

Researchers from India and Qatar have looked at this problem in work published in the International Journal of Hospitality and Event Management. Their perspective is that of finding solutions to the problem for hotels by looking at food transportation infrastructure and by considering food portioning while serving the food to their customers. It is estimated that half of all solid food waste is generated by the hotel industry. They have worked with 210 members of management staff from 21 five-star hotels in their study.

"The results have indicated that logistical issues in the hotel industry play a very important role in the food wastage management," the team writes, "This finding is in alignment with earlier research." Hotels must adopt just-in-time principles in their logistics management to reduce food waste but also ensuring that sufficient food is available when it is needed to fulfills customer demands.

The team adds that an additional benefit of improved and more efficient logistics management is that it can maintain a forward and reverse flow of information to the benefit of the hotels themselves and their suppliers. All of this will require the education of managers in the concepts of logistics and improved community awareness as well as finding ways to change attitudes towards food waste.


Explore further  How to benefit from food waste in the age of climate change

More information: Girish K. Nair et al. Can food waste be reduced: An investigation into food waste management in hospitality industry, International Journal of Hospitality and Event Management (2020). DOI: 10.1504/IJHEM.2019.109953

Provided by Inderscience

Australia is full of lizards, so I went bush to find out why

by Kristian Bell, The Conversation

A lace monitor (Varanus varius). Credit: Kristian Bell, Author provided

Though it may not be as famous a stereotype as shrimps on the barbie, deadly snakes or Vegemite, Australia is renowned in certain scientific circles for being the "land of the lizards."

Australia has a higher diversity of lizards than anywhere else in the world. The number of different species within a single part of remote, central Australia well exceeds similar desert environments, such as the Kalahari in Africa, or the US.

Over the last 50 years, scientists have tried to understand the cause of this extraordinary and unique diversity.

Some suggest unpredictable resources in the arid outback, such as sporadic rain, favor low-energy animals like lizards over birds and mammals. Others claim a high diversity of termites allows lots of different termite-eating lizards to co-exist.

Or perhaps the presence of shrubs, sparse trees and grass clumps provide a variety of niches (microhabitats) for tree and litter dwelling species. Despite these many hypotheses, no consensus has ever been reached.

My research explores the role of spinifex, a spiky clumping grass that's typically found in the arid outback, often in conjunction with lizard diversity hotspots.

With many species found nowhere else on earth, some Australian lizards are threatened with extinction. Understanding how and why lizards use this iconic outback plant can help us conserve them, by predicting how they might respond to disturbances such as habitat loss and climate change.

Following many trips to the outback, I was surprised to find locals who had never encountered some of the species I was studying. Taking photographs of these often small and overlooked animals helps me to better engage the community and raise the wider public profile of lizards, compared to other, more "charismatic" native animals.

A typical mallee ecosystem where we conduct our research, with plenty of spinifex clumps interspersed with the many-stemmed trunks, characteristic of mallee eucalypts. Credit: Kristian Bell, Author provided

A thriving desert ecosystem

All 60 species of spinifex grasses (members of the Triodia genus) are found only in Australia. Although spinifex habitats cover more than one-fifth of mainland Australia, the plant is little-known and little-loved by non-naturalists.


Spinifex typically forms a spiky and impenetrable clump that provides useful, and in some cases essential, resources to lizards, birds, mammals and invertebrates.

But despite the close association of many lizard species to spinifex, we still don't know exactly why reptiles like it so much.

Three ideas dominate. First, spinifex may contain lots of food for lizards, such as termites or ants.

Alternatively, the spiky, needle-like leaves of spinifex may offer small lizards a great place to hide from predators. And finally, temperatures deep within a dense spinifex hummock can be very cool compared to the searing desert heat, where temperatures can reach a scorching 50℃.

Setting up behavioural trial enclosures. After more than 100,000 recorded observations, we are only beginning to better understand why lizards like using spinifex. Credit: Kristian Bell, Author provided

My research aim is to work out which, if any, of these explanations is true. I do this by measuring variables such as temperature, invertebrate abundance and risk of becoming prey, in spinifex and other plants.

Alongside my supervisors, I have also conducted behavior trials on a couple of spinifex-loving lizard species: the mallee ctenotus (Ctenotus atlas) and the mallee dragon (Ctenophorus spinodomus).

We have recorded 230,000 temperatures, caught 16,089 invertebrates, constructed 112 lizard models and classified 143,627 behavioral observations. But such is the complicated nature of the work, we're only partially closer to understanding the lizard-spinifex relationship. So far, our data suggests temperature is a key component.

The photos below are generally a result of good fortune and spending inordinate amounts of time in wild places. Pictures of some of the smaller, more skittish animals were taken upon release from pitfall traps.

Mallee ctenotus (Ctenotus atlas). Credit: Kristian Bell, Author provided

The above two photos show my study species: the mallee dragon and the mallee ctenotus. Despite one lizard being a skink and the other a dragon, both species are strongly associated with spinifex. The skink tends to forage within spinifex, whereas the dragon emerges into open patches adjacent to spinifex to eat and "signal" to other dragons.

Spinifex grass, pictured above, with its spiky, needle-like leaves, creates valuable habitat for numerous species of birds, mammals and invertebrates—not just reptiles. Its abundance and influence on many species make it a "foundation species."

This photo above shows a Burton's legless lizard (Lialis burtonis)—a predator of my study species. These snake-like reptiles are specialist lizard hunters and often use the dense cover of spinifex to their advantage to ambush passing lizards.

Sand monitor. Credit: Kristian Bell, Author provided

Mallee dragon (Ctenophorus spinodomus). Credit: Kristian Bell, Author provided

Burton’s legless lizard (Lialis burtonis). Credit: Kristian Bell, Author provided

Slender-tailed dunnart (Sminthopsis murina). Credit: Kristian Bell, Author provided

Legless lizards might look a bit like snakes, but they have different ancestries and subtle distinguishing features, such as the lizard's eyelids and external ears, which snakes don't have.

But many other animals live in or near spinifex, and would happily make a meal of small lizards, including those shown in the following photos. The ability of numerous predators to access the center of spiky spinifex clumps throws some doubt on the idea spinifex is used as protection from predators.

We can't claim to have cracked the case yet. But we're a step closer to unraveling the secrets behind one of Australia's remarkable, and under-appreciated, biodiversity stories.


Explore further Spinifex promises stronger condoms 

Provided by The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Researchers develop global consensus on sustainability in the built environment

by Thomas Deane, Trinity College Dublin

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Researchers from Trinity are among an international group calling on the global community, politicians, industry leaders, and societal decision-makers to better understand the critical importance of the built environment for sustainable development at global and local scales.


The consensus has the backing of the leading professional associations in the domain of construction engineering and underlines the critical need to mitigate against global climate change.

"Nothing less than a transformative and united worldwide effort from all stakeholders of the construction sector is required for human society to be successful in sustainable development, and in the mitigation of the disastrous consequences of climate change at global and local scales"—this is the central message of the GLOBE Consensus, which has been recently stipulated by an international group of experts, mandated by seven of the leading professional associations in the domain of construction engineering.

GLOBE stands for Global Consensus on Sustainability in the Built Environment and it highlights the global challenges associated with the built environment as a main contributor to climate change.

The GLOBE Consensus is targeted at societal decision makers and professionals in the construction industry and calls for a coordinated and joint effort to counter global climate change.

The objective is to make players in the construction area aware of their enormous responsibility; GLOBE puts sustainability in the construction sector and the built environment on the global agenda—at the same level of importance as safety and durability. The consensus document further addresses facilitators and suggests clear actions, which must be implemented immediately.

Professor Michael Havbro Faber, President of the Joint Committee on Structural Safety, Aalborg University, Denmark, said:

"Sustainability and mitigation of climate change is a global challenge—that must be addressed in a global collaborative and focused effort—and this is what the GLOBE Consensus is really all about. With increasing urbanization and construction demand and more and more limited resources, the construction industry and the profession of civil engineers become the most relevant drivers for positive socio-economical and environmental developments and more sustainable processes."

Dr. Dipl.-Ing. Wolfram Schmidt (BAM), who studies local material solutions for global challenges, adds, "Nevertheless, most actors are not even aware of their individual role and responsibility in this challenge. Therefore, the GLOBE consensus is a milestone, which directly addresses all actors in the entire built environment and encourages them to become change drivers towards a better future perspective."

Alan O'Connor, Professor in Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering at Trinity, said:

"The GLOBE consensus details the need for a coordinated approach to be taken by leading educators, researchers and institutions together with professional organizations and stakeholders in addressing the challenges presented to the construction sector in delivering sustainability in the built environment. Trinity College Dublin is proud to be a part of this critical initiative."

The expert group strongly proposes that a globally composed task force is established and mandated to support supranational and national policy makers with respect to sustainable development in the construction sector and the built environment.


Explore further

More than half of construction industry insiders think industry is not sustainable, study finds

More information: More detailed information on the GLOBE Consensus may be found on the GLOBE homepage, where the GLOBE Consensus may be found in English, Chinese, Spanish, German and Kiswahili. More language translations are in process.
Provided by Trinity College Dublin

Researchers turn to trees to determine if multicellular life on exoplanets exist

by Carly Banks, Northern Arizona University

Graphic of conceptual design of the team’s shadow theory. Credit: Northern Arizona University

Is there life outside our planet?

The age-old question has long been asked by scientists and researchers without much progress in finding the answer.

There have been more than 4,200 exoplanets discovered outside our solar system, and while past techniques were developed to test for life on exoplanets, none of which tested for complex, non-technological life like vegetation. Now, space telescopes may soon be able to directly view these planets—including one within the habitable zone of the Earth's nearest star neighbor. With the help of these telescopes and a team of researchers in informatics and astronomy at Northern Arizona University, an answer to this question might not be so out of this world.

Funded by a NASA Habitable Worlds grant, a team of researchers, which includes Chris Doughty, David Trilling and Ph.D. student Andrew Abraham, published a study in the International Journal of Astrobiology that develops and tests a technique to determine whether specifically multicellular or complex-but-not-technological life can be uniquely detected outside the solar system.

In an attempt to find some answers, the team turned to one of Earth's most common multicellular life forms—trees. More specifically, their shadows.

"Earth has more than three trillion trees, and each casts shadows differently than inanimate objects," said Doughty, lead author on the paper and assistant professor in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems. "If you go outside at noon, almost all shadows will be from human objects or plants and there would be very few shadows at this time of day if there wasn't multicellular life."

The team hypothesizes that abundant upright photosynthetic multicellular life (trees) will cast shadows at high sun angles, distinguishing them from single cellular life. Therefore, using future space telescopes to observe the types of shadows cast should, in theory, determine if there are similar life forms on exoplanets.

"The difficult part is that any future space telescope will likely only have a single pixel to determine if life exists on that exoplanet," said Abraham, who worked closely with Doughty on the study. "So, the question becomes: Can we detect these shadows indicating multicellular life with a single pixel?"


With just one pixel to work with, the team had to make sure that the shadows detected in these telescopes were conclusively multicellular life, not other exoplanet features like craters.

"It was suggested that craters might cast shadows similar to trees, and our idea would not work," said Trilling, associate professor of astronomy. "So, we decided to look at the replica moon landing site in northern Arizona where the Apollo astronauts trained for their mission to the moon."

Drones were used at different times of the day to determine that craters did in fact cast shadows differently than trees.

The researchers then turned to imaging to determine if their theory would work on a large scale. By using the POLDER (Polarization and Directionality of Earth's Reflectance) satellite, the team was able to observe the shadows on Earth at different sun angles and times of day. The resolution was reduced to mimic what Earth would look like as a single pixel to a distant observer as it rotates around the sun. Then, the team compared this to similar data from Mars, the moon, Venus and Uranus to see if Earth's multicellular life was unique.

The team found that on parts of the planet where trees were in abundance, like the Amazon basin, multicellular life could be distinguished, but when it came to observing the planet as a whole as a single pixel, distinguishing multicellular life was difficult.

However, the potential that observing shadows brings to the conversation of life on exoplanets could be closer than scientists and researchers have ever been before. Doughty believes the technique remains valid in theory—a future space telescope could rely on the shadows found in a single pixel.

"If each exoplanet was only a single pixel, we might be able to use this technique to detect multicellular life in the next few decades," he said. "If more pixels are required, we may have to wait longer for technological improvements to answer whether multicellular life on exoplanets exists."


Explore further Looking for exoplanet life in all the right spectra

More information: Christopher E. Doughty et al. Distinguishing multicellular life on exoplanets by testing Earth as an exoplanet, International Journal of Astrobiology (2020). DOI: 10.1017/S1473550420000270

Journal information: International Journal of Astrobiology

Provided by Northern Arizona University

Earth grows fine gems in minutes

by Jade Boyd, Rice University

Black tourmaline going to pink tourmaline within a quartz pegmatite at California's Stewart Lithia mine. Credit: Patrick Phelps/Rice University

Rome wasn't built in a day, but some of Earth's finest gemstones were, according to new research from Rice University.

Aquamarine, emerald, garnet, zircon and topaz are but a few of the crystalline minerals found mostly in pegmatites, veinlike formations that commonly contain both large crystals and hard-to-find elements like tantalum and niobium. Another common find is lithium, a vital component of electric car batteries.

"This is one step towards understanding how Earth concentrates lithium in certain places and minerals," said Rice graduate student Patrick Phelps, co-author of a study published online in Nature Communications. "If we can understand the basics of pegmatite growth rates, it's one step in the direction of understanding the whole picture of how and where they form."

Pegmatites are formed when rising magma cools inside Earth, and they feature some of Earth's largest crystals. South Dakota's Etta mine, for example, features log-sized crystals of lithium-rich spodumene, including one 42 feet in length in weighing an estimated 37 tons. The research by Phelps, Rice's Cin-Ty Lee and Southern California geologist Douglas Morton attempts to answer a question that has long vexed mineralogists: How can such large crystals be in pegmatites?

"In magmatic minerals, crystal size is traditionally linked to cooling time," said Lee, Rice's Harry Carothers Wiess Professor of Geology and chair of the Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences at Rice. "The idea is that large crystals take time to grow."

Magma that cools rapidly, like rock in erupted lavas, contains microscopic crystals, for example. But the same magma, if cooled over tens of thousands of years, might feature centimeter-sized crystals, Lee said.

"Pegmatites cool relatively quickly, sometimes in just a few years, and yet they feature some of the largest crystals on Earth," he said. "The big question is really, 'How can that be?'"

Rice University graduate student Patrick Phelps used cathodoluminescence microscopy to measure the chemical composition of sample crystals. Credit: Linda Welzenbach/Rice University

When Phelps began the research, his most immediate questions were about how to formulate a set of measurements that would allow him, Lee and Morton to answer the big question.

"It was more a question of, 'Can we figure out how fast they actually grow?'" Phelps said. "Can we use trace elements—elements that don't belong in quartz crystals—to figure out the growth rate?"

It took more than three years, a field trip to gather sample crystals from a pegmatite mine in Southern California, hundreds of lab measurements to precisely map the chemical composition of the samples and a deep dive into some 50-year-old materials science papers to create a mathematical model that could transform the chemical profiles into crystal growth rates.

"We examined crystals that were half an inch wide and over an inch long," Phelps said. "We showed those grew in a matter of hours, and there is nothing to suggest the physics would be different in larger crystals that measure a meter or more in length. Based on what we found, larger crystals like that could grow in a matter of days."

Pegmatites form where pieces of Earth's crust are drawn down and recycled in the planet's molten mantle. Any water that's trapped in the crust becomes part of the melt, and as the melt rises and cools, it gives rise to many kinds of minerals. Each forms and precipitates out of the melt at a characteristic temperature and pressure. But the water remains, making up a progressively higher percentage of the cooling melt.

"Eventually, you get so much water left over that it becomes more of a water-dominated fluid than a melt-dominated fluid," Phelps said. "The leftover elements in this watery mixture can now move around a lot faster. Chemical diffusion rates are much faster in fluids and the fluids tend to flow more quickly. So when a crystal starts forming, elements can get to it faster, which means it can grow faster."

Crystals are ordered arrangement of atoms. They form when atoms naturally fall into that arranged pattern based on their chemical properties and energy levels. For example, in the mine where Phelps collected his quartz samples, many crystals had formed in what appeared to be cracks that had opened while the pegmatite was still forming.

Brazilian emeralds in a quartz-pegmatite matrix. Credit: Photo courtesy of Madereugeneandrew/Wikimedia Commons

"You see these pop up and go through the layers of pegmatite itself, almost like veins within veins," Phelps said. "When those cracks opened, that lowered the pressure quickly. So the fluid rushed in, because everything's expanding, and the pressure dropped dramatically. All of a sudden, all the elements in the melt are now confused. They don't want to be in that physical state anymore, and they rapidly start coming together in crystals."

To decipher how quickly the sample crystals grew, Phelps used both cathodoluminescence microscopy and laser ablation with mass spectrometry to measure the precise amount of trace elements that had been incorporated into the crystal matrix at dozens of points during growth. From experimental work done by materials scientists in the mid-20th century, Phelps was able to decipher the growth rates from these profiles.

"There are three variables," he said. "There's the likelihood of things getting brought in. That's the partition coefficient. There's how fast the crystal is growing, the growth rate. And then there's the diffusivity, so how quickly elemental nutrients are brought to the crystal."

Phelps said the fast growth rates were quite a surprise.

"Pegmatites are pretty short-lived, so we knew they had to grow relatively fast," he said. "But we were showing it was a few orders of magnitude faster than anyone had predicted.

"When I finally got one of these numbers, I remember going into Cin-Ty's office, and saying, 'Is this feasible? I don't think this is right.'" Phelps recalled. "Because in my head, I was still kind of thinking about a thousand-year time scale. And these numbers were meaning days or hours.

"And Cin-Ty said, 'Well, why not? Why can't it be right?'" Phelps said. "Because we'd done the math and the physics. That part was sound. While we didn't expect it to be that fast, we couldn't come up with a reason why it wasn't plausible."


Explore further Growing metallic crystals in liquid metal

More information: Patrick R. Phelps et al, Episodes of fast crystal growth in pegmatites, Nature Communications (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-18806-w 

Provided by Rice University

The US unveiled H-1B restrictions that it said would cut visas by a third and stop the 'replacement' of American employees by overseas workers

President Donald Trump (R) speaks on immigration issues while meeting with members of the U.S. Congress in the Cabinet Room of the White House June 20, 2018 in Washington, DC. Also pictured is Sen. James Inhofe Win McNamee/Getty Images

The Trump administration has made further restrictions to its H-1B visa programme that it says will ensure American employees are not "replaced" by overseas workers.

American firms will have to pay higher salaries for workers enrolled in the H-1B programme. The new rules also narrow the list of qualifications that make you eligible for the visa.

US firms will have to offer jobs to US citizens before hiring foreign workers, the Department of Homeland Security said.

The US government has announced new restrictions on H-1B visas that it claims will stop the "replacement" of US employees by skilled overseas workers.

Under a new Department of Labor rule that will come into force Thursday, American companies must pay higher salaries to workers enrolled in the H-1B program.

New Department of Homeland Security (DHS) rules will narrow the list of qualifications that make you eligible for the visa and reduce the length of visas for workers in some fields.

Ken Cuccinelli, second-in-command at the DHS, estimated the new rules would cut the number of visas by a third.


The DHS argued in a statement that more than 500,000 qualified American workers have been "displaced" by "low-cost" H-1B workers.

Full details on the proposals would follow soon, the DHS said. The DHS rules will take two months to come into force, once laid out in full.
"Real" offers to "real employees"

The new rules require US firms to make "real" offers to "real employees" — meaning Americans — before hiring foreign workers. The DHS also said it would carry out worksite inspections and monitor compliance before and after the approval of a H-1B visa.

"We must do everything we can within the bounds of the law to make sure the American worker is put first," said acting secretary Chad Wolf in the statement, adding that the world had entered an era where "economic security is homeland security."


Cuccinelli told reporters on a conference call on Tuesday that "companies have been incentivized to avoid hiring Americans or even lay off their own qualified, better-paid American workers and replace them with cheaper foreign labour," per the Washington Post.

In June, the Trump administration blocked foreign workers on H-1B visas and other temporary visas from entering the country until the end of 2020. Major tech companies, such as Apple and Facebook, who rely on H-1B visas to hire many of their workers, argued that the visa ban would make the US economy less competitive.

Apple's CEO Tim Cook tweeted on June 23: "Like Apple, this nation of immigrants has always found strength in our diversity, and hope in the enduring promise of the American Dream."

On October 1, a federal judge blocked the ban for companies that are represented by the National Association of Manufacturers, the US Chamber of Commerce, the National Retail Federation, and TechNet.


Around 500,000 people are currently living in the US with a H-1B visa, with a maximum of 85,000 people put on the visa programme each year.

.
SEE ALSO: The US said it had canceled the visas of 1,000 Chinese students to stop them stealing 'sensitive military research'

SEE ALSO: Trump to suspend certain foreign worker visas despite tech, business group opposition

SEE ALSO: Trump signs a proclamation halting H-1B work visas and other temporary visas

Wall Street's regulatory gains set to stand even under Biden



By Pete Schroeder, Michelle Price

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A victory for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Nov. 3 would spell the end of the party for the banking industry which has enjoyed more than $40 billion in regulatory cuts under U.S. President Donald Trump’s business-friendly administration.

But the industry is likely to keep many of its wins as Democrats prioritize more pandemic aid, healthcare, tax reform and financial rules that address racial injustice, environmental and inequality issues, rather than attacking banks, said nearly a dozen lobbyists and policy experts in Democratic circles.

Banks and investors were preparing for a Biden victory over the weekend after Trump tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday, in a blow for his campaign.

“A hypothetical Biden administration will be confronting an economy mired in COVID-19, an unsustainable climate policy, a healthcare system whose flaws were exposed by the disease,” said Aaron Klein, a former Treasury Department official during the 2009 financial crisis that badly marred Wall Street’s image.

“This is not 2009 where the stability and soundness of the financial system is the top priority for restoring the economy and the semblance of normalcy,” said Klein, who is now a policy director at Washington think tank Brookings Institution.

From the relaxation of capital, leverage, liquidity, swap trading and speculative investment rules, to lighter-touch supervision and enforcement, banks have enjoyed a bonanza under the Republican-led Senate and Trump appointees who say the rules were overly burdensome, stymied lending and hurt the economy.

Biden, who was also accused of being too cozy with Wall Street as a senator and later Barack Obama’s vice president, has rarely attacked Trump’s financial giveaways and has said relatively little on financial reform more broadly.

As progressives pull the Democratic party to the left, policy experts expect a Biden administration to be tougher on financial firms than both the Trump and Obama administrations. Some liberal groups are already pushing Democrats to consider repealing several Wall Street-friendly rules.

But while Democrats may swiftly overturn some financial rules if they take the Senate, they are likely to focus legislative efforts on Trump healthcare, immigration, environmental and tax policies they hate more, said the sources.

That would leave most of Trump’s Wall Street giveaways intact initially, and put financial policy in the hands of Biden’s regulatory appointees who would get to choose whether to spend years unraveling their predecessors’ work.

“The personnel appointed to draft and carry out these rulemakings will have particular importance and also far more independence than under the Trump administration,” wrote D.C. research group Beacon Policy Advisors in a client note.

Progressive firebrand Senator Elizabeth Warren would hold sway over some appointments, particularly at the consumer watchdog which she helped create, and bank regulators.

Overall, though, lobbyists said they would expect a diverse mix of progressives and moderates, even though few are likely to come straight from Wall Street.

“I don’t think you’ll see the progressive liberals getting all the appointments they want,” said Richard Hunt, CEO of Washington group the Consumer Bankers Association.

Biden’s campaign, which did not immediately comment, has said he plans to use all available tools to reverse Trump’s damaging policies. Warren’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

RACIAL JUSTICE, EQUALITY

Progressives have criticized Trump’s watchdogs for easing some post-crisis capital, liquidity and leverage requirements, changes which have saved banks more than $40 billion, according to industry estimates. Many centrist Democrats believe, however, that those rules were ripe for review and are wary of getting bogged down rewriting them again, the sources said.

Appointees are expected to prioritize policies on which Democrats broadly agree - boosting consumer protections and measures to help tackle racial injustice, diversity, wealth inequality and climate change, said Graham Steele, a director at Stanford Graduate School of Business and formerly a senior Democratic aide on the Senate Banking Committee.

Those policies include boosting financial inclusion; cracking down on predatory lending, overdraft fees, and debt collectors; strengthening fair lending rules; overhauling the credit reporting system; halting Trump’s housing finance reforms; and imposing corporate climate change risk disclosures and bank climate risk controls.

Some measures could put banks on the defensive. Others may offer opportunities for the industry, which has improved its standing in Washington by helping the government distribute more than $500 billion in pandemic aid, said lobbyists.

“I’m not worried about being shut out,” said Hunt. “We have so many people employed in every state and district and we provide so much to the economy.”


Reporting by Michelle Price and Pete Schroeder; Editing by Nick Zieminski

Greek court rules far-right Golden Dawn leaders ran a crime group



By Renee Maltezou, Lefteris Papadimas


ATHENS (Reuters) - A Greek court on Wednesday declared far-right party Golden Dawn a criminal group, effectively banning a radical organisation that was once the third-largest political force in the country.

The courtroom cheered as the high-profile trial reached its end after five years of hearings, as did thousands who gathered outside the Athens appeals court.

But the mood on the streets turned sour when isolated groups of hooded youths threw petrol bombs at police, who responded with tear gas and water cannon.

Golden Dawn was catapulted from obscurity to infamy in the space of a few years, attracting supporters with a xenophobic rhetoric at the height of Greece’s debilitating debt crisis.

But it started to unravel in September 2013, when a party supporter was arrested for the killing of Pavlos Fyssas, a musician and rapper aligned to the political left.

“With today’s decision, a traumatic cycle in the country’s public life comes to an end,” said Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. “As in the ballot, this Nazi group was also convicted by the court.”

Golden Dawn members, including its leader Nikos Mihaloliakos, were rounded up and authorities launched an inquiry into whether the group was a criminal organisation in parallel to the probe into Fyssas’s death.

Before the court ruled that the party leadership was running a criminal group, the court found Golden Dawn supporter Yiorgos Roupakias guilty of Fyssas’s murder.

Fyssas’s black-clad mother Magda, who has not missed a day since the trial started, burst into tears when the verdict went against Golden Dawn.

“Pavlos you did it,” she said. “We won a battle but are continuing the fight.”

The Golden Dawn members were not in court on Wednesday. They were arrested in 2013, the first time that elected politicians had been detained in Greece since a military coup in 1967, and released after their pre-trial detention period expired.


Golden Dawn failed to win a single seat in last year’s parliamentary election.

Prosecutors had charged 65 people, including 18 former Golden Dawn lawmakers, with being members of a criminal group. The party said it was the victim of a political witch-hunt.

Dozens of others on trial, party members and alleged associates, face convictions on charges that range from murder to perjury, linked to violent attacks on immigrants and left-wing activists.

Wednesday’s verdict sets the stage for the high-profile case to proceed with the court looking into sentencing for the murder of Fyssas and other violent attacks.

Tens of thousands rallied outside the court, holding banners reading “Fascism, Never Again” and “Freedom for the People, Death to Fascism”.


“We must send a message to the younger generations, a message against fascism,” said 69-year-old Sophia. “It’s our duty to democracy to be here today, to show we are standing up against such criminal actions.”

Amnesty International said Wednesday’s verdict would boost efforts to fight hate crimes.

“This verdict sends a clear message to political groups with aggressive anti-migrant and anti-human rights agendas in Greece and across Europe that violent and racist criminal activity will not go unpunished,” said Nils Muiznieks, Amnesty’s Europe director.

Additional reporting by Angeliki Kountatou; Writing by Michele Kambas and George Georgiopoulos, editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Giles Elgood