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


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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.

___

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.

Well-preserved fossils could be a consequence of past global climate change

by University of Texas at Austin

A fossil of a crustacean claw exoskeleton from the Posidonia Shale in Germany. 

Credit: Drew Muscente

Climate change can affect life on Earth. According to new research, it can also affect the dead.

A study of exceptionally preserved fossils led by a graduate student at The University of Texas at Austin has found that rising global temperatures and a rapidly changing climate 183 million years ago may have created fossilization conditions in the world's oceans that helped preserve the soft and delicate bodies of deceased marine animals.

The fossils include squid-like vampyropods with ink sacs, ornate crustacean claws, and fish with intact gills and eye tissue.

Despite being from different locations and marine environments, the fossils were all preserved in a similar manner. Geochemical analysis revealed that the conditions needed to preserve such captivating fossils could be connected to Earth's climate.

"When I started the research, I had no idea if they would preserve the same way or a different way," said lead author Sinjini Sinha, a graduate student at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences. "I was curious what led to the exceptional preservation."

The research was published in Scientific Reports.

Going from dead organism to eternal fossil is a complex, chemical process that involves the formation of minerals within biological tissues. The authors examined different parts of fossil specimens under a scanning electron microscope equipped with a tool to detect chemical elements present in the minerals.

Lead author Sinjini Sinha, a graduate student at The University of Texas at Austin's Jackson

 School of Geosciences, examines images of fossil specimens in the scanning electron

 microscope lab. Sinha used the microscope to examine exceptionally preserved fossils

 and learn more about the fossilization process. Credit: The University of Texas at Austin/Jackson School of Geosciences.

The fossils came from the Posidonia Shale in southern Germany, Strawberry Bank in southern England, and Ya Ha Tinda in Alberta, Canada. And in all of them, one element dominated: phosphorus.

"We expected there to be some similarities, but finding that they were so similar was a bit surprising," said co-author Rowan Martindale, an associate professor at the Jackson School.

Phosphorus is common in bones, so finding it in fossilized fish skeletons wasn't unusual. But when it appeared in tissues that don't usually contain phosphorus, such as crustacean exoskeletons and vampyropod soft tissues, it signaled that the environment was the source of the phosphorus minerals.

Phosphorus, however, usually isn't available in high concentrations within marine sediments, said co-author Drew Muscente, an assistant professor at Cornell College and former Jackson School postdoctoral researcher.

"Phosphorus is an element that you don't expect to see in sedimentary rocks," he said. "It generally doesn't get buried in large amounts except in unusual circumstances."

Lead author Sinjini Sinha holds a fossilized ink sac of a vampyropod, a squid-like animal. 

The black portion is the ink sac. The white portion is the tissue surrounding the sac.

 The fossil is from the Strawberry Bank fossil deposit in the United Kingdom.

 Credit: The University of Texas at Austin/ Jackson School of Geosciences

The researchers think a period of extreme and rapid climate change caused by an influx of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by volcanic eruptions during the Early Jurassic could be just that circumstance, with the rising temperatures causing increased rainfall that stripped large amounts of phosphorus-rich sediment from rocks on land into the world's oceans.

Climate change today is also reducing oxygen in the oceans but it will be millions of years before anyone can say whether there is a boost in exceptional fossils, Martindale said.

The fossil fish Leptolepis from the Strawberry Bank fossil deposit in the United Kingdom.

 Credit: Sinjini Sinha

Javier Luque, a research associate at Harvard University who was not part of the study, said that the study is important because it suggests that past climate change could have helped enable fossilization in a variety of environments.

"Perhaps one of the biggest takeaways of this work is that global events in the past could have set the stage for the exceptional preservation seen in fossil-rich marine deposits around the world regardless of their location, lithologies, environments, and depositional setting," he said.

The study was also co-authored by researchers at the University of Missouri, the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, and the Stuttgart State Museum of Natural History.Exceptional fossils may need a breath of air to form

More information: Sinjini Sinha et al, Global controls on phosphatization of fossils during the Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event, Scientific Reports (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-03482-

Journal information: Scientific Reports 

Provided by University of Texas at Austin 

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Alberta Premier Jason Kenney to get his own radio show

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Call-in segment announced weeks out from key leadership

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CBC News · Posted: Mar 08, 2022 

The radio show marks a break in the premier's recent mediums of communication, which have typically come in the form of social media videos or live streams (Larry MacDougal/The Canadian Press)

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney will debut a new call-in radio show this weekend. 

The show will be broadcast in Calgary on 770 CHQR and in Edmonton on 630 CHED.

John Vos with Corus Entertainment told CBC News that the show was a long time coming, and that they first approached Kenney with the idea in June 2020. 

"It was a function of making the elements come together," said Vos. 

The program will continue to air up until the next provincial election, but will not continue through the campaign period. Vos also noted that they will revisit the show if Kenney loses leadership of the United Conservative Party in a vote set for April 9. 

Duane Bratt, a political scientist with Mount Royal University, said he was surprised to hear about the show's launch. 

"This is quite the development." 

He questioned both Kenney and Corus Entertainment's motivation behind launching the show, and where funding for the segment will be coming from. 

Corus Entertainment said the program will continue to air up until the next provincial election but will not continue through the campaign period. (Tijana Martin/Canadian Press)

Vos, with Corus Entertainment, told CBC News that the show was not 'paid-programming' and that no money had exchanged hands. 

Bratt said it's difficult to view the premier's new call-in program as isolated from the leadership vote just around the corner. 

"Everything that has occurred over the past several weeks you have to view with the lens of April 9. The budget, yesterday's announcement on the gas tax, rebates, you'll notice those all kick in on April 1."

The decision to go ahead with the show marks a break in the premier's recent mediums of communication, said Bratt, which have typically come in the form of social media videos or live streams. 

While communication with the public is typically a good thing, said Bratt, he expressed concerns regarding the screening of the show, and what kinds of callers would make it to air. 

"Are we talking about the premier of the province communicating with the people of the province, or is this a leader of a political party trying to defend his record in advance of a leadership review?"

Humanity Just Produced The Biggest Increase in Global CO2 Emissions Ever Recorded


(Niko Tavernise/Don't Look Up/Netflix)

AFP
9 MARCH 2022

Global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions rose by 6 percent in 2021 to a record 36.3 billion metric tons, their highest ever level, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday.

"The increase in global CO2 emissions of over 2 billion metric tons was the largest in history in absolute terms, more than offsetting the previous year's pandemic-induced decline," it said.

It pointed to the widespread use of coal to power growth as the world economy rebounded from the COVID crisis.

"The recovery of energy demand in 2021 was compounded by adverse weather and energy market conditions – notably the spikes in natural gas prices – which led to more coal being burned despite renewable power generation registering its largest ever growth," it said.

The IEA said the rebound of global CO2 emissions above pre-pandemic levels was largely driven by China, where they increased by 750 million metric tons between 2019 and 2021.

"China was the only major economy to experience economic growth in both 2020 and 2021," it said.

"The emissions increases in those two years in China more than offset the aggregate decline in the rest of the world over the same period."

In 2021 alone, China's CO2 emissions rose above 11.9 billion metric tons, accounting for 33 percent of the global total.

© Agence France-Presse

 

McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Pepsi & Starbucks pause operations in Russia

Iconic U.S. brands leaving Russia

The Canadian Press and Castanet Staff - Mar 8, 2022 / 1:52 pm | Story: 362202

Photo: pixabay

UPDATE 1:45 p.m.

Food and beverage giants Coca-Cola and Pepsi have also now announced they are suspending operations in Russia.

Starbucks made a similar announcement, in addition to McDonald's earlier in the day.

The four brands are some of the most iconic in the U.S.

The Coca-Cola Company published a brief statement on its website Tuesday, announcing the suspension of business in the country

"Our hearts are with the people who are enduring unconscionable effects from these tragic events in Ukraine," Coke said. "We will continue to monitor and assess the situation as circumstances evolve."

PepsiCo, meanwhile, says it is suspending the sale of its major beverage brands in Russia after over 60 years.

PepsiCo is not fully closing operations in Russia and will continue to offer other products like milk, baby food and dairy offerings, "as a food and beverage company, now more than ever we must stay true to the humanitarian aspect of our business."

"By continuing to operate, we will also continue to support the livelihoods of our 20,000 Russian associates and the 40,000 Russian agricultural workers in our supply chain as they face significant challenges and uncertainty ahead," the company said.

Starbucks is also suspending all shipments to Russia as it pauses operations of all stores there.

"We condemn the horrific attacks on Ukraine by Russia and our hearts go out to all those affected," and that "we continue to watch the tragic events unfold," Chief Executive Kevin Johnson said.

The company said Kuwait-based Alshaya Group, which operates 100 Starbucks stores in Russia, will support the nearly 2,000 employees during the time of the closure.

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ORIGINAL 10:30 a.m.

McDonald’s said Tuesday it is temporarily closing all of its 850 restaurants in Russia in response to the country’s invasion of Ukraine.

The burger giant said it will continue paying its 62,000 employees in Russia. But in an open letter to employees, McDonald’s President and CEO Chris Kempckinski said closing those stores is the right thing to do because McDonald’s can’t ignore the “needless human suffering in Ukraine.”

"Years ago, when confronted with his own difficult decision, Fred Turner explained his approach quite simply: 'Do the right thing.' That philosophy is enshrined as one of our five guiding values, and there are countless examples over the years of McDonald’s Corporation living up to Fred’s simple ideal. Today, is also one of those days," Kempckinski continued.

McDonald’s owns 84% of its Russian restaurants. In a recent financial filing, the company said Russia and Ukraine contributed 9% of the company’s revenue last year.

"As many of our colleagues in Ukraine have sought refuge, they have found the familiar support of the McDonald’s system in new and unfamiliar places. In Poland and many other markets across Europe, our system has literally opened their homes, their hearts, and their restaurants," Kempckinski said.

McDonald’s says it's impossible to know when they will be able to reopen their restaurants in Russia. The company is also reporting supply chain disruptions.