Lawsuit alleges scientific misconduct at U.S. nuclear weapons lab
Peter Williams claims tweaks to a program for modeling a bomb’s explosive trigger make its predictions unreliable. CLAUDIA WILLIAMS
By Adrian ChoJun. 24, 2020 ,
An unusual lawsuit alleges scientific misconduct at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, one of the United States’s three nuclear weapons labs. Peter Williams, a 50-year-old physicist, worked at Livermore from January 2016 until May 2017, when he says he was fired in retaliation for complaining that his superiors were mishandling a computer program that simulates the detonation of high explosives, undermining their ability to predict how a particular nuclear weapon would perform if used. Williams, who now works at a private research lab, has sued Livermore and seven individuals for reinstatement and $600,000 in damages.
Researchers familiar with the labs say Williams’s allegations should be taken seriously. “If there’s been a cover-up, that’s something that ought to be looked into,” says Raymond Jeanloz, a geophysicist at the University of California, Berkeley, who has been involved with the weapons labs. But he also says the labs implement internal reviews and other measures to ensure the integrity of their work and head off the kind of problem Williams alleges. “This is exactly the kind of thing the people at the lab worry about,” Jeanloz says. Livermore declined to comment on the suit, but in a statement said: “Rigorous debate is a part of the scientific process—the Laboratory does not retaliate against individuals for holding differing opinions.”
The suit, which Williams filed on 22 May, seems quixotic. He is representing himself; to make his case, he needs documents that only the lab can provide; and his complaint centers on a differential equation. Williams spent only a short time at Livermore before he was fired. (In a 12-month performance review Williams included in his suit, his superiors state he wasn’t keeping up with assignments.) Before joining the lab he did two postdocs, taught at City College of San Francisco and Sonoma State University, and worked for 8 years at Agilent Technologies. But Williams is a talented scientist, says Craig Wheeler, an astrophysicist at the University of Texas, Austin, who was his graduate adviser and has subsequently published with him. “He’s a deep, independent thinker,” Wheeler says. “He’s definitely not a crackpot.”
At Livermore, Williams was given the unclassified task of modeling the behavior of a high explosive. Called PBX 9502, the polymer-bonded explosive is intended to be used in refurbishing a 40-year-old thermonuclear warhead called the W80, which is about the size of a garbage can and fits on a cruise missile. The explosive, when detonated, would compress the warhead’s plutonium pit to set off a nuclear fission explosion, which in turn would trigger an even more powerful fusion explosion. Modeling a high explosive is difficult, researchers say, because its behavior depends on its density, which can vary from batch to batch and within a single piece. But such modeling is crucial to be sure that stored weapons will work as intended because the United States gave up nuclear testing in 1992 under the still unratified Comprehensive Nuclear-Test–Ban Treaty.
PBX 9502 is especially tricky because it’s an insensitive explosive, meaning it won’t go up if smacked or set on fire. But that also means that as the detonation front moves through the material, the chemical reactions behind it progress more slowly than in older explosives, Williams says. So instead of assuming the reactions are instantaneous, researchers must model their evolution, too.
To make sure they can do so correctly, researchers detonate samples of the stuff in different geometries, observe the explosions with ultra–high-speed cameras and other tools, and compare the results with simulations. For example, in one test, the sample resembles a mallet, with a thin cylindrical handle that leads to a fatter cylindrical head. Because the detonation front cannot instantly turn the corner where skinny cylinder meets fat, the explosion doesn’t consume the entire sample, but leaves a ring of material whose thickness reveals the speed of the detonation front and chemical reactions.
Livermore used such test explosions to refine a modeling program called ARES-CHEETAH. But Williams says he became aware that one of his supervisors was essentially changing parameters in the program after the fact to make sure the simulation fit the data from each experimental setup. That’s “pseudoscience,” Williams charges, as it guarantees the model will look accurate, even if it isn’t. He says he repeatedly asked the researcher to explain the rationale for the tweaking. “It became clear that he didn’t have a rationale, he had a motive,” Williams says. “And the motive was to keep money flowing to help develop and improve CHEETAH.”
Such “curve fitting” renders the program incapable of making meaningful predictions, he says. If CHEETAH can’t properly model the bench tests of PBX 9502, larger, far more expensive integrated test explosions of the weapon’s nonnuclear components could fail, he says. And modelers may not be able to correctly calculate the yield of the refurbished weapon, he says.
That would be a big problem, says Robert Rosner, a theoretical astrophysicist at the University of Chicago and former director of Argonne National Laboratory who is on Livermore’s advisory board. The uncertainty in the yields of various weapons directly affects calculations of how big the U.S. nuclear arsenal should be and could determine the course of future arms control negotiations, Rosner says. “The extent to which we can decrease [the stockpile] is completely related to the ability to be certain about the yield.”
But Rosner says he’s neither surprised nor alarmed to hear researchers had to adjust the high-explosives models to fit different experiments. What Williams sees as unacceptable tweaking is an inevitable part of the empirical modeling of any complex system, such as the climate or a star, Rosner says. “The idea that the model has to be tuned, I find that unsurprising,” he says. “I would be stunned if it didn’t.”
Both Rosner and Jeanloz say they suspect Williams may not know the whole story behind ARES-CHEETAH, as the lab dismissed him before he obtained a clearance to work on classified material. The weapons program also takes explicit measures to ensure that researchers adhere to scientific standards, Jeanloz says, such as running its own classified peer-reviewed journals and encouraging researchers to keep a hand in unclassified research. The rivalry between Livermore and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico provides a particularly valuable check, scientists say.
Yet Jeanloz and Rosner agree that models like CHEETAH need careful scrutiny. That’s because some policymakers may view uncertainties in modeling as a reason to resume nuclear testing. In fact, Jeanloz says, some arms control experts argue that to discourage calls for new tests, the United States should make no changes to its existing nuclear arms—even ones that make them safer, such as switching to insensitive explosives.
Williams does not yet have a court date. He’s suing, he says, not out of anger, but out of a sense of scientific duty: “I couldn’t look myself in the mirror if I didn’t do it.”
Posted in:
Science and Policy
Scientific Community
doi:10.1126/science.abd4839
Gravitational waves reveal lightest black hole ever observed
Ripples in space itself have revealed a merger of a large black hole with an object thought to be too small to be a black hole. N. FISCHER, S. OSSOKINE, H. PFEIFFER, AND A. BUONANNO/MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR GRAVITATIONAL PHYSICS/SIMULATING EXTREME SPACETIMES COLLABORATION
By Adrian Cho Jun. 24, 2020 , 2:15 PM
Gravitational wave detectors have spotted a cosmic collision in which a giant black hole swallowed up a mystery object seemingly too heavy to be a neutron star, but too light to be a black hole. Weighing in at 2.6 times the mass of the Sun, the object falls into a hypothetical “mass gap,” a desert between the heaviest neutron star and the lightest black hole that some theories predict—suggesting the gap doesn’t exist and that those theories need to be amended.
“People who thought there was a mass gap will have to rethink it, for sure,” says Cole Miller, an astrophysicist at the University of Maryland, College Park, who was not involved in the observation. He adds, however, “People aren’t going to be joining cults because they cannot survive this change in their worldview.”
The data come from physicists working with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), a pair of detectors in Louisiana and Washington state, and Virgo, a similar detector in Italy. All three consist of huge, exquisitely sensitive optical instruments that can detect the fleeting stretching of space itself set off when two massive objects, such as black holes, swirl into each other. Since LIGO first sensed such gravitational waves in 2015, physicists have spotted dozens of mergers. And on 14 August 2019, the LIGO and Virgo detectors spotted a merger of objects with masses 23 and 2.6 times that of the Sun, the joint LIGO-Virgo collaboration announced yesterday.
It’s the 2.6–solar-mass object that raises eyebrows because it falls squarely in the mass gap, says Vicky Kalogera, an astrophysicist and LIGO team member from Northwestern University. “Now, for the first time, we have seen such an object,” she says. By sensing only the gravitational waves from the collision, LIGO and Virgo cannot tell for sure what the object is, she says. But nuclear physics suggests a neutron star heavier than about 2.2 solar masses cannot support its own weight, so the object is “almost certainly” a black hole, Miller says.
Yet it’s not easy to form a black hole this light, explains Feryal Özel, an astrophysicist at the University of Arizona. Prior to the advent of LIGO and Virgo, the only observational evidence for black holes came from the study of about 30 in our own galaxy, each of which orbits a companion star that feeds hot matter into it. None of these black holes weighs less than five solar masses, Ozel noted and colleagues noted in 2010. So they posited a mass gap between about 2.5 and five solar masses in which there should exist neither neutron stars nor black holes. But that notion rests on observation, Özel stresses. “Is there a fundamental physics reason black holes can’t form below five solar masses? We certainly don’t think so,” she says. “But, there must be something in the way massive stars evolve that makes it very hard.”
Subsequently, theorists explained why that may be so. Either a neutron star or a black hole can form when a massive star runs out of hydrogen fuel and its core begins to collapse. If the star is light enough, the core will collapse to a neutron star in a supernova explosion that blows away the rest of the star. If the star is too massive, however, its core will shrink to an infinitesimal point, leaving behind only its superintense gravitational field: a black hole. Theories suggest that, for these heavy stars, all but the outermost layers of the star fall in, boosting the black hole’s mass to five solar masses or more.
The new observation may put a dent in that theory—which Miller says has already met with some skepticism. “The supernova theorists who do the real modeling basically say, ‘Look, show us for sure there’s a mass gap and we’ll work on it,’” he says. And Özel, one of the original proponents of the mass gap, seems unperturbed by the find. “It’s very exciting,” she says. What’s more, LIGO and Virgo have shown that it’s possible to form a low-mass black hole in a different way. In August 2017, they spotted the merger of two neutron stars, which produced, presumably, a black hole of 2.7 solar masses.
The real puzzle may be the extreme mismatch in the masses of the black holes in the new observation, says Brian Metzger, a theoretical astrophysicist at Columbia University who was not involved in the work. Just a few weeks ago, LIGO and Virgo announced an event in which one black hole outweighed the other by a ratio of four to one. In the new event, the ratio is nine to one. “The interesting thing is the extreme mass ratio, which is hard to produce through most [models] people have focused on,” Metzger says.
Nobody knows how tightly orbiting pairs of black holes form in the first place. Most theorists have focused on two general scenarios, Metzger says: either orbiting pairs of stars that both collapse to form black holes or individual black holes that rattle around in tiny, old galaxies called globular clusters that somehow manage to pair up. Both scenarios tend to make pairs in which the black holes have similar masses. So theorists may have to dream up new hatcheries for lopsided black hole pairs, Metzger says, perhaps by starting in the dense centers of large galaxies.
Posted in:
Space
doi:10.1126/science.abd4841
Adrian Cho
Staff Writer
The chicken first crossed the road in Southeast Asia, ‘landmark’ gene study finds
The red jungle fowl's exotic plumage—and fierce fights among cocks—may have helped make the bird attractive to the early farmers who domesticated it. DAVID IRVING
By Andrew LawlerJun. 24, 2020 , 9:00 PM
It is the world’s most common farm animal as well as humanity’s largest single source of animal protein. Some 24 billion strong, it outnumbers all other birds by an order of magnitude. Yet for 2 centuries, biologists have struggled to explain how the chicken became the chicken.
Now, the first extensive study of the bird’s full genome concludes that people in northern Southeast Asia or southern China domesticated a colorful pheasant sometime after about 7500 B.C.E. Migrants and traders then carried the bird across Asia and on to every continent except Antarctica.
“Our results contradict previous claims that chickens were domesticated in northern China and the Indus Valley,” researchers led by Ming-Shan Wang from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’s Kunming Institute of Zoology write in a paper published today in Cell Research. They also found that the modern chicken’s chief ancestor is a subspecies of red jungle fowl named Gallus gallus spadiceus.
“This is obviously a landmark study,” says Dorian Fuller, an archaeologist at University College London who was not involved in the effort. He adds that the results could shed light on the emergence of agriculture and early trade networks, and what features of the bird made it so attractive to people.
Charles Darwin argued the chicken descended from the red jungle fowl because the birds resemble each other and can make fertile offspring; he speculated that domestication happened in India. But five varieties of the pheasant inhabit a broad arc extending from the jungles of Indonesia to the Himalayan foothills of Pakistan. Which variety led to the chicken, and where, was uncertain. Based on presumed chicken bones, archaeologists claimed, variously, that people domesticated the bird 9000 years ago in northern China and 4000 years ago in Pakistan.
DNA studies promised to resolve the issue, but researchers had few samples from the bird’s wild relatives. So Jianlin Han, a geneticist at the Joint Laboratory on Livestock and Forage Genetic Resources, embarked on a 20-year project to sample indigenous village chickens and wild jungle fowl near more than 120 villages across Asia and Africa.
Early bird
A subspecies of red jungle fowl (Gallus gallus spadiceus), found in northern Southeast Asia, likely led to the first domesticated chickens.
01000KmG. g. spadiceusNEPALINDIAMALAYSIAMYANMARLAOSTHAILANDCHINABANGLADESH
X. LIU/SCIENCE
Wang’s team sequenced the full genomes of 863 birds and compared them. The results suggest modern chickens descend primarily from domesticated and wild varieties in what is now Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, and southern China (see map, right). “This region is a center of domestication,” says co-author and geneticist Olivier Hanotte of the University of Nottingham. The results confirm a hypothesis put forward in 1994 by Japan’s Crown Prince Akishino, an ornithologist, on the basis of mitochondrial DNA data.
Wang’s team did find some evidence for a South Asian contribution: A jungle fowl native to the Indian subcontinent may have interbred with the chicken after its initial domestication in Southeast Asia, the team says.
The new DNA data link domesticated chickens most closely to the Southeast Asian subspecies G. g. spadiceus, however. They suggest the lineage that became the modern chicken branched off from the jungle fowl between 12,800 and 6200 years ago, with domestication occurring sometime after the lineages split.
Fuller doubts the bird was fully domesticated before the arrival of rice and millet farming in northern Southeast Asia about 4500 years ago. Hanotte acknowledges that “we need the help of archaeologists” to understand the human events that triggered domestication.
But Jonathan Kenoyer, an archaeologist and Indus expert at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, remains skeptical that the chicken arose in Southeast Asia. “They need to get ancient DNA” to back up their claims, he says, because genomes of modern birds may provide limited clues to early events in chicken evolution.
Nor does the DNA show what first enticed people to tame the bird. Early varieties were far scrawnier and produced fewer eggs than today’s industrial varieties, and their predators were legion. Some researchers suggest the bird was initially prized for its exotic plumage or for cockfighting. Selling prize fighting cocks remains a lucrative business in Southeast Asia, and the birds’ high value may have spurred traders to carry them long distances.
Smithsonian Institution archaeozoologist Melinda Zeder calls the new paper “fascinating” and says it shows “the domestication and dispersal story is more complicated than we thought.” She urges combining genetic and archaeological data to flesh out the tale. Archaeologists are now gathering chicken bones that suggest farmers in southern China and Southeast Asia first domesticated the bird some 3500 years ago—findings that bolster the genetic work.
Han’s group, meanwhile, is creating a massive data set based on more than 1500 modern chicken genomes from Asia, Europe, and Africa. The researchers plan to analyze chicken dispersal into Europe and Africa, as well as the genetic variations behind traits such as the ability to withstand disease or produce more eggs. “This study opens a whole new page in chicken genomics,” Han says.
doi:10.1126/science.abd4961
Andrew Lawler
Contributing Correspondent Andrew Lawler is based in Asheville, North Carolina. His most recent book is The Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke.
Swine flu strain with human pandemic potential increasingly found in pigs in China
Nasal swabs from more than 30,000 pigs in China over 7 years found an increase in an avian like influenza virus that has swapped genes from several strains. HONGLEI SUN
By Jon Cohen Jun. 29, 2020
What the world doesn’t need now is a pandemic on top of a pandemic. So a new finding that pigs in hina are more and more frequently becoming infected with a strain of influenza that has the potential to jump to humans has infectious disease researchers worldwide taking serious notice. Robert Webster, an influenza investigator who recently retired from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, says it’s a “guessing game” as to whether this strain will mutate to readily transmit between humans, which it has not done yet. “We just do not know a pandemic is going to occur until the damn thing occurs,” Webster says, noting that China has the largest pig population in the world. “Will this one do it? God knows.”
When multiple strains of influenza viruses infect the same pig, they can easily swap genes, a process known as “reassortment.” The new study, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, focuses on an influenza virus dubbed G4. The virus is a unique blend of three lineages: one similar to strains found in European and Asian birds, the H1N1 strain that caused the 2009 pandemic, and a North American H1N1 that has genes from avian, human, and pig influenza viruses.
The G4 variant is especially concerning because its core is an avian influenza virus—to which humans have no immunity—with bits of mammalian strains mixed in. “From the data presented, it appears that this is a swine influenza virus that is poised to emerge in humans,” says Edward Holmes, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Sydney who studies pathogens. “Clearly this situation needs to be monitored very closely>
As part of a project to identify potential pandemic influenza strains, a team led by Liu Jinhua from the China Agricultural University (CAU) analyzed nearly 30,000 nasal swabs taken from pigs at slaughterhouses in 10 Chinese provinces, and another 1000 swabs from pigs with respiratory symptoms seen at their school’s veterinary teaching hospital. The swabs, collected between 2011 and 2018, yielded 179 swine influenza viruses, the vast majority of which were G4 or one of five other G strains from the Eurasian avianlike lineage. “G4 virus has shown a sharp increase since 2016, and is the predominant genotype in circulation in pigs detected across at least 10 provinces,” they write.
Sun Honglei, the paper’s first author, says G4’s inclusion of genes from the 2009 H1N1 pandemic “may promote the virus adaptation” that leads to human-to-human transmission. Therefore, “It’s necessary to strengthen the surveillance” of pigs in China for influenza viruses, says Sun, also at CAU.
Influenza viruses frequently jump from pigs to humans, but most do not then transmit between humans. Two cases of G4 infections of humans have been documented and both were dead-end infections that did not transmit to other people. “The likelihood that this particular variant is going to cause a pandemic is low,” says Martha Nelson, an evolutionary biologist at the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s Fogarty International Center who studies pig influenza viruses in the United States and their spread to humans. But Nelson notes that no one knew about the pandemic H1N1 strain, which jumped from pigs to people, until the first human cases surfaced in 2009. “Influenza can surprise us,” Nelson says. “And there’s a risk that we neglect influenza and other threats at this time” of COVID-19.
The new study offers but a tiny glimpse into swine influenza strains in China, which has 500 million pigs. While Nelson thinks the predominance of G4 in their analysis is an interesting finding, she says it’s hard to know whether its spread is a growing problem, given the relatively small sample size. “You’re really not getting a good snapshot of what is dominant in pigs in China,” she adds, stressing the need for more sampling in the nation's pigs.
In the paper, Sun and colleagues—including George Gao, head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention—describe lab dish studies that show how G4s have become adept at infecting and copying themselves in human airway epithelial cells. The viruses also readily infected and transmitted between ferrets, a popular animal model used to study human influenza. The researchers found antibodies to the G4 strain in 4.4% of 230 people studied in a household survey—and the rate more than doubled in swine workers.
In addition to stepping up surveillance, Sun says it makes sense to develop a vaccine against G4 for both pigs and humans. Webster says at the very least, the seed stock to make a human vaccine—variants of a strain that grow rapidly in the eggs used to make a flu vaccine—should be produced now. “Making the seed stock is not a big deal, and we should have it ready,” Webster says.
China rarely uses influenza vaccines in swine. Nelson says U.S. farms commonly do, but the vaccine has little effect because it’s often outdated and doesn’t match circulating strains.
Ideally, Nelson says, we would produce a human G4 vaccine and have it in the stockpile, but that’s an involved process that requires substantial funding. “We need to be vigilant about other infectious disease threats even as COVID is going on because viruses have no interest in whether we’re already having another pandemic,” Nelson says.
A federal judge ruled earlier this year that Scott Pruitt, the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, had failed to properly justify policy that barred agency grantees from science advisory panels. AP PHOTO/ANDREW HARNIK
EPA gives up on barring grantees from science advisory panels
By Sean Reilly, E&E News Jun. 25, 2020 , 2:15 PM
Originally published by E&E News
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will not fight a judge's February decision to throw out its ban on advisory committee service by agency grant recipients, meaning the heavily litigated 2017 policy is legally dead for now.
In a carefully couched statement released late yesterday, agency lawyers said they would not appeal the opinion by U.S. District Judge Denise Cote, which found that EPA had failed to provide a "reasoned explanation" for the ban (Greenwire, 11 February).
While not ruling out a future attempt to revive the prohibition, EPA would do so only through a supplemental ethics regulation with a signoff from the Office of Government Ethics, the statement said. Three years ago, by contrast, then-Administrator Scott Pruitt imposed the ban with no advance notice or a chance for the public to first weigh in.
Cote, a judge for the Southern District of New York, issued the opinion in a lawsuit brought by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Because current EPA chief Andrew Wheeler retains broad discretion to name advisory committee members, the immediate impact of the agency's retreat is likely to be limited at best.
While the return to the pre-2017 status quo is good news, "the reality is that many distinguished scientists were dismissed from EPA's advisory committees because of this unlawful directive," said NRDC attorney Vivian Wang in a prepared statement.
At the Union of Concerned Scientists, which had unsuccessfully challenged the policy in a separate suit, Michael Halpern acknowledged that Wheeler can still pick whom he wants but added that the prohibition had kept well-qualified, independent scientists from even applying for advisory panel positions.
In terms of the reversal's practical effect, Halpern said in an interview, "it forces them to consider the best available experts, which is a good thing."
How quickly the agency will reopen the door to those experts is unclear, however. One of its premier panels, the Science Advisory Board, announced this spring that it would accept nominations for fiscal 2021 appointments. An EPA spokeswoman could not immediately say this morning whether current grant recipients will now be eligible for consideration.
In announcing the policy in October 2017, Pruitt had said he wanted to avoid the "appearance of conflict" that would come from officially taking advice from scientists who were also receiving EPA research money. But he never offered concrete evidence that agency funding imperiled their independence or objectivity.
There was also little sign that EPA sought to apply the prohibition even-handedly across all of its 22 federal advisory committees (Greenwire, 21 September 2018).
Instead, Pruitt targeted just three: the Board of Scientific Counselors, SAB and Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee. Coupled with his decision to end an informal tradition of automatically reappointing first-term panel members to a second term, the ban cleared the way to oust many academic researchers in favor of industry-affiliated members.
The impact was most pronounced on the seven-member Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, charged with providing outside expertise during statutorily required reviews of ambient air quality standards for lead, ozone and four other common pollutants. Until 2017, the committee was made up mostly of researchers at colleges and universities.
Now the panel is chaired by a consultant who has done work for the American Petroleum Institute and other industry groups. The bulk of the other members come from state and local regulatory agencies; some have acknowledged that they cumulatively lack the full range of expertise needed to carry out their duties. Last year, a majority of the committee voted to override the conclusions of EPA career staff and recommended leaving national standards for fine particles unchanged. Wheeler, a former lobbyist whose clients included the nation's largest privately owned coal company, has now incorporated that status quo recommendation into a proposal scheduled to be made final by year's end.
At the same time, Wheeler has clashed with the SAB, even though he has appointed or reappointed many of its 44 members. After the SAB challenged the agency's handling of several major deregulatory initiatives, Wheeler this year stripped rank-and-file members of their role in deciding which proposed rules to review and instead concentrated that authority in the chair (E&E News PM, 26 February).
Among those forced off the board as a result of the 2017 policy was Robyn Wilson, an Ohio State University professor of risk analysis who was a plaintiff in another unsuccessful legal challenge (Greenwire, 19 January 2018).
In an email this morning, Wilson said she would "definitely" serve again. Because her EPA grant ended in January, Wilson added, "I am not currently affected by the directive regardless."
Reprinted from Greenwire with permission from E&E News. Copyright 2020. E&E provides essential news for energy and environment professionals at www.eenews.net
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Posted in:
Science and Policy
doi:10.1126/science.abd5195
Sean Reilly, E&E News
Sean writes about air quality policy and regulations for E&E News.
Government of Canada publishes new regulations to prevent harassment and violence in federal workplaces
Employment and Social Development Canada
GATINEAU, QC, June 24, 2020 /CNW/ - All Canadians deserve a workplace free from harassment and violence. That is why the Government of Canada took action through Bill C-65, the federal anti-harassment and violence legislation, to help keep Canadian workers in federally regulated workplaces, including the most vulnerable, safe.
Today, the Honourable Filomena Tassi, Minister of Labour, is announcing an important step toward a strengthened federal framework that protects workers, while also supporting employers. The Workplace Harassment and Violence Prevention Regulations (the Regulations) are now published in Part II of the Canada Gazette and will come into force, along with the legislation, on January 1, 2021.
The Regulations outline the essential elements of a workplace harassment and violence prevention policy, as well as the procedures that must be in place to respond to incidents of harassment and violence if they do occur. This includes:
timeframes for resolution to better support the complainant and alleged individual;
confidentiality of all parties involved, including witnesses, throughout the investigation;
protection for employees victimized by a third party (for example, an employee harassed by a client);
the qualifications of a competent person to investigate and provide recommendations;
employer obligations to implement corrective measures in response to the investigation report of a competent person;
clearly outlining the existing and new roles of the workplace committee; and
support to be provided for employees who have experienced workplace harassment and violence.
These regulations will support federal employers in their efforts to ensure comprehensive policies and procedures that workers both expect and deserve are in place in advance of the coming into force date. The Government worked closely with Canadians and stakeholders—including employers and employees, unions, and health and safety representatives in federally regulated industries, as well as subject matter experts, advocacy groups and Indigenous partners—on the Regulations and will continue this important work as we move toward implementation.
Quote
"Today, we're taking an important step forward to ensure that federally regulated workplaces—including the federally regulated private sector, the federal public service and parliamentary workplaces—are free from harassment and violence, including sexual harassment and sexual violence. Every worker deserves a safe workplace, and by working together, we can make that a reality."
– The Honourable Filomena Tassi, Minister of Labour
"Every Canadian has the right to work in a healthy, respectful and safe environment. The Government of Canada is committed to ensuring that all federally regulated workplaces, including the public service, are free from harassment and violence of any kind. The new Workplace Harassment and Violence Prevention Regulations announced today will thereby enable employees and employers to more readily know their rights and duties and will strengthen the measures to prevent and address all forms of misconduct in the workplace."
– The Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, President of the Treasury Board of Canada
Quick Facts
Bill C-65 defines harassment and violence as "any action, conduct or comment, including of a sexual nature, that can reasonably be expected to cause offence, humiliation or other physical or psychological injury or illness to an employee, including any prescribed action, conduct or comment."
Through Budget 2018, the Government committed $34.9 million over five years, starting in 2018–19, with $7.4 million per year ongoing, to support Bill C-65, of which $3.5 million annually is dedicated to grants and contributions through the Workplace Harassment and Violence Prevention Fund. There are seven projects receiving funding through the new fund, which was announced last year on International Women's Day.
On September 1, 2019, a number of changes to Part III (Standard Hours, Wages, Vacations and Holidays) of the Canada Labour Code came into force and include new leaves such as leave for victims of family violence of up to 10 days (first 5 days paid for employees with at least 3 months of service). Offering a leave for family violence also advances the Government's commitment to address gender-based violence.
International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 190 concerning the elimination of violence and harassment in the world of work was adopted by the ILO in June 2019. The Government is now consulting with the provinces and territories on ratifying ILO Convention 190.
Associated Links
Work Place Harassment and Violence Prevention Regulations
Requirements for employers to prevent harassment and violence in federally regulated workplaces
Federal anti-harassment and violence legislation receives Royal Assent
Government of Canada announces program to provide $3.5 million in annual funding to prevent workplace harassment and violence
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SOURCE Employment and Social Development Canada
For further information: For media enquiries, please contact: Dustin Fitzpatrick, Press Secretary, Office of the Honourable Filomena Tassi, P.C., M.P., Minister of Labour, 819-654-5611, dustin.fitzpatrick@labour-travail.gc.ca; Media Relations Office, Employment and Social Development Canada, 819-994-5559, media@hrsdc-rhdcc.gc.ca
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Investing in Wildland Fire Research to Protect Canadians
Natural Resources Canada
EDMONTON, AB, June 24, 2020 /CNW/ - The health of Canada's forests keeps our economy strong, sustains good jobs, and preserves our environment. That is why the Government of Canada is making investments to reduce wildland fire risks and protect Canadians living in or near forests and grasslands communities.
The Honourable Seamus O'Regan, Canada's Minister of Natural Resources, today announced an investment of $5 million towards the development of a Wildland Fire Research Network in Canada in collaboration with the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). They will work closely with the Canadian Partnership for Wildland Fire Science, based at the University of Alberta.
To increase Canada's expertise in wildland fire science, this network will invest in the development of 68 wildland fire professionals in master's, PhD and post-doctoral fellowship programs. Through the network, they will have the opportunity to innovate in fire management to reduce the risks of Canada's wildland fire and protect Canadians.
This project is part of a $151.23 million federal investment in the Emergency Management Strategy (EMS) for Canada announced in Budget 2019, to strengthen Canadians' ability to mitigate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from natural disasters and climate-related emergencies. This network was also one of the 15 recommendations outlined in the Blueprint for Wildland Fire Science in Canada to increase capacity for research in wildland fire science. This investment responds to provincial and territorial calls for increased federal investment in wildfire science and innovation.
The Government of Canada is investing in our natural resource sectors to boost innovation and increase our expertise while protecting our communities and forests.
Quotes
"With climate change, wildfires are increasing in frequency and magnitude so we must learn to live with them and better manage them. That is precisely what this network will do by harnessing diverse scientific expertise across Canada, enabling us to better understand wildfire and develop new fire management knowledge and tools to address this very complex issue. The University of Alberta is very proud and honoured to have been chosen to host this vital network, and I thank the federal government for investing in such a very important initiative."
Walter Dixon
University of Alberta Interim Vice-President Research and Innovation
"NSERC is proud to partner with the Canadian Forest Service and support this multidisciplinary network of researchers and partners working together to address the increasing challenges that Canada faces from wildland fires. The diverse and complementary expertise of this R&D collaboration is generating new knowledge and providing valuable training opportunities, which will help increase Canada's national research capacity in fire science."
Marc Fortin
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Vice-President of Research Partnerships
"Climate change is increasing wildland fires in Canada. Our fire seasons are now longer, more severe, and more dangerous than ever. We have to continue to reduce the risk that fires pose to people, communities, and infrastructure. That is exactly what this investment will do."
The Honourable Seamus O'Regan
Canada's Minister of Natural Resources
Associated Links
Emergency Management Strategy for Canada
Blueprint for Wildland Fire Science in Canada
Canadian Wildland Fire Strategy
Follow us on Twitter: @NRCan (http://twitter.com/nrcan)
NRCan's news releases and backgrounders are available at www.news.gc.ca.
SOURCE Natural Resources Canada
For further information: Ian Cameron, Press Secretary, Office of the Minister of Natural Resources, 343-292-6837, Ian.Cameron@canada.ca; Media Relations, Natural Resources Canada, Ottawa, 343-292-6100, NRCan.media.RNCan@canada.ca
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Natural Resources Canada
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Discovering an exoplanet the size of Neptune Espace pour la vie
Astrophysicists detect the orb hidden in the dust and gas debris around the young star AU Microscopii
MONTRÉAL, June 25, 2020 /CNW Telbec/ - An exoplanet the size of Neptune has been discovered around the young star AU Microscopii, thanks in part to the work of Jonathan Gagné, a former iREx Banting postdoctoral researcher who is now a scientific advisor at the Planétarium Rio Tinto Alcan.
Astrophysicists have been searching for exoplanets in this system, a unique laboratory for studying planetary formation, for more than a decade. The breakthrough, announced today in Nature, was made possible in part by NASA's TESS and Spitzer space telescopes.
Artist’s representation of the planet (foreground) and its star (background). Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre. (CNW Group/Espace pour la vie)
Jonathan Gagné at the summit of Mauna Kea, where astrophysicists have been making observations since 2010 at the NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) to find planets around AU Mic. Credit: Jonathan Gagné. (CNW Group/Espace pour la vie)
Artist’s rendition of AU Mic b, a planet similar in size to Neptune, but possibly more massive (at most 3.4 times the size of Neptune, according to ground observations). Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre. (CNW Group/Espace pour la vie)
The surface of small stars like AU Mic is often covered with sunspots and stellar flares, making the detection of planets around them very challenging. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre. (CNW Group/Espace pour la vie)
Located about 32 light-years from Earth, AU Microscopii, or AU Mic, is a young star between 20 and 30 million years old, which is about 180 times younger than our own Sun. In the 2000s, it was found to still be surrounded by a large disc of debris, a remnant of its formation. Since then, astrophysicists have been actively searching for planets around AU Mic, since it is within such discs of dust and gas that they form.
"AU Mic is a small star, with only about 50 per cent of the Sun's mass," said Gagné, who participated in the observations and data processing. These stars generally have very strong magnetic fields, which make them very active. This explains in part why it took nearly 15 years to detect the exoplanet, called AU Mic b. The numerous spots and eruptions on the surface of AU Mic hampered its detection, which was already complicated by the presence of the disc."
A BIG CHALLENGE
In 2010, a team led by Peter Plavchan, now an assistant professor at George Mason University, began observing AU Mic from the ground using NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF).
The telescope operates in the infrared, where the team hoped to see the signal of the planet better, since the star's activity is less intense in this type of light.
For his part, Gagné made numerous observational trips to the IRFT during his doctoral studies. That is when he became involved in the project.
"A few years after I joined the team, we noticed a possible periodic variation in the radial velocity of AU Mic," he recalled. "We were thus made aware of the plausible presence of a planet around it."
As a planet orbits, its gravity tugs on its host star, which moves slightly in response. Sensitive spectrographs such as the one on the IRTF can detect the star's radial velocity, its motion to-and-fro along our line of sight.
Space telescopes to the rescue
The accuracy of the data obtained on the ground was unfortunately not sufficient to confirm without a doubt that the signal was due to an exoplanet. It's thanks to the transit method, a different detection technique, that the team was finally able to confirm the presence of AU Mic b.
A transit occurs when a planet passes directly between its host star and the viewer, periodically hiding a small fraction of its light. Astronomers observed two transits of AU Mic b during NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) first mission, in the summer of 2018. They then observed two more with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope in 2019.
Since the amount of light blocked depends on the size of the exoplanet and its distance from its star, these observations allowed scientists to determine that AU Mic b is about the size of Neptune, and that it passes in front of its star every 8.5 days.
Thanks to previous ground-based observations, the team also has a partial constraint on the mass of AU Mic b. Combining IRTF's observations with data obtained at the European Southern Observatory in Chile and the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawai'i, they concluded that its mass is less than about 3.4 times the mass of Neptune (or 58 times that of Earth).
A unique laboratory
AU Mic provides a unique laboratory to determine how exoplanets and their atmospheres form, and how they interact with the disc of debris and gas from which they are born.
Scientists are excited about their latest discovery, as very few systems like AU Mic are known. Not only is the detection of exoplanets difficult in these systems, but they are also very rare because a system's period of planetary formation is relatively short compared to the life of a star.
The AU Mic system is close to Earth and therefore appears brighter, allowing astrophysicists to observe it with a range of instruments, such as the SPIRou spectrograph.
"This instrument, with its polarimetric capabilities, will allow us to better distinguish the effects of stellar activity, which are often confused with the signal from the planets," said Étienne Artigau, a project scientist at Université de Montréal. "This will allow us to determine the mass of AU Mic b accurately and to know if this exoplanet is more like a large Earth or a Neptune twin."
Other iREx astronomers are enthusiastic about trying to detect the planet's atmosphere, and see the effect of the active star on it. These observations can also be accomplished with SPIRou.
AU Mic is part of an association of young stars that formed at about the same time in the same place. Beta Pictoris, the star that gives its name to this association, also has a disc and two known planets. Both the star and the planets are however considerably more massive (1.75 times the mass of the Sun, and 11 and nine times the mass of Jupiter, respectively), but they do not appear to have evolved in the same way as AU Mic and its planet. Studying these two systems, which have many characteristics in common, scientists can compare two very different scenarios of planetary formation.
Many surprises undoubtedly still hide within AU Mic's system, the iREX researchers believe. Will further observations of the system with TESS confirm the existence of other planets? Is the atmosphere of the planet outgassing because of the strong stellar activity? How does this system compare to others of the same age? Those are all questions for future study.
This video presents the discovery of AU Mic b. Credit NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre.
About this study
"A planet within the debris disk around the pre-main-sequence star AU Microscopii" was published on June 25, 2020 in Nature. In addition to Jonathan Gagné (iREx, Université de Montréal, Space for Life), the research team includes first author Peter Plavchan from George Mason University; second author Thomas Barclay, an associate research scientist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and an associate project scientist for TESS at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; and 82 other co-authors, including former iREx member David Berardo, now a PhD student at MIT.
Espace pour la vie is made up of four attractions on the same site: the Biodôme, Insectarium,
Jardin botanique and Planétarium Rio Tinto Alcan. These four prestigious municipal institutions form Canada's largest natural science museum complex. Together, they are launching a daring, creative urban movement, encouraging all of us to rethink the connection between humankind and nature and cultivate a new way of living.
Press kit and visuals: https://bit.ly/étoileAUMicroscopii
SOURCE Espace pour la vie
For further information: MEDIA CONTACTS: Marie-Eve Naud, Scientific and EPO Coordinator, Institute for research on exoplanets, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada, 514-279-3222 naud@astro.umontreal.ca; Nathalie Ouellette, Coordinator, Institute for Research on Exoplanets, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada, 613-531-1762 nathalie@astro.umontreal.ca; Pamela Daoust, Communications Officer, Montréal Space for Life, Montréal, Canada, 514-250-7753 pamela.daoust@montreal.ca; SCIENTIFIC CONTACT: Jonathan Gagné, Scientific Advisor, Planétarium Rio Tinto Alcan | Montréal Space for Life, Montréal, Canada
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CANADIAN GOVERNMENT FINANCE MINISTER'S PRIVATE COMPANY ANNOUNCES
CAPSA releases new agreement on multi-jurisdictional pension plans
Morneau Shepell Inc.
An in-depth look at this and other subjects are covered in the current issue of the Morneau Shepell News & Views.
TORONTO, June 25, 2020 /CNW/ - Morneau Shepell released the June 2020 issue of its monthly newsletter, News & Views, in which the company looks at the following topics:
CAPSA revises multi-jurisdictional pension plans agreement – The Canadian Association of Pension Supervisory Authorities (CAPSA) has revised its Agreement Respecting Multi-Jurisdictional Pension Plans. The revised agreement includes new funding rules, asset allocation requirements and annuity purchase rules. Alberta, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan and the federal government have signed the new multi-jurisdictional agreement, which comes into effect on July 1, 2020.
FSRA sets rules for commuted value transfers – The Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario (FSRA) has issued new guidance on commuted value transfers and annuity purchases for Ontario-registered defined benefit pension plans. FSRA sets out two processes for approval of commuted value payouts, specifically an expedited review process for qualifying plans and an in-depth review process. FSRA also indicates its expectations where a plan administrator chooses not to apply for permission to make commuted value transfers, and sets out criteria for when a pension plan may resume making commuted value transfers.
Federal government introduces moratorium on special payments – The federal government has adopted a regulation to provide temporary, short-term solvency funding relief for federally regulated defined benefit pension plans. Under the new regulation, no solvency special payment instalments are required from May 27, 2020 until December 30, 2020. Relief is also available for employers who made special payments from April 1, 2020 to May 27, 2020.
OSFI eases requirements for commuted value transfers – The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) has revised its Directives of the Superintendent to ease the restrictions on portability transfers for members who are retirement eligible. OSFI will provide automatic consent to portability transfers to locked-in retirement savings vehicles for members who are eligible to retire, subject to certain conditions.
Tracking the funded status of pension plans as at May 31, 2020 – Morneau Shepell describes the funded status of pension plans since December 31, 2019 based on three typical investment portfolios. A graph shows the changes in the financial position of a typical defined benefit plan since the end of 2019. A table shows the impact of past returns on plan assets and the effect of interest rate changes on solvency liabilities of a medium duration pension plan.
The impact of pension expense under international accounting as at May 31, 2020 – Morneau Shepell has shown the evolution of the pension expense for a typical defined benefit pension plan. Since the beginning of the year, the pension expense has remained quite stable, despite the financial markets turmoil.
About Morneau Shepell
Morneau Shepell is a leading provider of technology-enabled HR services that deliver an integrated approach to employee wellbeing through our cloud-based platform. Our focus is providing world-class solutions to our clients to support the mental, physical, social and financial wellbeing of their people. By improving lives, we improve business. Our approach spans services in employee and family assistance, health and wellness, recognition, pension and benefits administration, retirement consulting, actuarial and investment services. Morneau Shepell employs approximately 6,000 employees who work with some 24,000 client organizations that use our services in 162 countries. Morneau Shepell is a publicly traded company on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: MSI). For more information, visit morneaushepell.com.
SOURCE Morneau Shepell Inc.
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HempFusion® Participates and Sponsors Industry Leading Study on CBD and Human Health
Hemp Fusion
DENVER, Colo., June 25, 2020 /CNW/ - HempFusion® ("the Company"), a leading dietary supplements company focused on products that contain Hemp/CBD in the United States with distribution of its family of brands to approximately 4,000 retailers across 47 states, is pleased to announce the sponsorship and participation in ValidCare's scientific study that addresses the Food and Drug Administration's ("FDA") previous questions about CBD products. ValidCare will be conducting a human trial and study to determine if daily use of full-spectrum hemp-derived CBD or CBD isolate has any impact on the human liver. HempFusion is one of ten select CBD companies sponsoring and participating in ValidCare's ground breaking study.
"We are excited that HempFusion is one of the select companies participating in this study as they have demonstrated leadership in regulatory compliance and concern for consumer safety," stated Patrick McCarthy, CEO of ValidCare. "What makes this study unique is we are capturing real world evidence from real consumers, specifically on how they use CBD products and how their bodies react to those products, particularly with respect to liver safety. We believe this real world evidence is important to the FDA and could be used to guide policy moving forward," continued McCarthy.
ValidCare expects the study to begin in the third quarter of 2020 and targets completion by the end of the year. The third-party scientific data generated from the companies participating in this study is intended to address some of the FDA's specific requests about CBD products.
"We are incredibly proud to participate in ValidCare's study and help advance scientific research surrounding CBD", stated Jason Mitchell, N.D., Co-CEO of HempFusion. "As a Company, we are built on a foundation of regulatory compliance as well as consumer safety and participation in this study helps establish HempFusion as a leader in the global CBD industry", continued Mitchell.
ABOUT HEMPFUSION
HempFusion is a premium wellness company featuring dietary supplements including hemp-based cannabidiol ("CBD") with distribution of its family of brands to approximately 4,000 retailers across 47 US states. The Company strives to maintain the highest level of compliance in the industry. HempFusion's wide variety of 25+ CBD products with a full spectrum of cannabinoids and other constituents are sourced from quality phytocompounds manufactured under cGMP standards designed to attain efficacy and safety. HempFusion's primary focus is formulating and marketing premium consumer-specific product lines with various delivery methods, across multiple distribution platforms. The Company's CBD products are based on a proprietary Whole Food Panoramic Full-Spectrum Hemp Complex™ and are available through independently owned and national chain health food stores, or by visiting www.hempfusion.com.
ABOUT VALIDCARE
Validcare provides clinical research outsourcing (CRO) and consumer intelligence solutions for the consumer packaged goods (CPG) and life sciences industries. Validcare's proprietary platform supports virtual research powered by real world evidence (RWE). This includes self reported consumer data to deliver insights that help improve research, regulations, product development and consumer health. For more information, visit http://www.validcare.com or call 844-825-4322.
SOURCE Hemp Fusion
For further information: Investor Relations, Email: ir@hempfusion.com, Phone: 416-803-5638, Web: https://www.hempfusion.com/corporate-information/
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