Facebook Facing a Possible Lawsuit by FTC

25 Oct, 2020
 Olivia Miller

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is apparently on the brink of filing an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook for its monopolistic practices, according to two people with knowledge.

The FTC members recently met to discuss Facebook’s practice of swallowing up smaller rivals to maintain a monopoly, the people said. The commission has prepared three documents — one addresses the company’s potential antitrust violations, another analyzes its economics, and a third assesses the risks of litigation.

The commissioners must vote before any case is pursued.



Washington is aggressively pursuing technology companies for their antitrust practices. Google was sued by the Justice Department, this week for its monopoly power in search and search advertising.

Action against Google is the first such step against any technology company in the last 20 years.

Two weeks ago, the House Judiciary Committee, said that big tech platforms, including Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google should be broken up in smaller entities.

The major tech companies. Including Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon are together valued at $5 trillion. Such capital power is bound to attract scrutiny.

Joseph Simons, the chairman of the F.T.C. opened an investigation into Facebook in June 2019. Around the same time, four dozen state attorneys general began a parallel investigation into the social network.

Facebook has faced legal issues with FTC mainly regarding privacy issues and reached a privacy settlement in 2011 with the agency. In 2018, Facebook was caught in the Cambridge Analytica scandal where the company was accused of harvesting personal information provided by Facebook to interfere in the 2016 election. Facebook last year was forced to cough up $5 billion in a settlement on data privacy violations to the FTC.

F.T.C. has collected thousands of internal documents from Facebook’s leaders and rivals. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO was also summoned by the government agency and Congress to answer queries about the company’s business practices.

The company has denied violations of antitrust laws. Facebook has 3 billion users across all its apps and market value of $792 billion, which more than substantiates its leadership status in the social media marketing space.

Facebook has a known practice of gobbling up any new rival that comes up in the space. It bought off both WhatsApp and Instagram, which gained in popularity after their launches. Facebook bought the photo-sharing app Instagram for $1 billion in 2012. It paid $19 billion for WhatsApp in 2014. Both mergers were approved by the F.T.C.

The House Judiciary Committee in a note about Facebook’s power writes that the company “has tipped the market toward monopoly such that Facebook competes more vigorously among its own products — Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger — than with actual competitors.”

The agency could file a suit by year-end, the report said.

Facebook in Showdown With Journalists, Academics Over Political Ad Research
October 24, 2020 

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Academics, journalists and First Amendment lawyers are rallying behind New York University researchers in a showdown with Facebook over its demand that they halt the collection of data showing who is being micro-targeted by political ads on the world’s dominant social media platform.

The researchers say the disputed tool is vital to understanding how Facebook has been used as a conduit for disinformation and manipulation.

In an Oct. 16 letter to the researchers, a Facebook executive demanded they disable a special plug-in for Chrome and Firefox browsers used by 6,500 volunteers across the United States and delete the data obtained. The plug-in lets researchers see which ads are shown to each volunteer; Facebook lets advertisers tailor ads based on specific demographics that go far beyond race, age, gender and political preference.

The executive, Allison Hendrix, said the tool violates Facebook rules prohibiting automated bulk collection of data from the site. Her letter threatened “additional enforcement action” if the takedown was not effected by Nov. 30.

Company spokesman Joe Osborne said in an emailed statement Saturday that Facebook “informed NYU months ago that moving forward with a project to scrape people’s Facebook information would violate our terms.” The company has long claimed protecting user privacy is its main concern, though NYU researchers say their tool is programmed so the data collected from participating volunteers is anonymous.

The outcry over Facebook’s threat was immediate after The Wall Street Journal first reported the news Friday considering the valuable insights the “Ad Observer” tool provides. It has been used since its September launch by local reporters from Wisconsin to Utah to Florida to write about the Nov. 3 presidential election.

“That Facebook is trying to shut down a tool crucial to exposing disinformation in the run up to one of the most consequential elections in U.S. history is alarming,” said Ramya Krishnan, an attorney with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which is representing the researchers. “The public has a right to know what political ads are being run and how they are being targeted. Facebook shouldn’t be allowed to be the gatekeeper to information necessary to safeguard our democracy. “

“The NYU Ad Observatory is the only window researchers have to see microtargeting information about political ads on Facebook,” Julia Angwin, editor of the data-centric investigative tech news website The Markup, tweet in disappointment.

The tool lets researchers see how some Facebook advertisers use data gathered by the company to profile citizens “and send them misinformation about candidates and policies that are designed to influence or even suppress their vote,” Damon McCoy, an NYU professor involved in the project, said in a statement.

After an uproar over its lack of transparency on political ads Facebook ran ahead of the 2016 election, a sharp contrast to how ads are regulated on traditional media, the company created an ad archive that includes details such as who paid for an ad and when it ran. But Facebook does not share information about who gets served the ad.

The company has resisted allowing researchers access to the platform, where right-wing content has consistently been trending in recent weeks. Last year, more than 200 researchers signed a letter to Facebook calling on it to lift restrictions on public-interest research and journalism that would permit automated digital collection of data from the platform.

© Copyright 2020 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed

BITCH FIGHT ON THE RIGHT 

Lou Dobbs lashes out at Lindsey Graham — and says South Carolina shouldn’t re elect him

October 23, 2020 By Sarah Toce

Lindsey Graham speaks to Fox News (screen grab)


Conservative host Lou Dobbs did not hide his disdain for Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) Friday night.

“Just to be clear, I don’t know why anyone in the great state of South Carolina would ever vote for Lindsey Graham,” Dobbs said on Lou Dobbs Tonight. “It’s just outrageous. This is the guy who keeps saying, ‘Stay tuned.’ He said he was gonna get to the bottom of Obamagate with the Judiciary Committee, which has been a year-and-a-half – actually, longer – of absolute inert, inert response to these pressing issues of our day.”

Watch the video below.

Lou Dobbs is telling South Carolina residents not to vote for Lindsey Graham pic.twitter.com/vQ67BZZN6P
— Jason Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) October 23, 2020

Trump appears to have pocketed $123,000 from Libyan dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi: NYT bombshell

October 23, 2020 Bob Brigham

Composite image of Donald Trump (screengrab) and Muammar al-Gaddafi (Robert Stuckert).

“The information contained within President Donald Trump’s tax returns continues to result in blockbuster stories by The New York Times.”

On Friday, the newspaper focused on Trump’s claims of philanthropy — which don’t always add up.

“In 2009, for example, he agreed to rent his Seven Springs estate in Westchester County, N.Y., to the Libyan dictator Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, who hoped to stay in a tent on the grounds during a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly,” the newspaper reported.


“Though the plans fell apart when local residents objected, Colonel Qaddafi made a payment of $150,000, which Mr. Trump told CNN in 2011 that he had given to charity. His 2009 tax returns, however, reported only $22,796 in business and personal cash gifts,” the newspaper explained.

New Tax Story: Donald Trump’s taxes show he didn’t reach for his wallet for most of his charitable giving. The bulk of it came from donating land. His taxes also cast doubt on a number of charitable commitments he has boasted about. https://t.co/J6pWBIKZEE
— Susanne Craig (@susannecraig) October 23, 2020

THE LEADERS OF THE NOT-SO-FREE WORLD: HOW THE US IS THREATENING REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS ACROSS THE WORLD

"My Body My Choice" Abortion rights protest, Palm Springs City Hall, May 21, 2019

ABORTION AND THE US

The USA is becoming more polarised as the Trump presidency rages on. Racism, sexism and homophobia are regular features of his administration and the president is exceptional at egging on and encouraging disgusting behaviour often from a racist, sexist or homophobic perspective. Trump, his team and his supporters are largely anti-abortion, which puts reproductive rights in grave danger. Abortion was legalised in the US 47 years ago with the Roe v Wade Supreme Court ruling, yet the struggle to protect this right is far from over. With Trump in power, the state of abortion rights and access to this procedure is desperate. This is a dangerous time for the right to choose across the world.

[pulloutbox]Even if we would not choose abortion for ourselves, we have to recognise it as a fundamental human right[/pulloutbox]

Trump, many of his supporters and close colleagues are anti-abortion/pro-life, but yet they are mainly middle-aged white men. It’s hard to understand why think that they get to have a say over what people can and cannot do with their body and their health? After all, they are not the ones who have to go through the pregnancy and whose body is in question. As allies, we need to stand up and support the right to choose, even in another continent. Even if we would not choose abortion for ourselves, we have to recognise it as a fundamental human right and as a human right, we should fight to protect it across the world.



Across the world and in the US, in particular, things appear to be deteriorating. Many US states have strict abortion laws, or are trying to pass legislation to limit the right to an abortion. Underpinned by sexism and misogyny, there’s a clear desire on the part of many US lawmakers to control what people can and can’t do with their bodies, preventing them from determining their own future path.

Of course, recently, the Supreme Court has lost Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, a liberal judge who believed in the right to abortion and was a notorious feminist and defender of women’s rights. President Trump has already announced his nominee, pro-life Amy Coney-Barett and is seeking to fill the court seat before the election – in direct opposition to Bader Ginsberg’s dying wish for a new judge to be nominated only after the election. This would tip the ideological balance of the court, the most significant judicial institution in the US, decidedly in favour of the conservatives, further threatening the Roe vs. Wade ruling.

PROTECTING THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE FOR ALL

It is not just cis-women who are affected by the endangerment of reproductive rights, but trans and non-binary people as well. In June, as the US continued to weather the Covid-19 pandemic, the Trump administration reversed non-discrimination healthcare protections in the 2010 Affordable Care Act. The protections had ensured that clinics and facilities receiving federal funding could not refuse to provide certain services on discriminatory

grounds. The Trump administration however stated that the word “sex” in the initial legislation referred to biological sex and therefore could no longer protect those who did not identify as the sex they were assigned at birth. Clinics can now refuse to provide a variety of services on these discriminatory grounds, from abortion and reproductive services to gender-affirming care, allowing these care providers to deny treatment to women and transgender people. Planned Parenthood described the rule as “cruel and discriminatory”, explaining that it would only make it harder for “people seeking sexual and reproductive services to get care.” LGBTQI+ advocacy group, Lambda Legal added: “despicable doesn’t begin to describe it”.

[pulloutbox]The President is able to exploit US economic power and foreign power, with Trump using such abilities to enforce his pro-life viewpoints globally[/pulloutbox]

Reproductive imperialism

However, Trump and his pro-life administration are not just threatening the rights of those affected in the US, but cast doubt over the security of those rights in other parts of the world. The President is able to exploit US economic power and foreign power, with Trump using such abilities to enforce his pro-life viewpoints globally.

In what can be described as ‘reproductive imperialism’, the US has played a key role in restricting abortion rights beyond its borders in countries, which receive economic aid and assistance. The global gag rule, an example of these imperialist policies, was enacted in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan. It prevented foreign non-government organisations (NGOs) that receive US aid, from providing particular services or restricting the circumstances in which they can. In many cases, services limited or even restricted include reproductive and sexual health and abortions.

[pulloutbox]The Trump administration has also deployed the gag rule to target the rights of women, trans people, non-binary people and other minority groups[/pulloutbox]

The Trump administration is now trying to expand this policy to cover a wider range of organisations and to limit their work to an even greater extent. An extension of these imperialist powers would mean that all organisations receiving US aid for health work – even if they also received funding from other sources – would not be able to provide,

 

promote or even give referrals for abortions. Safe and legal abortions would become even more difficult for these US-backed organisations to provide, especially in countries with high levels of poverty. The global gag rule goes further and even prohibits organisations in receipt of US aid from advocating for changes to abortion laws– even if they use non-US funds for these purposes. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, US-funded organisations make up about 40% of global health aid,placing a significant amount of global health and aid organisations under the jurisdiction of this ‘gag’ rule.

The Trump administration has also deployed the gag rule to target the rights of women, trans people, non-binary people and other minority groups. In addition to restricting abortion services, HIV and AIDS treatment and services have also been cut. Already this has led to a decrease in testing and a decline in the quality of HIV and AIDS care and treatment in some countries. The Trump administration is responsible for putting some of the most marginalised groups in the world in even greater danger. It has an immeasurably dangerous and limitless desire to control bodies and destinies across the world.

RESISTANCE TO REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS

The many anti-abortion groups active in the US vindicate and support President Trump’s cruel attempts to restrict rights in the US and across the world. The so-called March for Life is a public display of the anti-women, anti-choice attitudes that underpin opposition to abortion. It draws activists from a range of pro-life groups, with tens of thousands attending the 2020 march held in Washington DC. Anti-abortion protests in the US have even gone so far as to include murder, arson and assault. One shooting at a Colorado abortion clinic by a pro-life gunman left three dead; a shocking case that demonstrates how deeply embedded anti-abortion values are in some sections of US society and culture.

[pulloutbox]At a national level, screaming at and abusing those accessing these clinics, for making their own choices, remains legal[/pulloutbox]

Pro-life campaigning groups in the US are matched by anti-abortion organisations and campaigns here in the UK, where the right to choose also attracts criticism and protest. Sadly, in the UK being harassed outside an abortion clinic is a reality for so many, making an already difficult personal experience even more traumatic. Groups like Back Off have campaigned to introduce a national law to create a ‘buffer zone’, which would prohibit campaigning against abortion within a certain distance of a clinic. Despite these widespread campaigns the proposal has been widely rejected under the guise of ‘free speech’. Some local authorities have already introduced such zones and made progress towards truly protecting abortion rights, but at a national level, screaming at and abusing those accessing these clinics, for making their own choices, remains legal.

Sister Supporter is one of the most active groups campaigning against harassment near 

abortion clinics in the UK. Volunteers wear pink jackets and offer to walk women into the clinics, to provide them some support and respite from protesters. Though an incredible act of support and solidarity, it’s alarming and deeply disturbing that this has to be done on our doorstep. Abortion was legalised decades ago, but here in the UK, there also seems to be a state of non-acceptance over our right to choose.

ABORTION RIGHTS IN THE UK

Of course, when discussing abortion rights in the context of the UK, we should remember that Northern Ireland only legalised the procedure in October 2019, with a new framework for abortion services only coming into effect on 31 March, 2020. It is quite shocking to consider that the Abortion Act passed in 1967, but this legislation has only taken force this year, leaving the people of Northern Ireland without the fundamental right to choose. Indeed, before the legalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland, there were many heart-breaking stories of women from Northern Ireland having to travel to other parts of the UK in order to get an abortion. In 2018, over 1,000 women travelled from Northern Ireland to England, Wales or Scotland for an abortion. Behind this figure, there lies stories of individual women; deprived of choice in their homeland and forced to make a difficult journey, in many cases alone. It’s unsettling to consider and alarming how slow progress has been made.

The law in Northern Ireland is by no means perfect though. Similarly to how different US states have different laws for abortion, varying in their harshness and severity, different component parts of the UK also have different laws, creating an incomplete and unjust system. In Northern Ireland, people can only obtain abortions for up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, compared to 24 weeks in the rest of the UK. When addressing the distressing state of abortion rights in countries like the US, we have to remember that there is still so much work to be done at home.

[pulloutbox]There is so much work to be done here, at home[/pulloutbox]

The Abortion Act of 1967, where the right to abortions in the rest of the UK is derived from, is in itself inadequate and in need of serious reform. Today, for an abortion to be carried out, the signatures of two healthcare professionals is needed, to ensure the requirements of the Abortion Act are met. It is the only medical procedure in which an adult, capable of independently giving consent, must get permission, creating practical and bureaucratic barriers in accessing this treatment and this basic right. This clause of the Act also suggests a continued reluctance around the right to choose, here in the UK .

THE PRO-LIFE PUZZLE

Across the world, the campaign to control people’s bodies, identities and lives rages on, including debates over the right to an abortion. For me it’s simple: if you don’t agree with abortions yourself, don’t make the choice to have one. But many pro-life supporters think that their opinions are grounded in fact and theology, giving them the right to dictate what someone – often a stranger – does with their body.

[pulloutbox]It seems to me that pro-lifers can only be described as misogynistic and sexist[/pulloutbox]

In this hateful and often dangerous struggle, the meaning of ‘pro-choice’ has become distorted and twisted by those who organise against reproductive rights. So many have forgotten that pro-choice doesn’t necessarily mean you support people getting abortions, it just means you agree that they have the right to choose one if they want to. Pro-lifers, meanwhile, often give little regard to what an individual is going through and even less regard to the kind of life a child may have after it is born. Here there is an inherent contradiction in the term ‘pro-life’: surely someone pro-life would care about the quality of life of both parent and child?



It seems to me that pro-lifers can only be described as misogynistic and sexist, and yes, this also includes women. Many say they are pro-life, claiming to care about and respect the value of life, but often once the child is born they no longer care what happens to it. It’s like trying to prove a point and using human lives as pawns to do so. This whole ‘debate’ seems, at the heart of it, to be about having control over other people and their choices. It is our duty to resist this, reasserting that the right to choose is one of the most fundamental rights a human has.

WE MUST NOT GROW COMPLACENT

Though this struggle has been long and very bitter, there have been glimmers of hope and good news. In the US, a recent Supreme Court ruling struck down a proposed Louisiana law to limit abortions in the state. Here in the UK, there have been incredible campaigns to protect the Abortion Act and to carry on striving for change in Northern Ireland. Right across the world, hatred and harassment have been met by moving acts of solidarity and incredible resistance to those who would seek to remove a woman’s right to choose.

If someone has the legal right to abort a pregnancy this can allow them to take an informed, considered decision about their own body. Protecting reproductive rights in the UK, the US and around the world is one of the most important ways to ensure that we all have control over our own lives and futures. Whether it’s campaigning for buffer zones in our local authority areas, or protecting the Roe v Wade ruling in the US, it is important that we step up in our duty to protect a fundamental human right. We must not grow complacent.



EMILY BARTLETT· POLITICS·16 OCTOBER 2020

The featured image shows a black flag. On it, in white lettering reads: ‘My body my choice’.
Photograph by Don Barett, used under the Creative Commons License

The first image shows President Trump at a campaign rally. He wears a suit and stands behind a podium, with a blue sign reading ‘Trump’ in white letters on it. He talks to the crowd, gesticulating with his hands.
Photograph by Gage Skidmore, used under the Creative Commons License

The next photograph shows Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. She wears a green and black top and smiles as she looks off to the side.
Photograph by the Ruth Bader Ginsberg Institute, used under the Creative Commons License

The photograph shows a man at a pro-abortion rally. He has dark hair and wears glasses and holds a sign that reads: ‘Planned Parenthood Saves Lives’
Photography by Molly Adams, used under the Creative Commons License

The next photograph shows a blue sign, with ‘Keep Abortion Legal’ on it in white lettering.
Photograph by Tony Wu, used under the Creative Commons License

The final image shows a woman, holding a pink megaphone. The text on the megaphone reads ‘We must not go back’.
Photograph by A. Ricci, used under the Creative Commons License

SHOULDN’T WE ALL BE GRETA?

Greta Thunberg. In the course of the past two years, this has become a name familiar to everyone. Appearing seemingly like a comet in a (highly-polluted) sky, the Swedish sixteen-year-old activist seemed to go from protesting alone on the steps of the Swedish parliament to sailing on a heroic boat voyage to the United Nation summit in almost the blink of an eye.

What we’ve heard and seen of Greta Thunberg has been filtered, as media outlets were quick to call her a messiah and just as quic

But the newly-released Nathan Grossman’s documk to dismiss her, in the best case scenarios, as a “complicated adolescent who self-describes as autistic”. In the worst cases, well, it’s obviously death and rape threats.entary I am Greta offers a peek behind that filtered curtain. Grossman spent two years by Thunberg’s side and structures the film as a daily chronicle of the evolution of the phenomena. The first ten minutes, showing Thunberg’s initial protests outside of the Swedish parliament, feel almost like watching a superhero origin story. Perhaps it’s because of the braids, but I’m immediately reminded of the resilience of fictional heroes like Katniss Everdeen.

It was never Grossman’s intention for the film to be entirely about Greta Thunberg. He meant to include those first snippets in a larger documentary about child activists. But the result is a raw and bittersweet coming of age tale in a world on the brink of extinction.

What the documentary puts across more clearly are Thunberg’s focus and earnestness. She always addresses everyone very directly and she doesn’t shy away from uncomfortable remarks and confrontations. Early in the film, during her first appearance at a climate change conference, she complains to her dad, “I can’t believe they serve meat at an event like this.” Every time someone approaches her for a selfie, it’s almost like she’s trying to slither away and be done with it as quickly as possible. Grossman remains cautiously on the side, observing the more inconspicuous details. For example, after Thunberg’s urgent speech at the Civil Society for rEUnaissance, the floor is given to the European Commission President, Jean-Claude Juncker, who immediately offers excuses as to why certain radical actions in regards to climate change require time to be put into action. Thunberg quietly takes off her translating headphones. She doesn’t care about excuses.

“Mass extinction is a bit harsh, it could be cut,” her dad suggests as she writes a speech. “Mass extinction is super important,” she reiterates. She writes in English and French, neither of which is her mother-tongue, and at every instance she has to make sure the spelling is correct, even if it’s for a speech she’s reading out loud. At one point, this triggers a panic attack. The camera stands just behind the door frame, looking at Thunberg alone, up in bed. It’s unclear for how long this lasts, but eventually, Thunberg takes a sip from her reusable bottle, picks her laptop back up and continues writing.

“Everyone says it’s so lovely to have me here,” she ponders as we watch her in the House of Commons. “Whenever I’m in these fancy environments, palaces, castles, I feel very uncomfortable. It feels like everyone is playing a game, like it’s all just pretend. It feels fake.”

This is the core of Greta Thunberg’s inability to fit in. She doesn’t play by the rules. The bureaucracy, the debates for the sake of debating, the fame. It all feels irrelevant. “The house is on fire” is not just a metaphor. It’s an absolute priority. The panic is clear in the way she speaks and she behaves, even when out of the spotlight. This is how she feels, everyday. We forget that this panic is justified. Why does David Attenborough’s Extinction: The Facts leave “fans terrified” while Greta Thunberg’s warnings get dismissed? Not only that, but while she creates such divisive opinions, Attenborough is Britain’s most beloved public figure, according to a YouGov poll. Is it because she’s young, or because she’s a woman who won’t compromise, or maybe a bit of both? Nobody likes being told we’re all going to die, but the way the message is conveyed, as well as who speaks it, matters. Thunberg is, after all, the very-Western tip of the iceberg. Native American and other marginalised activists, such as Xiye Bastida and Jamie Margolin, have been speaking on the subject for years without ever getting the same spotlight. It is the same old matter of privilege, which also allows critics to dismiss Thunberg’s achievements because of the support of her middle-class family, while failing, however, to research less-privileged narrations.

But since we’re on the matter of privilege, there is an aspect that the documentary examines in much-needed refreshing light. Grossman celebrates Thunberg’s Aspergers syndrome as her driving force. Her experience and competence in the matter of climate change are not that of a classic sixteen-year-old who might have heard about it in class once every semester. Thunberg spent a significant portion of her adolescence reading and studying the subject. Her neurodiversity is a power that she proudly reclaims. In one of the interviews shown in the documentary, she corrects a journalist who asks her if she suffers from Aspergers. “I wouldn’t say suffer,” she points out. “But I have it.” This is an essential shift in the use of ableist terminology. “I wish more people had Aspergers when it comes to climate change,” is actually Thunberg’s last statement in the documentary.

It’s never comfortable to be judged or made to question whether we are doing enough. But I am Greta’s greatest achievement is to remind us, through simple scenes of raw, familiar, everyday intimacy, that Greta Thunberg is not a God-like figure of judgment. She’s a real, complex young person with scientifically-proven concerns about her future. She’s sarcastic, stubborn, focused, she misses being in school, she gets seasick and, ultimately, she does the best she can with the resources and platforms available to her, even when this shouldn’t be her responsibility.

I Am Greta comes out in UK cinemas on October 16th.

The film’s revenue will be distributed among organizations and projects fighting for a sustainable world.

ALESSIA GALATINI·

FILM & TV

·16 OCTOBER 2020

Earth's Volatile Environment 320,000 Years Ago Helped Make Humans So Adaptable


(lsmart Photography/Moment/Getty Images)
HUMANS


RICHARD POTTS, THE CONVERSATION
24 OCTOBER 2020


People thrive all across the globe, at every temperature, altitude, and landscape. How did human beings become so successful at adapting to whatever environment we wind up in?

Human origins researchers like me are interested in how this quintessential human trait, adaptability, evolved.

At a site in Kenya, my colleagues and I have been working on this puzzle for decades. It's a place where we see big changes happening in the archaeological and fossil records hundreds of thousands of years ago.

But what external factors drove the emergence of behaviors that typify how our species, Homo sapiens, interacts with its surroundings?

We wanted to know if we could connect what was happening in the environment at the time to these shifts in technology and the human species that lived there.

Based on our analysis, published in the journal Science Advances, we conclude that the roots of Homo sapiens' evolutionary adaptations stem from our ability to adjust to environmental change.
Missing time in the archaeological record

Famed prehistoric site Olorgesailie is in southern Kenya. It lies within the Rift Valley, a seismically active area where lakes and streams produced sediments that accumulated over time, burying and preserving fossilized bones and ancient stone tools.

At Olorgesailie, our scientific team has found evidence that's potentially related to the origin of Homo sapiens in the form of a critical transition from one technology to another.

The older technology is typified by large oval cutting implements called handaxes. Typical of what's called Acheulean stone technology, nearly two dozen layers of these handaxes and other Acheulean tools have been unearthed at Olorgesailie.

They span an immense period of about 700,000 years, covering a time when fossil remains show that the hominin species Homo erectus and Homo heidelbergensis inhabited eastern Africa.

The last Acheulean archeological sites at Olorgesailie are 500,000 years old, at which point there is a frustrating 180,000-year gap in these sediments caused by erosion.

The archaeological record starts up again around 320,000 years ago, as sediments began to fill in the landscape.

But the Acheulean was gone. In its place was Middle Stone Age technology, consisting typically of smaller, more easily carried implements than the clunky Acheulean handaxes.

Acheulean handaxes were replaced by smaller weapons. 

(Human Origins Program, Smithsonian)

In other areas of Africa, the Middle Stone Age technology is associated with the earliest African Homo sapiens.

These toolmakers often used sharp-edged black obsidian as a raw material. Archaeologists Alison Brooks, John Yellen, and others chemically traced the obsidian to distant outcrops in several different directions, up to 95 kilometers (59 miles) away from Olorgesailie.

They concluded that the far-off obsidian sources provide evidence of resource exchange among groups, a phenomenon unknown in Acheulean times.

Our Middle Stone Age excavations also contained black and red coloring materials. Archaeologists view pigments like these as signs of increasingly complex symbolic communication.

Think of all the ways people use color – in flags, clothing, and the many other ways people visually claim their identity as part of a group.

So here we had the extinction of the Acheulean way of life as well as its replacement by dramatically new behaviors including technological innovations, intergroup exchange of obsidian, and the use of pigments.

But we had no way to examine what happened in the 180,000-year gap when this transition took place.

We needed to recover that time. We started strategizing how we could unearth sediments from somewhere nearby that would have recorded the environments and survival challenges associated with this shift in early human adaptation.
Turning to geology for clues about early humans

Different types of sediment are laid down in lakes, streams, and soils, and the sediment layers tell the story of changing environments over time. Geologists Kay Behrensmeyer and Alan Deino joined me in the field in southern Kenya to figure out where we might drill for sediments that could fill in the Olorgesailie time gap.

We surmised that the key to understanding the big transition would lie beneath a flat, grassy plain about 24 kilometers south of our Olorgesailie excavations.

Together with colleagues, including René Dommain and collaborators from the National Lacustrine Core Facility, we drilled in September 2012 until we reached the volcanic rock floor of the Rift Valley.

The result was a core 139 meters deep containing a sequence of ancient lake and lake margin habitats and soils, all riddled with volcanic layers we could date to yield the most precisely dated East African environmental record for the past 1 million years.

With advice from geologist Andy Cohen and other colleagues, I assembled an international team of earth scientists and paleoecologists to sample and analyze the core.

We figured out ways to convert many different measures of past environment – microscopic bits of plants, single-celled diatoms from the ancient lake deposits, and various chemical signals – into ecological measures of freshwater availability and vegetation cover.

The newly published study provides our findings.

Environments during the time gap

The sediment record showed that during the era 1 million to 500,000 years ago, when Acheulean toolmakers were busy in the Olorgesailie basin, ecological resources were relatively stable.

Fresh water was reliably available. Grazing zebra, rhinoceros, baboons, elephants, and pigs altered the regional vegetation of wooded grassland to create short, nutritious grassy plains.

And then what happened in the time gap?

The core is very well preserved in the previously mysterious time interval. We determined that right around 400,000 years ago, a critical environmental transition took place.

From a relatively stable setting, we started to see repeated fluctuation in the vegetation, available water, and other ecological resources on which our ancestors and other mammals depend.

According to the anthropological literature, hunter-gatherers today and in recent history respond to periods of uncertain resources by investing time and energy to refine their technology.

They connect with distant groups to sustain networks of resource and information exchange. And they develop symbolic markers that strengthen these social connections and group identity.

Sound familiar? These behaviors resemble how the ancient Middle Stone Age lifestyle at Olorgesailie differed from the Acheulean way of life.

Equally notable, the large grazing species typical of Acheulean times became extinct after 500,000 years ago.

Between 360,000 and 300,000 years ago, ecologically flexible herbivore species smaller in size, less water-dependent, and reliant on both short and tall grass and tree leaves, had replaced the specialized grazers such as now-extinct species of zebras and the huge baboon.

These changes in the animal community reflect the advantage of adaptable diets, a parallel to how our Middle Stone Age ancestors adjusted to environmental uncertainty.

For the past two decades, many human origins researchers have thought of climate as the primary, if not sole, driver of hominin adaptive evolution. Our new study draws attention, though, to several factors in the Acheulean-Middle Stone Age transition in southern Kenya.

Yes, rainfall varied strongly after the environmental transition 400,000 years ago. But the terrain across the region also became fractured by tectonic activity and blanketed with volcanic ash. And big herbivores exerted different influences on the vegetation before and after this transition.

The result was an ecological cascade of changes that included the early humans who practiced the Middle Stone Age way of life. We propose that all of these factors together instigated this critical evolutionary change.

The Middle Stone Age might hold a lesson for today. As humanity now confronts an era of environmental uncertainty on a global scale, is our species sufficiently nimble to engage social networks, new technologies, and reliable sources of information to adjust to the environmental disruptions ahead?

Richard Potts, Director of the Human Origins Program, Smithsonian Institution.

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

Paul Kruse: Former Blue Bell Creameries CEO faces charges in connection with alleged listeria contamination coverup

By Jazmin Goodwin, CNN Business

A Texas grand jury charged Paul Kruse, Blue Bell Creameries' former CEO and president, was charged with wire fraud and conspiracy in connection with an alleged cover-up of the company's 2015 listeria outbreak, the Department of Justice announced on Wednesday.

© Jamie Squire/Getty Images OVERLAND PARK, KS - APRIL 21: Blue Bell Ice Cream is seen on shelves of an Overland Park grocery store prior to being removed on April 21, 2015 in Overland Park, Kansas. Blue Bell Creameries recalled all products following a Listeria contamination. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

Kruse, who served as the company's CEO and president from 2004 to 2017, was charged with seven counts of wire fraud and conspiracy for an alleged scheme to cover up what the company knew about the listeria contamination in Blue Bell products, according to the Department of Justice.


"We firmly believe the charges will be dismissed because they are untimely," said Chris Flood, who represents Kruse. "We look forward to a jury hearing what really happened in 2015 and Blue Bell's response to the unfortunate events."

Blue Bell said it would be inappropriate for the company to comment on Kruse's legal situation since he is no longer with the company.

According to the indictment, Kruse allegedly directed employees to remove potentially contaminated products from store freezers without notifying retailers or consumers of the real reason. Kruse instructed employees to tell customers who asked about the removed items that there was an "unspecified issue with a manufacturing machine," the indictment alleges.

Blue Bell did not issue an immediate recall of the products nor did the company inform customers about the listeria contamination, according to the indictment.

"US consumers rely on food producers and suppliers to ensure the safety of the nation's food supply.The charges announced today show that if an individual violates food safety rules or conceals relevant information, we will seek to hold them accountable," said Judy McMeekin, associate commissioner for regulatory affairs at the Food and Drug Administration, in a news release."We will continue to investigate and bring to justice those who jeopardize public health."

The ice cream was linked to 10 listeria cases in four states and resulted in three deaths in Kansas. In May, the company pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors for distributing adulterated food products and agreed to pay $19.3 million in fines for shipping contaminated ice cream during the 2015 listeria outbreak. The company shut down all its plants in 2015 cleanings and updates, according to the news release.

Listeriosis is a potentially fatal infection caused by the germ listeria, which is found in soil, water, raw milk and some animals like poultry and cattle. Unlike many other germs, it can grow in the cold temperature of a refrigerator or in a food processing plant.

- Shannon Liao contributed to this report

Medieval Church Ruins Found With 'Witch Marks' Removed For a High-Speed Rail

BRANDON SPECKTOR, LIVE SCIENCE
23 OCTOBER 2020

Learning no lessons from horror films of yore, Britain has plans for a high-speed rail project that will lay tracks over the ruins of a medieval church. And, apparently, the project has run into some trouble with witches and dark spirits.


According to archaeologists working at Stoke Mandeville, a village that lies in the path of the proposed railway, an early excavation of the site's 700-year-old church revealed stone beams etched with strange circular patterns known as "witch marks."

These markings, which look like the spokes of a wheel with a hole drilled into the center, were created to "ward off evil spirits by entrapping them in an endless line or maze," project officials wrote in a statement.

Michael Court, lead archaeologist at HS2 Ltd (the company behind the rail project), said the unusual markings offer a "fascinating insight into the past" at a site that has long been lost to history.

 

Other 'witch mark' found among the ruins of St Mary. (HS2 Ltd)

The church in question, named St. Mary's, was erected around 1070 as a private chapel for the lord of Stoke Mandeville in what is now Buckinghamshire, England, according to the statement. The church building was expanded in the 1340s to accommodate local villagers, then ultimately demolished in the 1860s when a new church popped up closer to town.

Yet during the first excavation of the site, the HS2 team found many sections of the medieval building to be in surprisingly good condition, with walls surviving to a height of almost 5 feet (1.5 meters) and floors intact.


The witch marks were carved into two different stones, one sitting at ground level and the other higher up. Given the location of the ground-level stone, the radial pattern wasn't likely used as a sundial, something that is typically found near the southern doors of medieval churches, the archaeologists said.

Similar witch markings have turned up at medieval sites across the U.K., including a set discovered last year at Creswell Crags, a limestone gorge and cave complex that has been inhabited on and off since the last ice age.

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CG rendering of what St Mary's looked like 700 years ago. (HS2 Ltd)

The markings are typically etched into stones near doorways, windows, and fireplaces to keep spirits away.

The markings did not save St. Mary's from its ultimate destruction. But with the scrawled stones still intact, modern witches keen on trying the new high-speed train may need to reroute their travels away from Stoke Mandeville.

24-Million-Year-Old Nursery For Baby Megasharks Discovered in South Carolina

LAURA GEGGEL, LIVE SCIENCE
20 OCTOBER 2020

About 24 million years ago, baby shark ancestors of the giant beast called megalodon needed a place to grow big before heading into the open ocean, so they swam around a coastal spot replete with easy-to-catch prey - a nursery in what is now South Carolina, according to new research.

Until now, scientists knew of just two fossil shark nurseries: a 10 million-year-old megalodon nursery in Panama and a 5 million-year great white shark nursery in Chile.

In addition to being the third such nursery, the new discovery is also the first nursery on record for Carcharocles angustidens, a megatoothed shark that lived during the Oligocene epoch (34 million to 23 million years ago), said co-researcher Robert Boessenecker, a research fellow at the Mace Brown Museum of Natural History at the College of Charleston, in South Carolina.

When Boessenecker and his colleague examined one of the shark teeth from the nursery site, they found another surprise; it came from the largest C. angustidens on record, according to an equation that calculates a shark's body length based on its tooth size. The new estimate changes the understanding of how big these ancient carnivores could get.

Previously, the record holder was from a C. angustidens tooth found in New Zealand, which put the now-extinct shark at a maximum length of 27.8 feet (8.47 meters).

"Our recalculated maximum length for C. angustidens is 8.85 meters [29 feet]," said co-researcher Addison Miller, who graduated with a bachelor of science in geology from the College of Charleston in May. "This came out to be slightly larger than the New Zealand specimen."

In comparison, the modern great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) can reach lengths of 20 feet (6 m), but most are smaller, Live Science previously reported.


The research on the shark teeth found in the nursery, which is not yet published in a peer-reviewed journal, was presented online October 13 at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology's annual conference, which was virtual this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The research "appears to be an ongoing work," but the claim that this may be a paleo-shark nursery is exciting, said Kenshu Shimada, a professor of paleobiology at DePaul University who wasn't involved with the research, but who learned about the project at the conference, told Live Science.

If supported with more evidence, this finding "would indicate that the behavior and adaptive strategy of using nursery areas had already evolved by the Oligocene about 24 million years ago for the megatooth shark lineage."

Sarah Boessenecker helped collect some of the fossils. (Robert Boessnecker)

Collecting shark teeth

The researchers discovered the shark teeth primarily in one rock unit: the fossil-rich Chandler Bridge Formation in the town of Summerville, South Carolina. In total, the researchers examined 87 C. angustidens teeth from this and the neighboring Ashley Formation dating to the late Oligocene.

Because these particular parts of the fossil formation weren't picked over by amateur fossil collectors, the shark teeth collected from these formations are thought to be accurate representations of the sharks that lived there. This is important, because "everybody and their mother goes out and digs up shark teeth and sells them here" in South Carolina, and people usually snag the largest teeth they can find, Boessenecker said.

This can cause headaches for paleontologists, who may find sites with lots of small shark teeth (one indication of a shark nursery) that's not a true representation of the sharks that lived there, because all of the large shark teeth have already been carted away.

To investigate, Miller analyzed the teeth from the two formations. With the new maximum length for C. angustidens, she was able to calculate the approximate body size categories for infant sharks, juveniles and adults. Then, using tooth-to-body-length equations (there is a different equation for each tooth, depending on its position in the mouth), she determined the sharks' corresponding body sizes.

Carcharocles angustidens teeth discovered in South Carolina. (Addison Miller)

In all, Miller found that of the 87 teeth, three (3 percent) were infants, 77 ( 89 percent) were juveniles and seven (8 percent) were adults.

"Our total body length mean was 4.8 meters [15.7 feet], meaning that this was looking more and more like a C. angustidens nursery," Miller told Live Science in an email.

South Carolina's Oligocene waters were also home to easily accessible prey for C. angustidens, including billfish, tuna, mackerel, cheloniid sea turtles, leatherback sea turtles, dolphins, baleen whales, sea cows, and other sharks and rays, Boessenecker said.

In addition, this place was likely a shallow area that would have offered natural protection to young sharks that weren't ready for life in the deep sea, he said.

This article was originally published by Live Science. Read the original article here.