It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, January 01, 2021
Model predicts global threat of sinking land will affect 635 million people worldwide
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE
A new analysis suggests that, by 2040, 19% of the world's population - accounting for 21% of the global Gross Domestic Product - will be impacted by subsidence, the sinking of the ground's surface, a phenomenon often caused by human activities such as groundwater removal, and by natural causes as well. The results, reported in a Policy Forum, represent "a key first step toward formulating effective land-subsidence policies that are lacking in most countries worldwide," the authors say. Gerardo Herrera Garcia et al. performed a large-scale literature review that revealed that during the past century, land subsidence due to groundwater depletion occurred at 200 locations in 34 countries. During the next decades, factors including global population and economic growth, exacerbated by droughts, will probably increase land subsidence occurrence and related damages or impacts, they say. Policies that implement subsidence modeling in exposed areas, constant monitoring of high-risk areas, damage evaluation, and cost-effective countermeasures could help reduce the impacts of subsidence where it will hit hardest - namely, areas with increased population density, high groundwater demand, and irrigated areas suffering water stress. Towards informing such policies, the authors developed a model by combining spatial and statistical analyses that identified an area's subsidence susceptibility based on factors like flooding and groundwater depletion caused by human activities. Comparing their model to independent validation datasets revealed it was 94% capable of distinguishing between subsidence and non-subsidence areas. Notably, the model also revealed that most of the 635 million inhabitants in subsistence-susceptible areas are located in Asia, with a total exposed GDP of $9.78 trillion. While the model does not consider existing mitigation measures, potentially resulting in overestimates of subsidence exposure, their results still represent a step forward to effective policies, Herrera et al. say.
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Spontaneous robot dances highlight a new kind of order in active matter
IMAGE: WHEN A SWARM OF SMARTICLES IS MADE TO INTERACT IN A CONFINED SPACE, THEY FORM STUNNINGLY SYMMETRIC DANCES WHOSE CHOREOGRAPHY EMERGES SPONTANEOUSLY FROM THE PHYSICS OF LOW RATTLING. view more
CREDIT: THOMAS A. BERRUETA
Predicting when and how collections of particles, robots, or animals become orderly remains a challenge across science and engineering.
In the 19th century, scientists and engineers developed the discipline of statistical mechanics, which predicts how groups of simple particles transition between order and disorder, as when a collection of randomly colliding atoms freezes to form a uniform crystal lattice.
More challenging to predict are the collective behaviors that can be achieved when the particles become more complicated, such that they can move under their own power. This type of system - observed in bird flocks, bacterial colonies and robot swarms - goes by the name "active matter".
As reported in the January 1, 2021 issue of the journal Science, a team of physicists and engineers have proposed a new principle by which active matter systems can spontaneously order, without need for higher level instructions or even programmed interaction among the agents. And they have demonstrated this principle in a variety of systems, including groups of periodically shape-changing robots called "smarticles" - smart, active particles.
The theory, developed by Dr. Pavel Chvykov at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology while a student of Prof. Jeremy England, who is now a researcher in the School of Physics at Georgia Institute of Technology, posits that certain types of active matter with sufficiently messy dynamics will spontaneously find what the researchers refer to as "low rattling" states.
"Rattling is when matter takes energy flowing into it and turns it into random motion," England said. "Rattling can be greater either when the motion is more violent, or more random. Conversely, low rattling is either very slight or highly organized -- or both. So, the idea is that if your matter and energy source allow for the possibility of a low rattling state, the system will randomly rearrange until it finds that state and then gets stuck there. If you supply energy through forces with a particular pattern, this means the selected state will discover a way for the matter to move that finely matches that pattern."
To develop their theory, England and Chvykov took inspiration from a phenomenon - dubbed dubbed - discovered by the Swiss physicist Charles Soret in the late 19th century. In Soret's experiments, he discovered that subjecting an initially uniform salt solution in a tube to a difference in temperature would spontaneously lead to an increase in salt concentration in the colder region -- which corresponds to an increase in order of the solution.
Chvykov and England developed numerous mathematical models to demonstrate the low rattling principle, but it wasn't until they connected with Daniel Goldman, Dunn Family Professor of Physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology, that they were able to test their predictions.
Said Goldman, "A few years back, I saw England give a seminar and thought that some of our smarticle robots might prove valuable to test this theory." Working with Chvykov, who visited Goldman's lab, Ph.D. students William Savoie and Akash Vardhan used three flapping smarticles enclosed in a ring to compare experiments to theory. The students observed that instead of displaying complicated dynamics and exploring the container completely, the robots would spontaneously self-organize into a few dances -- for example, one dance consists of three robots slapping each other's arms in sequence. These dances could persist for hundreds of flaps, but suddenly lose stability and be replaced by a dance of a different pattern.
After first demonstrating that these simple dances were indeed low rattling states, Chvykov worked with engineers at Northwestern University, Prof. Todd Murphey and Ph.D. student Thomas Berrueta, who developed more refined and better controlled smarticles. The improved smarticles allowed the researchers to test the limits of the theory, including how the types and number of dances varied for different arm flapping patterns, as well as how these dances could be controlled. "By controlling sequences of low rattling states, we were able to make the system reach configurations that do useful work," Berrueta said. The Northwestern University researchers say that these findings may have broad practical implications for microrobotic swarms, active matter, and metamaterials.
As England noted: "For robot swarms, it's about getting many adaptive and smart group behaviors that you can design to be realized in a single swarm, even though the individual robots are relatively cheap and computationally simple. For living cells and novel materials, it might be about understanding what the 'swarm' of atoms or proteins can get you, as far as new material or computational properties."
CAPTION
When a swarm of smarticles is made to interact in a confined space, they form stunningly symmetric dances whose choreography emerges spontaneously from the physics of low rattling.
The study's Georgia Tech-based team includes Jeremy L. England, a Physics of Living Systems scientist who researches with the School of Physics, Dunn Family Professor Daniel Goldman, professor Kurt Wiesenfeld, and graduate students Akash Vardhan (Quantitative Biosciences) and William Savoie (School of Physics). They join graduate student Pavel Chvykov (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), along with professor Todd D. Murphey and graduate students Thomas A. Berrueta and Alexander Samland of Northwestern University.
This material is based on work supported by the Army Research Office under awards from ARO W911NF-18-1-0101, ARO MURI Award W911NF-19-1-0233, ARO W911NF-13-1-0347, by the National Science Foundation under grants PoLS-0957659, PHY-1205878, PHY-1205878, PHY-1205878, and DMR-1551095, NSF CBET-1637764, by the James S. McDonnell Foundation Scholar Grant 220020476, and the Georgia Institute of Technology Dunn Family Professorship. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsoring agencies.
Traditional Ghanaian medicines show promise against tropical diseases
IMAGE: CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION OF TRADITIONAL MEDICINES FOR ACTIVITY AGAINST NTDS. PHOTO OF SCHISTOSOMIASIS AND ONCHOCERCIASIS SOURCED FROM CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION DPDX - LABORATORY IDENTIFICATION OF PARASITES OF... view more
CREDIT: OSEI-SAFO 2020 (CC-BY 2.0)
The discovery of new drugs is vital to achieving the eradication of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) in Africa and around the world. Now, researchers reporting in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases have identified traditional Ghanaian medicines which work in the lab against schistosomiasis, onchocerciasis and lymphatic filariasis, three diseases endemic to Ghana.
The major intervention for NTDs in Ghana is currently mass drug administration of a few repeatedly recycled drugs, which can lead to reduced efficacy and the emergence of drug resistance. Chronic infections of schistosomiasis, onchocerciasis and lymphatic filariasis can be fatal. Schistosomiasis is caused by the blood flukes Schistosome haematobium and S. mansoni. Onchocerciasis, or river blindness, is caused by the parasitic worm Onchocerca volvulus. Lymphatic filariasis, also called elephantiasis, is caused by the parasitic filarial worm Wuchereria bancrofti.
In the new work, Dorcas Osei-Safo of the University of Ghana, and colleagues obtained--from the Ghana Federation of Traditional Medicines Practitioners Association--15 traditional medicines used for treating NTDs in local communities. The medicines were available in aqueous herbal preparations or dried powdered herbs. In all cases, crude extracts were prepared from the herbs and screened in the laboratory for their ability to treat various NTDs.
Two extracts, NTD-B4-DCM and NTD-B7-DCM, displayed high activity against S. mansoni adult worms, decreasing the movement of the worms by 78.4% and 84.3% respectively. A different extract, NTD-B2-DCM, was the most active against adult Onchocera onchengi worms, killing 100% of males and more than 60% of females. Eight of 26 crude extracts tested, including NTD-B4-DCM and NTD-B2-DCM, also exhibited good activity against trypanosomes--parasites that cause other human diseases but weren't the original targets of the traditional medicines.
"By embracing indigenous knowledge systems which have evolved over centuries, we can potentially unlock a wealth of untapped research and shape it by conducting sound scientific investigations to produce safe, efficacious and good quality remedies," the researchers say.
Citation: Twumasi EB, Akazue PI, Kyeremeh K, Gwira TM, Keiser J, Cho-Ngwa F, et al. (2020) Antischistosomal, antionchocercal and antitrypanosomal potentials of some Ghanaian traditional medicines and their constituents. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 14(12): e0008919. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0008919
Funding: DOS, KK, RKA, AF, LEA, RAO are grant recipients of the Worldwide Universities Network Research Development Fund 2017 from the Worldwide Universities Network (UK) and grant number 18-191 RG/CHE/AF/AC_G - FR 3240303659 from The World Academy of Sciences. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Study: in social media safety messages,
the pictures should match the words
Effective posts led to better understanding among new parents
IMAGE: RESEARCHERS FOUND THAT PARENTS UNDERSTOOD SAFETY MESSAGING BETTER WHEN THE PICTURE SHOWED THE DESIRED BEHAVIOR, SUCH AS A BABY IN A BUMPER-FREE CRIB. view more
CREDIT: THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- When using social media to nudge people toward safe and healthy behaviors, it's critical to make sure the words match the pictures, according to a new study.
After looking at social media posts, parents of young children were better able to recall safety messages such as how to put a baby safely to sleep when the images in the posts aligned with the messages in the text, the researchers found.
The study appears in the Journal of Health Communication.
"Many times, scientists and safety experts aren't involved in decisions about social media for health agencies and other organizations, and we end up seeing images that have nothing to do with the safety message or, worse, images that contradict the guidance," said lead author Liz Klein, an associate professor of public health at The Ohio State University.
Take the safe sleep example, for instance. The researchers found posts that advocated a bumper-free crib for baby but used an image of an infant in a crib with bumpers. They saw posts about preventing head injury with bike helmets illustrated by pictures of kids without bike helmets.
"In this study, we were trying to understand how much those mismatches matter -- do people understand the message even if the picture isn't right? Does the picture really matter?" Klein said.
Their answers came from research using eye-tracking technology to gauge the attention young parents paid to various posts, and subsequent tests to see what they recalled about the safety messages.
When the 150 parents in the study were shown a trio of posts with matched imagery and text and three other posts with mismatched visual and written messages, they spent far longer on the matched posts -- 5.3 seconds, compared to the 3.3 seconds their eyes lingered on the mismatched posts.
Further, the matched messages appeared to make a difference in understanding and recall of safety messages. After accounting for differences in health literacy and social media use among participants, the researchers found that each second of viewing time on matched posts was associated with a 2.8% increase in a safety knowledge score.
"With nearly 70% of adults reporting use of social media, and many parents using social media and other internet sources to keep current on injury prevention strategies, social media is a great opportunity to broadcast safety and injury prevention messages," said study co-author Lara McKenzie, a principal investigator in the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus.
"As more health organizations and public health agencies use social media to share health information with the public, the findings of our study underscore the need to ensure that the imagery and text in social media posts are aligned."
Klein said she understands that those managing social media accounts may be drawn to images that are the most attention-grabbing. But when it comes to health and safety, this study suggests that making sure the image and the text are sending the same message is more important.
"If you want people to put their medicine up and out of reach of children, kids to wear their bike helmets or new parents to remember that babies should always go to sleep on their backs, alone and in a crib -- that's where matching matters. Maybe save the eye-grabbing stuff and the humorous posts for different purposes."
Klein said the findings in this study likely extend beyond child safety messaging to any number of health and safety campaigns, but that there's more work to be done to understand how best to harness the power of social media for different types of public health communication.
"We need to pay more attention to how we communicate with the people we're trying to influence with health and safety guidance. All of us can do a better job of thinking about how we use our social media accounts to contribute to better public health," she said.
St Petersburg University scientists discover an ancient island arc in the Kyrgyz Tien Shan
Researchers have discovered in the Tien Shan mountains a specific complex of rocks that formed in the Cambrian ocean about 500 million years ago.
IMAGE: (A) TECTONIC UNITS OF THE TIEN SHAN IN KYRGYZSTAN; (B) SCHEMATIC GEOLOGICAL MAP OF THE SONGKULTAU AREA view more
CREDIT: SPBU
The scientists from St Petersburg University began to study the geology of Central Asia in the middle of the 20th century. Multi-year research and rich field experience have made it possible to create the world's leading school of thought in the geology of the Tien Shan at the University. At present, work continues with active collaboration with scientists throughout the world.
One of the recent discoveries of the international research team is the discovery of this specific rock assemblage that is characteristic of modern oceanic island arcs. The rocks of this complex, found in the Songkultau Mountains in Kyrgyzstan, were formed in the Cambrian ocean about 500 million years ago. This is confirmed by the find of adakites. These are the rocks first described from Adak Island, which is part of the Aleutian island arc in the North Pacific Ocean.
'Studying the conditions of formation of ancient rocks is necessary not only for a better understanding of the geological history of the region. It is important to know this for more practical purposes, especially given that large ore deposits are often associated with adakites, an example of which are the famous copper and gold deposits in Chile,' said Dmitry Konopelko, Head of the research team, Associate Professor at St Petersburg University.
The unique composition of Songkultau granites captured the scientists' attention during regional mapping work carried out in 2007. According to Professor Reimar Seltmann, Head of the Centre for Russian and Central Eurasian Mineral Studies (CERCAMS) at the Natural History Museum in London, this prompted additional research, which led to the discovery of previously unknown fragments of the island arc complex. Professor Johan De Grave from Ghent University in Belgium and Professor Stijn Glorie from the University of Adelaide in Australia were involved in field work in the Tien Shan mountains. Analytical measurements and processing of field data were carried out by: Inna Safonova, a research associate at Novosibirsk State University; and Alla Dolgopolova from the Natural History Museum London. They did it under the guidance of Professor Min Sun in the laboratories of the University of Hong Kong.
The discovery of previously unknown fragments of an ancient island arc in the Kyrgyz Tien Shan is only one of the recent discoveries made within the framework of current projects: IGCP 662 Project 'Orogenic Architecture and Crustal Growth from Accretion to Collision' and grant from the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation 4.Y26.31.0018. They are aimed at deciphering the structures of the Central Asian Orogenic Belt, which is one of the largest ancient mountain systems on Earth.
CAPTION
Double rainbow over ancient island arc assemblages discovered in the Tien Shan mountains
Allergists offer reassurance regarding potential allergic reactions to COVID-19 vaccines
Team led by Massachusetts General Hospital stresses that people with food or medication allergies can safely be vaccinated.
BOSTON - Reports of possible allergic reactions to the COVID-19 vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, both recently approved for emergency use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), have raised public concern. A team of experts led by allergists at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has now examined all relevant information to offer reassurance that the vaccines can be administered safely even to people with food or medication allergies. The group's review is published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice.
In response to accounts of potential allergic reactions in some people following COVID-19 vaccination in the United Kingdom, that country's medical regulatory agency advised that individuals with a history of anaphylaxis to a medicine or food should avoid COVID-19 vaccination. After closer review of the data related to allergic reactions, however, the FDA recommended that the vaccines be withheld only from individuals with a history of severe allergic reactions to any component of the COVID-19 vaccine, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised that all patients be observed for 15 minutes post-vaccination by staff who can identify and manage such reactions. The U.S. agencies do not recommend that people with food or medication allergies avoid vaccination.
To provide insights from allergists' perspectives, Aleena Banerji, MD, clinical director of the Allergy and Clinical Immunology Unit at MGH and associate professor at Harvard Medical School, and her colleagues have summarized what's currently known about allergic reactions to vaccines like those developed against COVID-19, and they have proposed detailed advice so that individuals with different allergy histories can safely receive their first COVID-19 vaccine. They also outline steps on safely receiving the second dose in individuals who develop a reaction to their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
"As allergists, we want to encourage vaccination by reassuring the public that both FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccines are safe. Our guidelines are built upon the recommendations of U.S. regulatory agencies and provide clear steps to the medical community on how to safely administer both doses of the vaccine in individuals with allergic histories," says Banerji.
The experts note that allergic reactions to vaccines are rare, with a rate of about 1.3 per 1 million people. They also determined that the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccine allergic reactions will have a similarly low rate of occurrence. They stress that vaccine clinics will be monitoring all patients for 15 to 30 minutes and can manage any allergic reactions that occur. Banerji and her co-authors recommend that individuals with a history of anaphylaxis to an injectable drug or vaccine containing polyethylene glycol or polysorbate speak with their allergists before being vaccinated. They stress that patients with severe allergies to foods, oral drugs, latex, or venom can safely receive the COVID-19 vaccines.
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Co-senior authors of the review are MGH's Kimberly G. Blumenthal, MD, MSc, and Brigham and Women's Elizabeth Phillips, MD. Other co-authors include MGH's Paige G. Wickner, MD, Rebecca Saff, MD, PhD, Lacey B. Robinson, MD, MPH, Aidan A. Long, MD, Anna R. Wolfson, MD, and David A. Khan, MD; Cosby A. Stone Jr., MD, MPH, of Vanderbilt University Medical Center; and Paul Williams, MD, of the University of Washington School of Medicine.
About the Massachusetts General Hospital
Massachusetts General Hospital, founded in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The Mass General Research Institute conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the nation, with annual research operations of more than $1 billion and comprises more than 9,500 researchers working across more than 30 institutes, centers and departments. In August 2020, Mass General was named #6 in the U.S. News & World Report list of "America's Best Hospitals."
'It’s pretty astounding:' Celebrating demise of 'Indians' after years of fighting
She is an activist and journalist who is Navaho and Yankton Dakota Sioux. She is editor-in-chief of Pollen Nation magazine, which is dedicated to fighting the invisibility of Native people, and a founder of Eradicating Offensive Native Mascotry, which seeks to end the use of stereotypical representations in popular culture.
The American League baseball team in Cleveland announced this week that it will jettison the moniker it has used since 1915, though not until after the coming season. The change was not unexpected — the team had said over the summer that it was reconsidering use of its team name — and yet the news took Keeler by surprise.
“I have to say, I didn’t think this day would come, almost,” she says. “It’s pretty astounding.”
She gives thanks to advocates in the Native community who fought the good fight for more than 50 years. Credit should also go, she believes, to activists in the Black Lives Matter movement. The nation looked at the issue of systemic racism with fresh eyes following the death of George Floyd.
“I credit the activism of the Black community, which is always changing the parameters of what is acceptable in this country, and putting their bodies on the line to do so,” Keeler says. “Before, teams could always string us along and just claim they were doing it to honor us, or because that’s what their fans wanted. But the Black Lives Matter movement really changed that.”
The Washington Football Team cast aside its team name in the weeks after Floyd’s death. That’s also when the Cleveland baseball team said it would look into a change of its own. That came a couple of years after a move away from Chief Wahoo, the big-toothed, red-faced caricature that served for so long as the team’s cartoon logo.
VIDEO These sports nicknames have racially insensitive origins The Chief’s idiot grin was part of the culture that greeted Keeler’s parents when they arrived in Cleveland circa 1960 as part of the federal government’s so-called American Indian Relocation program.
“Basically, it relocated young Native people from reservations to urban centers,” Keeler says. “They brought about 20,000 Native people between the ages of 18 and 30 to Cleveland in the 1950s and 1960s.”
The Cleveland Plain Dealer, on its front page in 1957, reported the news this way: “Cleveland is going to get some new Indians, but this is no baseball story. Honest Injun.”
That tells you a lot about the era when Keeler’s parents met and married in Cleveland. Some years later, they joined other members of the local Native community in protesting the Cleveland club’s team name and its malignant mascot.
The family moved to Denver when Keeler was 4. As she grew up, she heard her parents talk about the protests, and the community work, in which they had been a part.
“When a game was on, they’d go on about it,” Keeler says. “But I just kind of ignored it, because it was before my time, and I didn’t watch much professional baseball. But then I went off to school at Dartmouth and got confronted by the mascot issue there. And I had to take a stand as an undergraduate.”
This was the mid-1990s, long after Dartmouth had shed its “Indians” team name.
“The college had stopped using it 20 years before I got there, but the alumni kept trying to bring it back. They would hand out ‘Dartmouth Indians’ T-shirts to freshmen. I tried to explain the issue to my Irish-American roommate from Massachusetts, but she didn’t understand it at all. She wanted to wear the shirt because it was free. That was shocking to me. I didn’t think it was a hard issue to understand.”
Years later, in Portland, Oregon, where she now lives, Keeler was taking her children on the city’s light rail system for a visit to the zoo.
“A little blonde girl in the family sitting across from us was wearing a Cleveland Indians hat with Chief Wahoo. I was horrified that my children were seeing this. So I asked the father if they could please take the hat off her head. I said, ‘We’re Native Americans, and I don’t want my children to see that.’ He refused. That was when I realized, ‘Wow, this is really bad.’ ”
Soon Keeler was an activist herself. Mascotry is a made-up word meant to convey the act of white fans in war paint who mock Native people while purporting to honor them. Eradicating Offensive Native Mascotry uses social media to spread the word, often with the hashtag #NotYourMascot, which it launched for the Super Bowl in 2014.
That is also the year her group originated the hashtag #DeChief, for the act of unstitching Chief Wahoo from Cleveland caps — de-chiefing them — and leaving behind only a ghostly outline. As it happens, that is the year that her son and daughter joined her for protests outside Nike headquarters, in suburban Portland, where they urged the company to step selling merchandise with the Chief on it.
Her children, at that moment, became the third generation of her family to take up the fight. This made her proud and sad at the same time.
Keeler thinks this latest move by the Cleveland baseball team is a sign that perhaps her children’s children will not have to live with Native mascotry. The big-league holdouts in Atlanta (baseball), Chicago (hockey), and Kansas City (football) are on the clock.
“The reasons that teams always gave to continue the mascoting of Native people,” she says, “are all untenable now.”
After four-and-a-half years, the world's largest deep-sea exploration mission has identified at least 12 new species of marine life, including a new kind of coral.
Funded by the European Union, the just-completed ATLAS Project carried out some 45 research expeditions since June 2016, exploring undersea life in a deep stretch of the North Atlantic.
More than 80 scientists and student volunteers, representing disciplines ranging from marine biology to ocean chemistry. from 13 nations took part in the $11 million project.
In addition to new lifeforms, the team discovered species living in areas where they were previously unknown, as well as evidence of climate change's devastating impact on the world's oceans.
Among their discoveries were mollusks, fish, sponges and a new kind of coral growth, Epizoanthus martinsae, which lives on black corals more than 1,300 feet beneath the surface.
Instead, the team ended up focusing their gaze on 12 specific sites in the deep northern Atlantic.
Their stops included the Bay of Biscay, Rockall Bank, the Gulf of Cadiz, Alboran Sea, Reykjanes Ridge and Mingulay Reef.
Because they were exploring depths that would crush human divers, underwater robots were deployed and were able to reach regions never before explored.
Among their discoveries were mollusks, fish, sponges and a new kind of coral growth, Epizoanthus martinsae, which lives on black corals more than 1,300 feet beneath the surface.
Microporella funbio, a bryozoan — or sedentary animal resembling moss — was located in an undersea mud volcano off the coast of Spain.
In addition, 35 known species were found in areas they had never been observed before.
In the Azores, ATLAS researchers observed a field of hydrothermal vents, sea-floor hot springs that are home to complex marine communities.
They're rare outposts of biological productivity in the vast deep but they are threatened by global warming.
The ATLAS team found evidence that greenhouse gasses are contributing to rising temperatures, slowing currents and increased ocean acidity, which threaten delicate coral reefs.
Because they were exploring depths that would crush human divers, underwater robots were deployed
'Their skeletons are getting more porous as that slightly acidic sea water corrodes and damages their skeleton, Roberts told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
'It's almost like an osteoporosis. They've become more brittle, more vulnerable to breaking.'
He predicted that, over the next century, many deep-sea habitats will collapse.
Marine biologist Murray Roberts, who led the project, told the BBC the networks formed by sponges or deep-ocean corals form 'cities' in the deep sea.
'They support life. So really important fish use these places as spawning grounds,' he said.
'If those cities are damaged by destructive human uses, those fish have nowhere to spawn and the function of those whole ecosystems is lost for future generations.
The ATLAS project has already generated 110 peer-reviewed research studies, with nearly 100 more expected soon.
A new enterprise exploring the southern Atlantic is expected to start soon, Science Alert reports, and is expected to conclude in 2023.
U.S. restores Medicaid for Marshall Islands, exposing longtime injustice, experts say
The government recently restored federal health care to the Marshallese and other Pacific Islanders, decades after the programs were taken away.
"I've explained to Republicans, in particular, this is not an immigration issue. This is what we should provide under our compacts. It seemed to be really hard for Republicans to understand that these are not immigrants. These are people who are legally in our country."
Lawmakers, led in part by Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, reinstated Medicaid for the groups as part of the larger coronavirus relief and year-end funding, which President Donald Trump signed this week.
President Bill Clinton signed a welfare bill 24 years ago that altered who was eligible for federal aid, stripping the Marshallese and other nations of coverage. Experts say it was an injustice that had long been ignored.
Hirono said the measure was necessary given the U.S.'s history of destruction in the region, which is in the central Pacific Ocean. The government used the Marshall Islands as a nuclear testing site, and the Pacific Islander community has been devastated by the coronavirus pandemic.
"This is a group of people who sacrificed much, and in fact their countries [play] a big part of our national security, especially in the Indo-Asia Pacific region," Hirono said of the Marshallese and others. "They certainly deserve this kind of coverage, which never should have been taken away." The package reinstated Medicaid not only for the Marshallese but also for those from the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of Palau. Since the 1980s, the three nations have been under the Compacts of Free Association (COFA), a series of treaties that established the U.S.'s exclusive military use rights in them.
The treaties have given the U.S. access in the Asia-Pacific region. As part of the agreement, citizens of COFA nations are able to live, work and study in the country. The populations, considered "legal nonimmigrants," also pay U.S. taxes and had previously been promised medical care.
Eldon Alik, consul general of the Republic of the Marshall Islands in Arkansas, who had been advocating for such measures for some time, said that after a decadeslong gap in the U.S. commitment, he found himself in tears upon hearing the recent news.
"Many of our folks came here to not only seek medical care, but also employment and educational opportunities for our families. We are not a rich nation, and we come here to look for the American dream," Alik said. "A lot of our folks are hard workers. A lot of them face a lot of hardships. Just like everybody else, we pay all the taxes that are required. So it is just right that we get Medicaid also."
Alik said relations with the U.S. have always been friendly. But the history has also been dotted with pain. For about a decade during the Cold War, the U.S. detonated 67 nuclear bombs in and around the Marshall Islands. The U.S. also dumped 130 tons of soil from an irradiated Nevada testing site onto the Enewetak Atoll, part of the nation.
The testing had devastating consequences, vaporizing entire islands and forcing people from their land. Birth defects and cancers spiked in the population.
Even so, Alik said, the Marshall Islands has stood loyally by the U.S., particularly on the global stage. A 2018 voting report from the State Department found that the Marshall Islands was among the top 10 countries whose United Nations voting record most closely matched that of the U.S. He said that not only do its citizens pay taxes but that many, including him, have also served in the U.S. military.
"We gave the ultimate sacrifice for the United States, which is our land." Alik said. "We really sacrificed not just the land, but our health, our culture. There was so much at stake." The pandemic, Alik said, further emphasized the dire need for Medicaid among the Marshallese population. The Covid-19 cases in Arkansas, home to one of the largest Marshallese communities in the world, are perhaps the most chilling example. During one of the peaks of the outbreak in June, there were 600 active cases of the coronavirus in Northwest Arkansas. While the Marshallese are about 3 percent of the population there, they accounted for half of the pandemic-related deaths. "In Arkansas, the majority of the Marshallese are working the poultry plants. They say we are essential workers. At one point, Donald Trump said, 'You guys got to keep those plants open to feed the nation,'" Alik said. "We're up at the front. So it's just fair that we get Medicaid."
Hirono said that stripping the program was inadvertent and that there's no evidence in the legislative history of the welfare reform law to justify exclusion of COFA citizens from Medicaid.
"It just took a long time. And I tell you, it took far longer than it should have," she said. "And the conference, citizens were suffering health disparities long before Covid came along."
However, reinstating the program has been a long, arduous battle for Hirono and other Democratic lawmakers.
Alik said he the slow progress can be chalked up to the lack of education in government agencies about the Marshall Islands and the plight of its people. But Hirono said one big roadblock was the way some Republican lawmakers framed the issue.
"The Republicans chose to view it as an immigration issue. But there are a lot of times that facts do not impinge on some of their decision-making — a lot of their decision-making, in my view," she said. She added: "I've explained to Republicans, in particular, this is not an immigration issue. This is what we should provide under our compacts. It seemed to be really hard for Republicans to understand that these are not immigrants. These are people who are legally in our country."
Alik said he hopes further benefits will be provided to those from the Marshall Islands, including programs like food stamps.
"All these things that we do for the United States — this is just something in return, in my opinion, to solidify this relationship that we have with the United States," he said.
A foreign policy research organization is suing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the State Department in an effort to block the sale of $23 billion in advanced military systems to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), arguing the U.S. government did not meet the requirements of the law.
Lawsuit targets State Department over $23 billion weapons sale to UAE
The New York Center for Foreign Policy Affairs (NYCFPA), a think tank and research group with headquarters in New York and an office in Washington, D.C., filed its lawsuit in federal district court for the District of Columbia on Wednesday.
The move follows a failed attempt in Congress this month to block the sale. Opponents of the deal fell short of the votes needed to pass two resolutions that said the Trump administration did not go through the proper congressional review process and left unanswered questions about the purpose and security of the transfer, which included F-35 advanced fighter jets and MQ-9 reaper drones.
The Trump administration pushed ahead with the weapons sale following the UAE's agreement to open diplomatic relations with Israel in September. The multibillion-dollar weapons package drew sharp criticism from Democratic lawmakers who said it would contribute to a dangerous arms race in the region and was not given the proper congressional oversight.
The lawsuit makes similar arguments.
It is likely the first time a nongovernmental organization has sued to stop foreign military sales, said Justin Russell, the NYCFPA's principal director.
He said the group felt that litigation was the last option following the failed attempt on Capitol Hill to block the deal.
"We thought, if no one else is going to try and do this, we're going to stand up and try," Russell said in an interview.
"This is a continuing operational move by the State Department to fast-track these arms sales," he added.
NYCFPA alleges that the State Department's actions violate the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to provide a reasoned explanation for its decision to sell the F-35's.
The group also alleges that the State Department has not shown "a rational connection between the facts considered and the ultimate conclusion" in the decision to move forward with the weapons sale.
Litigation involving the Administrative Procedure Act usually concerns an organization or company suing the federal government for blocking a company's sale to a foreign government that they say has met the letter of the law, not that the government has failed to meet legal requirements.
Matthew Collete, the lead attorney for NYCFPA and a partner at the Washington-based firm Massey & Gail LLP, called the lawsuit precedent-setting.
"This is definitely a unique situation in the sense of trying to stop an arms deal approval," Collette said. "I have not seen a case like this one."
Collette said the next step will be for the court to serve the State Department, at which the agency will have the chance to respond, likely with a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
A State Department spokesperson said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.
The lawsuit comes just three weeks before President-elect Joe Biden will be sworn in on Jan. 20. While the president-elect has not commented on the UAE arms sale, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a co-sponsor of the failed legislation to block the arms sale, has said he hopes to work with the incoming administration to look more closely at the sale before any transfers are completed.
It's unclear when the Trump administration will deliver the weapons. Assistant Secretary of State R. Clarke Cooper said earlier this month that following the congressional notification period, which ended on Dec. 11, the two countries will draft letters of offers and acceptance that, if concluded, will finalize the deal.
"Only at the end of this process will the Department of Defense be able to work with U.S. industry to hammer out the production schedules and delivery timelines," Cooper said in a briefing with reporters at the time.
Russell said his hope is that the court blocks the weapons sale, but that his group is prepared to continue the legal fight into the next administration.
The Biden transition team declined to comment.
Russell said his group could drop the case if the Biden administration cancels the sale outright.
"We are hopeful that this will get the attention of the Biden national security team and they will do the right thing in striving to seek peace in the region," he said. "We are hopeful that the Biden administration will stop the beginning stages of an arms race in the Middle East."
© Provided by Daily Mail A former Canadian Coast Guard Icebreaker, the Amundsen, was refitted as an arctic research vessel and served as a floating base of operations
