'Sniffing out' fruity thiols in hoppy beers

AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY

Research News

 

Hoppy beers such as pale ales are becoming increasingly popular. One reason is their pleasant fruity aroma that partially stems from compounds called thiols. Brewers have been looking for an accurate way to track thiols in beer, but current methods typically are not sensitive enough or require use of potentially harmful substances. Now, researchers in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry present an automated, solvent-less process to assess thiols at very low concentrations.

Thiols, along with other compounds such as terpenes and esters, contribute to the enjoyable odors in "hop-forward" beer styles. Although very small amounts of thiols are present in beer, a little bit of these compounds goes a long way toward achieving a hoppy flavor and fruity aroma. Brewers would like more information about these volatile substances, but it's challenging to accurately detect such small quantities. Previous studies have reported complex, multi-step methods for thiol analysis in beer, but the approaches could not measure all of the thiols brewers want to know about, and some processes used harmful mercury-containing compounds. Thiols also contribute to wine aromas, and researchers have used coated polymers that they can put into the air above the beverage to convert aerosolized wine thiols to more easily measureable compounds. The downside is that this method is not sensitive enough to measure the trace concentrations in beer. To develop a more robust analysis, Nils Rettberg and colleagues wanted to modify previous methods and come up with a safer, faster and more sensitive approach.

In initial experiments to develop the new process, the team modified the sample preparation method used in wine analyses to convert aerosolized thiols to compounds with higher analytical sensitivity. Then, they tweaked and applied a tandem mass spectrometry approach to maximally detect and measure the resulting compounds. Finally, the team tested their new method on 13 commercially available beers from multiple countries made with hop varieties expected to have high thiol content. The distribution of thiols within the selected beers was consistent with prior studies. Surprisingly, the team could only detect one of the three expected thiols in a beer with real grapefruit added, suggesting that the fruit itself likely contributed scent compounds other than thiols. The researchers say the method meets the requirements to detect thiols in beer, while also processing samples in a safer, simpler and quicker manner.

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The authors acknowledge funding from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.

The abstract that accompanies this paper is available here.

In changing oceans, sea stars may be 'drowning'

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

Research News

ITHACA, N.Y. - For more than seven years, a mysterious wasting disease has nearly killed off sea star populations around the world. Some of these species stand at the brink of extinction.

New Cornell University-led research suggests that starfish, victims of sea star wasting disease (SSWD), may actually be in respiratory distress - literally "drowning" in their own environment - as elevated microbial activity derived from nearby organic matter and warm ocean temperatures rob the creatures of their ability to breathe.

"As humans, we breathe, we ventilate, we bring air into our lungs and we exhale," said Ian Hewson, professor of microbiology at Cornell University. "Sea stars diffuse oxygen over their outer surface through little structures called papulae, or skin gills. If there is not enough oxygen surrounding the papulae, the starfish can't breathe."

The research, "Evidence That Microorganisms at the Animal-Water Interface Drive Sea Star Wasting Disease," was published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology.

According to Hewson, ocean conditions lead to the production of unusual amounts of organic material, which he said prompts bacteria to thrive. As bacteria consume the organic matter, they deplete the oxygen in the water - creating a low-oxygen micro-environment that surrounds starfish and leads to deflation, discoloration, puffiness, and limb twisting or curling.

"It's a cascade of problems that starts with changes in the environment," Hewson said, explaining that most of the organic matter comes from microscopic algae exudation (a discharge), zooplankton excretion and egestion, and from decaying animal carcasses. This stimulates a group of bacteria called copiotrophs, which survive on carbon and rapidly consume organic matter, he said.

The copiotrophs respire, he said, so while absorbing the organic matter, they deplete oxygen in the sea star's watery space.

"It's organic matter concentrations in the water," he said. "If you have a dead and rotting starfish next to starfish that are healthy, all of that dead one's organic matter drifts and fuels the bacteria, creating a hypoxic environment. It looks like disease is being transmitted."

Hewson said that while more scientific work must be done, "This reframes the discussion about marine disease ecology, which has focused on pathogenic disease," he said. "We should now include microorganisms that don't directly cause the pathology, since they may hold a key to affecting sea star health."

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The research was supported by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Geological Survey.

SO MUCH FOR SEX ED IN SCHOOL

USA

Young adults say porn is their most helpful source of information about how to have sex

BOSTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

Research News

 

Young adults ages 18-24 years old in the U.S. say that porn is their most helpful source of information about how to have sex, according to a new study led by a Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) researcher published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior.

In the nationally representative survey, a quarter of young adults said porn was their most helpful source of information about how to have sex. Slightly less than a quarter said sexual partners were the most helpful source, and fewer pointed to friends, parents, media, or healthcare professionals. However, female respondents were much more likely than male respondents to report that their partners were the most helpful source of information about how to have sex. Heterosexual men were most likely to say that porn was their most helpful source of information about how to have sex.

"The evidence suggests that young adults, and in particular heterosexual men, undervalue talking to their partners about what is pleasurable--too many of them may believe that it's possible to be 'good at sex' independent of any feedback from a particular sex partner, which is a belief they may be getting from pornography," says study lead author Dr. Emily Rothman, professor of community health sciences at BUSPH.

Rothman and colleagues at Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington used data from the Indiana University-based 2015 National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior, and analyzed responses from 357 young adults (18-24 years old) and 324 adolescents (14-17 years old) who said that they had gotten helpful information about how to have sex. (Nearly as many young adults and adolescents in the survey reported that they hadn't gotten any helpful information.)

Among 14-17-year-old adolescents, parents were the leading source of information, followed by friends. Only 8% of the adolescents said porn was the most helpful source of information. However, among adolescents who had never had a helpful conversation with parents about sex, media (23.4%) and sexual partners (12.8%) were their primary sources of information. Like their older peers, boys were also more likely than girls to report that porn was their most helpful source of information about how to have sex.

"The good news is that, when parents have conversations with their teenage children about sex, we think that their children are listening and are less likely to see porn as a good source of information," Rothman says.

"The bad news is that young adults are misunderstanding what porn is there for. Most free, online pornography is there for entertainment and to make money for the creators. It isn't there to teach you what you are supposed to do when you are having sex."

From a public health perspective, Rothman says it is worrisome that a sizable percentage of young adults consider porn a helpful source of information about how to have sex. "Comprehensive sex education that teaches what I think of as 'sexual social skills,' or interpersonal communication about sex, is needed and important, and research that helps us determine how to teach young people how to have fulfilling, safer, consensual sex is crucial."

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About the Boston University School of Public Health

Founded in 1976, the Boston University School of Public Health is one of the top five ranked private schools of public health in the world. It offers master's- and doctoral-level education in public health. The faculty in six departments conduct policy-changing public health research around the world, with the mission of improving the health of populations--especially the disadvantaged, underserved, and vulnerable--locally and globally.

GREEN CAPITALI$M

Businesses stand to benefit from sustainable restructuring

The switch can improve company competitiveness, research shows

NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Research News

 

The Earth is populated by an increasing number of  people who demand more and more products, which is simply not viable in the long run. Our planet does not have unlimited resources. Emissions are harming the environment in various ways.

More companies thus need to switch to more sustainable production, sometimes due to pressure from consumers, but often resulting from new rules imposed by the authorities.

But this kind of change can't ever pay off - or can it?

A new study by a research group from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) has reviewed 100 articles on how sustainably oriented innovation affects companies' competitiveness.

"The majority of the studies find that sustainable innovation has a positive effect on company competitiveness," says PhD candidate Fanny Hermundsdottir in the academic group for Strategy and Business Development in the Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management.

Sixty-four of the 100 articles concluded that sustainable innovation has a positive effect.

Twenty-nine of the articles showed mixed results - negative, positive and neutral.

Five of the articles offered no conclusion.

Two of the articles found negative effects.

The new NTNU study includes the results of many different studies, which use several distinct methods to measure sustainability and profitability. The answer is largely the same across the board: innovation and sustainability often pay off.

But innovation and development cost money and people. How are these results possible?

Hermundsdottir says the positive effects are not wishful thinking. "Innovation often results in increased value creation, reduced costs and other benefits," she says. "The sustainable shift opens up countless new business opportunities that companies can benefit from tremendously."

Arild Aspelund, a professor in NTNU's Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management, says the number of customers who are willing to pay extra for sustainability is growing. "We're seeing this in the corporate market where sustainability is now usually a purchasing criterion that reduces the one-sided focus on price," he says.

The article reviews 188 different connections between sustainable innovation and value creation. Of these, 120 have positive effects. Only 14 are negative.

"Sure, we can discuss the validity of the finding that sustainability is profitable. However, this study shows that a lot of empirical research suggests just that. If we consider the opposite hypothesis, that sustainability only entails increased costs, then we find very little empirical research out there to support that claim," Aspelund says.

New thinking can lead to raw materials being used more efficiently, for example. At the same time, it can lead to the company using less energy, petroleum and water, or using smaller land areas to produce the same amount of products.

A thorough review of production processes can in any case lead to more cost-effective methods. Maybe the company can use other more environmentally friendly - or even recycled - materials, or it figures out how to use less packaging.

The changes, along with the new status as a more environmentally friendly company, can also open up new markets among environmentally conscious customers.

Aspelund points out that more and more consumers are willing to pay extra for sustainable products and services.

"This value is especially prevalent among young consumers, and is spreading really quickly. So in that sense, the results aren't surprising," he says.

In addition to the fact that innovation quite simply can be profitable in the long run, companies may not have any other choice when the authorities impose new requirements on them, such as for cleaning or recycling. Then be ahead of the competition might be the profitable option.

"Traditionally, companies have seen restructuring towards sustainability as a financial burden. But our findings indicate that this traditional view isn't true. So the question is no longer whether sustainable innovation pays off, but rather how innovation can take place in the best possible way," says Hermundsdottir.

Admittedly, results will differ a lot from company to company, which the background material also indicates. National, market, industrial and business factors have a major impact on the results. The connections are also very complicated, and what works for some will not necessarily work for others.

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Reference: Fanny Hermundsdottir, Arild Aspelund. Sustainability innovations and firm competitiveness: A review. Journal of Cleaner Production. Available online 19 October 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.124715

Biden names Orthodox woman to senior National Security Council position

Anne Neuberger has worked at the National Security Agency for more than a decade and helped found the U.S. Cyber Command.

Anne Neuberger. Credit: National Security Agency.

(January 8, 2021 / JNS) U.S. President-elect Joe Biden is expected to appoint Anne Neuberger, an Orthodox Jewish woman, to serve in a newly created cybersecurity position on the U.S. National Security Council.

The expected pick was first reported by Politico on Wednesday. The Biden transition team and the National Security Agency declined to comment to the outlet about Neuberger’s expected appointment.

Neuberger has lead the NSA’s Cybersecurity Directorate since 2019, being one of the highest-ranking women at the NSA since Ann Caracristi, who served as deputy director of the agency during the early 1980s.

She has worked at the NSA for more than a decade and helped found the U.S. Cyber Command, where she was chief risk officer and headed the agency’s security initiative during the 2018 midterm elections.
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Neuberger, who lives in Baltimore, is from the heavily Jewish Brooklyn neighborhood of Borough Park, N.Y., where she went to Bais Yaakov Jewish day school for girls.
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Neuberger graduated from Touro College in New York and Columbia University business school. She was also in the White House Fellows program

Ayatollah still can tweet? Trump supporters point fingers at Iran’s leader… just as he runs into trouble with platform too

9 Jan, 2021 11:24
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Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Bemoaning Donald Trump’s Twitter ban, many of the US president’s supporters and other proponents of free speech have pointed fingers at messages from Iran’s leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, accusing the platform of double standards.

The US president was booted from the social media site for good on Friday, as Twitter embarked on a massive purge in the aftermath of the Capitol Hill debacle.

The platform said it decided to lock Trump’s account “due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” while blocking many of his supporters, including such high-profile figures as former National Security Advisor General Michael Flynn and lawyer Sidney Powell, without providing any official reasoning at all.

The purge has prompted a new wave of accusations against Twitter of indulging in double standards. Many critics picked the US’ – and Trump’s – bogeyman of choice, Iran, to prove their point, targeting the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Many argued that Khamenei’s rhetoric perfectly fits into the “incitement of violence” pretext, accusing the ayatollah of repeatedly threatening the US and Israel on the platform.

Some even bothered to dig up some examples of said rhetoric, which they deemed to be offensive enough to get Khamenei into trouble.

Quite ironically, as the finger-pointing continued, Khamenei did indeed get into trouble with the platform – not for being anti-American or anti-Israel, but rather for delving into the treacherous and highly thought-policed coronavirus topic.

Khamenei’s messages announcing Iran’s ban on the US- and UK-made vaccines – an extract from his televised speech – have been removed overnight from his multiple official accounts run in different languages.

“Importing vaccines made in the US or the UK is prohibited. They’re completely untrustworthy. It’s not unlikely they would want to contaminate other nations,” Khamenei’s now-removed message on his English-language account reportedly read. “Given our experience with France’s HIV-tainted blood supplies, French vaccines aren’t trustworthy either.”

His allegation of a plot to “contaminate” the other nations has apparently triggered Twitter’s assault on Khamenei, as such a statement goes against the platform’s recently updated rules. Twitter has strictly limited the possibility to question the coronavirus narrative and effectiveness of the vaccines, namely to post messages “used to intentionally cause harm to or control populations, including statements about vaccines that invoke a deliberate conspiracy.” Violators of this rule get their accounts locked until they take down the offending message.

 

Iran Develops System to Disinfect Ozone Gas

By

 IFP Editorial Staff

 -

January 9, 2021

An Iranian knowledge-based company has developed a system to disinfect the ozone gas using nanotechnology.

CEO of the firm Bita Mehravi says it is the first time that such a device has been made.

“The disinfection system can be used at home, in industrial settings and in hospitals, and is capable of disinfect the ozone gas,” she said.

She said the ozone gas is detrimental to human health, but has strong antiseptic properties.

“The system’s innovation is that after the disinfection process ends with the help of nanotechnology, ozone is turned into oxygen and will have no hazards for humans and the environment alike,” she noted.

“This apparatus is an environmentally-friendly one, is capable of disinfecting all instruments which are not sensitive to ozone, and has received permits from the Food and Drug Organization as well as the reliable environmental laboratory,” she said.

“No similar systems have been developed so far, and at the moment, we are holding talks with a number of Italian and German companies to open its production line in Europe,” she said.

“This apparatus is very cost-effective and needs no detergents,” the CEO said.

“Among other features of the system is that it creates no sensitivity and it is safe for humans,” she said.

Iran Front Page | Iran News | Latest News from Iran and the World (ifpnews.com)

Those Condemning Trump Today Succumbed to His Lawlessness for 4 Years: Iran

By

 IFP Editorial Staff

 -

January 9, 2021

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has scolded those who are now condemning US President Donald Trump’s assault on the rule of law after succumbing to his lawless bullying for four years.

“Those who succumbed to Trump’s lawless bullying for four years — to protect their skin at OUR people’s expense — now condemn his assault on the rule of law,” Zarif tweeted on Friday.

However, he added, they “still try to use his economic terrorism against Iran as ‘leverage’.”

“If you can’t grow a spine, gain foresight—for your own sake,” he added.

Zarif did not refer to any country or individual by name, but European countries, mainly France, the United Kingdom, and Germany, which were and continue to be a party to the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers, had over the course of Trump’s four-year term effectively succumbed to his anti-Iran policies by refusing to uphold their own end of the bargain, citing US pressure.

Less importantly, some US foreign policy columnists, including Thomas L. Friedman and Bret Stephens, have in the past attempted to promote the idea that Biden could use the Trump sanctions as leverage against Iran instead of returning to the Iran deal — as the incoming president has pledged — and terminating those sanctions, which were imposed in violation of the 2015 deal with Iran after Trump unilaterally withdrew his country from the agreement.

Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran deal was not the only time the US president reneged on America’s international commitments. His single term was marked by unilateral pullouts from major international and bilateral accords and organizations.

That lawless attitude came under the spotlight when Trump on Wednesday incited a mob of his supporters to storm the US Capitol building as lawmakers were in the process of confirming the electoral victory of Biden. Trump has refused to concede his defeat even as Biden has garnered a wide margin of Electoral College and popular votes against him in the November 2020 election. The defeated US president has been making baseless accusations that the election was rigged.

During the Wednesday mayhem, armed Trump supporters breached the Capitol as lawmakers took shelter in their offices. While security staff was initially overwhelmed, police were later deployed and ended the chaos. At least five people were killed during the mob assault.

 Iran Front Page | Iran News | Latest News from Iran and the World (ifpnews.com)

WestJet puts 1,000 workers on leave, citing government's 'incoherent' policy

CALGARY — The CEO of WestJet Airlines Ltd. is laying the blame squarely on "incoherent" policy from Ottawa as his carrier cuts staff and flights in response to new COVID-19 testing requirements for passengers returning to Canada.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The Calgary-based airline announced Friday about 1,000 employees will be furloughed, temporarily laid off, put on unpaid leave or have their hours cut, and it will chop about 30 per cent of its capacity for February and March and pull 160 domestic departures from its schedule.

Trip cancellations and reductions in new bookings began immediately after the federal government warned of the inbound testing rules and continued requirement for a 14-day quarantine on Dec. 31, WestJet CEO Ed Sims said in a statement.

"The entire travel industry and its customers are again on the receiving end of incoherent and inconsistent government policy,"' he said.

"We have advocated over the past 10 months for a co-ordinated testing regime on Canadian soil, but this hasty new measure is causing Canadian travellers unnecessary stress and confusion and may make travel unaffordable, unfeasible and inaccessible for Canadians for years to come."

The new flight cuts mean WestJet will have reduced flights by more than 80 per cent compared with the same time last year, it said.

International capacity will be down 93 per cent year over year and only five daily flights will be offered compared with 100 last year. Overall, the airline will offer 150 daily departures, returning to levels not seen since 2001, it said.

WestJet said it currently has 5,700 active and 5,200 inactive employees, down from over 14,000 before the pandemic erupted.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday pointed out $1.5 billion in aid has flowed to the aviation industry through the federal wage subsidy and other relief measures, though none were specific to the ailing sector.

“People shouldn’t be travelling, and that of course is a direct challenge for the airline industry to manage through. At the same time we’ve made it very clear that we expect people to be reimbursed (for cancelled flights), we expect regional routes to be protected,” Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa.

The government warned in a tweet Friday afternoon that hundreds of passengers could be stranded in Jamaica indefinitely: "In #Jamaica? You may have a lot of trouble getting a #COVID19 test."

The country has reduced testing capacity, Ottawa's travel advisory says.

WestJet issued an "urgent notice" to passengers slated to fly home this weekend from Montego Bay, where there is a "lack of testing capacity" the company said. It said travellers in Jamaica were having trouble finding anywhere to book a test.

Thirty-six flights are scheduled to depart Jamaica for Canada on five different airlines — four of them Canadian — between Friday and Jan. 17, according to flight data firm Cirium.

Video: New COVID testing rules for air travelers (Global News)

The federal government said last week that Canada-bound air passengers would have to provide proof of a recent negative COVID-19 test result in order to board their flight — a requirement that took effect on Thursday.

WestJet said it had to deny boarding to 32 passengers on its six international flights into Canada on Thursday.

The travellers were turned away due to improper tests — antigen or antibody tests, rather than the required PCR test common in Canada and involving a deep nasal swab — no test at all, or one taken more than 72 hours before departure, spokeswoman Morgan Bell said.

“Our team on the ground has rebooked guests affected and is assisting with finding eligible tests whenever possible … to ensure they can return to Canada at a later date,” Bell said.

Air Transat denied boarding to 10 passengers who did not have a PCR test on its three northbound flights Thursday. A dozen more travellers were turned away on a flight from Paris on Friday morning.

“In addition, for the three flights, we observed a significant number of no-shows, which we cannot explain with certainty. We will follow the evolution of the situation closely in the coming days,” said Transat spokesman Christophe Hennebelle.

“There will be some stranded passengers, unfortunately – a little bit more heads-up and co-operation may have helped preventing this.”

He added Air Transat is considering adjustments to its schedule but noted its program is already minimal, moving more than 90 per cent fewer passengers in December than in the same month last year.

Air Canada said it is evaluating its schedule in view of stifled demand from ongoing travel restrictions and quarantine rules, but had no changes to announce.

However, airline industry consultant Robert Kokonis said there's no doubt it will have to enact similar measures.

"It's the perfect storm," he said. "It's arrival testing that was sprung on us with little information, with short notice, combined with the continuation of a 14-day quarantine, leading to a lot of this pain."

The cutbacks at WestJet are the result of a "continued attack" on airlines without compensation, said Chris Rauenbusch, president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees local that represents cabin crew members at WestJet.

Demand — already low amid federal guidance against all non-essential travel — has "evaporated" since the policy was announced on Dec. 31, Rauenbusch said.

“We completely understand the need for public health measures during a pandemic like this,” he said. “The fundamental problem we have is the employer wasn’t consulted until after the public announcement.”

WestJet, which was bought by Onex Corp. in 2019, joined Air Canada, Air Transat and Sunwing Airlines said, along with the National Airlines Council of Canada and the International Air Transportation Association, in unsuccessfully asking Ottawa for an 11-day extension to implement the new rules.

With a file from Anita Balakrishnan in Toronto.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 8, 2021.

Companies in this story: (TSX:ONEX, TSX:AC)

Dan Healing and Christopher Reynolds, The Canadian Press

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‘Coward’: MAGA internet turns on Trump

The president acknowledged his defeat and urged for political reconciliation. His online faithful didn’t take it well.


President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Dalton, Ga. | Brynn Anderson/AP Photo


By TINA NGUYEN

01/08/2021

After years of fidelity, Donald Trump's most ardent online fans have finally turned on him.

All it took was for the president to acknowledge the reality of his loss a little over a day after they, the MAGA faithful, stormed the Capitol in a violent attempt to stop the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s win.

“People were willing to die for this man and he just threw them all under the bus. That’s the only thing that’s shameful about the events of the past 36 hours,” Nick Fuentes, the host of the America First podcast and the unofficial leader of the white nationalist Groyper Army, angrily tweeted, shortly after Trump released a video Thursday night in which he conceded that Biden would be the next president and called for political reconciliation.


Cassandra Fairbanks, a prominent MAGA activist, tweeted: “[He] tells angry people to march to the capitol [and then] proceeds to throw his supporters under the bus.”


> tells angry people to march to the Capitol

>> proceeds to throw his supporters under the bus https://t.co/Kgd1OAyeiW— Cassandra Fairbanks (@CassandraRules) January 8, 2021

Jacob Wohl, the political dirty trickster known for failed plots to incriminate Trump critics, reposted her Tweet on his Parler page.

And when far-right stunt journalist and failed congressional candidate Laura Loomer posted Trump’s concession video on Parler — “It’s over,” Loomer bemoaned, “Life is about to become very hard for conservatives in America” — the people in her replies were aghast that she acknowledged Trump’s own words. “He DID NOT CONCEDE! ITS HIS NEW ADMINISTRATION that will be coming in,” one respondent wrote, a sentiment repeated ad nauseam down her feed.

The despondency among the MAGA faithful online represented perhaps the sharpest break the community has ever made with a president they’ve exalted. But it also prompted a familiar brand of skepticism that has marked the past four years: Was Trump merely trying to placate his establishment handlers? Or did he truly betray the MAGA movement, days after several of his followers died while following his instructions to storm the Capitol?


In the past, Trump had been able to keep his online devotees close by swinging back into their good graces, normally with a pot-stirring tweet or the announcement of a controversial right-wing policy. But just hours after the president released his concession video, many expressed shock that he may have closed the book on them forever.

QAnon conspiracy theorists, praying for years that Trump would flush Satan-worshipping pedophile elites out of Washington, tore apart any scrap of data from the video to prove that he was playing one final trick. They subjected the time stamps to numerology, thinking that there was a secret message encoded.

“In no way did Trump say he conceded. He said: transitioning to a new Admin. As in, he gonna clear this one out and bring a new one,” tweeted We The Inevitable, a conspiracy account, getting more than 3,000 retweets within the hour. The account’s followers agreed that this was surely a sign that he was getting rid of Vice President Mike Pence — now cast as a MAGA traitor after participating in the certification of Biden’s win — and that on Jan. 20, retired Gen. Michael Flynn, now a full-fledged QAnon patriot, would replace him in Trump’s second term.

And there was anger. It was directed at Trump for letting things get this far. Over on Parler, the social media platform beloved by the MAGA community for its lax moderation policies, users erupted in a fury, calling him a number of expletives, a “dildo,” and “100% THE SWAMP.”

Some tried to distance themselves from Trump despite their years of activity in MAGAworld, while aiming to redirect their followers’ anger at the next administration. “Yes there were issues. Call those out. Yes after FISA fraud and hoax after hoax, put pressure on Democrats and recognize they have no moral authority,” posted Mike Cernovich, a pizzagate conspiracist who was once nearly an investigative journalist. “But never, ever, go all in Trump.”




Trump, facing removal threats, concedes election

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Others accepted the loss and showed appreciation for Trump’s remarks.

“Thank you @realDonaldTrump. We tried our best to uncover the truths in our electoral system. We learned a lot,” tweeted Ron Watkins, the former administrator of 8Kun, the forum that continues to host “Q drops” from the mysterious figure at the center of QAnon. “As Americans, we will support our president on January 20 and beyond.”

But the commentary was not without its share of conspiracy. A popular thread held that the Capitol rioters were actually antifa in disguise, there to trick the public into turning against the MAGA faithful and Trump himself. (Antifa is short for "anti-facists" and is an umbrella description of far left-leaning militant groups that resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists.) There was hope as well that Trump was merely biding his time. They analyzed every word of his video announcement and noticed, to their glee, that he did not formally acknowledge Joe Biden’s win — just merely that a new administration would take over on Jan. 20.

And then, as despair was kicking in, Trump gave them what they needed: a digital attaboy for their support.

“The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future,” Trump tweeted on Friday morning. “They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”

And just like that, the faith was restored. “He says GIANT VOICE which are used in military installations to to alert everyone to EMERGENCIES in the area,” tweeted pro-QAnon account Copious MQ. It was retweeted 700 times within minutes.

“[I'm] feeling much better, for a minute I thought I was alone in my thinking,” one account replied.