Activists slam 'sham trial' of Cambodia opposition members

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — A Cambodian-American lawyer said Thursday she was being persecuted for her political opinion as she and dozens of other government critics charged with treason and other offences returned to court in a trial criticized by rights advocates.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The more than 60 defendants are mostly former members or supporters of the disbanded Cambodia National Rescue Party, which had been the sole credible political opposition until Cambodia’s highest court in late 2017 ordered its dissolution.

Many of them are accused of being involved with a failed effort by former opposition leader Sam Rainsy to return from exile in November 2019 to challenge the country's long-time ruler, Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Fellow activists in exile have announced they will likewise try to return this Sunday although their plans are again opposed by Hun Sen's government, which has launched a sweeping crackdown on opponents.

Theary Seng, a Cambodian-American lawyer who has long been one of the most outspoken Hun Sen critics, told reporters on her arrival at court that she was not afraid of his regime and would not be intimidated.

Describing the charges as bogus and baseless, and the proceedings as “a sham trial,” she said that “the decision will be made by politicians, not judges.”

“I’m being persecuted for my political opinion, for expressing my opinion,” she said.

Hun Sen has been in power for more than three decades, and tolerates little opposition. An adroit political operator, he has employed both guile and force to maintain his position in an ostensibly democratic state.

A statement by Amnesty International said that along with related cases, approximately 150 opposition politicians and supporters are facing mass trials.

“These mass trials are an affront to international fair trial standards, Cambodia’s human rights commitments and the rule of law,” said the group’s Asia-Pacific regional director, Yamini Mishra. “This onslaught of cases is the culmination of a relentless campaign of persecution against Cambodia’s political opposition and other dissenting voices.”?

Misha said that the recent history suggests those accused have faint hopes of a fair trial. "When it comes to cases against opposition activists and government critics, political motivations consistently outweigh facts and law.”

Virtually all of the defendants have been charged with conspiracy to commit treason and incitement to commit a felony, which together carry a maximum penalty of 12 years in prison.

Dozens are believed to be abroad, but under Cambodian law can be tried and sentenced in absentia.

The initial hearing by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court for about 130 defendants was held in November, at which the judge agreed to split the defendants into two groups to make the proceedings easier and allow those who did not yet have lawyers and declined court-appointed ones to find representation. The hearings for the second batch are slated to begin on March 4.

Several Western nations have imposed sanctions on Hun Sen's government, mainly after concluding that elections in 2008 without the opposition were neither free nor fair. The harshest measure came from the European Union, which last year withdrew some preferential trading privileges.

Sopheng Cheang, The Associated Press

WHO team arrives in Wuhan to investigate pandemic origins

WUHAN, China — A global team of researchers arrived Thursday in the Chinese city where the coronavirus pandemic was first detected to conduct a politically sensitive investigation into its origins amid uncertainty about whether Beijing might try to prevent embarrassing discoveries.  

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The 10-member team sent to Wuhan by the World Health Organization was approved by President Xi Jinping's government after months of diplomatic wrangling that prompted an unusual public complaint by the head of the WHO.

Scientists suspect the virus that has killed 1.9 million people since late 2019 jumped to humans from bats or other animals, most likely in China's southwest. The ruling Communist Party, stung by complaints it allowed the disease to spread, says the virus came from abroad, possibly on imported seafood, but scientists reject that.

The team arrived at the Wuhan airport a little past 11 a.m. on a bright-yellow Scoot jet and walked through a makeshift clear plastic tunnel into the airport. The researchers, who only wore face masks, were greeted by airport staff in full protective gear, complete with mask, goggles and full body suits.

The team members include virus and other experts from the United States, Australia, Germany, Japan, Britain, Russia, the Netherlands, Qatar and Vietnam.

A government spokesman said this week they will “exchange views” with Chinese scientists but gave no indication whether they would be allowed to gather evidence.

They will undergo a two-week quarantine as well as a throat swab test and an antibody test for COVID-19, according to CGTN, the English-language channel of state broadcaster CCTV. They are to start working with Chinese experts via video conference while in quarantine.

China rejected demands for an international investigation after the Trump administration blamed Beijing for the virus's spread, which plunged the global economy into its deepest slump since the 1930s.

After Australia called in April for an independent inquiry, Beijing retaliated by blocking imports of Australian beef, wine and other goods.

One possibility is that a wildlife poacher might have passed the virus to traders who carried it to Wuhan, one of the WHO team members, zoologist Peter Daszak of the U.S. group EcoHealth Alliance, told the Associated Press in November.

A single visit by scientists is unlikely to confirm the virus's origins; pinning down an outbreak's animal reservoir is typically an exhaustive endeavour that takes years of research including taking animal samples, genetic analysis and epidemiological studies.

“The government should be very transparent and collaborative," said Shin-Ru Shih, director at the Research Center for Emerging Viral Infections at Taiwan's Chang Gung University.

The Chinese government has tried to stir confusion about the virus's origin. It has promoted theories, with little evidence, that the outbreak might have started with imports of tainted seafood, a notion rejected by international scientists and agencies.

"The WHO will need to conduct similar investigations in other places,” an official of the National Health Commission, Mi Feng, said Wednesday.

Some of the WHO team were en route to China a week ago but had to turn back after Beijing announced they hadn't received valid visas.

That might have been a “bureaucratic bungle,” but the incident "raises the question if the Chinese authorities were trying to interfere,” said Adam Kamradt-Scott, a health expert at the University of Sydney.

A possible focus for investigators is the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the city where the outbreak began. One of China's top virus research labs, it built an archive of genetic information about bat coronaviruses after the 2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.

According to WHO's published agenda for its origins research, there are no plans to assess whether there might have been an accidental release of the coronavirus at the Wuhan lab, as some American politicians, including President Donald Trump, have claimed.

A “scientific audit” of Institute records and safety measures would be a “routine activity,” said Mark Woolhouse, an epidemiologist at the University of Edinburgh. He said that depends on how willing Chinese authorities are to share information.

“There’s a big element of trust here,” Woolhouse said.

An AP investigation found the government imposed controls on research into the outbreak and bars scientists from speaking to reporters.

The coronavirus's exact origin may never be traced because viruses change quickly, said Woolhouse.

Although it may be challenging to find precisely the same COVID-19 virus in animals as in humans, discovering closely related viruses might help explain how the disease first jumped from animals and clarify what preventive measures are needed to avoid future epidemics.

Scientists should focus instead on making a “comprehensive picture” of the virus to help respond to future outbreaks, Woolhouse said.

“Now is not the time to blame anyone," Shih said. “We shouldn’t say, it’s your fault.”

___

Wu reported from Taipei, Taiwan.

Sam McNeil And Huizhong Wu, The Associated P

Capitol riot reaction: Corporations and the future of political donations

The storming of the Capitol has led to a growing movement among the market's largest companies to reassess their political spending

Some companies have specifically stopped donating to any politicians who supported President Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 election results, while others are suspending all contributions to politicians from both parties.

Political spending experts remain skeptical that the status quo in Washington D.C., where politics have long mixed with business interests, will permanently change, but Charles Schwab became one of the first to say it was ending its corporate PAC.

© Provided by CNBC Members of U.S. Capitol Police try to fend off a mob of supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump as one of them tries to use a flag like a spear as the supporters storm the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, January 6, 2021.

Companies across major sectors of the market are reassessing political donations in response to last week's storming of the U.S. Capitol, but it is too soon to know whether it leads to fundamental changes in the way money flows between politics and business.

For decades, political action committees have served as a mechanism for corporations and trade groups to maintain sway in Washington, D.C. It is big money, but also far from the only way companies can move money around in politics. But many companies also contribute to candidates and causes using 527 groups and super PACs, among other contribution methods, which can raise unlimited funds from individuals and corporations.

According to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, corporate PACs accounted for about 5% of money accumulated for the 2020 election. The rise of small donors as well as the political action committees allowing unlimited donations have made the role of specific corporate political giving directly to candidates smaller over time.

Even though the 2020 election set a record for donations, the Center for Responsive Politics notes that, "Traditional PACs, often used by corporations to curry favor with lawmakers, are losing relative influence. ... That's because the PAC contribution limit of $5,000 hasn't increased in decades, and corporate PACs have become toxic to some Democrats." They are making up the gap, in part, by record levels of donations from small donors, which accounted for 22% of the money raised in the 2020 cycle, a record, up from 15% of the money raised in the 2016 election.

Many of the freezes on political donations to candidates being announced by companies don't include political action committees not associated with specific candidates, and that means the moves could end up being more symbolic than consequential in shaping the future scope of political donations. It is also an opportune time to freeze political spending with consequences as a major election cycle just ended.

"It is a very difficult time for business leaders. Nobody gave money to a candidate or cause thinking they would ultimately end up voting against the certification of the next president. They make contributions based on how they think the individual will affect their company and industry," said Mark Weinberger, former CEO of EY and former Assistant Treasury Secretary in the George W. Bush Administration, said on CNBC's Squawk Box on Wednesday.

"You have to separate the moment from the overall system of how financing to elections is done these days," he said. "People are stopping because they want to show immediate accountability and they don't know what to do yet. ... Nobody gave money to fund sedition."

American Express was among the companies that said it would stop supporting candidates that attempted to "disrupt the peaceful transition of power." The credit card company said it had contributed to 22 of the 139 House members who objected to the Electoral College results.

VIDEO "Chamber's Donohue on businesses halting political donations in response to riot"

Weinberger said while certain politicians who supported President Trump's effort to overturn the election results may find it difficult to raise money in the future from companies, he thinks it is harder to see how companies unilaterally remove themselves from the political influence system.

"I think it is hard for businesses alone to decide they are no longer going to participate in the system," he said. "You have environmental groups and labor groups that all contribute to PACs. It is reasonable to look at the entire system, but to say individual companies should just stop on their own is like unilateral disarmament."

Charles Schwab said earlier this week it would halt contributions for the remainder of the year, but by Wednesday announced it was discontinuing its corporate PAC, becoming one of the first corporations to make the move permanent.

Campaign donation experts remain skeptical that PACs are likely to dissipate as they represent useful transactional tools that help companies gain access and facetime with individuals in Washington.

"Right now, the companies who sponsor these PACs are simply trying to balance the need to on the one hand curry favor with elected officials and avoid public wrath and boycott," said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics.

While halting PAC donations comes as "a good first step," companies will need to reevaluate their approach to spending including contributions using corporate funds and 527s, said Bruce Freed, president and co-founder of the Center for Political Accountability.

"It's very easy at the moment to say we're going to pause, we're going to halt, but what happens when we get into early fall, what happens when we get into early next year," Freed said.

There are other ways to balance political interests for major companies. Since its founding, IBM has long avoided political givings to candidates and does not operate a PAC, although contributions have been made by individuals affiliated with the company, according to data from Open Secrets, and its CEO was among the first in the market to send a letter to President-elect Biden outlining policy priorities.

Apple, the most successful company in the world today, does not operate a PAC, although it "occasionally makes contributions for ballot measures and initiatives" in support of public schools in Cupertino.

"We carefully manage our engagement in the public policy process and have internal teams that coordinate those efforts," the company's public policy statement reads. "Strategic decisions about advocacy are made at the highest levels, including Apple's Executive Team and CEO Tim Cook."

At least one of the most recent major political battles fought — and won — by corporations was the California ballot initiative funded by Uber and other gig economy companies to overturn a California law on employee classification. That November ballot funding effort was seen as a major wake-up call as to how corporations can use their money to influence voter decisions.

Big tech, Wall Street and future of political giving

From technology giants like Microsoft and Facebook to Wall Street behemoths like Goldman Sachs, here's a rundown of some of the big names joining the movement to at least temporarily suspend donations to politicians as corporations reassess how their money intersects with politics in a polarized nation. Political discontent has been rising within companies as well, especially among the employees at the largest technology companies.

Earlier this month, some Microsoft employees spoke out against the company's recent donations to senators who supported overturning election results. This week, the company put its political contributions on hold.

Amazon, which pulled its web hosting support for the social media site Parler which has become a popular alternative for conservatives, also halted donations to lawmakers who voted against certifying the electoral results. Google and Apple already had pulled the service from their app stores, though Apple has said it

VIDEO Duration 5:44 Tim Cook says Parler can get back on the App Store if it complies with terms of service


Facebook has paused, for at least the current quarter, its political spending, and Alphabet said it is also freezing political donations as it reviews its policies. Alphabet's YouTube became the latest to suspend a social media account associated with President Trump on Tuesday night, echoing moves already made by Twitter and Facebook.

VIDEO Duration 5:40 Former EY CEO Mark Weinberger on corporate America's halt of political contributions

On Wall Street, the major banks have all made moves to reassess their spending on politics.

Morgan Stanley announced it would not donate to lawmakers that opposed the electoral certification, going further than some Wall Street peers in specifying members of the Republican Party who supported President Trump's attempts to overturn the election.

Both Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase said they will likely halt political donations for six months, while Citigroup announced a first-quarter pause. A Bank of America spokesman said it will factor recent events into 2022 midterm election contributions, while Wells Fargo will review its political action committee strategy.

What other corporations are doing
Walmart said it will indefinitely suspend contributions to members of Congress who voted against the lawful certification of state Electoral College votes and is reviewing its donation strategy.

Marriott International announced a suspension of its political contributions.

Hilton will continue a suspension of political donations it began last March.

The Coca-Cola Company announced it would halt all political givings.

Hallmark is asking for a return of contributions from Senators Josh Hawley Missouri and Roger Marshall of Kansas. Both lawmakers supported overturning election results.

Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast said they are halting donations to lawmakers that voted against certifying electoral results.

Blue Cross Blue Shield announced a suspension of donations to Republican lawmakers that voted against certifying election results.

Dow will pause contributions to lawmakers that supported overturning election results for one election cycle — two years for House members and up to six years for Senators.

Ford Motor Company is putting a pause on new contributions from its employee PAC.

Other companies that have suspended all political giving: American Airlines, BlackRock, BP, Target, US Bank, Visa.

Other companies that have suspended giving to candidates involved in disrupting the electoral process: Best Buy, Cigna, Commerce Bank, Disney, General Electric, Intel, State Street.

Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.

The Weather Network
The surprising winter upset, Texas out-snowing major Canadian cities

Meteorology award being renamed in honour of June Bacon-Bercey

© Provided by The Weather Network 

June Bacon-Bercey in 1977. Courtesy NOAA/Wikipedia. Public Domain.

A meteorology award is being renamed in honour of June Bacon-Bercey, the first Black woman to earn a meteorology degree in the U.S. and the first female meteorologist to appear on TV south of the border.

Beginning in 2022, the Award for Broadcast Meteorologist of the Year from the American Meteorological Society will be called The June Bacon-Bercey Award for Broadcast Meteorology. It is awarded to broadcast meteorologists who demonstrate "sustained long-term contributions to the community, or for outstanding work during a specific weather event," the society says on its website.

AN INCREDIBLE CAREER

Bacon-Bercey had originally attended a private college and majored in math, leaving that after two years to pursue undergraduate degree in meteorology, a distinction she earned from the University of Kansas in 1954. She then completed a Master's in public education at UCLA.

In her early career, Bacon-Bercey worked at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Weather Service as a weather analyst and forecaster. She later joined the Atomic Energy Commission as a senior adviser, interested in studying the effects of hydrogen and atomic bombs on Earth's Atmosphere.

A position at the National Weather Service in the early 1960s then led to the offer of an on-air position, a role she was initially hesitant to accept.

“I did not want to do weather on television, only because at that time I felt it was still gimmicky for women," she told Robert Henson in the book Weather on the Air: A History of Broadcast Meteorology.

She eventually agreed, quickly rising to the rank of chief meteorologist at WGR-TV in Buffalo, N.Y.

AWARDS AND RECOGNITION

Bacon-Bercey received several honours during her career, including the American Meteorological Society Seal of Approval for excellence in television weathercasting in 1972, the first woman to receive the distinction.

In 2000, she was celebrated by Howard University for her work in inspiring the next generation of scientists, including the establishment of a meteorology lab at Jackson State University and for working as a substitute teacher in California's public schools.

MENTORING THE NEXT GENERATION

In addition to advocating for the environment, Bacon-Bercey worked to promote the careers of minorities in atmospheric sciences, serving on a pair of committees in 1974 that would later become the American Meteorological Society’s Board on Women and Minorities. She was one of the 12 founding members, and worked alongside them to strategize ways to encourage, recruit, and support scientists from underrepresented backgrounds.

“She did everything 110 per cent,” daughter Dail St. Claire told Eos

“She couldn’t see [anyone who] looked like her. There wasn’t a lot of support.”

Bacon-Bercey died on July 3, 2019 at 90 years of age.

Shocking footage shows Serbian lake completely covered in garbage

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While pollution is an omnipresent issue that is impacting essentially every ecosystem on Earth, the problem is not always visible to the naked eye. However, footage of Serbia's Potpecko Lake depicts a jarring scene — several thousand cubic metres of plastic containers floating on top of the water.

Plastics pollution completely cover the surface of a lake in Serbia
Click to expand

The footage was first published online on January 4, 2021 and environmental activist, Sinisa Lakovic, says that the extent of the plastic pollution is due to decades of accumulating trash at “unsanitary landfills,” as reported by Reuters. Marko Karadzic, a local resident, described the situation to Reuters as “an ecological disaster.”

Several landfills are located upstream from the lake along the Lim River. Potpecko Lake is connected to the waterbody that the dam at the Višegrad Hydroelectric Power Plant uses, and officials are concerned that it could become clogged with garbage.

Serbia’s Environment Minister, Irena Vujovic, said a clean-up would soon commence and stated that several landfalls that contributed to the pollution in Potpecko Lake have been invited to develop a solution that would have long-term benefits.
AQUATIC POLLUTION, NOT JUST AN OCEAN PROBLEM

Images of ocean animals entangled in plastic pollution are the most common impacts that many people think of when considering how the waste we generate impacts aquatic ecosystems. Given that oceans cover more than 70 per cent of Earth’s surface, it is understandable that the spotlight lands on these marine ecosystems, but some experts say that plastic pollution in freshwater lakes and rivers is a topic that is often neglected in research.

© Provided by The Weather NetworkA discarded beer can in Eagle Lake, Mississippi, USA. Credit: Justin Wilkens via Unsplash

A 2019 survey conducted by scientists Martín C. M. Blettler and Karl M. Wantzen reviewed 171 published studies that analyzed animal plastic entanglement and found that over 98 per cent focused solely on oceanic environments. Blettler and Wantzen stated while ocean plastic pollution remains a considerable concern, they emphasize the importance of the limited insight we have about freshwater pollution.

In freshwater environments, researchers have documented an increasing trend of plastic becoming part of birds’ nests, which can reduce the survival rates of both the parents and chicks. Microplastics are also being consumed by fish in growing amounts leading to adverse effects. The researchers say that the effects of plastic pollution in water bodies inland are important to study because the waste that is dumped in lakes and rivers ultimately travels to the oceans.

With files from Reuters

Judge Jeanine Demands Capitol Riot 'Freaks' Stop Blaming Antifa for What They Did (Video)

© TheWrap judge jeanine pirro demands capitol riots own what they did and stop blaming antifa

While multiple Fox News personalities and guests — including Sean Hannity, Brit Hume and Mark Levin — have floated the baseless conspiracy theory that it was actually leftist infiltrators (or "antifa") who instigated Trump protesters to violently invade the U.S. Capitol on Wedensday, "Judge" Jeanine Pirro wasn't having it.

Pirro instead went the other direction on her Fox News show on Saturday, ranting about the conservative terrorists who made the rest of Trump's supporters look bad.

"I want to be clear," Pirro began. "The actions at the United States Capitol three days ago were deplorable, reprehensible, outright criminal. These frightening and repulsive actions represent the most significant breach on our Capitol in over 200 years. And I don't care with happened in the past and or whether those who did it think the election was stolen.

Also read: Rep. Gaetz, Sean Hannity and More Baselessly Suggest 'Antifa' Instigated Capitol Mob

"That is not justification. Seventy-five million of us are still angry about the election — but we don't storm the Capitol."

CNBC)
Video: Trump doubles down on false claim the election was 'stolen' (

Jeanine condemns her own viewers pic.twitter.com/m0SWtLVRf1
- Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) January 10, 2021

And Judge Jeanine specifically called out the "antifa" theory, which was a topic on numerous Fox News shows this week. "Antifa," for the record, is not an organization of any kind.

"And stop looking for other people to blame, including those dirtbag terrorists antifa. To those of you who did this, you did it, of your own will, and you will be held accountable. Take the veil of politics off. Be totally objective, anyone watching this must condemn it," Pirro said.

Also read: Sean Hannity Rages Against 'Menacing' Olive Garden Joke Tweet (Video)

"And in the end, what was the point? What did you get out of it? Was there even a plan when you got in there, besides looking like a bunch of freaks, breaking windows, carrying off a podium, sitting at Nancy Pelosi's desk, leaving a love note with fingerprints behind, identifying yourself with selfies, stealing, damaging property, trespassing, looting? Five people are dead in your wake."

Pirro's show then pulled up a clip of a Capitol cop being crushed against a partially broken window, and she expressed her horror at the scene. "Did anybody stop to think that with this foolhardy effort to disrupt the congressional hearing, you have smeared 75 million of us, because of what you did? Did anyone change their vote? No!" she declared emphatically.

It's worth noting that Pirro has done her part to rile up Trump fans since the election. She suggested that now-former Attorney General Bill Barr was secretly supporting Biden. She said someone had stolen a voting machine company's servers in Germany (without evidence). She encouraged her viewers to look into false conspiracies about Dominion voting machines.

These Eerie 'Living Stones' in Romania Are Fantastical, And Totally Real

(MihaelaIulianaStancu/Getty Images)

TESSA KOUMOUNDOUROS

A small town in Romania called Costesti is home to unusual geological manifestations - bulging bulbous boulders called trovants. These stones have long intrigued locals, with their organic-looking shapes and strange cement oozings, inspiring myths about the stones' ability to grow and move - like living beings rather than inanimate objects.

Trovants vary greatly in size and shape - some can snugly fit in your palm, while others loom overhead, up to 4.5 metres tall. Of the 100s of known trovants, seen across at least 20 sites through Romania, some were only unearthed after the sand around them was quarried away.

Trovant from Ulmet, Romania. (bereta/Getty Images Plus)

While mysteriously moving stones do sail across valleys elsewhere in the world, these trovants probably aren't going anywhere without help any time soon.

In fact, some are firmly (if precariously) fixed to the ground below with a solid rock base, like the 'Old Ladies' from Ulmet.

Their bizarre, and sometimes seemingly gravity-defying bulges have to do with their origins.

(michalz86/Getty Images Plus)

Likely shaped by earthquakes around 6 million years ago, trovants are a type of concretion - sedimentary sand grains or rocks bound together by a limestone (calcium carbonate) cement.

"Some are made from sandstone, others from gravel," Buila-Vanturarita National Park manager Florin Stoican told Radio Romania International back in 2010. "In geological terminology, they are made from gritstone and conglomerates."

Researchers have found no difference between the trovants and surrounding sand substrate. So they suspect the spheroid shapes were formed by the unusually long-lasting and intense seismic activity of the Middle Miocene. Shockwaves emanating from the earth compacted the sandy sediments and concentrated the limestone cement to mould their spherical lumps.

More trovants in Ulmet, known as the 'Old Ladies'. (pfongabe33/Getty Images Plus)

Over time, the elements wore away the looser sandstone around them, exposing the denser trovants.

When exposed to heavy rains, some of their cement can leak out to their surface, gradually adding to the stone's outer circumference over time. Not much has been written about this process, but it is said to occur at only about 4-5 cm over 1,200 years.

The surrounding sandstone beds have laminations - a sequence of fine layering - suggesting the area was an ancient marine environment when the stones and base sediment were laid down, as do the bivalve and gastropod fossils that can be found within some of the trovants.

So, while they might not be 'living' stones in a literal sense, these incredible rocks have seen more of life than even the oldest human.

25 DECEMBER 2020

UPDATED

Scientists Have Discovered an Entirely New Way Snakes Can Move, And It's So Weird


(Cell Press/YouTube)
NATURE


PETER DOCKRILL
11 JANUARY 2021

Scientists have identified an entirely new mode of snake locomotion. The newly documented climbing behaviour is difficult, but allows snakes to impressively shimmy up large, smooth cylinders.

Researchers have dubbed it 'lasso locomotion', because the snake climbs poles by lassoing its body around the cylindrical structures, gripping them tightly in a looped noose from torso to tail.

The phenomenon, which expands the known climbing repertoire of snakes, seems to let the brown tree snake (Boiga irregularis) ascend much larger smooth cylinders than any previously known climbing behaviour – and may constitute the first entirely new form of snake movement identified in recent history.

"For nearly 100 years, all snake locomotion has been traditionally categorised into four modes: rectilinear, lateral undulation, sidewinding, and concertina," a research team led by conservation biologist Julie Savidge from Colorado State University explains in the new paper.

(Savidge et al., Current Biology, 2020)

Another kind of snake movement, slide-pushing, is also recognised by some in the scientific community as a distinct form of locomotion, and occurs on flat surfaces. At the same time, some have suggested existing categorisations should be more diverse than previously acknowledged.

In any case, lasso locomotion is quite different to all of the recognised forms of snake motion, and was a chance discovery made during a conservation project in Guam, where the brown tree snake – an invasive species accidentally introduced into the US island territory in the mid 20th century – has devastated local bird populations (and more besides).


While reviewing video footage of experimental metal baffle structures – designed to protect birds by preventing snakes from reaching sheltered bird boxes – the team noticed something unique.

"We had watched about four hours of video and then all of a sudden, we saw this snake form what looked like a lasso around the cylinder and wiggle its body up," wilderness medicine researcher Thomas Seibert explains.

"We watched that part of the video about 15 times. It was a shocker. Nothing I'd ever seen compares to it."

In the observed movement, the snakes climbed smooth, vertical cylinders using the distinct lasso-like body posture, with the head and neck oriented above the posterior body loop that encircles and grips the cylinder.

While the technique enables the brown tree snake to climb cylinders with twice the diameter of other methods, such as concertina movement – which also involves friction gripping, and is used to ascend trees and structures – it's not easy to pull off.

"Slow speeds, slipping, frequent pausing, and heavy breathing during pauses all suggest lasso locomotion is demanding," the researchers write.

"Even though they can climb using this mode, it is pushing them to the limits," says biologist Bruce Jayne from the University of Cincinnati. "The snakes pause for prolonged periods to rest."

(Thomas Seibert)

Now that we know about lasso locomotion, though, the researchers are hoping to make the effort even more challenging for the snakes, with new kinds of barriers and obstructions specifically designed to counter this unexpected form of vertical movement.

That might sound unkind, but it's all to give Guam's declining bird populations - along with other members of the ecosystem that rely on them - a hope of survival in the face of a deadly threat that can slither in ways we never even knew about.

"Most of the native forest birds are gone on Guam," says Savidge.

"Hopefully what we found will help to restore starlings and other endangered birds, since we can now potentially design baffles that the snakes can't defeat. It's still a pretty complex problem."

The findings are reported in Current Biology.

Dire Wolves Were Not Really Wolves, 

New Genetic Clues Reveal

The extinct giant canids were a remarkable example of convergent evolution

By Riley Black on January 13, 2021
Somewhere in Southwestern North America during the late Pleistocene, a pack of dire wolves (Canis dirus) are feeding on their bison kill, while a pair of grey wolves (Canis lupus) approach in the hopes of scavenging. One of the dire wolves rushes in to confront the grey wolves, and their confrontation allows a comparison of the bigger, larger-headed and reddish-brown dire wolf with its smaller, grey relative. Credit: Mauricio Antón


Dire wolves are iconic beasts. Thousands of these extinct Pleistocene carnivores have been recovered from the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. And the massive canids have even received some time in the spotlight thanks to the television series Game of Thrones. But a new study of dire wolf genetics has startled paleontologists: it found that these animals were not wolves at all, but rather the last of a dog lineage that evolved in North America.

Ever since they were first described in the 1850s, dire wolves have captured modern humans’ imagination. Their remains have been found throughout much of the Americas, from Idaho to Bolivia. The La Brea asphalt seeps famously document how prey animals mired in tar lured many of these ice age predators to a sticky death. The dire wolves’ tar-preserved remains reveal an imposing hunter up to six feet long, with skull and jaw adaptations to take down enormous, struggling megafauna. Though these canids had clearly evolved to handle the mastodons, horses, bison and other large herbivores then roaming the Americas, skeletal resemblances between dire wolves and the smaller gray wolves of today suggested a close kinship. It had long been assumed that dire wolves made themselves at home in North America before gray wolves followed them across the Bering Land Bridge from Eurasia. Now some well-preserved DNA seems to be fundamentally changing the story.

The new study, published on Wednesday in Nature, began as an effort to understand dire wolves’ biological basics. “For me, it started with a decision to road-trip around the U.S. collecting dire wolf samples and see what we could get, since no one had managed to get DNA out of dire wolf samples at that point,” says Durham University archaeologist and study co-author Angela Perri. At the same time, geneticist and co-author Kieren Mitchell of the University of Adelaide in Australia was also trying to extract and study ancient DNA from dire wolf remains—as were other labs that eventually collaborated on the project.

One of the researchers’ questions was how dire wolves were related to other wolves. For decades, paleontologists have remarked on how similar the bones of dire wolves and gray wolves are. Sometimes it is difficult to tell them apart. “My hunch was that dire wolves were possibly a specialized lineage or subspecies of gray wolf,” Mitchell says.

But the new evidence told a different story. Preliminary genetic analyses indicated that dire and gray wolves were not close relatives. “I think I can speak for the whole group when I say the results were definitely a surprise,” Perri says.

After sequencing five genomes from dire wolf fossils between 50,000 and 13,000 years old, the researchers found that the animals belonged to a much older lineage of dogs. Dire wolves, it now appeared, had evolved in the Americas and had no close kinship with the gray wolves from Eurasia; the last time gray wolves and dire wolves shared a common ancestor was about 5.7 million years ago. The strong resemblance between the two, the researchers say, is a case of convergent evolution, whereby different species develop similar adaptations—or even appearances—thanks to a similar way of life. Sometimes such convergence is only rough, such as both birds and bats evolving wings despite their differing anatomy. In the case of dire and gray wolves, lives of chasing large herbivores to catch some meat on the hoof resulted in two different canid lineages independently producing wolflike forms.

“These results totally shake up the idea that dire wolves were just bigger cousins of gray wolves,” says Yukon paleontologist Grant Zazula, who was not involved in the new study. In fact, the similarity between the two has led gray wolves to be taken as proxies for dire wolf biology and behavior, from pack dynamics to the sound of the animal’s howls. The dire wolf’s new identity means that many previous assumptions—down to what it looked like in life—require reinvestigation. “The study of ancient DNA and proteins from fossil bones is rapidly rewriting the ice age and more recent history of North America’s mammals,” Zazula says.

In technical terms, the new findings mean dire wolves may need a new genus name to indicate they are no longer be part of the genus Canis, to which gray wolves belong. Perri, Mitchell and their colleagues suggest Aenocyon, meaning “terrible wolf.” But the researchers don’t expect their findings to completely overturn tradition, and Aenocyon dirus would likely continue to be called the dire wolf. “They will just join the club of things like maned wolves that are called wolves but aren’t really,” Perri says.

The new findings also add layers to experts’ ruminations on why dire wolves eventually disappeared as the last ice age closed. These predators became specialized in hunting camels, horses, bison and other herbivores in North America over millions of years. As those prey sources disappeared, so did the dire wolves. “In contrast to gray wolves, which are a model for adaptation,” Perri says, “dire wolves appear to be much less flexible to deal with changing environments and prey.”

Nor did dire wolves leave a genetic legacy beyond the decaying DNA in their ancient bones. Although canids such as wolves and coyotes often create hybrids, dire wolves apparently did not do so with any other canids that remain alive today. Perri, Mitchell and their colleagues found no DNA evidence of interbreeding between dire wolves and gray wolves or coyotes. Dire wolves were genetically isolated from other canids, Mitchell notes, so “hybridization couldn’t provide a way out” because dire wolves were probably unable to produce viable offspring with the recently arrived wolves from Eurasia.

By 13,000 years ago, dire wolves were facing extinction. Evolving in the harsh, variable environments of Eurasia may have given gray wolves an edge, Zazula notes, “while the big, bad dire wolves got caught off guard relaxing in southern California at the end of the ice age.” But what might sound like the end of the dire wolf’s story is really only the beginning. Preserved genes have shown that dire wolves and their ancestors were top dogs in the Americas for more than five million years—and the early chapters of their story are waiting to be rewritten.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Riley Black, who formerly wrote under the name Brian Switek, is the author of Skeleton Keys and My Beloved Brontosaurus. She lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.