Saturday, March 06, 2021

What can stream quality tell us about quality of life?

VIRGINIA TECH

As the source of most of the water we drink and a place where we often go to recreate and enjoy nature, streams represent a crucial point-of-contact between human beings and the environment.

Now researchers in the College of Natural Resources and Environment and the Department of Biological Systems Engineering are using stream quality data to find new insights into the interactions between the health of our natural spaces and human well-being.

Their findings, published in the journal Ecological Indicators, reveal that demographics such as race and population density, as well as health indices such as cancer rates and food insecurity, show strong correlations with water quality across the Commonwealth of Virginia.

"We started off wanting to explore the general, intuitive relationship between human well-being and ecosystem health," explained Paul Angermeier, professor in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation and assistant unit leader of the Virginia Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit for the U.S. Geological Survey. "Many of us intuit that healthy ecosystems produce benefits that accrue to people, but that outcome isn't well documented in a quantitative way."

To document that relationship, the research team had to break from the environmental quality management processes that too often separate the natural world from human experiences.

"When we consider natural resources, we tend to think about whether we're managing an environment for nonhuman considerations or human ones," said Associate Professor Leigh-Anne Krometis, of the Department of Biological Systems Engineering, which is in both the College of Engineering and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. "For instance, at the state level we have a department of environmental quality and a department of health, which both deal with the subject of water quality, but in different ways. What we wanted to see was how those two perspectives converge."

To find correlations across the state, the researchers used two key data sets: water quality measurements provided by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and county-level demographics data from the U.S. Census Bureau. They considered 13 indicators of human well-being, four demographic metrics, and two indicators of stream health.

"We had large data sets that we had to organize and process," explained Professor Marc Stern of the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation. "Our expectations on finding meaningful relationships between stream health and human factors weren't that high. The fact that they showed up so distinctly was a surprise."

What the researchers found is that there is a strong correlation between ecosystem health and human demographics, particularly along the lines of race. Stream conditions were found to be better in counties with higher percentages of white residents. More polluted streams were correlated with higher degrees of overall mortality.

"The term environmental justice is important to bring into our discussion," noted Stern, a senior fellow in the Center for Leadership in Global Sustainability. "These findings relate to the broader issue of systemic prejudices and the reality that our institutions and social systems do not favor marginalized communities. They get caught up in a cycle of being left behind, and while it's not impossible to break that pattern, it's going to take work."

Virginia is a suitable microcosm for revealing such dimensions: the state has high-density urban cities, suburban and rural areas, coastal and mountain geographies, and a broad socio-economic diversity that make it a useful starting point for broader research into the subject of human-environment interactions.

A crucial next step for the researchers is understanding how people are interacting with natural environments.

"We still don't have hard data on how people are interacting with nature," said Angermeier, who, along with Krometis, is an affiliate of Virginia Tech's Global Change Center housed in the Fralin Life Sciences Institute. "For instance, we found that mortality rates for people are correlated with contamination levels in fish. What does that mean? Are people eating contaminated fish, are they merely sharing a polluted water source, or is it something else? A better understanding of the mechanisms by which people are interacting with water will help us draw clearer conclusions about health outcomes."

###

The project was funded by Virginia Tech's Global Change Center, the Institute for Society, Culture, and the Environment, and the Fralin Life Sciences Institute. The contributing faculty members aim to expand their research by looking to see if similar correlations between environment health and human well-being extend across the Mid-Atlantic and the U.S. as a whole.

Charting our changing cities

SINGAPORE MANAGMENT UNIVERSITY

Research News

IMAGE:
LEFT (TOP-BOTTOM): SMU ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY WINSTON CHOW; SMU ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR HUMANITIES ORLANDO WOODS.
RIGHT: SMU PRESIDENT AND LEE KONG CHIAN CHAIR PROFESSOR OF SOCIAL SCIENCES LILY... view more
CREDIT: SINGAPORE MANAGEMENT UNIVERSITY

SMU Office of Research & Tech Transfer - For most of human history, populations across the world lived in low-density, rural settings. Over the past few centuries, however, this changed dramatically with the trend of urbanisation. Today, more than four billion people live in urban settings worldwide; by 2050, about two thirds of the world's population are expected to live in cities.

Despite their rapid growth, cities do not spring up fully formed, but are shaped by evolving human constructs including government policy, legal frameworks and emerging technologies. It is precisely because much of human life is now led in cities that it is essential to examine these constructs and their implications on city living, said SMU President Professor Lily Kong at the New Cities in the New Normal workshop on 22 January 2021.

The workshop was coordinated by the SMU Cities Research Cluster (CRC), which comprises the School of Social Sciences (SOSS) faculty Associate Professor Winston Chow, Assistant Professor Ishani Mukherjee, Associate Professor Orlando Woods and Assistant Professor Fiona Williamson.

Building better cities

Cities today are guilty of contributing to many challenges humanity collectively faces, Professor Kong said in her opening remarks, citing the example of climate change and the corresponding need for sustainable living. This concept of sustainable living goes "far beyond" environmental issues, she qualified. It touches on social issues too - for example, ageing populations and how to sustain an elderly population in an urban environment.

This is where universities come in, providing research and education that can turn interdisciplinary, complex theories into tangible policy actions, Professor Kong explained. Concurring with Professor Kong, Professor Chow pointed out that with the recent pandemic altering countless aspects of city living, it has become even more crucial for university researchers to examine these changes in government policy, legal frameworks and emerging technologies - so as to understand their impact on cities of the future.

Agreeing that the COVID-19 outbreak has reshaped city life, Professor Shenjing He of the University of Hong Kong emphasised the issue of limited physical and social mobility. The latter is an important consideration as it is highly related to quality of life and wellbeing in cities, she said.

Moving through physical and virtual worlds

In her keynote speech, Professor He observed that as the pandemic was curtailing physical mobility - with people's movements largely restricted to their nearby communities and neighbourhoods - it was also reducing social mobility. "It's a public health crisis, but also a huge economic and social crisis... you see unemployment and economic hardship on the rise and it's hitting disadvantaged people the hardest," she said.

Since the concept of mobility also pertains to travel between cities, Professor He brought up the issue of pandemic travel bans and countries working to develop travel bubbles. "This creates a selective mobility only available to certain countries and particular [privileged] groups," she shared. "It actually signifies a more segregated and divided world."

Professor Woods further advanced this dialogue on inequality and equitable access in the next panel discussion on New Cities in the New Normal, which featured Associate Professor Hallam Stevens from NTU Institute of Science and Technology for Humanity (NISTH), and Professor Stephen Cairns, a Programme Director at the Future Cities Laboratory.

Examining the issue from a digital angle, Professor Stevens said that post-pandemic cities have grown to encompass more than the physical spaces they take up. "[They are] intertwined with all of these online spaces that we exist in at the same time. And we spend so much time in these online spaces," he said. As social distancing measures continue, human life and interactions are increasingly playing out on virtual spaces. This underscores a new need to include the novel kinds of digital rights in discussions of equitable access, Professor Stevens concluded.

Collaboration and communication

When it comes to public discussions on inequality and sustainable living, researchers can play a role in kickstarting much-needed conversations, said Professor Chow, who hosted a second panel session on urban sustainability featuring Dr Olivia Jensen, Lead Scientist for Environment and Climate at the Lloyd's Register Foundation (LRF) Institute for the Public Understanding of Risk; Dr Limin Hee, Director of Research at the Centre for Liveable Cities; and Dr Hui Mien Lee, Vice President for Sustainable Solutions at Mandai Park Development and Wildlife Reserves Singapore.

Adding to the discussion on the role of research in inspiring policy changes, the panellists concurred that much like the sprawling nature of a city, the myriad dimensions of such research would necessitate collaborations with multiple players in the ecosystem. "Academics, agencies, practitioners, developers... in coming up with integrated, systems-level solutions, we all have different roles to play," Dr Hee said.

Apart from establishing partnerships with other organisations, Dr Jensen also emphasised the importance of effective communication in turning academic studies into tangible action. "Who are the people you need to know? What are the barriers to them using it? And how can you, as a researcher, enable that process?" she asked the audience. "If you've done a great piece of work collecting and analysing data, then when it comes to communicating the results be as strategic and analytical as you would be in the research itself," she advised.

As cities continue to evolve, so too should the conversations about sustainability research, and workshops such as these, held virtually in light of the ongoing pandemic, play an important role by bringing more people into the discussion and broadening our understanding.

By Sheryl Lee

How heavy snow reduces road injuries: less bicycling, safer transport

Japanese study shows intriguing correlation in how heavy snowfall prompts modal shifts from bike riding to other types of transport, thereby reducing serious road injuries

UNIVERSITY OF TSUKUBA

Research News

Tsukuba, Japan - Heavy snowfall slows things down and makes it harder to get from point A to point B. But snow clouds have a silver lining--heavy snow may prevent serious road injuries and even save lives. How? By getting people off bicycles and switching to safer modes of transport.

Japanese researchers examined 10 years of police data on road injuries among commuting junior high school students. They found that areas with monthly snowfall of at least 100 cm had almost no bicycling-related injuries. Total injuries among cyclists and pedestrians also fell by 68%. The findings were published in the Journal of Epidemiology.

The logic is quite simple. When there's heavy snow, people can't get around by bicycle--or at least it's a lot harder. So they may switch to public transportation or walking. This "modal shift" may offer a broader solution for road safety.

"There have been studies suggesting, for instance, bus priority lanes or use of public transport can reduce road injuries or deaths," says Professor Masao Ichikawa, a study coauthor from the University of Tsukuba. "But there isn't enough evidence to determine if modal shifts reduce road injuries at a regional or national level."

To examine this, Professor Ichikawa's research team needed a population that switches transport modes wholesale and that also may suffer high road injury rates. School-aged children incur such rates during their commutes. And junior high schoolers, who often bike to school, have to find other ways of commuting in the snowy months.

The researchers calculated injury rates spanning a decade among junior high schoolers across Japan's 47 prefectures. They focused on cyclist and pedestrian injuries. They then plotted these in relation to snowfall and looked at injury rate changes in areas with ?100 cm (~39.4 inches) of snowfall in at least 1 month of the study period. Areas with heavy snow saw a marked decline in cyclist injuries in December-February, but there was little variation in less-snowy regions.

"This suggests that when the junior high schoolers shifted from biking to other modes of transport, there was a distinct decline in road injuries," Professor Ichikawa says. "Using snowfall as the exposure variable, and with 10 years of nationwide data, we could make some solid estimates. Modal shift may effectively increase road safety, especially in areas where cyclists are at high risk."

###

Starting in 2011, the United Nations has launched and promoted two decades' worth of action to advance road safety, against the backdrop of 1.3 million annual deaths and 54 million injuries on the world's roads. Professor Ichikawa's study offers clues on how to work to reduce these numbers.

The article, "Reduced road injuries while commuting due to heavy snowfall and ensuing modal shifts among junior high school students in Japan," was published in the Journal of Epidemiology at https://doi.org/10.2188/jea.JE20200504

Tesla has partnered with a nickel mine after Elon Musk said the metal was the group's 'biggest concern' amid shortage fears

kduffy@insider.com (Kate Duffy)

Tesla may become an adviser of a nickel mine in New Caledonia, a deal seen by Reuters showed.

The agreement may allow Tesla to buy nickel for its battery production amid concerns of shortages.

Elon Musk tweeted previously, "Nickel is our biggest concern for scaling lithium-ion cell production."

Tesla on Thursday agreed to partner with a nickel mine in New Caledonia in an effort to secure more of the resource, which is key in the production of lithium-ion batteries in electric cars, Reuters reported.

Tesla is expected to become an industrial adviser at the Pacific island's Goro mine, which is owned by Brazilian mining giant Vale and is a French overseas territory.

Reuters reported that the electric-car maker is set to help with product and sustainability standards and buying nickel for its battery production, an agreement with the New Caledonian government showed.

The move comes amid growing concerns about the demand for nickel, as the acceleration of electric-vehicle production could lead to low supplies.

"Nickel is our biggest concern for scaling lithium-ion cell production," Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, tweeted February 25.

This echoed his tweet from July: "Nickel is the biggest challenge for high-volume, long-range batteries." Musk added that nickel production in Australia, Canada, and Indonesia is going well, but in the US it's "objectively very lame."

There has been large unrest in the region since Vale and the French state decided to sell the nickel mine to Swiss commodity trader Trafigura in early December. This triggered strikes and protests from pro-independence groups, which forced Vale to shut down the site in the same month.

The agreement cited by Reuters showed that the new deal means a 51% stake in the Vale operations may be held by New Caledonia's provincial authorities and other local interests. Trafigura is expected to hold a 19% stake - less than the 25% planned in the original sale agreement with Vale, the outlet reported.

Tesla won't have a stake, just a partnership that will secure its electric-battery supply chain as it ramps up production. "Our task now is to complete any and all outstanding items to allow the transaction to formally conclude," Vale said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

New Caledonia is the world's fourth-largest nickel producer. The material is also mined mostly in Russia, Canada, and Indonesia.

Sports information on social networks leaves out women, disabled and minority disciplines

A study describes the inequality in how information about these groups is handled on the Twitter profiles of four European public broadcasters

UNIVERSITY OF SEVILLE

Research News

Researchers from the University of Seville and Pompeu Fabra University argue that sports information on social media is dominated by men and football. This leaves out women's sports, sports featuring athletes with disabilities and minority disciplines, thus repeating the reality of the traditional media. That is the main conclusion of a study analysing more than 7,000 tweets published by the profiles of four public media in four European countries.

The study analysed the posts by the Twitter profiles providing sports news of the public broadcasters of Spain (RTVE), France (France TV), Ireland (RTÉ) and Italy (RAI). Between 30% and 58% of the tweets by these media related to football. However, differences were observed between them, mainly depending on the successes of national athletes, the tradition of certain sports in those countries and, a decisive factor in television, whether the media outlet in question held the broadcasting rights of the competitions being reported.

Thus, basketball, motorcycling, handball and indoor football received greater prominence from RTVE. Each of them accounted for between 8.6% and 10.1% of all tweets. Rugby stood out (21%) on France TV, followed by skiing, tennis and motor sports, with the Dakar rally taking centre stage. Irish broadcaster RTÉ regularly reported on local sports such as Gaelic football (12.5%), hurling (7.45%) and horse racing (5.2%). And on Italy's RAI, where football took the highest share of tweets published (58.3%), other major and traditional sports in the country's sporting culture, such as cycling, were very present. The study also underscores that athletics, one of the sports with the longest tradition and the backbone of the Olympic Games, was barely visible on Twitter, with a share ranging between 1.48% and 2.84% in the media analysed.

France TV offered more diverse coverage, as its publications covered a total of 36 sporting disciplines. It was followed by RTVE and RTÉ with 35 and RAI with 28. However, two thirds of these other sports had only an anecdotal or casual presence, with less than 15 tweets per sport.

"It is striking that these are corporations with a clear public service duty that, in theory, should make more of an effort to accommodate a greater plurality of voices, sources and topics," says José Luis Rojas, professor in the Department of Journalism II at the University of Seville and author of the study along with Xavier Ramon, professor at the Pompeu Fabra University.

The pattern is repeated with regard to diversity in terms of gender or disability. Female athletes were underrepresented in all the profiles analysed, accounting for an average of only 9.4% of the total number of tweets published by the four public broadcasters, compared to 84.5% whose protagonist was male and around 6% with mixed protagonists. Hardly any differences were observed between the countries in this respect. France TV gave most presence to women athletes, accounting for 13.2% of its tweets.

This information imbalance was even more evident when it came to athletes with disabilities. Only 43 of the 7,426 tweets in the study referred to athletes with disabilities. "This is very striking considering that the Paralympic Games were held in the year covered by the study," says Professor Rojas.

These data show that Twitter reproduces the sports media coverage model that existed before social media and, as such, contributes to reinforcing, rather than alleviating, information gaps in the media's agenda. The push that these media give to distribute content, their visibility, their impact to reach global audiences and also their interaction, are not being used by the media to offer greater diversity in their coverage.

On the contrary, researchers argue that the media use social media, in this case Twitter, to multiply the visibility of their content and to reinforce the promotion of their coverage and their media brand. Many of their tweets focus on raising the visibility of their broadcasts and the work of their employees, through self-promotion of programmes, and by offering highlights of their coverage, especially events for which they have the broadcast rights. These publications do not always respond purely to criteria of newsworthiness. Instead, the main intention is to have an impact and achieve audience interaction, to reach as many people as possible. For this reason, the study's authors argue that, in their approach to sports coverage, these public media hardly differ from private media companies

THE ORIGINAL BIRTH CONTROL

One size doesn't fit all when it comes to products for preventing HIV from anal sex

MICROBICIDE TRIALS NETWORK

Research News

The initial insights from the study, aptly named DESIRE (Developing and Evaluating Short-acting Innovations for Rectal Use), are being reported on March 6 in a Science Spotlight session at the virtual meeting of the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI), March 6-10. The presentation will be available for registered participants and media to view throughout the meeting.

Conducted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded Microbicide Trials Network (MTN), DESIRE focused on potential delivery methods for rectal microbicides - topical products being developed and tested to reduce a person's risk of acquiring HIV and other sexually transmitted infections from anal sex. MTN researchers are particularly interested in on-demand options - used around the time of sex - and behaviorally congruent options that deliver anti-HIV drugs via products people may already be using as part of their sex routine.

"DESIRE stands out as a unique study because we took a step back and said, 'Let's figure out the modality without automatically pairing it with a drug'," explained José A. Bauermeister, Ph.D., M.P.H., study protocol chair and Albert M. Greenfield Professor of Human Relations at the University of Pennsylvania. "It gave us the ability to manipulate the delivery method without having to worry about how reactions to a particular drug might confound the results. We also had people trying out these methods in their own lives, and only then asked them to weigh the attributes of each." As such, he said, participants weren't making choices based on theoretical concepts, but instead using real experiences to guide their preferences.

Launched in 2019, DESIRE, also referred to as MTN-035, is the first study to explore multiple placebo methods for delivering a rectal microbicide. The three delivery methods assessed included a fast-dissolving placebo insert approximately two-thirds of an inch in length, a placebo suppository approximately an inch and a half in length, and a commercially available 120 mL douche bottle that participants were instructed to fill with clean tap or bottled water prior to use.

The study enrolled 217 participants who used each rectal delivery method for a month at a time, with a week-long break in between. Study participants, whose average age was 25 years, included cisgender men who have sex with men (79 percent) as well as transgender women (19 percent) and transgender men (2 percent) who have sex with men. The participants, based in Malawi, Peru, South Africa, Thailand and the United States (Birmingham, Pittsburgh and San Francisco), were instructed to use each method between 30 minutes and 3 hours prior to engaging in receptive anal sex, or once a week if they had not engaged in receptive anal sex in a given week.

To evaluate the acceptability of each method, participants were asked to complete a four-item survey once a week by text, commonly referred to as short message service (SMS), in their preferred language. After a month of using a particular delivery method, they were asked to complete a computer-assisted interview, with a subset of participants also completing an in-depth interview led by one of the study researchers.

At their final study visit, participants ranked attributes of a hypothetical product for preventing HIV from anal sex, and researchers used conjoint analysis - a market research approach that measures the value consumers place on features of a product or service - to calculate the percentage of weight participants gave to each attribute. They found that efficacy was the strongest determinant of participants' stated modality choice at 30 percent, followed by delivery method (18 percent) and side effects (17 percent). Other factors - timing of use before sex, duration of protection, frequency of use, and the need for a prescription - were not weighted as having as much importance by study participants. Through further analysis, researchers identified the participants' most preferred package based on the product features: A douche used 30 minutes before sex with 95 percent efficacy that offers three to five days of protection. This ideal product would also only need to be used once a week, have no side effects, and be available over the counter.

While this market research approach offered insights into the most common package of features, participants also underscored how each of the modalities could offer unique advantages in their daily lives.

"As you might expect, the context of the participants' lives informed their product choice," said Dr. Bauermeister. "When asked to rank the most preferred product attributes, they based their answers on their own experiences and the tradeoffs they might make in real-life situations." In some instances, he explained, discretion might be important, so a small tablet in the form of a fast-dissolving rectal insert that could be carried in your pocket might be the best option. At other times, hygiene may be a priority and a douche would be preferred. As a pre-lubricated product, even the suppository had unexpected advantages with some participants commenting about it's potential as an alternative to sexual lubricant.

"The lesson we learned from MTN-035 is that even though the douche was preferred overall, we shouldn't assume it's right for everyone every time they plan to have sex," said Dr. Bauermeister. "Depending on who you are, what you do and where you live, it may not be a viable, or even a desirable, option for HIV prevention. At the end of the day, people could see all three of these modalities fitting into their lives."

Researchers like Dr. Bauermeister are hopeful these results will inform the development of rectal microbicides moving forward, and lead to expanded choices in preventing HIV from anal sex.

###

MTN-035 was conducted at the following clinical research sites (CRSs): the College of Medicine-Johns Hopkins Research Project in Blantyre, Malawi; the IMPACTA CRS in Lima, Peru; the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute in Johannesburg, South Africa; the Chiang Mai University HIV Prevention CRS in Thailand; and, in the United States, the University of Pittsburgh CRS, Bridge HIV CRS in San Francisco, and University of Alabama at Birmingham CRS.

The MTN is funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute of Mental Health, all part of the NIH. The placebo rectal insert used in the study was developed by CONRAD, a not-for-profit research and development organization based at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Va.

Dr. Bauermeister's presentation "Developing and Evaluating Short-Acting Innovations for Rectal Use (Desire): Acceptability and choice for three placebo products used with receptive anal intercourse among young MSM and TG people" will be viewable beginning at 12:01 a.m. (EST), Saturday, March 6. Please visit http://www.croiconference.org for more information.

The MTN is funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health grants UM1AI068633, UM1AI068615, UM1AI106707. CONRAD's support for MTN-035 and provision of the placebo insert is made possible by the generous support of the American people through a Cooperative Agreement (AID-OAA-A-14-00010) with the U.S. Agency for International Development/U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

About the Microbicide Trials Network

The Microbicide Trials Network (MTN) is an HIV/AIDS clinical trials network established in 2006 by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases with co-funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute of Mental Health, all components of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Based at Magee-Womens Research Institute and the University of Pittsburgh, the MTN brings together international investigators and community and industry partners whose work is focused on the rigorous evaluation of promising microbicides - products applied inside the vagina or rectum that are intended to prevent the sexual transmission of HIV - from the earliest phases of clinical study to large-scale trials that support potential licensure of these products for widespread use. More information about the MTN is available at https://mtnstopshiv.org.

"Magic sand" might help us understand the physics of granular matter

Children's toy an ideal modifier for interparticle adhesion and mechanical properties

TOKYO METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY

Research News

IMAGE: (A) MICROSCOPY IMAGES (TOP) AND CORRESPONDING PILES OF SAND (BOTTOM) FOR DIFFERENT MIXING RATIOS OF COATED AND UNCOATED SAND. (B) MICROSCOPY IMAGES SHOWING THREADS OF SILICONE OIL BETWEEN COATED SAND... view more
CREDIT: TOKYO METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY

Tokyo, Japan - Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have studied the properties of mixtures of silicone-coated "magic sand", a popular kid's toy, and normal sand. Silicone-coated sand particles were found to interact with each other only, and not with other sand particles. The team discovered that adding silicone-coated sand beyond a certain threshold leads to an abrupt change in clustering and rigidity, a simple, useful way to potentially tune the flow of granular materials for industry.

Sand is a fascinating material. It can flow and be poured like a liquid, but retains many of the properties of solids, clogging pipes or forming sand dunes. The behavior of collections of small particles like sand is known as granular physics, and is an immensely important field for the handling and transport of the wide range of granular materials out there like grains, rice, powders, and the vast amounts of sand used in the construction industry.

A key conundrum of this branch of physics is the sheer numbers involved. Grains interact via simple, Newtonian mechanics, but because so many particles are interacting at once, there is an emergent complexity of flow behavior that cannot yet be explained by simple equations. Scientists are thus not only looking for better theoretical models to explain granular behavior, but convenient "model systems" that can be handled and tuned in the lab to give insights into how the microscopic structure of granular materials gives rise to their macroscopic properties.

A team led by Assistant Professor Marie Tani and Professor Rei Kurita of Tokyo Metropolitan University have been studying what happens to sand when sand gets wet. It is well known that beach sand, for example, behaves completely differently; sand castles would be tricky to build when dry! This behavior is largely due to the formation of "bridges" of liquid between particles, known as capillary bridges, strongly tying grains together to form load-bearing structures. However, homogeneous wet sand is notoriously hard to prepare in the lab; it's hard to mix evenly, and dries very quickly. To overcome this issue, they instead used "magic sand," hydrophobic sand particles coated in silicone oil, commonly available as a kid's toy. The team found that not only does "magic sand" strongly attract each other via thin strands of oil, but it completely ignores normal sand, simply bumping into it like dry grains. By mixing "magic sand" and normal sand in different ratios, the team could freely study how wet sand behaves down to even the smallest liquid fractions, where only some grains are connected via capillary bridges.

Using three independent methods involving sieving, measuring density and forming stable mounds of sand, they found that the mechanical properties of the mixture changes drastically when the fraction of magic sand to normal sand exceeds 20%. This agreed with findings from percolation theory, which studies how connections between particles span space without any breakages, letting the sand mixture behave significantly more solid-like and bear its own weight. This behavior is known for polymer gels, and helps unify theoretical approaches applied to completely different materials.

The team's mixtures also provide a convenient material for industry with mechanical properties that can be easily modified. Importantly, the method provides a new, convenient, accurate and informative way to explore granular physics, and may become the new default for scientists in future investigations.

###

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (20K14431, 17H02945, and 20H01874).

LONG READ

FBI informant: Facebook led me to infiltrate plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer

LANSING — It started with a Facebook recommendation.

Dan, a 34-year-old Michigan man whose last name prosecutors are withholding for security reasons, testified Friday that he was scrolling the social media site last year when it suggested he join the Wolverine Watchmen group.

An Army veteran and firearm safety instructor, Dan said he was interested in guns and a member of pro-Second Amendment groups. He suspects that’s why the Facebook algorithm suggested he join what turned out to be a radical militia group whose members were preparing for a “Boogaloo” civil war.

He clicked, triggering a months-long odyssey that landed him in the middle of an extremist movement that prosecutors say culminated in a plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. For much of the time, he wore a wire for the FBI and recorded audio, including surveillance of her home.

Testifying Friday in Jackson County’s 12th District Court, Dan said concerns about violence against police and politicians outweighed growing worries about his own safety and that of his daughter.

“I had a knee jerk” reaction against working with the FBI initially, he said in testimony, his video feed turned off to protect his identity. “But I agreed to do it.”

His insider story capped a three-day preliminary exam for Joe Morrison, Pete Musico and Paul Bellar — three of eight men facing state charges as alleged domestic terrorists. Seven other men implicated more directly in the alleged kidnapping plot face federal charges.

Bellar, 21 of Milford, is charged with multiple 20-year felonies, including gang membership and providing material support for terrorist acts. Musico, 42, and Morrison, 26, who lived together in Munith, face similar charges, including 20-year felony counts for a threat of terrorism.

Paul Bellar, 21, of Milford also is charged in the plot to kidnap Whitmer, but his attorney says he moved out of Michigan last summer. (Courtesy photo)

Judge Michael Klaeren said he will decide by March 29 whether prosecutors presented enough evidence to send the Michigan trio to trial.

Dan’s day-long testimony revealed new details of secret meetings, tactical training, surveillance and plans he said involved militia groups in multiple states. The planning culminated with a plan to kidnap Whitmer to either kill her or put her “on trial” for her COVID-19 orders in a “kangaroo court” in Wisconsin, he testified.

Defense attorneys sought to distance their clients from the plot, which the FBI said it foiled in October.

Muscio’s attorney repeatedly referred to his client as “crazy Pete,” suggesting he was known for saying “crazy things” and is not a leader. Bellar’s attorney noted he’d left the Watchmen in late July and moved to South Carolina. Morrison’s attorney said he walked away from the group to “take care of his marriage” in late August, days before other men staked out the governor’s vacation home.

But authorities contend all three provided material support to the plotters, participating in meetings, hosting firearms training sessions and brainstorming possible attacks on the Michigan Capitol.

Musico’s attorney noted Dan had suffered a traumatic brain injury while serving in the military and admitted to memory issues. The lawyer questioned whether the court can trust the informant’s testimony as a result.

Pete Musico, 42, of Munith, faces 20 years in prison for a host of charges related to an alleged plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. His attorney says he is more talk than action. (Courtesy photo)

“I wasn’t there to remember dates and times,” Dan responded. “I was there to maintain access for the FBI.”

‘A threat to law enforcement’

Dan said had no intention of becoming an informant when he joined the Wolverine Watchmen, motivated instead by an interest in firearm training.

He was admitted to the private Facebook group after answering three questions online in what was an initial vetting process, he said. He then joined core members in an encrypted chat after answering additional questions.

“They asked my views on government,” he recounted, going on to describe himself as a Libertarian who doesn’t “believe in big government” and had sworn an oath to defend the country “against all enemies, both foreign and domestic.”

He testified that he didn’t like what he saw in the encrypted chat.

Dan said he was “alarmed” to see a post from Musico about how to find the home addresses of police officers that he understood as a threat to “kill them.”

Musico, who authorities identified as a founding member of the Wolverine Watchmen, told the group he had “followed a police officer to his home, thrown a Molotov Cocktail on his house and then went out back with a rifle,” Dan testified.

Pressed by Musico’s attorney, the informant acknowledged he does not know if that story was true. But it was concerning, nonetheless, and prompted him to reach out to a friend who is a police officer for advice.

“This was not training,” Dan told the court. “This was wanting to do violence. I felt that was a threat to law enforcement.”

Dan met with the police officer, who eventually relayed the information to FBI agents. They persuaded him to become an informant.

No need to storm Capitol if guns are allowed

Dan testified that his time with the militia included weapons training in Munith, a gathering in Wisconsin where militants debated attack targets and a meeting in a Grand Rapids vacuum shop where the plot against Whitmer crystallized.

On April 30, at a raucous anti-Whitmer protest at the Michigan Capitol, the atmosphere was so tense that Dan testified he stepped away and spoke to FBI agents directly into his wire.

The fear was “we were going to storm the Capitol,” Dan recounted.

As thousands gathered outside, Musico, Bellar and Morrison carried AR-15s while recruiting new members to the Wolverine Watchmen. Bellar, in particular, said he wanted to “bum rush the Capitol, like a bull in a China shop, just go right through it,” the informant testified.

Joe Morrison, 26, of Munith is charged with felonies related to the plot to kidnap Whitmer, but his attorney claims he left a militia group before the conspiracy took root. (Courtesy photo)

Musico was under the impression Whitmer was inside the Capitol and told colleagues he “was going to go out to the opposite side of the building and catch that bitch as she was coming out of the emergency exit,” Dan testified.

The threat, though, vanished when the armed men realized Michigan is one of the few states in the nation that doesn’t ban guns.

It was open for visitors, and there was no need to breach the doors because state police were letting in demonstrators after a temperature check as a COVID-19 precaution.

“We couldn’t take signs, but we could bring our firearms,” the informant recounted, describing Capitol rules that only recently changed with a new ban on openly carried firearms. Concealed pistols are still allowed.

Once inside, the Watchmen joined a large group that had gathered outside the House chambers, the informant recalled. Muscio joined the fray and “was antagonizing police officers directly in their face,” Dan said.

“They were trying to get the people riled up,” Dan said. “At times Pete would yell ‘two steps forward,’ trying to move a line towards the chamber doors.”

He said the Watchmen roamed the Capitol and knocked on doors, finding what they thought was Whitmer’s office, likely the ceremonial office she keeps there.

They pounded on the door “in a show of force,” but later posed for pictures in front of the office once they realized she was not there.

Several Wolverine Watchmen had also attended the “Operation Gridlock” protest in Lansing on April 15, Dan recounted. Thousands of cars circled the Michigan Capitol in a protest against Whitmer’s COVID-19 lockdown orders that was organized by activist Meshawn Maddock, who is now co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party.

Musico told colleagues “he had a grenade inside of his vehicle” during the protest, the informant testified, later acknowledging under cross examination that he had not actually seen the explosive device in question.

“It could have been packed with sand for all you know,” the attorney said.

“It could have been packed with C4,” Dan responded, noting that Musico had on another occasion shown him something he claimed was C4 explosives.
‘Separate life’

Dan spent months as a mole inside the Watchmen, where he was quickly elevated to leadership position because of his Army background and specialized training, he said.

Not only did he wear a wire, he gave the FBI access to his email, encrypted chat and Facebook accounts so they could monitor the group.

Defense attorneys have argued the FBI may have entrapped their clients by using a paid informant, suggesting Dan may have been by money. As of October, the FBI paid him $14,800 “for reporting and expenses,” according to court documents.

But Dan said he did not expect compensation when he decided to help authorities, and the money was justified because of the heavy toll his work took on his personal life.

He had to routinely take time off from his job at the U.S. Postal Service to attend militia meetings, he said. He sold his house at a loss because someone in a related militia group knew where he lived,” he claimed, and he put plans to buy his own firearm range on hold.

“I had a separate life outside of that,” he said. “I had family, work, a lot to juggle.”
‘Kick off the boogaloo’

Barely a month after militia members roamed the Capitol with guns, Dan testified he was introduced to Adam Fox, a “Three Percenter'' leader from Grand Rapids who became a leader in the Whitmer kidnapping plot.

During a June 14 training at their home in Munith, Musico and Morrison played Dan audio clips of Fox discussing potential political violence and making threats against the governor, he said.

Later that day, joined by agents in an FBI office, Dan said he called Fox for the first time.

“He was going on and on about his displeasure with the governor,” he recalled. “I believe he said he wanted to hog-tie her on a table.”

Fox also suggested a potential plan to storm the Capitol and execute Whitmer on live television to “kick off the boogaloo,” referencing a civil war that the so-called Boogaloo Boys believe will be triggered in the near future.

Musico, Dan said, had also been agitating for action at the Michigan Capitol. “This is about putting rifles in front of law enforcement and politician’s faces and pulling the trigger,” Musico said in a separate conversation, he recalled.

So again, at the June 14 meeting, Dan testified he broke away from the group and spoke directly into the wire. He warned FBI agents there may be violence at the Michigan Capitol on June 18, when militia groups were planning to organize there.

Morrison, Musico, Bellar and Fox all ended up attending that June 18 protest, Dan said.

And it was a tense moment for him personally, he recalled, because Fox performed a “pat down” to see if he was wearing a wire but did not detect the listening device the FBI had supplied him.

Fox wanted at least 200 people to storm the capital, but “fortunately there was not a large gathering of people there on that day” and they backed off plans to try and rile up the crowd, Dan said.

“Adam was fixated on taking the Capitol,” he said, but Musico eventually started advocating for a different approach that Fox and other would-be kidnappers began to consider.

“Pete would say homes and addresses,” he said. “Everybody has addresses.”

It was then, Dan testified, Fox and other plotters turned their focus on a “1-2-3 plan” to take Whitmer either in Lansing, the governor’s residence on Mackinac Island or her vacation home in northern Michigan.

Eventually, the plotters settled on the vacation home, and began surveillance, he testified. By the time the FBI foiled the plot, the militants still weren’t sure what they were going to do with her if the kidnapping was successful, Dan testified.

One idea: Maybe they’d “just leave her in Lake Michigan” to die, Dan testified.

McConnell Opposes $1,400 Stimulus Checks Because He Thinks People Could Stop Working

McConnell Opposes $1,400 Stimulus Checks Because He Thinks People Could Stop Working (newsweek.com)

AOC challenges Puerto Rico governor over statehood

Alexi McCammond
AXIOS

3/4/2021

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at New York's Puerto Rican Day Parade in 2019.

Photo: Erin Lefevre/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nydia Velázquez are pushing ahead with a bill in Congress that would let Puerto Rico decide its future — a proposal threatening Gov. Pedro Pierluisi's determination to pursue statehood for the island.

Why it matters: There's an urgency among supporters of statehood to get it done while Democrats control both chambers of Congress, and President Biden has been publicly supportive. But there's a growing divide within the party about whether statehood is actually the best solution for the U.S. territory.

During a joint phone interview with Axios on Thursday, Ocasio-Cortez said she still hasn't heard from Pierluisi, and Velázquez said she met with him virtually a few weeks ago.

Driving the news: A coalition of over 80 grassroots groups across 16 states and Puerto Rico sent a letter Thursday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, urging them to pass the Puerto Rico Self-Determination Act of 2020.

The bill, drafted by Ocasio-Cortez and Velázquez, calls for self-determination to decide the island’s future and doesn’t advocate for one solution, like statehood.

Instead, a group of delegates — elected by Puerto Rican voters — would study the issue and come up with a plan for the island’s territorial status, which includes such solutions as statehood, independence or a free association.

The big picture: This is progressives' counter-movement to Pierluisi — who campaigned on statehood and discussed the matter with "Axios on HBO" — and fellow Democrats.
On Tuesday, two Puerto Rican members of Congress — Reps. Darren Soto (D-Fla.) and Jenniffer González-Colón, Puerto Rico's non-voting member — introduced pro-statehood legislation.

What they're saying: Ocasio-Cortez and Velázquez say their proposal would help the decolonization process for Puerto Rico and provide a more serious way of deciding its future.
"The principled position — especially for the head of that colonizing power — is to say that people should have a process of self-determination and to not put your thumb on the scale of one direction or another," Ocasio-Cortez said.

Puerto Rico has held several non-binding referendums on its status, including becoming a U.S. state, since 1967.

Last November, Puerto Rico residents voted narrowly in favor of statehood (52% support to 47% against).

"This plebiscite that was conducted by the New Progressive Party was a political trick to entice people to come out to the polls," Velázquez said. She said that during her virtual meeting with Pierluisi, he told her he'd be in D.C. more often, lobbying for statehood.

"It's highly suspect when anyone is trying to prescribe an outcome for millions of people," Ocasio-Cortez said.

"We have to think about how ridiculous this is that the entire future and status of a colony of the United States should just be determined by a simple ballot referendum."

Pierluisi believes now is his time to achieve what his party wants — statehood — because Democrats control Congress. But he's learning early on in his administration that it’s not that easy, especially if progressives have a say.

Democrats are divided on whether statehood is the right move, and some say the reality of getting it done in this Congress remains slim because there are so many other things both parties are prioritizing.

The congresswomen say the outside support for their bill is a win because they're focused on building momentum outside of Congress and with constituents who are part of the Puerto Rican diaspora.

"It is important for members of Congress to get educated on this issue and know we cannot play political football with Puerto Rico," Velázquez said.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment

Saturday, March 06, 2021

Charting our changing cities

McConnell Opposes $1,400 Stimulus Checks Because He Thinks People Could Stop Working

About Me