World's first dinosaur preserved sitting on nest of eggs with fossilized babies

SCIENCE CHINA PRESS

Research News 

IMAGE: AN ATTENTIVE OVIRAPTORID THEROPOD DINOSAUR BROODS ITS NEST OF BLUE-GREEN EGGS WHILE ITS MATE LOOKS ON IN WHAT IS NOW JIANGXI PROVINCE OF SOUTHERN CHINA SOME 70 MILLION YEARS AGO.... view more 

CREDIT: © ZHAO CHUANG

The fossil in question is that of an oviraptorosaur, a group of bird-like theropod dinosaurs that thrived during the Cretaceous Period, the third and final time period of the Mesozoic Era (commonly known as the 'Age of Dinosaurs') that extended from 145 to 66 million years ago. The new specimen was recovered from uppermost Cretaceous-aged rocks, some 70 million years old, in Ganzhou City in southern China's Jiangxi Province.

"Dinosaurs preserved on their nests are rare, and so are fossil embryos. This is the first time a non-avian dinosaur has been found, sitting on a nest of eggs that preserve embryos, in a single spectacular specimen," explains Dr. Shundong Bi.

The fossil consists of an incomplete skeleton of a large, presumably adult oviraptorid crouched in a bird-like brooding posture over a clutch of at least 24 eggs. At least seven of these eggs preserve bones or partial skeletons of unhatched oviraptorid embryos inside. The late stage of development of the embryos and the close proximity of the adult to the eggs strongly suggests that the latter died in the act of incubating its nest, like its modern bird cousins, rather than laying its eggs or simply guarding its nest crocodile-style, as has sometimes been proposed for the few other oviraptorid skeletons that have been found atop nests.

"This kind of discovery, in essence fossilized behavior, is the rarest of the rare in dinosaurs," explains Dr. Lamanna. "Though a few adult oviraptorids have been found on nests of their eggs before, no embryos have ever been found inside those eggs. In the new specimen, the babies were almost ready to hatch, which tells us beyond a doubt that this oviraptorid had tended its nest for quite a long time. This dinosaur was a caring parent that ultimately gave its life while nurturing its young."

The team also conducted oxygen isotope analyses that indicate that the eggs were incubated at high, bird-like temperatures, adding further support to the hypothesis that the adult perished in the act of brooding its nest. Moreover, although all embryos were well-developed, some appear to have been more mature than others, which in turn suggests that oviraptorid eggs in the same clutch might have hatched at slightly different times. This characteristic, known as asynchronous hatching, appears to have evolved independently in oviraptorids and some modern birds.

One other interesting aspect of the new oviraptorid specimen is that the adult preserves a cluster of pebbles in its abdominal region. These are almost certainly gastroliths, or "stomach stones," rocks that would have been deliberately swallowed to aid the dinosaur in digesting its food. This is the first time that undoubted gastroliths have been found in an oviraptorid, and as such, these stones may provide new insights into the diets of these animals.

Says Dr. Xu, "It's extraordinary to think how much biological information is captured in just this single fossil. We're going to be learning from this specimen for many years to come."

###

See the article:

Bi, S., Amiot, R., de Fabrègues, C.P., Pittman, M., Lamanna, M.C., Yu, Y., Yu, C., Yang, T., Zhang, S., Zhao, Q. and Xu, X., 2020. An oviraptorid preserved atop an embryo-bearing egg clutch sheds light on the reproductive biology of non-avialan theropod dinosaurs. Science Bulletin. 2020, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scib.2020.12.018.

CAPTION

The ~70-million-year-old fossil in question: an adult oviraptorid theropod dinosaur sitting atop a nest of its eggs. Multiple eggs (including at least three that contain embryos) are clearly visible, as are the forearms, pelvis, hind limbs, and partial tail of the adult. Photo by Shundong Bi, Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

CREDIT

©Shundong Bi

Engineers propose solar-powered lunar ark as 'modern global insurance policy'

The ambitious project proposed by a University of Arizona team aims to preserve humankind - and animal-kind, plant-kind and fungi-kind - in the event of a global crisis

UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

 

IMAGE: SIDE VIEW OF THE PROPOSED ARK DESIGN. view more 

CREDIT: JEKAN THANGA

University of Arizona researcher Jekan Thanga is taking scientific inspiration from an unlikely source: the biblical tale of Noah's Ark. Rather than two of every animal, however, his solar-powered ark on the moon would store cryogenically frozen seed, spore, sperm and egg samples from 6.7 million Earth species.

Thanga and a group of his undergraduate and graduate students outline the lunar ark concept, which they call a "modern global insurance policy," in a paper presented over the weekend during the IEEE Aerospace Conference.

"Earth is naturally a volatile environment," said Thanga, a professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering in the UArizona College of Engineering. "As humans, we had a close call about 75,000 years ago with the Toba supervolcanic eruption, which caused a 1,000-year cooling period and, according to some, aligns with an estimated drop in human diversity. Because human civilization has such a large footprint, if it were to collapse, that could have a negative cascading effect on the rest of the planet."

Climate change, he added, is another concern: If sea levels continue to rise, many dry places will go underwater - including the Svalbard Seedbank, a structure in Norway that holds hundreds of thousands of seed samples to protect against accidental loss of biodiversity. Thanga's team believes storing samples on another celestial body reduces the risk of biodiversity being lost if one event were to cause total annihilation of Earth.

CAPTION

Overhead view of the proposed ark design.

CREDIT

Jekan Thanga

Totally Tubular

Scientists discovered a network of about 200 lava tubes just beneath the moon's surface in 2013. These structures formed billions of years ago, when streams of lava melted their way through soft rock underground, forming underground caverns. On Earth, lava tubes are often similar in size to subway tunnels, and can be eroded by earthquakes, plate tectonics and other natural processes. This network of lunar lava tubes are about 100 meters in diameter. Untouched for an estimated 3 billion to 4 billion years, they could provide shelter from solar radiation, micrometeorites and surface temperature changes.

The idea of developing a lunar base, or human settlement on the moon, has been around for hundreds of years, and the lava tube discovery renewed the space community's enthusiasm for the concept. But the moon isn't exactly a hospitable environment where humans can spend extended periods. There isn't water or breathable air, and it's about minus 25 degrees Celsius, or minus 15 degrees Fahrenheit. It's also not a very eventful place.

On the other hand, those same features make it a great place to store samples that need to stay very cold and undisturbed for hundreds of years at a time.

Building a lunar ark is no small undertaking, but, based on some "quick, back-of-the-envelope calculations," Thanga said it's not as overwhelming as it may sound. Transporting about 50 samples from each of 6.7 million species would require about 250 rocket launches. It took 40 rocket launches to build the International Space Station.

"It's not crazy big," Thanga said. "We were a little bit surprised about that."

Cryogenics and Quantum Levitation

The mission concept builds on another project Thanga and his group previously proposed, in which miniature flying and hopping robots called SphereX enter a lava tube in teams. There, they would collect samples of regolith, or dust and loose rock, and gather information about the layout, temperature and makeup of the lava tubes. This information could inform the construction of the lunar base.

The team's model for the underground ark includes a set of solar panels on the moon's surface that would provide electricity. Two or more elevator shafts would lead down into the facility, where petri dishes would be housed in a series of cryogenic preservation modules. An additional goods elevator shaft would be used to transport construction material so that the base can be expanded inside the lava-tubes.

To be cryopreserved, the seeds must be cooled to minus 180 C (minus 292 F) and the stem cells kept at minus 196 C (minus 320 F). As a reference for just how cold this is, the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine must be stored at minus 70 C, or minus 94 F. The fact that the lava tubes are so cold, and the samples must be even colder, means there's a risk the metal parts of the base could freeze, jam or even cold-weld together. On Earth, commercial airlines stop working when ground temperatures reach minus 45 to minus 50 C (minus 49 to minus 58 F).

However, there's a way to take advantage of the extreme temperatures by using an otherworldly phenomenon called quantum levitation. In this process, a cryo-cooled superconductor material - or a material that transfers energy without losing any heat, like a traditional cable does - floats above a powerful magnet. The two pieces are locked together at a fixed distance, so wherever the magnet goes, the superconductor follows.

"It's like they're locked in place by strings, but invisible strings," Thanga said. "When you get to cryogenic temperatures, strange things happen. Some of it just looks like magic but is based on tried and laboratory-tested physics principles at the edge of our understanding."

The team's ark design uses this phenomenon to make the shelves of samples float above metal surfaces and have robots navigate through the facility above magnetic tracks.

There is much more research to be done on how to build and operate the ark, from investigating how the preserved seeds might be affected by a lack of gravity to fleshing out a plan for base communications with Earth.

"What amazes me about projects like this is that they make me feel like we are getting closer to becoming a space civilization, and to a not-very-distant future where humankind will have bases on the moon and Mars," said Álvaro Díaz-Flores Caminero, a UArizona doctoral student leading the thermal analysis for the project. "Multidisciplinary projects are hard due to their complexity, but I think the same complexity is what makes them beautiful."

CAPTION

Jekan Thanga, professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering at the University of Arizona.

CREDIT

Active auroral arc powered by accelerated electrons from very high altitudes

NAGOYA UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: THE ARASE SATELLITE CAPTURED DATA ABOUT ELECTRONS ACCELERATED FROM VERY HIGH ALTITUDES. view more 

CREDIT: ERG SCIENCE CENTER

A critical ingredient for auroras exists much higher in space than previously thought, according to new research in the journal Scientific Reports. The dazzling light displays in the polar night skies require an electric accelerator to propel charged particles down through the atmosphere. Scientists at Nagoya University and colleagues in Japan, Taiwan and the US have found that it exists beyond 30,000 kilometres above the Earth's surface - offering insight not just about Earth, but other planets as well.

The story of aurora formation begins with supersonic plasma propelled from the Sun into space as high-speed, charged particles. When these charged particles get close to Earth, they are deflected and funnelled in streams along the planet's magnetic field lines, eventually flowing towards the poles.

"Most electrons in the magnetosphere don't reach the part of the upper atmosphere called the ionosphere, because they are repelled by the Earth's magnetic field," explains Shun Imajo of Nagoya University's Institute for Space-Earth Environmental Research, the study's first author.

But some particles receive a boost of energy, accelerating them into Earth's upper atmosphere where they collide with and excite oxygen and nitrogen atoms at an altitude of about 100 kilometres. When these atoms relax from their state of excitation, they emit the auroral lights. Still, many details about this process remain a mystery.

"We don't know all the details of how the electric field that accelerates electrons into the ionosphere is generated or even how high above Earth it is," Imajo says.

Scientists had assumed electron acceleration happened at altitudes between 1,000 and 20,000 kilometres above Earth. This new research revealed the acceleration region extends beyond 30,000 kilometres.

"Our study shows that the electric field that accelerates auroral particles can exist at any height along a magnetic field line and is not limited to the transition region between the ionosphere and magnetosphere at several thousand kilometres," says Imajo. "This suggests that unknown magnetospheric mechanisms are at play."

The team reached this finding by examining data from ground-based imagers in the US and Canada and from the electron detector on Arase, a Japanese satellite studying a radiation belt in Earth's inner magnetosphere. The data was taken from 15 September 2017 when Arase was at about 30,000 kilometres altitude and located within a thin active auroral arc for several minutes. The team was able to measure upward and downward movements of electrons and protons, ultimately finding the acceleration region of electrons began above the satellite and extended below it.

To further investigate this so-called very high-altitude acceleration region, the team next aims to analyse data from multiple aurora events, compare high-altitude and low-altitude observations, and conduct numerical simulations of electric potential.

"Understanding how this electric field forms will fill in gaps for understanding aurora emission and electron transport on Earth and other planets, including Jupiter and Saturn," Imajo says.

###

The paper, "Active auroral arc powered by accelerated electrons from very high altitudes," was published online in Scientific Reports on January 18, 2021 at DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-79665-5.

About Nagoya University, Japan

Nagoya University has a history of about 150 years, with its roots in a temporary medical school and hospital established in 1871, and was formally instituted as the last Imperial University of Japan in 1939. Although modest in size compared to the largest universities in Japan, Nagoya University has been pursuing excellence since its founding. Six of the 18 Japanese Nobel Prize-winners since 2000 did all or part of their Nobel Prize-winning work at Nagoya University: four in Physics - Toshihide Maskawa and Makoto Kobayashi in 2008, and Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano in 2014; and two in Chemistry - Ryoji Noyori in 2001 and Osamu Shimomura in 2008. In mathematics, Shigefumi Mori did his Fields Medal-winning work at the University. A number of other important discoveries have also been made at the University, including the Okazaki DNA Fragments by Reiji and Tsuneko Okazaki in the 1960s; and depletion forces by Sho Asakura and Fumio Oosawa in 1954.

Website: http://en.nagoya-u.ac.jp/

 

Five herbal medicines potent against tick-borne disease babesiosis in lab, says new study

Research supported by Bay Area Lyme Foundation points to need for more effective treatments compared to currently utilized treatments for tick-borne infections

BAY AREA LYME FOUNDATION

Research News

 

PORTOLA VALLEY, CA, March 9, 2021 -- Bay Area Lyme Foundation, a leading sponsor of Lyme disease research in the U.S., today announced the publication of new data finding that five herbal medicines had potent activity compared to commonly-used antibiotics in test tubes against Babesia duncani, a malaria-like parasite found on the West Coast of the U.S. that causes the disease babesiosis. Published in the journal Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology, the laboratory study was funded in part by the Bay Area Lyme Foundation. Collaborating researchers were from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, California Center for Functional Medicine, and FOCUS Health Group, Naturopathic.

"This research is particularly important as babesiosis is a significant emerging health risk. Due to limited therapeutics and a rise in treatment resistance, current treatment options for this disease are inadequate and many patients rely on herbal therapies for which there is only anecdotal evidence of efficacy," said co-author Sunjya K. Schweig, MD, Founder and Director, California Center for Functional Medicine and Scientific Advisory Board Member, Bay Area Lyme Foundation, who has also studied herbal treatments for Lyme disease.

"Increasingly, Americans with chronic diseases are pursuing complementary and alternative medicine to improve general health or quality of life. We hope this data offers inspiration to other researchers to further explore similar options for people living with persistent tick-borne diseases that do not respond to current treatments," added Dr. Schweig.

While current treatment protocols for babesiosis recommend use of antibiotics including atovaquone, azithromycin, clindamycin, quinine, and their combinations, these regimens are often associated with treatment failures and significant side effects, even in immunocompetent patients. In addition, epidemiologic studies have documented that up to 23% of patients with babesiosis experienced concurrent Lyme disease and its associated disabling effects.

According to this laboratory study, the five herbal medicines that demonstrated inhibitory activity against B. duncani are:

• Cryptolepis sanguinolenta
• Artemisia annua (Sweet wormwood)
• Scutellaria baicalensis (Chinese skullcap)
• Alchornea cordifolia (African Christmas bush)
• Polygonum cuspidatum (Japanese knotweed)

Further, the study discovered that the bioactive compounds derived from Cryptolepis sanguinolenta, Artemisia annua, and Scutellaria baicalensis, had comparable or even better activity against B. duncani than the commonly used antimicrobial medications quinine and clindamycin.

This is the first study to report the antibabesial activity of Scutellaria baicalensis. However, the antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory activity of Alchornea cordifolia and Polygonum cuspidatum extracts have been previously documented, and other studies have found benefits of combining agents such as compounds derived from Cryptolepis sanguinolenta and an artemisinin-based therapy.

These compounds still need to be tested both in vitro and in animal models as well as in clinical trials. While each of these botanical medicines are already in clinical use, it is important for future studies to evaluate them directly in patients using specific clinical treatment regimens, as each have the potential to produce side effects in patients, and should be taken only under the care of a clinician knowledgeable of their capabilities and toxicities.

"Herbal medicines have been successfully used by various traditional medicine systems and ancient cultures," said Linda Giampa, executive director, Bay Area Lyme Foundation. "Coinfected tick-borne disease patients frequently experience a greater number of symptoms for a longer duration than those with Lyme disease alone, pointing to the need for novel treatments for babesiosis, one of the most common tick-borne infections after Lyme disease. We hope that findings from this study are an important step towards developing new therapeutic options for doctors and their patients with persistent Lyme disease and other tick-borne infections."

###

About the Study

The paper titled "Botanical medicines Cryptolepis sanguinolenta, Artemisia annua, Scutellaria baicalensis, Polygonum cuspidatum, and Alchornea cordifolia demonstrate inhibitory activity against Babesia duncani," was authored by Yumin Zhang, Hector Alvarez-Manzo, Jacob Leone, ND, Sunjya Schweig, MD, and Ying Zhang, MD, PhD. It was published in Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology, the Parasite and Host section.

Researchers tested a panel of 46 herbal medicine extracts against B. duncani compared to the commonly used medications quinine and clindamycin, both of which are used to treat active babesiosis, a common coinfection with Lyme disease.

Plant extracts selected for the study included herbs or agents that are already in clinical use, have been previously used to manage the symptoms of patients who do not respond to standard Lyme antibiotic treatment, and have favorable safety profiles.

The combination of quinine and clindamycin was selected as the control because it is the treatment regimen recommended for all severe babesiosis infections, including B. duncani. However, a clinical trial reported that 72% of patients who received quinine plus clindamycin for babesiosis suffered side effects including tinnitus, vertigo, and gastrointestinal upset, in some cases severe enough to necessitate dosage decrease or treatment suspension.

Most of these natural products in this study were provided as ethanol extracts at 30, 60, and 90% ethanol and the ethanol solvent was also tested as a control in the respective concentrations. The natural products and ethanol controls were added to 96-well plates containing infected red blood cells to obtain final concentrations of 0.01%.

In this study, Scutellaria baicalensis showed good test tube activity against B. duncani, with the IC50 value (a widely used measure of a drug's efficacy) of baicalein practically the same as the antibiotic quinine, and up to three times more favorable than the antibiotic clindamycin. Artemisinin and artemisinin derivatives (artesunate and artemether) alone also had IC50 values that were more favorable than that of quinine and clindamycin.

These data suggest that it may be advantageous to use these herbs to simultaneously target multiple different pathogens in complex Lyme disease with coinfections. The data also might provide a basis for the clinical improvement of patients who take herbal medicines, particularly those whose chronic symptoms may be due to persistent bacteria that are not killed by conventional Lyme antibiotic treatment. However, it is critical to note that additional studies are needed to further evaluate the five active botanical medicines identified in the study. Patients should not attempt to self-treat with these herbal medicines due to potential side effects and lack of clinical trials with these products.

About Lyme Disease

The most common vector-borne infectious disease in the country, Lyme disease is a potentially disabling infection caused by the Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria transmitted through the bite of an infected tick to people and pets. If caught early, most cases of Lyme disease can be effectively treated, but it is commonly misdiagnosed due to lack of awareness and unreliable diagnostic tests. According to the CDC, there are nearly 500,000 new cases of Lyme disease each year. As a result of the difficulty in diagnosing and treating Lyme disease, more than one million Americans may be suffering from the impact of its debilitating long-term symptoms and complications, according to Bay Area Lyme Foundation estimates.

About Babesiosis

Babesiosis is a common tick-borne infection of red blood cells by malaria-like parasites called Babesia. Prevalent strains in North America include Babesia duncani, which was first discovered in Washington state and California in the early 1990's, and Babesia microti, which is endemic to the Northeast and the upper Midwest of the United States. Current diagnostic tests for babesiosis are often inaccurate, and there is no reliable treatment. In addition to transmission by tick bite, Babesia can also be transmitted vertically from mother to a fetus, and through infected blood transfusions, which is why the US. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommends testing blood donations for Babesia. Symptoms and pathogenesis may vary based on the strain of Babesia, but symptoms can be similar to those of Lyme disease. Babesiosis frequently presents with a high fever and chills, and progresses to include fatigue, headache, drenching sweats, muscle aches, chest pain, hip pain and shortness of breath, and in severe cases can lead to kidney failure.

About Bay Area Lyme Foundation

Bay Area Lyme Foundation, a national organization committed to making Lyme disease easy to diagnose and simple to cure, is a leading public charity sponsor of innovative Lyme disease research in the US. A 501c3 non-profit organization based in Silicon Valley, Bay Area Lyme Foundation collaborates with world-class scientists and institutions to accelerate medical breakthroughs for Lyme disease. It is also dedicated to providing reliable, fact-based information so that prevention and the importance of early treatment are common knowledge. A pivotal donation from The LaureL STEM Fund covers overhead costs and allows for 100% of all donor contributions to Bay Area Lyme Foundation to go directly to research and prevention programs. For more information about Lyme disease or to get involved, visit http://www.bayarealyme.org or call us at 650-530-2439.

Microsoft Exchange Server hacks ‘doubling’ every two hours

A ransomware variant is now also leveraging the critical vulnerabilities.


By Charlie Osborne for Zero Day | March 12, 2021 -- 08:35Topic: Security


Cyberattackers are taking full advantage of slow patch or mitigation processes on Microsoft Exchange Server with attack rates doubling every few hours.

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 MUST READ: Next for Windows 10: What to expect from the version 21H1 feature update

Microsoft Exchange Server hacks ‘doubling’ every two hours

A ransomware variant is now also leveraging the critical vulnerabilities.

Charlie Osborne

By Charlie Osborne for Zero Day | March 12, 2021 -- 08:35 GMT (00:35 PST) | Topic: Security

Cyberattackers are taking full advantage of slow patch or mitigation processes on Microsoft Exchange Server with attack rates doubling every few hours.  

SECURITY

Everything you need to know about the Microsoft Exchange Server hack

Cyber security 101: Protect your privacy from hackers, spies, and the government

The best antivirus software and apps

The best VPNs for business and home use

The best security keys for two-factor authentication

Why some governments are getting cyber crime gangs to do their hacking for them (ZDNet YouTube)

According to Check Point Research (CPR), threat actors are actively exploiting four zero-day vulnerabilities tackled with emergency fixes issued by Microsoft on March 2 -- and attack attempts continue to rise. 

In the past 24 hours, the team has observed "exploitation attempts on organizations doubling every two to three hours."

The countries feeling the brunt of attack attempts are Turkey, the United States, and Italy, accounting for 19%, 18%, and 10% of all tracked exploit attempts, respectively. 

Government, military, manufacturing, and then financial services are currently the most targeted industries. 

screenshot-2021-03-12-at-08-12-25.png

Palo Alto estimates that at least 125,000 servers remain unpatched worldwide.

The critical vulnerabilities (CVE-2021-26855, CVE-2021-26857, CVE-2021-26858, CVE-2021-27065) impact Exchange Server 2013, Exchange Server 2016, and Exchange Server 2019.

This week, ESET revealed at least 10 APT groups have been linked to current Microsoft Exchange Server exploit attempts. 

On March 12, Microsoft said that a form of ransomware, known as DearCry, is now utilizing the server vulnerabilities in attacks. The tech giant says that after the "initial compromise of unpatched on-premises Exchange Servers" ransomware is deployed on vulnerable systems, a situation reminiscent of the 2017 WannaCry outbreak. 

"Compromised servers could enable an unauthorized attacker to extract your corporate emails and execute malicious code inside your organization with high privileges," commented Lotem Finkelsteen, Manager of Threat Intelligence at Check Point. "Organizations who are at risk should not only take preventive actions on their Exchange, but also scan their networks for live threats and assess all assets."

According to Check Point Research (CPR), threat actors are actively exploiting four zero-day vulnerabilities tackled with emergency fixes issued by Microsoft on March 2 -- and attack attempts continue to rise.

In the past 24 hours, the team has observed "exploitation attempts on organizations doubling every two to three hours."

The countries feeling the brunt of attack attempts are Turkey, the United States, and Italy, accounting for 19%, 18%, and 10% of all tracked exploit attempts, respectively.

Government, military, manufacturing, and then financial services are currently the most targeted industries.

Palo Alto estimates that at least 125,000 servers remain unpatched worldwide.

The critical vulnerabilities (CVE-2021-26855, CVE-2021-26857, CVE-2021-26858, CVE-2021-27065) impact Exchange Server 2013, Exchange Server 2016, and Exchange Server 2019.

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Microsoft issued emergency, out-of-band patches to tackle the security flaws -- which can be exploited for data theft and server compromise -- and has previously attributed active exploit to Chinese advanced persistent threat (APT) group Hafnium.

This week, ESET revealed at least 10 APT groups have been linked to current Microsoft Exchange Server exploit attempts.

On March 12, Microsoft said that a form of ransomware, known as DearCry, is now utilizing the server vulnerabilities in attacks. The tech giant says that after the "initial compromise of unpatched on-premises Exchange Servers" ransomware is deployed on vulnerable systems, a situation reminiscent of the 2017 WannaCry outbreak.

"Compromised servers could enable an unauthorized attacker to extract your corporate emails and execute malicious code inside your organization with high privileges," commented Lotem Finkelsteen, Manager of Threat Intelligence at Check Point. "Organizations who are at risk should not only take preventive actions on their Exchange, but also scan their networks for live threats and assess all assets."

PREVIOUS AND RELATED COVERAGE
Everything you need to know about the Microsoft Exchange Server hack

Brewer Molson Coors targeted in cyber attack

Cyber criminals have disrupted beer production at Molson Coors, one of the world’s largest brewers

By Alex Scroxton, Security Editor
Published: 12 Mar 2021 11:00

Beverage company Molson Coors, the multinational brewer behind brands such as Carling, Cobra, Sharp’s and Staropramen, has fallen victim to a cyber attack that appears to have left it unable to access an undisclosed number of systems and disrupted some of its core business activities.

The Chicago-based firm disclosed the incident – which it says took place on 11 March – in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Molson Coors described the attack as a “systems outage that was caused by a cyber security incident” and said it had engaged IT forensics and legal assistance to conduct an investigation.

“The company is working around the clock to get its systems back up as quickly as possible,” the firm said in its filing. “Although the company is actively managing this cyber security incident, it has caused and may continue to cause a delay or disruption to parts of the company’s business, including its brewery operations, production and shipments.”

The precise nature of the cyber attack on the company’s systems is yet to be disclosed, but unconfirmed reports from sources within the business indicate a high probability that it is a ransomware attack.

Niamh Muldoon, global data protection officer at identity and access management specialise OneLogin, said high-profile manufacturers were particularly at risk from cyber attacks of this nature. “Ransomware remains a global cyber security threat and is the one cyber crime that has a high direct return of investment associated with it, by holding the victims’ ransom for financial payment,” she said.

“On a global scale, cyber criminals will continue to focus their efforts on this revenue-generating stream. This reinforces what we’ve said before that no industry is exempt from the ransomware threat and it requires constant focus, assessment and review to ensure that critical information assets remain safeguarded and protected against it.”

Edgard Capdevielle, CEO at Nozomi Networks, a specialist in operational technology security, added: “High profile attacks are becoming all too common, as attackers have realised they are immensely more profitable when they target large organisations and disrupt their critical business operations – in this case, the brewing operations of the world’s biggest, well known beer brands.”

Although ransomware has not been confirmed in this case, Nozomi said that such an attack should always be factored into a fit-for-purpose incident response and business continuity plan regardless.

“Beyond a technical response, decision makers need to be prepared to weigh the risks and consequences of alternate actions,” he said.

“Cyber security best practices such as strong segmentation, user training, proactive cyber hygiene programs, multi-factor authentication and the use of continuously updated threat intelligence, should be used to protect IT and operational environments from ransomware and other cyber attacks.”

Read

 more about recent cyber attacks

The attack on a video surveillance startup by a hacktivist group raises questions not just over cyber security, but the use and extent of surveillance technology.
Norway’s parliament, the Storting, suffers second major cyber incident in a year as threat groups capitalise on vulnerable Microsoft Exchange Servers.
European Banking Authority was breached through vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server, but is now back online.

Four intersecting pandemics threaten continuation of life

Irwin Jerome | Published: 00:00, Mar 10,2021



— Countercurrents

Over-heated planet, uncontrolled human population, COVID-19

A TRIAD of intersecting world-wide pandemics simultaneously threatening humanity today are the end results of its own insatiable greedy human desire for endless, unchecked growth. Ugly, profit-based, commercial development, unimaginative high-rise towers or mega-social housing projects continue to destroy everything in their wake in an impossible attempt to try to accommodate the out-of-control millions of human refugees, of one sort or another, who continue to everywhere spread like a deadly virus. The simultaneously-disastrous spreading effects of an out-of-control over-heated planet, with its own endless hosts of mutant variants, each as potentially ugly and menacing as the others before it, continue to adversely impact upon the earth’s flora and fauna. A fourth worldwide pandemic involves the gradual deterioration and loss of democratic principles and rules of law. This combined quartet of pandemics is what the human race now faces in kind because of the particular choice of moral universes it has chosen to create for itself. In the process, a common casualty of this often is the demise of the principles of democracy and democracy itself.

Such principles either begin or end with how much real democracy exists at the local level of every community and the humans who inhabit them, as well as how much latitude and control they collectively have over their ultimate destiny and extent to which they are externally-driven by either the market forces of large entities like Amazon and Facebook, or more local outside development interests, rather than each community’s own collective existential sense of itself and reason for being.



Cause, effects of over-heated planet

AS THE earth becomes ever-hotter with each passing year; the ever-expanding populations of human societies and cultures, combined with the ever-evolving mutations of COVID-19 viruses; continue to meld into a deadly mega-pandemic cocktail mix, none of which show any signs of diminishment or lessening in their intensity.

As a result, the consequent accumulative effects of global warming have now simply led to long-dormant bacteria and viruses, trapped, for countless centuries, deep within glaciers and layers of permafrost to become revived and awakened as the Earth’s climate continues to heat up. Thus, long hidden viruses like COVID-19 and their endless variety of mutant variants are more and more in the ascendancy. They will only continue to do so the warmer the earth becomes, with the obvious consequences too frightful to contemplate.

Throughout human history it has been a constant race against time between humanity’s conscious awareness of itself as a species and why the species ultimately is here on earth beyond its basic biological drive for survival and self-aggrandisement.

However, as human society, as some would say, ‘has become more intelligent and sophisticated’, with the passage of the species mental and intellectual development to so proudly travel to far distant places, like planet Mars and beyond, there are those who would otherwise contend that as time progresses, humanity’s societies and cultures, in the main, instead have only become more stupid and unsophisticated’, especially in matters of life that really count, such as simply spiritually and materially caring for one another as fellow beings, as well as all their surrounding planetary life forms alike, as if it were the actual sacred duty to do so that it is.

Allowing global warming to continue, virtually unabated, while the debate rages on as to whether humans need ever bigger and more flash SUV’s, or more and more fossil fuelled products or less of them all to reverse it, is one of those as yet still unanswered seminal questions, towards which modern society remains all but at sea to markedly do anything meaningful about as it continues to primarily allow, willy-nilly, its myopic masculine, hegemonial-corporate leaders to continue to basically rule, as they see fit, the course and direction of all life on the planet. The end result is that basic human greed that drives the species continues to facilitate these aggressive, disruptive planetary forces.

How these pandemics continue to spread

AT THE risk of daring to state for the record yet another monotonous ‘Let Dead Dogs Lie’, ‘Sour Grapes’ footnote observation about the typical kind of endless commercial development and human expansion that continues to happen everywhere on the planet, some still more expansive commentary must be made here about how the larger scale human and environmental issues of our times always get boiled down and translated at the local level; in this case on British Columbia’s North Shore in Canada, and more specifically in the tiny Lower Capilano Community where this writer resides.

In this case, they pertain to a local Lower Capilano/Lower Pemberton green belt tree-cutting issue incident whose lack of ultimate resolution, over the years, from the perspective of some of its community leaders own long-range vision for itself, has come to symbolise, as it always does in every community in Canada, if not the world, the wide gap that perpetually exists between direct community involvement in the health and welfare of the life of their community and that of outsiders who always have a far different goal and perspective in mind. How it directly relates to the overall lofty issues and concerns already mentioned, that one could characterise as ‘the ultimate destiny of life’ that surrounds one’s self, family and neighbours, pertains to the same unresolved, always existent, universal issues of inexorable growth, development and destruction of the natural world.

In the specific case of Lower Capilano, it has to do with the original negotiations and dialogue that once-upon-a-time occurred or didn’t occur between members of the then local Lions Gate/Lower Capilano/Norgate/Lower Pemberton home owner/resident associations and their mayor and council politicians over the type/size/quality/extent of commercial, residential and natural green belt development that ultimately was or wasn’t going to become a future reality in and along the nearby Marine Drive/Capilano Rd traffic corridors and surrounding communities; more specifically over what then was the envisioned concept of what was being called the Marine Drive/Capilano Rd High-Rise Village Plan that outside developer interests and politicians alike were heralding at the time as a soon to become an absolutely world-class, singularly-emblematic, ‘Gateway To The North Shore’.

In the minds of the leaders among the local District home owner/residents and their representative associations, as well as their counterparts located within the adjoining North Vancouver City itself, they already could nervously see, from their unique local vantage points, yet another ‘shuck and drive’ spiel that was being put to them and what, in the end, was inexorably going to happen to life on the North Shore as they knew and loved it.

Reality over the span of years that since have followed have shown that what eventuated has indeed been far less ‘world-class’ or ’emblematic’ then what originally was envisioned by the local people themselves; especially among those who were committed to addressing a wide array of growth issues affecting everything from mega-commercial and high-rise development and expansion to out-of-control climate crisis intervention and sensitive, healthy management of the community’s ‘Bowser Trail’ Green Belt borders along its residential area.


What was conceivable back then as well as even now continues to remain markedly different, if not at odds, with what could be called the hegemonic masculine perspectives of what too many local and offshore developers, corporate investors, city planners and the like, back then continue to have locked into their mindset as to where the evolutionary direction of the North Shore, like it or not, must inexorably go.

The upshot of it all years later, as all the proverbial dust still continues to settle, is that the reality of the mega development project that originally involved the Marine Drive-Capilano Rd corridor in question still remains in process of development, and, as a result, the legacy and still unknown ramifications of so much unwanted, excess development will inexorably demand the eventual need to create yet another third major bridge crossing from the North Shore into Vancouver, along with the consequent further spread of even more high-rise density, and elaborate traffic egress systems on and off the North Shore. ‘There goes the Neighbourhood’, as the old saying goes.

These major changes to future life on the North Shore, compared to how it once was lived by the local Squamish First Nation people and those early pioneers from other lands who clamoured to their shores for the same pristine, untrammelled beauty, were significantly altered back then, when DNV politicians and planners, impatient with the dissenting voices of too many local people who had a very different alternative vision of what the North Shore’s indigenous beauty and untrammelled life still could conceivably become, were essentially ‘cut out of the loop’.

Without any fanfare or district-wide community dialogue, debate, or so much as a by-your-leave, the progressive concept of what back then were local community Official Community Plans, that were the product of years of extensive local resident participation, visionary-imagination and direct involvement, along with a lot of blood, sweat and tears, were simply unilaterally, ruthlessly abolished by the politicians, with the single stroke of a pen. It was as if at the time the powers-that-be were officially saying to we residents, ‘You and your perspectives don’t really count in the same way anymore. We will now run everything the way we see fit.’

How real democracy silently succumbs

WHAT continues to happen in places like British Columbia’s North Shore, as it does everywhere else to grass-roots democracy on a seminal scale in places like Lower Capilano, is small potatoes compared to what continues to happen to the greater demise of democracy and more sweeping and complex, violent reactions to its loss on a larger scale in places like China, Hong Kong, Russia, and the United States.

Such violent reactions world-wide could be characterised as yet still another long-standing horrific, unchecked, pandemic — a democratic pandemic — that continues to sweep through human civilisation. One salient case in point is the violent protests and attacks that occurred in the US Capitol in Washington DC. One could simply characterise all such events, whether at a simple local level or more complex national or international level, as microcosms of the macrocosm.

Another upshot of all the constant political manoeuvring and conflicted visions of what life could be and still become, that continues unabated at whatever planetary level of human activity, is that direct, democratic, activist involvement in the future destined course of life, be it on Canada’s North Shore or the planet at large, is continually discouraged by the powers-that-be; who seek to replace these democratic longings with ever more centralised, distant and aloof autocratic and authoritarian forms of governmental rule, controlled less and less by the directly impacted-upon local people themselves, and more by a plethora of Napoleon, Hitler or Trump-like megalomaniacal forces of visionless change, whether welcomed or not by the people themselves. The rest is history, as yet another old saying goes.



Countercurrents.org February 26. Jerome Irwin is a Canadian-American writer who, for decades, has sought to call world attention to problems of environmental degradation and unsustainability caused by excessive mega-development. Irwin is the author of the book, The Wild Gentle Ones; A Turtle Island Odyssey.

Will mankind be extinct in a few years?

by F William Engdahl | Published: 00:00, Mar 11,2021


— New Eastern Outlook

IT’S no secret that Bill Gates and the advocates of the UN Sustainable Development Agenda 2030 are also devout promoters of human eugenics, the ‘thinning of the human herd’ as Britain’s misanthropic prince Philip once put it. Some such as Joachim Schnellnhuber, climate adviser to the Pope, openly welcome a human population below one billion as ‘sustainable.’ Now serious research is emerging that one of the most effective reducers of the human population is being spread by so-called ‘modern scientific agriculture’ through the select use of toxic agrochemicals, pesticides deemed safe which are anything but safe.

According to a new book by Dr Shanna Shaw, Count Down, the male sperm count in western industrial countries, including the European Union and the United States, is falling at a dramatic rate. Shaw estimates that over the past four decades the average sperm count has dropped by 50 per cent or more. In other words a young male today seeking to have a family has only half the sperm count his grandfather did, half the chance to conceive. Shaw estimates that unless toxic chemical exposures in agriculture and the environment are dramatically altered, we may not have the ability to reproduce naturally much longer, and that by 2050 most human beings in the industrial countries, including China, will need technological assistance to procreate.

Shaw’s book is a further elaboration of a 2017 peer-reviewed scientific paper which Shaw and colleagues published. In the paper, Shaw carefully analysed a total of 244 estimates of sperm concentration and Total Sperm Count, or TSC, from 185 studies of 42,935 men who provided semen samples in 1973–2011. What they found was alarming to the extreme. But beyond a few media headlines, no changes of consequence resulted, as the powerful agrochemical corporations such as Bayer-Monsanto, Syngenta, DowDuPont (now Corteva) lobbied regulators to ignore the findings.

Shaw found that ‘Among unselected western studies, the mean sperm concentration declined, on average, 1.4 per cent per year with an overall decline of 52.4 per cent between 1973 and 2011.’ The same group of males, had ‘an average decline in mean TSC of 1.6 per cent per year and overall decline of 59.3 per cent.’ That is a sperm count decline as of a decade ago of more than 59 per cent in men, unselected by fertility, from North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. And it continues to decline year by year.


Because of lack of serious support for new studies, updated data is limited. Fifteen years ago, over half of potential sperm donors in Hunan Province, China, met quality standards. Now, only 18 per cent do, a decline blamed on endocrine disrupting chemicals according to one study. A similar fall in sperm count was registered by researchers in Taiwan, as well as a similar result for Israel. Shaw concludes, ‘male reproductive health, not just semen quality by the way, is in trouble, and this has consequences, not just for the ability to have a child, but it also impacts the health of the man.’ She cites as examples, ‘low sperm count, infertility, testicular cancer, and various general defects. One of them is undescended testicles, another one is a condition where the opening of the urethra is not where it should be….’



Endocrine disruptors

SWAN, today with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, believes the cause is to be found in the huge rise in toxic chemical exposures in recent decades, especially of chemicals known as ‘endocrine disruptors’ or hormone disruptors. She points to ‘chemicals that make plastics soft, which are phthalates, or chemicals that make plastics hard like Bisphenol A, or chemicals that are flame retardants, chemicals that are in Teflon, and so on, pesticides….’

The last, pesticides, is the group that should send loud alarm bells ringing because it is proven to get into groundwater and the human food chain. Today the two most widely used pesticides in the world are Bayer-Monsanto’s Roundup containing the probable carcinogen, glyphosate, and Azatrine made by Syngenta, which today is owned by ChemChina.

Atrazine effects

IN 2010, a renowned University of California, Berkeley scientist, Tyrone B Hayes, professor of integrative biology, led a major study of the effect of Atrazine exposure for frogs. He found that the pesticide, widely used on US corn crops and sugarcane, wreaks havoc with the sex lives of adult male frogs, emasculating three-quarters of them and turning one in 10 into females. He found ,‘These male frogs are missing testosterone and all the things that testosterone controls, including sperm.’ Moreover, Hayes noted that the 10 per cent of frogs exposed to Atrazine that ‘turn from males into females — something not known to occur under natural conditions in amphibians — can successfully mate with male frogs but, because these females are genetically male, all their offspring are male.’ Hayes declared, ‘I believe that the preponderance of the evidence shows atrazine to be a risk to wildlife and humans.’

Atrazine is a potent endocrine disruptor. Atrazine is also the second-most widely used herbicide in the US behind Monsanto’s glyphosate product, Roundup. Despite the evidence, in a controversial ruling the US Environmental Protection Agency, in 2007 ruled that ‘Atrazine does not adversely affect amphibian sexual development and that no additional testing was warranted.’ End of story? Hardly. But in 2004 the EU banned Atrazine saying Syngenta failed to prove its safety in drinking water.

Another agrochemical that has been determined to be an endocrine disruptor is Monsanto’s Roundup with glyphosate. Roundup is the world’s most widely used pesticide, in over 140 countries including Russia and China. Its use on US genetically modified crops has exploded in recent years as almost 90 per cent of US corn is genetically modified, and a similar percentage of its soybeans. Between 1996 when genetically modified Monsanto corn and soybeans were authorised in the USA, and 2017, Americans’ exposure to the chemical grew 500 per cent. It has been tested in drinking water, cereals in stores and in urine of pregnant women. Almost all meat and poultry is saturated with glyphosate from animal feed.

A recent study carried out in Australia by researchers at Flinders University found that Roundup killed the cells that produce progesterone in women, causing their levels to drop. Glyphosate and Roundup have been ‘linked to birth defects, reproductive problems and liver disease, and it has been shown to have the potential to harm the DNA of human umbilical cord, placental and embryonic cells.’

In 2015, scientists in Nigeria examined the effects of combined exposure to both glyphosate and Atrazine on rats. They found the combination was even worse with effects on sperm, testosterone synthesis and male reproductive organs.

In 2016, China’s state-owned chemicals giant, ChemChina, bought Syngenta for a colossal $43 billion. At the time ChemChina had distribution rights in China and other Asian countries for Monsanto Roundup as well. On the ChemChina website it lists Atrazine among the herbicides it sells, calling it a ‘safe and efficient herbicide for corn fields….’ ChemChina is also the leading producer of glyphosate for the Chinese agriculture market.


Today China is facing, by its own admission, a major agriculture crisis and is also struggling with ways to insure food security. Reports are that an increased role for genetically modified crops with Chinese patents will be a central part of a new five year plan which would undoubtedly mean using glyphosate and Atrazine. At the same time the state is increasingly alarmed by the falling birth rate which has not improved despite relaxations on the ‘one child’ policy. With Chinese farmers using significant amounts of pesticide chemicals including glyphosate and Atrazine to improve yields, they are pursuing a disastrous combination that will not only not solve the growing food crisis, but also may destroy the reproductive potential of a major portion of its 890 million rural population, as well as countless millions of urban citizens.

Are these dangerous endocrine disrupting agrochemicals allowed worldwide because of bureaucratic ignorance of the damage caused by glyphosates, Atrazine and other endocrine disrupters on the human reproduction? Is it only because of corporate greed for hyper profits that they exist? A 1975 quote from Henry Kissinger, author of the eugenics document ‘NSSM-200’ during the Nixon-Ford era is instructive: ‘Depopulation should be the highest priority of foreign policy towards the third world, because the US economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less developed countries.’ And from Bill Gates: ‘The world today has 6.8 billion people… that’s headed up to about nine billion. If we do a really great job on vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 to 15 per cent.’ Or the grand old dog of eugenics, prince Philip: ‘I must confess that I am tempted to ask for reincarnation as a particularly deadly virus.’ (In his ‘foreword’ to If I Were an Animal — United Kingdom, Robin Clark Ltd, 1986).

We are rapidly making the human species extinct as we continue to ignore the dangers of these toxins to human and other life forms.



New Eastern Outlook, March 9. F William Engdahl is a strategic risk consultant and lecturer.

Privatised space colonisation will be disastrous

As private corporations begin to stake claims and enclose the commons of space, the rest of us lose our rights to it. We must avoid this outcome at all costs. Space cannot be privatised or exploited for profit, but must remain a commons for the benefit of all humanity.

by Elic Weitzel | Published: 00:00, Mar 12,2021



— Dissident Voice/Memory-alpha

ELON Musk and his company SpaceX have become a regular feature in news cycles. SpaceX succeeded in landing a team of astronauts on the International Space Station in November 2020, in partnership with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The next month, the company lost a rocket in an explosion while attempting to land after a test flight. Another rocket exploded during landing in early February. In mid-February, SpaceX launched sixty satellites as part of the Starlink programme to provide broadband internet access to the globe, and is now working to double the speed of this internet service and extend it to most of the planet by the end of 2021. Additional crewed missions to the International Space Station are planned for the coming months, as is a four-person civilian-only space voyage.

These accomplishments and setbacks from SpaceX and the world’s richest man are the most recent in a long series of launches by the first private company to engage in spaceflight. SpaceX is pushing many new boundaries to popular acclaim, but they are also simply the most recent continuation of a decades-long effort to privatise space travel, albeit an effort that is accelerating in recent years.

Yet, while SpaceX may be developing beneficial new technologies and finding ways to lower the costs of space travel, their free-market perspective on space exploration will not provide the benefits they claim. Such privatisation will only reproduce the earth’s current exploitative economy and environmental destruction in outer space.

Our climate and economic crises today are not inevitable outcomes of human existence, or of human population growth as other space-obsessed technocrats like Jeff Bezos have argued. They are instead the result of a particular set of social and economic forces, mostly arising during the last five centuries, which constitute capitalism. Capitalism requires the exploitation of both nature and people, leads to outward expansion and colonisation, and is really the root cause of climate change.

Yet instead of working to develop new social and economic structures here on earth, Elon Musk is planning the colonisation of Mars explicitly as a backup plan for earth. He is not alone, as Jeff Bezos’s own aerospace company, Blue Origin, operates with the long-term goal of outsourcing destructive manufacturing to space in order to save earth by shifting the exploitation of nature and people into orbit. With plans such as these, SpaceX and related companies are advocating escapism instead of dealing with the reality of deteriorating conditions on our own planet. By failing to acknowledge that privatising industry and taking advantage of workers and the environment are the true causes of these earthly crises, SpaceX will inadvertently reproduce the same conditions that are destroying the earth in space.

We need not engage in speculation informed by science fiction to know this, either. History is full of examples of privatised, for-profit exploration and colonisation that have caused more harm than good. For some of the clearest lessons, we can look to the colonisation of what is now the United States, just a few hundred years ago.

***

THIS past autumn marked the four hundredth anniversary of the Mayflower landing on the shores of what is now Massachusetts. Stories of this ship and its pilgrim passengers are familiar to many people who were educated in the American school system. As the common narrative goes, these Puritan settlers sought freedom from religious persecution in England, and thus set sail to the ‘new world.’ The Mayflower arrived in North America, and finding the land beautiful and productive, the pilgrims ‘fell upon their knees and blessed the God of heaven’ for delivering them to safety and freedom.

Yet key details of this story were not emphasised in our elementary school educations, such as the motivations behind the actual owners of the Mayflower. The pilgrims did not own the ship they sailed upon, nor could they have afforded the voyage on their own. They needed investors, and the financial backers of this journey were not religious separatists seeking freedom, but some of the modern world’s first international venture capitalists. They funded the pilgrims in the hope that they could reap the rewards of a profitable colony in North America capable of yielding cheap goods for European markets: largely fish, timber, and furs. The pilgrims who established a colony at Plymouth may have been seeking liberty, but the financiers who backed them hardly cared. They were just in it for the money, and there was a lot to be made.


There was also a lot of damage to be done. Within fifteen years of the Mayflower making landfall, epidemic disease had decimated the indigenous population of New England. Wars and genocide followed, with indigenous peoples being killed and enslaved across the continent, before largely being forced onto reservations which still experience shockingly poor conditions today.

All the while, the land of New England was gradually being divided into privately owned parcels of land in a process known as enclosure. When European colonists arrived in New England, they entered into a variety of agreements with native peoples pertaining to land rights. European settlers often paid indigenous tribes or leaders for the right to limited use of tribal land, but the colonists often interpreted these transactions as wholesale, permanent purchase of land. These lands which were often communally owned by the tribe and managed as a ‘commons’ — land or resources collectively owned by a community — were slowly carved up into privately owned parcels over the course of the 17th and 18th centuries.

This privatisation of land ownership and the incorporation of colonial New England into a globalised market economy led to profound environmental destruction nearly immediately. Settlers cleared forests for timber and farmland, nearly deforesting much of New England by the early 20th century. Beaver and deer were all but exterminated in the region by the 19th century, hunted for their pelts which were sold for profit in European markets. As early as 1646, Portsmouth, Rhode Island established the first prohibitions on hunting deer out of season, recognising that the species’ population was dwindling. All of this local extirpation and deforestation occurred within a few decades of European arrival in New England, while the indigenous peoples of the region had hunted deer and beaver and managed their forests sustainably for millennia prior.

Exploitation of labour arose alongside this exploitation of nature. European settlers in 17th century New England exploited indigenous hunters to acquire beaver furs, obtaining these pelts at little cost to themselves through the exchange of cheap cloth, metal trinkets, and shell beads. Merchants then in turn exploited these European settlers, paying only a small fraction of what these furs would be worth, and manufacturers back in Europe exploited their workers, paying them less than their labour was worth to produce products like fashionable felt hats for sale to the high-society aristocrats of the time.

This exploitation of nature and labour is not a bug, but a feature of privatised, for-profit capitalist ventures. It is inherent in a capitalist economic model, as history has shown time and again. If profit maximisation for the benefit of investors and owners is the goal, as it was for the owners of the Mayflower and as it is for SpaceX, the necessary materials and labour must be cheaply obtained. If they are not cheap, earnings will suffer.


Colonisation is a short-sighted solution to this problem. Colonialist companies and nations incorporate peripheral locations into their global economic system, where resources and labour can be cheaply obtained. The mercantile capitalism of the 17th century Atlantic world reflected this economic structure, with abundant timber, furs, and fish being obtained at low costs in New England and returned to European markets where they had greater value. Whether in the form of colonialist extraction of raw materials or the contemporary outsourcing of jobs, this search for cheap labour and resources is necessary for the perpetuation of capitalism, and remains the structuring force behind the global economy to this day.

This same outward expansion in search of cheap raw materials and labour is exactly what will end up driving the colonisation of space. The moon, Mars, and even asteroids may all become the peripheral, privatised, and exploited locations that permit corporations on earth to profit. Similar to indigenous understandings of certain land rights in pre-colonial New England, space is currently viewed as a global commons. This means that all people have rights to it and none should be able to claim exclusive rights over it. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 prevents any nation from claiming territory in space, although the treaty is known to be vague concerning the power of corporations in space and will certainly be challenged legally in the coming years. The enclosure and privatisation of space may therefore lead not only to the direct and immediate exploitation of the environment and of people, but may also lay the groundwork for long-term systems of exploitation and dispossession.

***

ELON Musk intends to colonise Mars as soon as possible. Thankfully, there is no potential for genocide of indigenous Martians as there was for indigenous ‘Americans’ and other indigenous peoples around the world under European colonialism. Yet because the endeavour is privatised and operating under centuries-old colonialist mindsets, exploitation and destruction will assuredly manifest in other ways.

Mining and resource extraction is one avenue for profit, although Musk acknowledges that it is unclear if the natural resources on Mars could be extracted for the profit of companies on earth. Even if the costs of transporting raw materials back to earth are too great, natural resources extracted in space could be manufactured in space and shipped to earth. Colonisation of Mars may therefore differ slightly from cases of colonisation on earth, but the fundamental exploitative relationship remains.

Plus, there are other ways to profit besides the extraction of raw materials. Space tourism by wealthy thrill-seekers is poised to be a cash cow for companies, and a relatively autonomous SpaceX colony on Mars could also have a potentially great degree of freedom to profit from all sorts of business ventures, especially if they are legally independent of the United States government as has been hinted. Musk has also alluded to other ‘extraordinary entrepreneurial opportunity’ on Mars, ranging from manufacturing to restaurants to tourism. However, it remains to be seen just how the financing, ownership, and taxation of these enterprises will be handled in what may be a semi-autonomous colony. In the case of English colonists arriving in North America, it was often the case that the company financing the colony claimed ownership over all property and all economic products of the settlers for a set number of years. Any colonists on a settled Mars will certainly be exploited as well, in one form or another, for the profit of shareholders and company executives. More than a colony of earth, Mars may become a colony of SpaceX, and this is a troubling thought.


Resisting exploitation is exceedingly difficult in a privately funded, owned, and operated colony because such a colony is, by its very nature, undemocratic. Private companies like SpaceX are not democracies. Chief executive officers are not elected representatives of the employees and business decisions are not voted upon by all workers. Thus, with a corporation calling the shots, settlers on Mars may have disturbingly little input in decision-making processes concerning their businesses and lives.

Fundamentally, the privatisation of space exploration is not the beneficial solution that many think it is. It will simply result in a continuation of the colonial exploitation of nature and people as our capitalist global economy transcends our own atmosphere. Exploitation is an inherent part of such for-profit ventures in a capitalist system, and this will carry over into space. Privatised exploration of our solar system will be biased towards profitable ventures instead of those with public benefits and will certainly have numerous detrimental environmental impacts.

As private corporations begin to stake claims and enclose the commons of space, the rest of us lose our rights to it. We must avoid this outcome at all costs. Studying the repercussions of historical and contemporary colonialism on earth permits us to engage with questions of space exploration from a decolonial and democratic perspective. Space cannot be privatised or exploited for profit, but must remain a commons for the benefit of all humanity.



DissidentVoice.org, March 9. Elic M Weitzel is a human ecologist, anthropologist and archaeologist interested in understanding humans in their environmental and social contexts. He is affiliated with the department of anthropology at the University of Connecticut.