Cleaner air during pandemic lockdowns shows what's possible, say researchers

CBC/Radio-Canada 3/13/2021

Roughly one year ago, city streets across Canada were deserted.

There were virtually no cars, no trucks and few buses as the country went into lockdown mode. Shops and buildings were closed. Most people stopped commuting. And it was the same across most of the world.

While millions of lives have been lost due to COVID-19, and people have suffered economic consequences, these short-term global shutdowns have had a marked effect on the environment.

The amount of pollutants that were pumped into the atmosphere dropped noticeably — including in southern Ontario, where a recent study documented a 20 per cent drop of some pollutants compared to recent years.

And that, in turn, has positive effects on our health, something researchers in the field hope won't soon be forgotten as life creeps back to normal.

© Ben Nelms/CBC A man crosses an empty street in downtown

 Vancouver on April 14, 2020, during early COVID-19 lockdowns.

Bad air kills

It's estimated that each year roughly 8.7 million people around the world die from conditions attributed to air pollution from fossil fuels. And that's due to pollutants like nitrogen dioxide (NO2), ozone and PM 2.5 (a type of fine particulate matter that can be inhaled) that is produced by cars, industry, coal-fired power plants and other sources.


Studies have also shown that people in countries with elevated levels of air pollution were more susceptible to COVID-19.

"The Harvard School of Public Health found that there was an 11 per cent increase in mortality for [even a small] increase in different air pollution components," said Dr. Courtney Howard, who works in Yellowknife and was the past president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.

Previous work has already shown greater risk from respiratory disease in places with higher levels of air pollution in China and Europe.

"It just makes sense," said Howard. "If somebody's body is already struggling to try to cope with the effects of air pollution and there's been some lung damage and some increased levels of inflammation already in their body, that another stressor would be more difficult for those people to contend with."
Cleaner air without lockdowns?

A recent study published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials quantified the effects of the lockdown on air in southern Ontario, one of the most densely populated regions in Canada.

Researchers used 16 ground-based sites across the region and found that, from April to December 2020, carbon monoxide (CO) and NO2 pollutant levels dropped 20 per cent compared to the three previous years. In some locations there was also a decrease in ozone and PM 2.5, however, the researchers said that it was not considered to be a statistically significant drop.

While the lockdowns were a drastic measure to help stop the spread of COVID-19, better planning and guidelines could be used to help reduce pollutants and their respective health effects.

"I hope that the public and different levels of government will use our study as a benchmark for their future measures or regulations, either to limit the spread of new diseases or to control air pollution and smog episodes," said Hind Al-Abadleh, a chemistry professor at Wilfrid Laurier University and lead author of the paper.

© Mark Bochsler/CBC Hind Al-Abadleh, seen here standing in front of an air quality monitoring station in Kitchener, was the lead author of a study that found air pollution dropped in southern Ontario during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"These pollutants contribute to air pollution and to respiratory diseases. Canada is known to have faster growing rates of childhood asthma among the countries around the world."

The significant drop of air pollutants such as NO2, is something that researchers hope can continue after the lockdown, but with less drastic measures.

Jeff Brook, an assistant professor at University of Toronto's Dalla Lana School of Public Health, studies air quality. The former senior research scientist at Environment and Climate Change Canada is creating a web-based app that will allow people to check on the air quality wherever they are in Canada.

"All we know about air pollution and health relationships suggests that any improvement leads to benefits in health," Brook said. "What COVID is showing … is that the moment that the lockdown started, we saw bigger gains or equal gains as to what we achieved over 10 years of efforts."

"It's a good reminder of what's possible. We've seen how clear the skies can get. We've seen how people can change their habits to some extent."

Howard said that she hopes that the COVID-19 pandemic illustrates what humanity can do when it comes to the environment.

"It's a moment of crisis, but it's also a moment of opportunity," Howard said. "And we can move forward from here in a way that's going to make a better world."

TAKING THE HINT
Targeted in protests, Chile removes general's statue
AFP 

3/12/2021


The statue of a 19th-century Chilean general was temporarily removed from a Santiago square Friday after being repeatedly vandalized during protests.

© Martin BERNETTI President Sebastian Pinera said Thursday the monument, erected in 1928, will be replaced once restauration work is completed 'because we want to show our appreciation and respect for our heroes'

The likeness of General Manuel Baquedano on horseback -- burnt, painted and dented in months of demonstrations -- was lifted from its pedestal in the early morning hours as military veterans paid their respects.

Nearby, a dozen protesters were detained.

Baquedano and his statue was not a specific target of protests that started in Chile in October 2019 against social inequality, corruption, and the rising cost of living.

But it got drawn into a symbolic tussle between protesters and authorities for control of the central square named after him.

The protests have continued, though on a much smaller scale, despite a referendum last October -- a key demand of the demonstrators -- voting to replace Chile's dictatorship-era constitution.

Week after week, hold-out protesters have taken aim at the statue, once painting it completely red, and repeatedly trying to topple it from its plinth.

On Monday, a group of hooded men tried to dismantle the statue with saws and hammers as a Women's Day rally was unfolding at its feet.

Three days earlier, it was set on fire.

President Sebastian Pinera said Thursday the monument, erected in 1928, will be replaced as soon as it has been fully restored "because we want to show our appreciation and respect for our heroes."

Baquedano was a hero of the War of the Pacific Chile fought against Peru and Bolivia in the late 19th century.

His statue overlooks the tomb of an unknown soldier who died in the same war.

pa-pb/mps/rsr/mlr/jh

Biden administration grants humanitarian protection for Burmese in US

MYANMARESE

By Geneva Sands, CNN 

3/12/2021

The Biden administration on Friday granted humanitarian protection to Burmese nationals and residents in the United States due to the military coup and violence against civilians in Myanmar

DOES THAT INCLUDE MUSLIM ROYTHINGA 

.

© Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images WASHINGTON, DC - AUGUST 21: The Department of Homeland Security seal on the podium used by acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan as he announces new rules about how migrant children and families are treated in federal custody at the Ronald Reagan Building August 21, 2019 in Washington, DC. The Trump Administration announced the change in rules that would allow it to indefinitely detain migrant families who cross the border illegally, replacing the Flores Agreement which limited on how long the government could hold migrant children in custody and how they must be cared for. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas designated Myanmar for Temporary Protected Status, a humanitarian protection, for 18 months.

"Due to the military coup and security forces' brutal violence against civilians, the people of Burma are suffering a complex and deteriorating humanitarian crisis in many parts of the country," Mayorkas said in a statement, using the country's former name.

Conditions in Myanmar prevent Burmese nationals and habitual residents from returning safely, according to DHS. Individuals who can demonstrate continuous residence in the United States as of March 11, 2021, are eligible for the temporary protection and to apply to work lawfully in the US.

The coup in Myanmar has led to continuing violence, pervasive arbitrary detentions, the use of lethal violence against peaceful protesters, said DHS, prompting the designation for humanitarian protection, as conditions in the country worsened.

On Monday, the administration also granted temporary protection to Venezuelans in the US, allowing an estimated 300,000 people to potentially remain and work in the US.

The grants of humanitarian protection mark a shift from the Trump administration, which had sharply criticized Temporary Protected Status and moved to terminate protections the program had provided for immigrants from other countries, arguing that years of extensions were prolonging immigrants' stays in the United States long after crises abroad had abated.

Many Venezuelans had been pushing for protections but for years met resistance from Trump administration officials who were more focused on pushing for regime change in the South American country. Ultimately, former President Donald Trump granted them similar protections from deportation on his last day in office, but no details about how they could apply had been announced and lawmakers have been pushing for answers.

It's unclear how many Burmese are currently in the US that qualify for protection. The designation "will give much needed relief to Burmese immigrants," said Douglas Rivlin, director of communications for America's Voice, in a statement.

On Wednesday CNN reported that an official from ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party died in custody following alleged torture, the second such death while in detention of junta forces this week, according to a watchdog group.

The deaths have raised concerns about the condition and treatment detainees are receiving in detention. Since the military seized power in a coup on February 1, security forces quickly moved to stifle dissent and arrested government officials, protesters, journalists, civil servants and NGO workers, and repressed independent media.

Many people have been taken arbitrarily in nighttime raids and their families do not know where their loved ones are, or what condition they are in, the United Nations said. Human Rights Watch said that people who are forcibly disappeared are more likely to be subjected to torture or ill-treatment than others arrested.

Dr. Seuss' illustrations reveal just how ingrained anti-Asian racism is in America

Taylor Weik 3/12/2021 CNBC

One illustration shows an Asian man with bright yellow skin, slanted eyes, a pigtail and conical hat, holding chopsticks and a bowl of rice over the words “a Chinaman who eats with sticks.” Another depicts three Asian men in wooden sandals carrying a bamboo cage on their heads with a gun-wielding white boy perched on top, next to the rhyme, “I’ll hunt in the mountains of Zomba-ma-Tant / With helpers who all wear their eyes at a slant.”

© Provided by NBC News

The drawings are from “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street” and “If I Ran the Zoo,” two of the six Dr. Seuss books that the company in charge of the author’s works announced last week will no longer be published because of their racist imagery, some of which includes stereotypical portrayals of Asian people.

Though Seuss’ art has been around for decades — “Mulberry Street,” his first children’s book, was published more than 80 years ago — widespread criticism of his work is relatively recent. Karen Ishizuka, chief curator at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, said Dr. Seuss' books have been able to get away with this racism for so long in part because of the persistence of anti-Asian racism in the U.S. since the 1800s.

“No doubt, the long-standing prevalence of racist Asian imagery within the larger widespread anti-Asian sentiment in the U.S. added to the delayed response to Dr. Seuss’ racism,” Ishizuka told NBC Asian America. “Generations of Americans have grown up with depictions of Asians that ranged from grotesque to comical. Especially when buffered in Seuss’ rhyming verse, his racist depictions, already normalized in U.S. society, are put forth in jest as if they are innocuous.”

Dr. Seuss eventually edited the image from “Mulberry Street” in 1978, more than 40 years after it was first published, by removing the yellow pigment from the Asian man’s skin as well as the pigtail, and changing “Chinaman” to “Chinese man.” But the character’s slanted eyes remained.

© PM Image: This cartoon was published in the New York newspaper

His racism wasn’t limited to children’s books. Dr. Seuss, the pen name for Theodor Seuss Geisel (who died in 1991, at 87), also perpetuated harmful Asian stereotypes in a series of political cartoons. From 1941 to 1943, he published more than 400 cartoons for the New York newspaper “PM,” many of which displayed anti-Japanese racism during World War II.

One of his most infamous political cartoons suggested that Japanese Americans were a threat to the U.S. after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Titled “Waiting for the Signal From Home … ,” the cartoon depicts countless characters with the same slanted eyes and glasses — who are meant to be Japanese Americans — marching along the West Coast and waiting to pick up TNT from a store labeled “Honorable 5th Column.” The cartoon was published on Feb. 13, 1942 — just six days before President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which led to the incarceration of more than 110,000 individuals of Japanese descent.

Some of Dr. Seuss' other political cartoons during this time use the slur “Jap,” depict Japanese people as animals, and include captions that replace the letter R with the letter L to mock the way Japanese people speak.

© PM Magazine via UC San Diego Library A 1941 political cartoon by Dr. Seuss. (PM Magazine via UC San Diego Library)

Ishizuka is working on developing a new core exhibit for the museum that she hopes will bring greater attention to Dr. Seuss’ political cartoons by featuring original drawings from the library of the University of California, San Diego — including “Waiting for the Signal From Home ... ”

Video: Six Dr. Seuss books pulled for racist and insensitive imagery (CNBC)

“It’s important to draw attention to the racist images in Dr. Seuss’ cartoons and children’s books because they’re almost insidious,” she said. “The harm they cause is more difficult to identify than when someone calls you a ‘Jap’ to your face. It’s harder to combat.”

Philip Nel, a children’s literature scholar and English professor at Kansas State University, said another reason why Dr. Seuss’ reckoning took so long is that people have excused his racism, especially the anti-Japanese propaganda he created during WWII, as a reflection of the time he was living in. But Nel, the author of several books, including “Was the Cat in the Hat Black? The Hidden Racism of Children’s Literature, and the Need for Diverse Books,” said this explanation doesn’t hold up.

“The ‘man of his time’ narrative isn’t a great argument because to make that claim is profoundly ahistorical,” Nel said. “All people in every moment don’t think the same. There were plenty of white Americans during that time who were not spreading the rhetoric that he was.”

Nel said the decision by Dr. Seuss Enterprises to cease publishing the books — which in addition to “Mulberry Street” and “If I Ran the Zoo,” also include “McElligot’s Pool,” “On Beyond Zebra!”, “Scrambled Eggs Super!” and “The Cat’s Quizzer” — is owed to the longtime push for diverse books in the U.S., as well as recent movements for racial and social justice.

© Dr. Seuss Enterprises Image:; Dr. Seuss's 1950 book,

“This is the culmination of decades of work arguing for diverse works and against books that caricature people of color,” Nel said. “The Black Lives Matter movement, I think, has also brought into focus the need for diverse books for young readers. It’s reminded people that one place where justice happens is through representation — acknowledging positive examples and calling out negative ones.”

Dr. Seuss’ image as a children’s literary icon has also delayed the reckoning over his racism. “He’s a symbol of American childhood,” Leslie Ito, the mother of two from Southern California, said.

In 2017, Ito’s children, Rockett and Zoe, who were 11 and 10 at the time, created and distributed flyers to their classrooms on Read Across America Day — which was founded by the National Education Association to coincide with Dr. Seuss’ birthday — to educate their peers about Dr. Seuss’ racist work.

“Ever since the kids started elementary school, my husband and I decided it was important that we taught them about the darker side of Dr. Seuss,” Ito said of her children, who are Chinese and Japanese American. “We did this every year around Read Across America Day, and one year the kids came up with the idea to create a flyer, unprompted.”

The kids came home that day telling their parents they got in trouble and had their flyers confiscated, and that evening Ito and her husband received an email from the school saying the flyers were inappropriate.

In recent years, Read Across America Day has made an effort to distance itself from Dr. Seuss.

Though Ito said she understands the hesitancy to criticize Dr. Seuss, she’s proud that her children contributed to today’s acknowledgment of Seuss’ past.

“When I used to Google ‘Dr. Seuss and racism,’ our story would pop up first for a couple of years, but now it’s completely buried under countless stories,” Ito said. “That excites me because it shows that more people than Rockett and Zoe care about this issue.”

Alberta's energy war room says animated Netflix film is 'full of lies' about oil industry

Joel Dryden CBC

3/12/2021

|

© Netflix/YouTube The Canadian Energy Centre sent an email to its subscribers on Thursday criticizing the Netflix film Bigfoot Family, which focuses on the quest of the mythical ape-like creature to use his fame to protect a wildlife reserve from an oil…

The head of the Canadian Energy Centre (CEC) says a recent computer-animated Netflix family film centred on the exploits of the mythical ape-like creature known as Bigfoot depicts "misinformation" and "villainizes energy workers."

The 2020 film, titled Bigfoot Family, sees the eponymous Bigfoot team up with son Adam to protect a wildlife reserve from an oil company in Alaska.

The CEC, sometimes referred to as Alberta's energy "war room," was initially launched by the ruling United Conservative Party (UCP) in December 2019, with a stated goal of promoting Alberta oil and gas and countering what it calls misinformation and producing media content.

The government-funded, privately operated initiative launched with an annual budget of $30 million, though that was reduced when the pandemic hit.

In a letter sent to subscribers to CEC's email list on Thursday, the centre said Bigfoot Family was "full of lies and misinformation." It pointed to one scene in which oil is extracted by blowing up a valley using "glowing red bombs."

Tom Olsen, the head of the war room, said the CEC responded to the film after a parent flagged it. 

TOM WAS HEAD OF KLEIN'S PR DEPARTMENT AFTER BEING THE EDITOR OF A SUN NEWSPAPER. TOM SUCKS OFF THE TAXPAYERS TEAT AND HAS FOR A LONG TIME UNDER THE 44 YEAR OLD RULE OF THE PC'S THE PARENT PARTY OF KENNEY'S UCP

"The film claims an oil company intends to use a bomb to blow apart a mountain landscape within a wildlife preserve, then flood a pristine valley with oil. All while lying about it," Olsen said in an email to CBC News.

"It villainizes energy workers and disparages the industry's record on and commitment to environmental protection."

HE LIES
Olsen said more than 1,000 Canadians have sent emails to Netflix Canada to show their concern, but Netflix Canada did not immediately respond to a request for comment so CBC could not confirm that figure.

The CEC did not immediately respond to a follow-up query from CBC about what the end goal of the campaign was or a request to interview the parent who had flagged the film.

The provincial government has sought in recent months to attract film studios to produce more movies and TV shows in Alberta, and Netflix, among others, has been in discussions to increase its presence in the province.

Making headlines

In his email, Olsen said the CEC has worked to provide information about the importance of Alberta's oil and gas industry to Canada's recovery after the pandemic.

"We have promoted Indigenous opportunity provided by the energy sector, environmental gains by industry and consistently release peer-reviewed research pieces on the reality of fossil fuels in Canada and around the world," he said.

However, the CEC has also found itself in the headlines for a number of gaffes. Shortly after its launch, the CEC said it would change its logo after it was revealed the logo already represented an American tech company.

Shortly afterward, the Canadian Association of Journalists protested after war room staff referred to themselves as reporters while speaking with sources.

In February 2020, Olsen apologized after the CEC Twitter account sent a series of tweets attacking the New York Times, some of which alleged the Times had been "called out for anti-Semitism countless times" and "[had] a 'dodgy' track record."

Jared Wesley, an associate professor of political science at the University of Alberta, said attacks like those against Bigfoot Family draw more attention to negative stereotypes that people have about the oil and gas industry.

"It may actually end up drawing negative reaction from people who are in the middle on this issue and need to be persuaded of a different view on the oilsands," Wesley said.

© Samuel Martin/CBC University of Alberta political science professor Jared Wesley says the Canadian Energy Centre's campaign against the Netflix children's film Bigfoot Family might do more harm than good when it comes to the oil and gas industry.

Wesley said it was difficult to ascertain what the CEC's campaign against Netflix might achieve but if it was an attempt to shame people on the progressive left, it was likely to backfire.

"It feels good to lash out against seemingly progressive or liberal companies or representations of oil and gas that don't fit with people's positive images of that industry ... but what are the downstream effects of that on the representation of the industry?" Wesley said.

Andrew Leach, associate professor in the Alberta School of Business at the University of Alberta, said the images in the film specifically found to be contentious by the CEC weren't that far off from reality.

"The specific thing they took issue with was the idea that it's unfathomable that there would be a secret campaign to use a bomb to blow up a mountain to flood a valley to fill it with oil," Leach said.

"That was actually pretty darn close to what was once proposed for the oilsands."

On Twitter, Lethbridge NDP MLA Shannon Phillips compared the campaign around the Bigfoot Family film to the conservative backlash over Hasbro's recent decision to remove the gender from the branding of its Mr. Potato Head toy.

"The UCP is divided. They don't have a plan for jobs. Their leader is deeply unpopular," Phillips wrote. "So they go to these 'outrage' issues to raise money and find unity. And public money pays for it

 

The Weather Network

Lightning is back! Summer-like storm lights up the night sky

Duration: 059 17 hrs ago

|Flash of lightning followed by a huge crack of thunder in Notre-Dame-de-Pontmain, Quebec.

Study adds more evidence of antibiotic overuse in COVID-19 patients

Filed Under: 

Antimicrobial Stewardship

; 

COVID-19

Chris Dall | News Reporter | CIDRAP News

  | 

Mar 10, 2021

covid-19_medical_team-us_navy.jpg

US Navy, Harley K. Sarmiento / Flickr cc

A new analysis of COVID-19 hospitalizations in the United States during the first 6 months of the pandemic shows that more than half resulted in a patient receiving an antibiotic.

The study by researchers with the Pew Charitable Trusts' antibiotic resistance project, also found that more than a third of admissions resulted in a patient being prescribed multiple antibiotics. But only 29% of those admitted with the virus were diagnosed as having a bacterial infection.

The findings of the study, which is the largest study to date on antibiotic use in US COVID-19 patients, add to the growing body of research on antibiotic prescribing during the early months of the pandemic. Studies to date have estimated that anywhere from 55% to 98% of hospitalized COVID patients around the world were treated with antibiotics, while only a fraction had a bacterial co-infection that would require their use. This has led to widespread concern about unnecessary antibiotic use during the pandemic.

"Other studies have shown that there is this high level of antibiotic prescribing in this population, while the occurrence or frequency of bacterial co-infections appears to be low," said Pew's Rachel Zetts, MPH, a co-author of the study.

"What our study really highlights is the important need to focus on antibiotic prescribing in this population, and to ensure that antibiotic stewardship programs are well positioned to improve prescribing a year into the pandemic." 

High rate of empiric prescribing

Using IBM Watson Health's electronic health records database, Zetts and her colleagues analyzed data on 5,898 unique US hospital admissions from February through July 2020, representing 4,980 patients. Nearly half of the admissions involved patients aged 56 and older, 52% were women, and most admissions involved patients in the Midwest (84%) and the South (14%). Fifty-nine percent of the hospitalizations lasted 1 to 3 days. Around 58% of the admissions occurred in June (18%) and July (40%)

"We were looking at prescribing primarily during the early summer months of the pandemic," Zetts said.

Within the study population, 52% of admissions resulted in at least one antibiotic being prescribed, with 82% of those patients receiving antibiotics at admission and 96% within the first 48 hours of hospitalization. Thirty-six percent of admissions resulted in more than one antibiotic prescription.

Analysis of diagnostic codes found that, in 20% of admissions, the patient was diagnosed with bacterial pneumonia, while 9% were diagnosed with a urinary tract infection. But that could be an overestimation, since diagnostic coding captures both confirmed and suspected infections. Only 7% of COVID-19 admissions were found to have positive bacterial culture results from blood, urine, and respiratory samples. 

Study co-author David Hyun, MD, director of Pew's antibiotic resistance project, suggested that multiple factors likely played a role in more than half of the COVID-19 admissions receiving an empiric antibiotic. Among them were the length of time it took to get results on COVID-19 tests and other microbiologic tests that could confirm or rule out a bacterial infection.

Early on in the pandemic, some hospital labs were taking several days to confirm COVID test results. And bacterial culture results typically take at least 48 hours.

In addition, even if it was suspected that patients had COVID-19, clinicians may have had concerns that patients had a bacterial infection on top of their viral infection. The study found that patients who received antibiotics were more likely to have inflammatory markers that could indicate an infection requiring antibiotics.

Hyun also noted that most of the patients were in the Midwest and South, in places that were likely experiencing their first surge of COVID-19 infections and were dealing with an infection that had no established treatment or management plan.

"This is what happens when a novel pathogen enters and creates a public health crisis," he said. "Beyond the diagnostic limitations, early on in the pandemic, there was also not a lot of information or research published in terms of the natural course of COVID infections."

But the analysis also found that far fewer patients—15% of the admissions—received additional antibiotics after 48 hours, which suggests that once clinicians did have test results in hand and bacterial infections were ruled out, antibiotic stewardship principles may have helped minimize antibiotic use.

"That does indicate some degree of de-escalation of antibiotic prescribing as doctors received additional information on their patients," Zetts said.

Data emphasize importance of stewardship

The findings from the Pew study are in line with a study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases in August 2020 that looked at antibiotic prescribing in 1,705 COVID-19 patients at 38 hospitals in Michigan from mid-March to mid-June 2020. The study found that 56.6% of those patients received empiric antibiotics, and only 3.5% had bacterial co-infections.

Valerie Vaughn, MD, who led that study and reviewed the data and methodology on the Pew study, said the results confirm what many other studies have found—that there has been a lot of antibiotic use, but very few bacterial co-infections, in COVID-19 patients.

"We're using a ton of antibiotics for COVID, and it's probably not necessary," said Vaughn, director of hospital medicine research at the University of Utah School of Medicine.

In addition to the reasons cited in the study, Vaughn noted one of the potential reasons antibiotics have been used so frequently in COVID-19 patients is that many antibiotic stewardship leaders in hospitals, including clinicians and pharmacists, have been pulled away from those duties to focus on COVID-19, leaving less time to monitor appropriate antibiotic use.

"They've been called upon by hospitals to write their COVID guidelines [and] to help with remdesivir allocation or vaccine distribution," she said. "So I think what we're going to see long-term is that there is more antibiotic use as well because our antibiotic stewardship leaders are focusing on COVID."

Zetts said the findings are an important reminder not only of why antibiotic stewardship programs are necessary, but why they need continued support and funding.

"Having those stewardship programs in place helps ensure there is a team that looks at antibiotic prescribing patterns, identifies areas for improvement, and is well-situated to provide real-time information to physicians as they're making prescribing decisions," Zetts said. "What this data really highlights is the need to have these programs in place now, and to make sure they remain in place moving forward."

This Is a Piece of a Lost Protoplanet, And It's Officially Older Than Earth

A piece of EC 002. (A. Irving, public domain)

MICHELLE STARR
9 MARCH 2021

A chunk of meteorite found in the desert sands of Algeria could be a piece of a baby planet that never made it.

According to an in-depth analysis of the rock's composition and age, not only is the meteorite known as Erg Chech 002 older than Earth, it formed volcanically - suggesting that it could have once been part of the crust of an object known as a protoplanet.

As such, it represents a rare opportunity to study the early stages of planet formation, and learn more about the conditions in the earliest days of the Solar System, when the planets we know and love today were still forming.

EC 002 was just found in May of last year, several chunks of rock with a combined weight of 32 kilograms (70 pounds) in the Erg Chech sand sea in southwestern Algeria. It was fairly quickly identified as unusual; rather than the chondritic composition of most recovered meteorites - which form when bits of dust and rock stick together - its texture was igneous, with pyroxene crystal inclusions.

It was therefore classified as an achondrite, a meteorite made of what seems to be volcanic material, originated on a body that has undergone internal melting to differentiate the core from the crust - a protoplanet, one of the middle stages of planet formation.

Of the tens of thousands of meteorites that have been identified, only a few thousand - 3,179, according to the Meteoritical Bulletin Database - are achondrites.

Most of these achondrites come from one of two parent bodies, and are basaltic in composition. This means that they cannot tell us much about the diversity of protoplanets in the early Solar System.


EC 002, on the other hand, is not basaltic, but a type of volcanic rock known as andesite, a team of scientists led by geochemist Jean-Alix Barrat of the University of Western Brittany in France has determined.

Of all the meteorites we have found to date, even among achondrites, that makes EC 002 extremely rare - and opens up a new avenue for understanding planet formation.

According to the team's analysis, the rock is ancient. The radioactive decay of isotopes of aluminium and magnesium suggest that these two minerals crystallised around 4.565 billion years ago, in a parent body that accreted 4.566 billion years ago. For context, Earth is 4.54 billion years old.

"This meteorite is the oldest magmatic rock analysed to date and sheds light on the formation of the primordial crusts that covered the oldest protoplanets," the researchers wrote in their paper.

Unlike basalt, which forms from the rapid cooling of lava rich in magnesium and iron, andesite is composed primarily of sodium-rich silicates, and - on Earth, at least - forms in subduction zones, where the edge of one tectonic plate is pushed underneath another.


Although it's found rarely in meteorites, the recent discovery of andesite in meteorites found in Antarctica and Mauritania prompted scientists to investigate how it might occur. Experimental evidence suggests that it can form from the melting of chondritic material.

Because chondritic bodies are so common in the Solar System, it's possible that the formation of protoplanets with andesite crusts was also common. However, when the team compared the spectral characteristics of EC 002 - that is, the way it interacts with light - with the spectral characteristics of asteroids, they could find nothing in the Solar System that matched the meteorite.

Andesitic crustal remains are not only rare in the meteorite record; they are also rare in the asteroid belt. Which raises the question: if the formation process was so simple and common, then where the heck did all the differentiated protoplanets get to?

The same place most of the material in the Solar System ended up, probably: they either got pulverised, or incorporated into larger rocky bodies; or, perhaps, a combination of both.

Since EC 002 is a little older than Earth, it's even possible that its protoplanetary siblings went on to help build Earth from a knot of denser material in the dust cloud that orbited the baby Sun.

Although we have a pretty decent grip on how baby planets are born, growing over millions of years as clumps of rocks and dust stick together, the specifics of the process are a little more mysterious.

EC 002 represents a spectacular opportunity to fine-tune our understanding of how our home system emerged from the dust.

The research has been published in PNAS.

We Finally Know The True Age of The Huge, Mysterious Objects in Laos' Plain of Jars

(Chris Hellier/Getty Images)

PETER DOCKRILL

9 MARCH 2021

In total, there are thousands of them – a giant landscape of strange, hollowed jars, carved from ancient stone. Some have lids. Most are open to the sky.

These surreal cauldron-like megaliths in Laos are known as the Plain of Jars, an archaeological relics whose original purpose is still shrouded in mystery, their significance long forgotten.

For several decades, researchers have suggested the jars were a part of prehistoric burial practices. Local legends and lore suggest the jars, some of them up to three metres (nearly ten feet) tall, were used for storage of food, alcohol, and rainwater, among other things.

For tragic reasons, it's been almost impossible for modern archaeologists to study the sites and discover the truth.

The Plain of Jars region and Laos as a whole still bear the terrible legacy of millions of unexploded bombs dropped by the US Air Force in the 1960s.

To this day, hundreds of innocent Laotians die every year as a result, decades after the conflict's official end.

And so the mystery of the Jars endures, with fewer than 10 percent of the megaliths having been investigated, researchers say.

In recent years, however, expeditions within selected safe sites have commenced, and archaeologists are now making important discoveries about these unusual objects, some of which stand alone, while others are clustered in great groups.

"Until now, it has not been possible to estimate when the jars were first placed on the landscape or from where the stone was sourced," an international team explains in a new paper detailing the latest research.

According to their analysis – using a technique called Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) to date the ancient stone – the jars were positioned potentially as early as the late second millennium BCE.

Evidence discovered of varied mortuary practices at some of the sites – including primary burial of human skeletons, and also bundled or jarred collections of bones – was also dated by radiocarbon dating, suggesting activity between 9-13th century CE.

On the face of the most recent evidence, this means the Plain of Jars pre-dates the most recent and confirmed discoveries of mortuary practices, by potentially thousands of years. As for what that means, we don't yet know.

"The data presented here strongly suggests that the placement of the megaliths preceded the mortuary activity around the jars, indicating re-use of the sites and enduring ritual significance," the researchers write.

However, previous research has suggested the mortuary rituals may be as old as the stone placements themselves, so it's possible wider searches would reveal a more continuous timeline of human activity.

Another puzzle that remains is how the jars got to their current positions.

Examination of megaliths in one site suggests the most likely quarry was 8 kilometres (5 miles) away from where the jars ended up – so just how the ancient culture that created these objects (estimated to weigh up to over 30 tonnes) managed to also transport them, is yet another unknown.

Still a mystery for the ages, then, and no mistake.

The findings are reported in PLOS One (link not yet live at the time of publishing).

Contentious Hypothesis Posits Humans Brains Grew Larger as We Hunted Smaller Prey

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STEPHANIE PAPPAS, LIVE SCIENCE
12 MARCH 2021

Over the course of the Pleistocene epoch, between 2.6 million years ago and 11,700 years ago, the brains of humans and their relatives grew.

Now, scientists from Tel Aviv University have a new hypothesis as to why: As the largest animals on the landscape disappeared, the scientists propose, human brains had to grow to enable the hunting of smaller, swifter prey.

This hypothesis argues that early humans specialized in taking down the largest animals, such as elephants, which would have provided ample fatty meals. When these animals' numbers declined, humans with bigger brains, who presumably had more brainpower, were better at adapting and capturing smaller prey, which led to better survival for the brainiacs.

Ultimately, adult human brains expanded from an average of 40 cubic inches (650 cubic centimeters) 2 million years ago to about 92 cubic inches (1,500 cubic cm) on the cusp of the agricultural revolution about 10,000 years ago.

The hypothesis also explains why brain size shrank slightly, to about 80 cubic inches (1,300 cubic cm), after farming began: The extra tissue was no longer needed to maximize hunting success.

Related: See photos of our closest human ancestor

This new hypothesis bucks a trend in human origins studies. Many scholars in the field now argue that human brains grew in response to a lot of little pressures rather than one big one.

But Tel Aviv University archaeologists Miki Ben-Dor and Ran Barkai argue that one major change in the environment would provide a better explanation.

"We see the decline in prey size as a unifying explanation not only to brain expansion, but to many other transformations in human biology and culture, and we claim it provides a good incentive for these changes," Barkai wrote in an email to Live Science.

"[Scholars of human origins] are not used to looking for a single explanation that will cover a diversity of adaptations. It is time, we believe, to think otherwise."
Big prey, growing brains

The growth of the human brain is evolutionarily outstanding because the brain is a costly organ. The Homo sapiens brain uses 20 percent of the body's oxygen at rest despite making up only 2 percent of the body's weight. An average human brain today weighs 2.98 lbs. (1,352 grams), far exceeding the brains of chimpanzees, our nearest living relatives, at 0.85 lb. (384 grams).

Related: In photos: Hominin skulls with mixed traits discovered

Barkai and Ben-Dor's hypothesis hinges on the notion that human ancestors, starting with Homo habilis and peaking with Homo erectus, spent the early Pleistocene as expert carnivores, taking down the biggest, slowest prey that Africa had to offer.

Megaherbivores, the researchers argue in a paper published March 5 in the journal Yearbook of Physical Anthropology, would have provided ample calories and nutrients with less effort than foraging plants or stalking smaller prey. Modern humans are better at digesting fat than other primates are, Barkai and Ben-Dor said, and humans' physiology, including stomach acidity and gut design, indicate adaptations for eating fatty meat.

In another paper, published Feb. 19 in the journal Quaternary, the researchers argue that human species' tools and lifestyle are consistent with a shift from large prey to small prey.

In Barkai's fieldwork in Africa, for example, he has found Homo erectus sites strewn with elephant bones, which disappear at later sites from between 200,000 and 400,000 years ago. The human ancestors at those more recent sites seemed to have been eating mostly fallow deer, Ben-Dor wrote in an email to Live Science.

Overall, megaherbivores weighing over 2,200 lbs. (1,000 kilograms) began to decline across Africa around 4.6 million years ago, with herbivores over 770 lbs. (350 kg) declining around 1 million years ago, the researchers wrote in their paper.

It's not clear what caused this decline, but it could have been climate change, human hunting, or a combination of the two. As the biggest, slowest, fattiest animals disappeared from the landscape, humans would have been forced to adapt by switching to smaller animals.

This switch, the researchers argue, would have put evolutionary pressure on human brains to grow larger because hunting small animals would have been more complicated, given that smaller prey is harder to track and catch.

These growing brains would then explain many of the behavioral changes across the Pleistocene. Hunters of small, fleet prey may have needed to develop language and complex social structures to successfully communicate the location of prey and coordinate tracking it.

Better control of fire would have allowed human ancestors to extract as many calories as possible from smaller animals, including grease and oil from their bones. Tool and weapon technology would have had to advance to allow hunters to bring down and dress small game, according to Barkai and Ben-Dor.
A fuzzy past

Single hypotheses for human brain evolution haven't held up well in the past, however, said Richard Potts, a paleoanthropologist and head of the Smithsonian's Human Origins Program in Washington, D.C., who wasn't involved in the research.

And there are debates about many of the arguments in the new hypothesis.

For example, Potts told Live Science, it's not clear whether early humans hunted megaherbivores at all. There are human cut marks on large-mammal bones at some sites, but no one knows whether the humans killed the animals or scavenged them.

The researchers also sometimes use arguments from one time period that might not apply to earlier times and places, Potts said.

For example, the evidence suggests a preference for large prey by Neanderthals living in Europe 400,000 years ago, which would have served those human relatives well in winter, when plants were scarce. But the same thing might not have held true a few hundred thousand or a million years earlier in tropical Africa, Potts said.

And when it comes to brains, size isn't everything. Complicating the picture, brain shape also evolved over the Pleistocene, and some human relatives – such as Homo floresiensis, which lived in what is now Indonesia between 60,000 and 100,000 years ago – had small brains. H. floresiensis hunted both small elephants and large rodents despite its small brain.

The period over which humans and their relatives experienced this brain expansion is poorly understood, with few fossil records to go on.

For example, there are perhaps three or four sites firmly dated to between 300,000 and 400,000 years ago in Africa that are certainly related to humans and their ancestors, said John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison who was not involved in the research and was skeptical of its conclusions.

The human family tree was complicated over the course of the Pleistocene, with many branches, and the growth in brain size wasn't linear. Nor were the declines in large animals, Hawks told Live Science.

"They've sketched out a picture in which the megaherbivores decline and the brains increase, and if you look at that through a telescope, it sort of looks true," Hawks told Live Science. "But actually, if you look at the details on either side, brain size was more complicated, megaherbivores were more complicated, and it's not like we can draw a straightforward relationship between them."

The paper does, however, draw attention to the fact that human species may indeed have hunted large mammals during the Pleistocene, Hawks said.

There is a natural bias in fossil sites against preserving large mammals because human hunters or scavengers wouldn't have dragged an entire elephant back to camp; they would have sliced off packets of meat instead, leaving no evidence of the feast at their home sites for future paleontologists and archaeologists.

"I'm sure we're going to be talking more and more about what was the role of megaherbivores in human subsistence, and were they important to us becoming human?" Hawks said.

This article was originally published by Live Science.