Facebook, Twitter must do more to stop COVID-19 anti-vaxxers, U.S. states say

By Jonathan Stempel 

3/24/2021

Li

© Reuters/Dado Ruvic FILE PHOTO: The Twitter and Facebook logos along with binary cyber codes are seen in this illustration

(Reuters) - Attorneys general for 12 U.S. states on Wednesday accused Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc of doing too little to stop people from using their platforms to spread false information that coronavirus vaccines are unsafe.

In a letter to Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, the Democratic attorneys general said "anti-vaxxers" lacking medical expertise and often motivated by financial gain have used the platforms to downplay the danger of COVID-19 and exaggerate the risks of vaccination.

They called on both companies to enforce their own community guidelines by removing or flagging vaccine misinformation.

The letter said anti-vaxxers control 65% of public anti-vaccine content on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and have more than 59 million followers on those platforms and Google's YouTube.

It also said some misinformation targets Blacks and other communities of color where vaccination rates are lagging.

"Given anti-vaxxers' reliance on your platforms, you are uniquely positioned to prevent the spread of misinformation about coronavirus vaccines that poses a direct threat to the health and safety of millions of Americans in our states and that will prolong our road to recovery," the letter said.

Facebook spokeswoman Dani Lever said the company has removed millions of pieces of COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation, and tries to combat "vaccine hesitancy" by regularly directing users to reliable information from health authorities.

Twitter said it has removed more than 22,400 tweets in connection with its policy toward COVID-19 posts, and prioritizes removing content that could cause "real-world" harm.

Wednesday's letter was signed by the attorneys general of Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Virginia.

Zuckerman, Dorsey and Sundar Pichai, the chief executive of Google parent Alphabet Inc, are scheduled to testify on Thursday before two House of Representatives subcommittees about combating online disinformation.

The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 124 million people worldwide, and caused more than 2.7 million deaths.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Bill Berkrot

ROSHOMON

1 report, 4 theories: Scientists mull clues on virus' origin


GENEVA — A team of international and Chinese scientists is poised to report on its joint search for the origins of the coronavirus that sparked a pandemic after it was first detected in China over a year ago — with four theories being considered, and one the clear frontrunner, according to experts.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The lengthy report is being published after months of wrangling, notably between U.S. and Chinese governments, over how the outbreak emerged, while scientists try to keep their focus on a so-far fruitless search for the origin of a microbe that has killed over 2.7 million people and stifled economies worldwide.

It wasn’t immediately clear when the report will be released after its publication was delayed earlier this month. By many accounts, the report could offer few concrete answers, and may raise further questions.

It will offer a first glance in writing from 10 international epidemiologists, data scientists, veterinary, lab and food safety experts who visited China and the city of Wuhan — where a market was seen as the initial epicenter — earlier this year to work with Chinese counterparts who pulled up the bulk of early data.

Critics have raised questions about the objectivity of the team, insisting that China's government had a pivotal say over its composition. Defenders of the World Health Organization, which assembled the team, say it can't simply parachute in experts to tell a country what to do — let alone one as powerful as China.

“I expect that this report will only be a first step into investigating the origins of the virus and that the WHO secretariat will probably say this," said Matthew Kavanagh, director of Georgetown University's Global Health Policy and Governance Initiative at the O’Neill Institute. “And I expect some to criticize this as insufficient. I think it is key to keep in mind that WHO has very limited powers."

The Wuhan trip is billed as Phase 1 in a vast undertaking to flesh out the origins of the virus.

The WHO has bristled at depictions of the mission as an "investigation" — saying that smacks of an invasive forensic probe that wasn't called for under the resolution adopted unanimously by the agency's member states in May that paved the way for the collaboration. The WHO and China later ironed out the ground rules.

Team member Vladimir Dedkov, an epidemiologist and deputy director of research at the St. Petersburg Pasteur Institute in Russia, summarized the four main leads first laid out at a marathon news conference in China last month about the suspected origins of the first infection in humans. They were, in order of likelihood: from a bat through an intermediary animal; straight from a bat; via contaminated frozen food products; from a leak from a laboratory like the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Officials in China, as well as Chinese team leader Liang Wannian, have promoted the third theory — the cold-chain one — while the U.S. administration under President Donald Trump played up the fourth one, of the lab leak. But Dedkov said those two hypothesis were far down the list of likely sources.

He suggested frozen products on which the virus was found were most likely contaminated by infected people. An infected person also likely brought and spread the virus at the Wuhan market associated with the outbreak, where some of the contaminated products were later found.

“In general, all the conditions for the spread of infection were present at this market,” Dedkov said in an interview. “Therefore, most likely, there was a mass infection of people who were connected by location.”

“At this point, there are no facts suggesting that there was a leak" from a lab, Dedkov said. “If suddenly scientific facts appear from somewhere, then accordingly, the priority of the version will change. But, at this particular moment, no.”

Suspicions about political meddling have dogged the mission, and the international team leader — the WHO's Peter Ben Embarek — acknowledged in interviews last week that unspecified “pressures” might weigh on its members. Liang, in a Chinese newspaper interview, also bemoaned political pressure on the team.

Delays in deploying the international team to China, repeated slippage in the timing of publication of the report, and rejiggering of the plans for it — an initial summary of findings was jettisoned as an idea — have only fanned speculation that the scientists have been steered by political authorities or others.

“The last understanding we had was that it is expected to come out this week — we'll have to see if that actually happens,” the U.S. charge d'affaires in Geneva, Mark Cassayre, said on Wednesday. “We have a clear understanding that other studies will be required.”

He said the U.S. was hopeful the report would be a “real step forward for the world understanding the origins of the virus, so that we can better prepare for future pandemics. That's really what this is about.”

The WHO leadership, including Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, repeatedly praised the Chinese government’s early response to the outbreak, though recordings of private meetings obtained by The Associated Press exposed how top WHO officials were frustrated at China’s lack of co-operation.

The international team was wholly reliant on data collected by Chinese scientists after the outbreak surfaced, and Dedkov called the visit to Wuhan an “analytical trip, mainly for the purpose of retrospective analysis in the sense that we studied only those facts that were obtained earlier.”

“We did not collect any samples ourselves, we didn’t carry out any laboratory studies there, we just analyzed what we were being shown," he said. If some data had not been collected, it wasn’t because the Chinese wanted to conceal something, he added.

The team’s visit was politically sensitive for China — which is concerned about any allegations it didn’t handle the initial outbreak properly. Shortly after the outbreak, the Chinese government detained some Chinese doctors who sought to raise the alarm.

The report, which Ben Embarek said last week took up about 280 pages, is set to lay out recommendations and lay the groundwork for next steps — such as whether the team, or others, get new access to China for further analysis. Ultimately, the aim is to find clues to help prevent another such pandemic in the future.

Georgetown’s Kavanagh said he hasn’t seen the report — but has suspicions about what it will say.

“Based on what we have heard so far I expect that the report will likely lend some credence to a link between wildlife farming and COVID-19, but without full evidence about exactly how the move from animals into humans might have occurred,” he said.

Dedkov said planning of “real-time research” is next, but noted there’s no guarantee future trips will find all the answers.

“But one can try," he added. "Of course, if the source of the origin of the virus is found, it will help answer many questions and, in general, will dissipate this unnecessary political tension around the virus."

___

Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this report.

___

Follow AP’s pandemic coverage at:

https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic

https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine

https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

Daria Litvinova And Jamey Keaten, The Associated Press

Colombian town uses discipline, speakers to stay virus-free

3/23/2021

CAMPOHERMOSO, Colombia — When customers enter his hardware store Nelson Avila asks them to wear a mask and wash their hands. He sprays alcohol over the bills and coins they give him before putting them in the till.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Avila's shop is in Campohermoso, a town of 3,000 people in Boyaca state in the mountains of central Colombia that has no reported cases of the coronavirus. According to the Health Ministry, Campohermoso county - which consists of the town and surrounding farms and villages - is one of just two counties in the country that are COVID-19-free. Colombia has more than 1,100 counties.

“Those bills can carry the virus” said Avila, 49, as he disinfects a wad of wrinkled Colombian pesos. “They go from hand to hand, so we have to be careful.”

Officials and locals say the town has been able to keep the virus away thanks to the disciplined behaviour of its residents and constant campaigns urging people to social distance and wear masks.

The town’s remote location ringed by mountains, far from major roads, has also helped it to stay coronavirus-free. It has just seven streets and six avenues laid out in a neat grid. It is nestled at the bottom of a green valley, 3300 feet (about 1,000 metres) above sea level.

“Campohermosos has a low population density and little contact with big cities,” said Jairo Mauricio Santoyo, the health secretary for Boyaca state.

Given that Colombia, with a population of about 50 million people, has reported more than 2.3 million confirmed cases of the coronavirus, many consider the lack of infections here a small miracle.

During the first decade of this century, Campohermoso was affected by fighting between paramilitary groups and leftist rebels, says the town’s mayor, Jaime Rodríguez. The coffee-growing area has been peaceful for more than a decade but it is seldom visited by outsiders.

Rodríguez says communication has been crucial in keeping the pandemic away from Campohermoso. Messages about the virus and how to prevent it are broadcast three times a day on speakers perched on the town’s lampposts.

The local radio station also broadcasts daily shows that talk about prevention. To ensure everyone gets the message, the mayor’s office distributed 1,000 radios to farmers who live in Campohermoso's rural areas.

“The whole town has come together” Rodríguez said. “The police, the health centre, church personnel and the mayor’s office all go on the radio station to talk about the virus.”

Rodríguez said his message to townsfolk has been simple: “Its’ up to every family to stop it.”

He has also tried to lead by example. The mayor says he began to feel ill during a recent visit to Bogota, where he tested positive for the virus. He did not return to Campohermoso until he tested negative.

“We’ve put 60 families in town in quarantine because they showed some symptoms,” Rodríguez said. “But all of them have tested negative.”

Businesses are now open in Campohermoso and only allow customers wearing masks. The town has not banned visitors from other parts of the country but those who arrive and wish to stay have been asked to quarantine in a relative’s home, and receive a daily call from the local nurse.

Campohermoso’s only school is running at half of its usual capacity. Students have been divided by shifts and attend school every other day.

And in the largely Roman Catholic town, the local priest has also gotten involved in prevention efforts.

“We pray to Saint Roch, who is our patron saint and the protector of the sick,” says Father Camilo Monroy, who has also gone on radio to talk about ways to prevent the spread of the virus.

The only other town in Colombia that is reportedly coronavirus-free is San Juanito, which is also located in a remote valley in the Andes mountains.

Officials consider the two cases striking because the virus has even appeared in Amazon jungle villages that can only be reached by boat or small plane.

Campohermoso has vaccinated 80 people so far, most of them senior citizens over the age of 80.

Now the coronavirus-free county is waiting for more shots from Colombia’s central government.

___

Astrid Suarez reported from Bucaramanga, Colombia.

Marko AlváRez And Astrid SuaréZ, The Associated Press

Stem cells from umbilical cords might be the answer for severely ill COVID patients: Canadian researchers

Tom Blackwell 

2/24/2021

© Provided by National Post Dr. Duncan Stewart of Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, who is conducting a trial using a type of stem cell obtained from umbilical cords to treat patients made severely ill by COVID-19.

More than a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, medical science is still struggling to cope with the worst manifestation of the disease.

When out-of-control immune systems attack patients’ lungs and sap their ability to breathe, health care has no sure-fire response. Even with some improvement in treatment, as many as 40 per cent of COVID patients in the intensive-care unit never make it out.

But researchers in Canada and elsewhere believe there’s potential lurking inside an unlikely source: a byproduct of child birth.

Discarded umbilical cords are a particularly rich font of mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs), a type of stem cell that scientists hope could reset that berserk immune system and tamp down damaging inflammation.

At least two clinical trials are in the works in Canada and dozens more in other countries to test the idea on the sickest of COVID patients.

Results of randomized, controlled tests of the cells’ efficacy are still to come, but early signs are promising. A small handful of “case series” — observational studies that lack a placebo group for comparison — have had good results, including one just published by an Iranian team.

The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute has completed a phase one safety trial of the cells on 11 patients, showing the treatment was well tolerated.

“The results are encouraging, they definitely support moving forward into a larger randomized trial,” said Dr. Duncan Stewart, the institute’s CEO. “This is a population that has extremely poor outcomes, so anything that can reduce the severity of the disease and improve survival and recovery is really, really important.”

At McGill University, a team led by Dr. Inés Colmegna plans to test another MSC product derived from umbilical cord blood, produced by a Swedish company.

“The idea here is that you’re using a cell that is capable … of reversing the damage caused by a huge activation of the immune system,” she said. “In a way, you are bringing some order and direction to the immune system.”

Some experts actually describe COVID-19 as like two different diseases. The first sees the virus itself triggering various symptoms, which clear up in most patients. The second occurs when the immune system goes hyperactive, triggering massive inflammation and assailing the cells of the lung, strangling their ability to shift oxygen to the bloodstream.

The result can be acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), the most dangerous symptom of COVID-19, when many patients end up on ventilators fighting for their lives.

Various potential treatments for the condition have been tried, none proving to be a home run.

With their ability to transform into other types of cells, MSCs were originally investigated as a way to regenerate damaged or diseased tissue. The results weren’t encouraging, but the cells did seem proficient at “modulating” the immune system, re-adjusting it so it fights off disease but doesn’t turn on the body itself, said Stewart.

Unlike single-molecule treatments, they also have a unique ability to multi-task, to target a number of factors causing damage, said Colmegna.

“You really are trying to tackle more than one thing at once.”

How the cells accomplish all that is not entirely clear, but they are associated with small blood vessels that play a key role in healing after injury, said Stewart.

Before the pandemic, the Ottawa team had completed a phase one trial using MSCs to treat ARDS caused by septic shock. A Chinese group reported in October on a study of 61 patients suffering from ARDS due to H7N9 flu. Significantly fewer of the 17 that received the stem cells — 17.6 per cent — died than those who did not get the treatment (55 per cent).

The cells can be found throughout the body but efforts to harvest them have largely focused on bone marrow and umbilical cords. The latter are the richest source and give up younger cells, Stewart said.

He believes his team’s MSC product has an advantage over others as it is derived fresh from living cultures, and is likely more potent than others that are frozen and then thawed.

But the frozen cells are “off-the-shelf” products that provide more flexibility in emergency cases when speed is of the essence, said Colmegna.

Crowds flock to Iceland volcano for a closer glimpse of lava

REYKJAVIK, Iceland — The eruption of a long-dormant volcano in southwestern Iceland has drawn large crowds of visitors eager to get close to the lava flows.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Many have trekked to the volcano on the Reykjanes Peninsula, near Iceland's capital Reykjavik, since it flared to life Friday night after tens of thousands of earthquakes were recorded in the area in the past three weeks. It was the area’s first volcanic eruption in nearly 800 years.

On Tuesday, Iceland’s civil protection officials were seen gesturing to dozens of people to move away from lava just meters behind them to ensure visitors do not get hurt. One of the officials said a visitor tried to cook bacon and eggs on the lava — but the pan melted in the heat.

Italian photographer Vincenzo Mazza, who lives in Iceland, was one of those who got a close look at the slow-flowing lava.

Video: Icelandic volcano eruption attracts sightseers (The Canadian Press)



“I’ve been waiting for many years to see an eruption in Iceland,” he said. “I saw some eruptions in Italy, like Etna and Stromboli, but this is absolutely different."

“I can’t say ‘this is more beautiful than that’ because they are very different, but this lava glowing just so close to us, it’s insane,” Mazza said.

The glow from the lava could be seen from the outskirts of Iceland’s capital, Reykjavík, about 32 kilometres (20 miles) away.

Icelandic officials said they did not anticipate evacuations because the volcano is in a remote area, about 2.5 kilometres (1.5 miles) from the nearest road.

US report: Bald eagle populations soar in lower 48 states

WASHINGTON — The number of American bald eagles has quadrupled since 2009, with more than 300,000 birds soaring over the lower 48 states, government scientists said in a report Wednesday.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said bald eagles, the national symbol that once teetered on the brink of extinction, have flourished in recent years, growing to more than 71,400 nesting pairs and an estimated 316,700 individual birds.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, in her first public appearance since being sworn in last week, hailed the eagle's recovery and noted that the majestic, white-headed bird has always been considered sacred to Native American tribes and the United States generally.

“The strong return of this treasured bird reminds us of our nation’s shared resilience and the importance of being responsible stewards of our lands and waters that bind us together,'' said Haaland, the first Native American Cabinet secretary.

Bald eagles reached an all-time low of 417 known nesting pairs in 1963 in the lower 48 states. But after decades of protection, including banning the pesticide DDT and placement of the eagle on the endangered species list in more than 40 states, the bald eagle population has continued to grow. The bald eagle was removed from the list of threatened or endangered species in 2007.

“It is clear that the bald eagle population continues to thrive,'' Haaland said, calling the bird's recovery a “success story (that) is a testament to the enduring importance of the work of the Interior Department scientists and conservationists. This work could not have been done without teams of people collecting and analyzing decades’ worth of science ... accurately estimating the bald eagle population here in the United States.''

The celebration of the bald eagle “is also a moment to reflect on the importance of the Endangered Species Act, a vital tool in the efforts to protect America’s wildlife,'' Haaland said, calling the landmark 1973 law crucial to preventing the extinction of species such as the bald eagle or American bison.

Reiterating a pledge by President Joe Biden, Haaland said her department will review actions by the Trump administration “to undermine key provisions" of the endangered species law. She did not offer specifics, but environmental groups and Democratic lawmakers criticized the Trump administration for a range of actions, including reducing critical habitat for the northern spotted owl and lifting protections for gray wolves.

“We will be taking a closer look at all of those revisions and considering what steps to take to ensure that all of us — states, Indian tribes, private landowners and federal agencies — have the tools we need to conserve America’s natural heritage and strengthen our economy,'' Haaland said.

“We have an obligation to do so because future generations must also experience our beautiful outdoors, the way many of us have been blessed,'' she added.

Martha Williams, deputy director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, called recovery of the bald eagle “one of the most remarkable conservation success stories of all time" and said she hopes all Americans get the chance to see a bald eagle in flight.

“They're magnificent to see,” she said.

To estimate the bald eagle population in the lower 48 states, Fish and Wildlife Service biologists and observers conducted aerial surveys over a two-year period in 2018 and 2019. The agency also worked with the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology to acquire information on areas that were not practical to fly over as part of aerial surveys.

Matthew Daly, The Associated Press

People downwind of atomic blasts renew push for US payout


ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — In the desert northeast of Las Vegas, residents living along the Nevada-Arizona border would gather on their front porches for bomb parties or ride horses into the fields to watch as the U.S. government conducted atomic tests during a Cold War-era race to build up the nation's nuclear arsenal.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

About 100 of those tests were aboveground, and U.S. Rep. Greg Stanton of Arizona testified during a congressional subcommittee hearing Wednesday that residents at the time marveled at the massive orange mushroom clouds billowing in the distance.

“They had no idea. They were never told that they were being exposed to dangerous cancer-causing radiation,” Stanton said. “As a direct result of the radiation exposure from these tests, thousands of Arizonans have suffered from cancer, entire families have suffered from cancer and far too many have died.”

He and others testified as part of a renewed push for compensation from the U.S. government following uranium mining and nuclear testing carried out during the Cold War.

Lawmakers from several Western states, advocacy groups and residents have been urging Congress to expand a payout program for years, and advocates say the latest push takes on added weight because the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act is set to expire next year. Wednesday’s hearing was the first on the issue since 2018, advocates said.

In New Mexico, about 40,000 people lived within a 50-mile (80-kilometre) radius of a military range where the world’s first atomic bomb was detonated as part of World War II's top-secret Manhattan Project, said Tina Cordova, co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium.

The advocacy group has been trying for years to bring awareness to the lingering effects of nuclear fallout surrounding the Trinity Site. She told the committee that the bomb, being the first, was inefficient and sent a fireball of plutonium into the atmosphere.

“For days, radioactive ash fell from the sky and settled on everything — the soil, in the water, in the air, on the plants and on the skin of every living thing. It was a public health disaster of grand proportions,” Cordova testified.

The rural residents who lived off the land were never told about the test or warned about the potential dangers, she said.

Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez testified about the environmental and health effects of decades of uranium mining on tribal land. He said more than 30 million tons of ore were extracted from Navajo lands to support U.S. nuclear activities, with many Navajos working in the mines without knowledge of the dangers.

He also pointed to a massive spill in 1979 that spewed radioactive tailings and wastewater onto tribal lands in the Church Rock area in western New Mexico.

A multibillion-dollar defence spending package approved last year included an apology to New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and other states affected by radiation from nuclear testing over the decades, but no action was taken on legislation that sought to change and broaden the compensation program.

U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, who sponsored the bill to expand the program when he was in the House, recalled how a Navajo woman previously asked lawmakers whether they were waiting for the people who were exposed to radiation to die so the problem would go away.

“It's just not right,” Luján said, pointing to those on the Navajo Nation as well as people downwind in New Mexico, Idaho, Colorado, Montana, Nevada, Utah and Guam who are not eligible for payouts. “These people deserve justice.”

The compensation program covers workers who became sick as a result of the radiation hazards of their jobs and some of those who lived downwind of the Nevada Test Site, where the federal government conducted several hundred nuclear explosive tests over four decades. Excluded are residents near the Trinity Site in New Mexico, others who were downwind in Nevada and Arizona, miners who worked in the industry after 1971, veterans who cleaned up radioactive waste in the Marshall Islands and others.

The program has paid out nearly $2.5 billion on more than 37,000 claims since 1990. If Congress doesn't doesn't renew the program, no more claims can be filed after July 2022.

Congressional analysts and others could not answer the committee's questions about the potential number of new claims that could be filed if eligibility were expanded.

U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson, a Democrat from Georgia, said payouts so far amounted to a pittance when compared to the half-billion dollars the country expects to spend on maintaining its nuclear arsenal over the next decade.

Susan Montoya Bryan, The Associated Press

UH OH

Three previously-unknown microbes discovered aboard ISS

Cheryl Santa Maria 

Three strains of bacteria previously unknown to science have been discovered aboard the International Space Station (ISS), according to a new paper appearing in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology.

The team, comprised of researchers from the U.S. and India in partnership with NASA, isolated four strains of bacteria belonging to the family Methylobacteriaceae from different locations on the ISS.

Methylobacterium species have numerous functions, the study authors say, including "nitrogen fixation, phosphate solubilization, abiotic stress tolerance, plant growth promotion and biocontrol activity against plant pathogens."

Three of the strains were previously unknown and have been given the designations IF7SW-B2T, IIF1SW-B5, and IIF4SW-B5. The team has proposed calling the new novel species Methylobacterium ajmalii, in honour of Indian biodiversity scientist Dr. Ajmal Khan.

Dr. Nitin Kumar Singh of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) says the strains may contain "biotechnologically useful genetic determinants" for growing crops in space, an issue that is becoming increasingly important as we look to send human explorers to Mars.

Learning to grow food in a harsh environment like space can also have implications for life on Earth, as it could help farmers offset the negative effects of climate change. Expanding our agricultural knowledge can also help reduce food security.

© Provided by The Weather Network

And, like many technologies developed by NASA, the ideas may have implications for life on Earth, by teaching us about growing crops in harsh environments and reducing food insecurity.

For the past six years, eight locations on the ISS have been monitored for bacterial growth, with hundreds of samples analyzed to date.

The team will now focus its attention on analyzing the new strains to see what insight they may be able to provide.

Archaeologists identify 3,200-year-old temple mural of spider god in Peru

Sam Jones 
THE GUARDIAN

3/25/2021

Archaeologists in northern Peru have identified a 3,200-year-old mural painted on the side of an ancient adobe temple that is thought to depict a zoomorphic, knife-wielding spider god associated with rain and fertility.

© Photograph: ANDINA/AFP/Getty Images Experts believe the shrine was built by the pre-Columbian Cupisnique culture, which developed along Peru’s northern coast more than 3,000 years ago.

The mural – applied in ochre, yellow, grey and white paint to the wall of the 15m by 5m mud brick structure in the Virú province of Peru’s La Libertad region – was discovered last year after much of the site was destroyed by local farmers trying to extend their avocado and sugarcane plantations.

Experts believe the shrine was built by the pre-Columbian Cupisnique culture, which developed along Peru’s northern coast more than 3,000 years ago.

The archaeologist Régulo Franco Jordán said the shrine’s strategic location near the river had led researchers to believe it had been a temple dedicated to water deities.

© Provided by The Guardian The mural – applied in ochre, yellow, grey and white paint to the wall of the 15m by 5m mud brick structure in the Virú province of Peru’s La Libertad region – was discovered last year. Photograph: ANDINA/AFP/Getty Images

“What we have here is a shrine that would have been a ceremonial centre thousands of years ago,” he told Peru’s La República newspaper.

“The spider on the shrine is associated with water and was an incredibly important animal in pre-Hispanic cultures, which lived according to a ceremonial calendar. It’s likely that there was a special, sacred water ceremony held between January and March when the rains came down from the higher areas.”

According to the archeologists, about 60% of the complex, which lies 500km north of Lima, was destroyed in November last year when farmers in the region used heavy machinery to try to extend their crop fields.

Related: Huge cat found etched into desert among Nazca Lines in Peru

Jordán has named the temple Tomabalito after the nearby archaeological site known as el Castillo de Tomabal.

“The site has been registered and the discovery will be covered up until the [Covid] pandemic is over and it can be properly investigated,” he told La República.

The spider god is not the only ancient animal artwork to have appeared in Peru over recent months. In October last year, the form of an enormous cat, dated to between 200 BC and 100 BC, emerged during work to improve access to one of the hills that overlooks the country’s famous Nazca line geoglyphs.

Twyla Tharp, nearing 80, isn't slowing down. Next question?

NEW YORK — The new PBS documentary on dancer-choreographer Twyla Tharp is called “Twyla Moves.” In retrospect, that sounds a bit weak.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

It really should be called “Twyla Moves And Won’t Stop As Long As She Has a Detectable Pulse,” a title that might perhaps begin to capture the fierceness with which Tharp, who turns 80 this year, approaches both work and life.

It’s a fierceness that led her at one point to take boxing lessons with Teddy Atlas, who trained Mike Tyson, to get in the best possible condition for a piece she was doing. “I eventually had to stop boxing because I got hit and broke my nose,” she recalled in an interview this week. “I said, ‘OK, your boxing days are over.’”

It’s also a fierceness that greets you the minute you begin a phone conversation with Tharp, whose words tumble out with striking speed and rarely a second of hesitation. She doesn’t need long to formulate fully developed thoughts -- nor does she seem to enjoy wasting time. In a recent Zoom group event, she was asked why she hadn’t done more movies. She proceeded to quickly list those she’d done -- “Hair,” “White Nights” and “Amadeus” among them -- with just a hint of impatience.

Given all that, it would seem obvious that something like a global pandemic wouldn't force Tharp off course, or keep her on the sofa binge-watching Netflix. On a recent afternoon, Tharp began a conversation by explaining why she’d had to postpone a few hours: Since 4 a.m. that morning she’d been choreographing a new work with ballet dancers in Düsseldorf, Germany. Choreography via Zoom, she noted, “is very strenuous — very limited from a sensory point of view.”

And perhaps especially for a choreographer like Tharp, who doesn’t simply sit and instruct dancers — she teaches by showing, even now. To be in that kind of shape approaching one’s ninth decade on earth is a challenge that would elude most of us. Part of Tharp’s physical regimen involves sticking to 1,200 calories a day.

“I don’t like carrying extra weight,” she says. “I like feeling what I call ‘on the bone,’ literally very close to the bone. For one thing the feet have suffered a certain amount of abuse, and I like to keep as much weight as possible out of them."

It’s shocking she hasn’t permanently damaged those feet. To say Tharp’s choreography is merely athletic is to understate the way in which it has stretched her artists and herself to the limits. Billy Joel, who collaborated with Tharp on the 2002 Broadway hit “Movin’ Out,” set to his music, speaks of being in rehearsal and watching dancers “throwing themselves around the stage — I was worried about people getting injured! I felt like, ‘Take it easy! Watch out for the end of the stage!’ They were risking life and limb every night.”

Musician David Byrne, with whom she worked on an earlier show, “The Catherine Wheel” in 1981, felt the same. ”These were top-notch dancers and she was pushing them to the limits of what they could do physically,” he says in the film.

Tharp explains it simply: "Part of the adventure for me has always been a physical challenge." She notes matter-of-factly that at one point in her weight training, she could lift 227 pounds, "and I am 108 pounds, so that's twice my body weight. I go for records and that’s what I do. I think anybody who works with me expects that same challenge.”

Needless to say, Tharp doesn’t seem to care a lot about physical comfort — or comfort of any kind. Ask, for example, whether she was comfortable being the subject of a documentary, and she says drily: “I’m not sure what you mean by comfortable.” Enjoyable? Nah. “It’s work, like anything else. I don’t attach to it commodities like comfort or enjoyment.”

Indeed, the theme itself is work. In one old clip, TV host Dick Cavett asks Tharp what she does to relax after a long period of work. “Work more,” she replies. You believe her.

Tharp didn’t want the film, directed by Steven Cantor and part of the American Masters series, to feel like a biography. She wanted a lot more present tense in there. “Often when you’re dealing with something that has as much history as I do or backlog, you can get lost in the past,” she says. “One of my conditions was that I’d be doing new work.”

So we watch her creating a new Zoom version of her work “The Princess and the Goblin,” with several prominent dancers handpicked for the film, including Misty Copeland of American Ballet Theatre, Maria Khoreva of the Mariinsky Ballet in Russia, Herman Cornejo of ABT, and Charlie Hodges, a longtime Tharp dancer. “Part of the mission here was that dance is always about getting the job done, that even under the most difficult of situations — no physical contact, good luck with that if your'e a dancer! — we can still deliver something, because we’re dancers. We’ll do it!"

But the jewel is her archive, which spans her career, beginning with her experiments in modern dance from the '60s. She's shown dancing with Mikhail Baryshnikov, or working with him on “White Nights” with Gregory Hines. There are snippets from gems like the hugely popular “In the Upper Room,” a ballet set to the propulsive music of Philip Glass. Tharp began videotaping her work in 1968. “I have many many many thousands of hours of tape thoroughly documenting every piece I’ve ever made," she says, “because I am an art historian.”

There's nowhere near enough time to include her vast repertoire. About half the show is on the Zoom project -- 41 minutes, she notes with a choreographer’s precision -- “and that leaves you with 20 from when you were born to grew up and you're not not quite dead yet, then another 20 for 150 works and four books...”

And she’s not near done. Asked in the film whether she's achieved her mission, she says: “Not quite.” Asked by this reporter when that might be, she offered: “When I die?”

“There’s nothing that could hold Twyla back from creating — it feeds her,” says Copeland in the film. “We’re all trying to keep up with her, is the moral of the story.”

Jocelyn Noveck, The Associated Press