United Airlines unveils plan to fund more sustainable jet fuel made from trash

By Tracy Rucinski and Ankit Ajmera 

Reuters/CHRIS HELGREN 

 A United Airlines passenger jet takes off with New York City as a backdrop

(Reuters) -United Airlines said on Tuesday it has partnered with global firms including Nike Inc and Siemens AG in an "Eco-Skies Alliance" to finance use this year of about 3.4 million gallons of low-carbon, sustainable aviation fuel derived from trash.


Though tiny compared with the 4.3 billion gallons of jet fuel that United consumed in 2019 prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the amount triples the roughly 1 million gallons of sustainable fuel it has used each year since 2016.

Airlines have used sustainable fuel since 2008 as part of efforts to reduce outright emissions, but so far this represents barely 1% of the fuel used worldwide, industry groups say.

Chicago-based United named 11 of more than a dozen global partners for the plan but did not disclose the cost, or how much each would contribute.

Air transport accounts for 2%-3% of greenhouse gas emissions, the French aerospace association said on Tuesday. Environmental groups argue the sector's overall contribution is higher.

Partners include companies with corporate or cargo deals with United, like Nike, Siemens, Palantir and Japan's Takeda Pharmaceutical Co.

United said the project gives customers a way to help reduce the environmental impact of flying beyond buying carbon offsets and could help create more of a market for sustainable aviation fuels.

"We'll see how it develops," Chief Executive Scott Kirby told reporters. "I think there's a huge appetite for it."

The airline industry has focused more broadly on the purchase of carbon offsets to reduce the environmental impact of flying, pending the arrival of new technology to meet the sector's goal of halving net emissions by 2050 versus 2005.

Environmental critics say offsets do not directly address climate goals and mask the problem of ongoing jet emissions.

United, which along with some other carriers has said it wants to cut net emissions more aggressively by 100% by 2050, has criticized offsets and announced a recent investment in "carbon-capture" technology. It has invested in a sustainable aviation fuel producer called Fulcrum BioEnergy

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 Reuters/KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI 

United Airlines president Scott Kirby speaks at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago

"While we know that aircraft are never going to be completely decarbonized, we are not going to use offsets as the way to get to 100% green," Kirby said.

Airline association IATA says life cycle greenhouse emissions from sustainable fuel can be at least 80% lower than normal fuel and are the only medium-term option for curbing emissions growth, since airlines cannot yet switch to electric planes.

Delta Air Lines has said it plans to replace 10% of its jet fuel, currently refined from fossil fuel, with sustainable aviation fuel by the end of 2030.

While using waste avoids taking land from food production, environmental groups like Transport & Environment say such supplies are limited and face competition from other sectors.

(Reporting by Tracy Rucinski in Chicago and Ankit Ajmera in BengaluruEditing by Tim Hepher and Matthew Lewis)

Companies, European leaders call on US to halve emissions by 2030

About 300 companies and dozens of European leaders on Tuesday called on the U.S. to cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 below 2005 levels.

 Getty Images Companies, European leaders call on US to halve emissions by 2030

Signatories of the business letter include tech giants Apple, Google and Microsoft, as well as other major companies like Walmart and Starbucks.

"We ... call on you to adopt the ambitious and attainable target of cutting GHG emissions by at least 50% below 2005 levels by 2030," they wrote in an open letter to President Biden.

"A bold 2030 target is needed to catalyze a zero-emissions future, spur a robust economic recovery, create millions of well-paying jobs, and allow the U.S. to 'build back better' from the pandemic," the companies added.

Specifically, they called for investing in clean energy, energy efficiency and clean transportation, as well as better agricultural practices and removing carbon from the air.

In addition, more than 20 members of the European Parliament, as well as European CEOs and other leaders signed onto a letter Tuesday making a similar statement.

"The climate crisis has no political colour, no borders, and no vaccine will prevent us from its impact," said the letter, which was led by Pascal Canfin, chair of the European Parliament's Environment committee.

"We, European political decision makers, CEOs, business organisations, trade unions and think tanks, call the United States to fulfil its ambitions by adopting a climate goal of reducing by at least 50% GHG emissions by 2030 (compared to 2005 levels)," it continued.

The calls come as the U.S. prepares to release its updated commitment to the Paris agreement, called a Nationally Determined Contribution, next week.

The Biden administration is expected to exceed the Obama-era goal of reducing emissions by 26 to 28 percent by 2025.

Several environmental groups have similarly called for a 50 percent reduction by 2030 as the Biden administration strives for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

'Deeds, not words': mining firms reshape boardrooms as investors demand sustainability

By Helen Reid

REUTERS

4/13/2021

Reuters/David Gray FILE PHOTO: A stacker unloads iron ore onto a pile at a mine located in the Pilbara region of Western Australia

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Under fire after a string of high-profile disasters, mining firms are shaking up their boardrooms in response to criticism that they are failing to meet their own environmental, social, and governance standards

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© Reuters/David Gray FILE PHOTO: A sign adorns the building where mining company Rio Tinto has their office in Perth, Western Australia

Shareholders are demanding change from an industry whose reputation has been battered by deadly collapses of mine waste storage facilities in Brazil, and Rio Tinto's destruction of sacred rock shelters in Australia.

 Reuters/Pilar Olivares FILE PHOTO: A view shows the company logo of Brazilian mining company Vale SA at its headquarters in downtown Rio de Janeiro

Companies are responding with changes to the structure and skillset of their senior management - a shift investors and governance experts say is sorely needed to mitigate risk in an inherently hazardous industry.

"The level of understanding and capability at board level is insufficient at the moment in the mining sector, and it doesn't yet in our view support the transition of these companies to best practice," Andy Jones, metals and mining lead at investment manager Federated Hermes, said.

Brazil's Vale SA - keen to show its dedication to safety and sustainability after two tailings dam failures in less than four years - recently announced the biggest shakeup in its board since it was privatized in 1997.

Seven of the 13 members of the new board set for approval this month have extensive experience in ESG and sustainability-related issues, up from five previously. The company has also added requirements for nominees to have experience in community relations.

 Reuters/Ricardo Moraes FILE PHOTO: The debris of the municipal school of Bento Rodrigues district, which was covered with mud after a dam owned by Vale SA and BHP Billiton Ltd burst, is pictured in Mariana

AngloGold Ashanti last year appointed as a non-executive director a mining governance adviser to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, Kojo Busia, after the board identified the need to increase its efficacy in ESG oversight, it told Reuters.

Barrick Gold also bolstered its ESG credentials with the appointment of World Bank executive director Anne Kabagambe to its board in November, highlighting her experience in international development.

Some miners have also begun tying executives' and directors' bonuses directly to measurable ESG outcomes. Rio Tinto has connected 15% of executives' annual bonuses to ESG metrics for the first time

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 Reuters/Ricardo Moraes FILE PHOTO: A man works on the cleaning of a house flooded with mud after a dam, owned by Vale SA and BHP Billiton Ltd burst, in Barra Longa

Bonuses for the director of Vale's executive board for safety are calculated based only on health, safety, and sustainability indicators.

But companies must also improve internal reporting and foster a culture of openness if the industry is to prevent a repeat of past mistakes, governance experts say.

"The remuneration is obviously key in terms of setting incentives, but that on its own doesn't work unless the board is getting the quality of information and there is a spirit of independent thought and challenge," said Joanna Hewitt, a partner at law firm Baker McKenzie in London who advises companies on corporate governance.

For boards to exercise proper oversight, directors need access to information that bypasses management, Daniel Smith, a governance advisor with CGI Glass Lewis, told Reuters last November.

To achieve that, a specialist heritage advisor reporting directly to the board could be appointed, or a board could have an ESG subcommittee responsible for stakeholder management, including of traditional owners, he said.

To help investors track their progress, mining companies must publish more data on issues like community engagement, water and air quality, and rehabilitation and closure plans, said Charlotte Valeur, founder of governance advisory firm Global Governance Group.

As a result of investor pressure, more mining companies are reporting so-called scope 3 emissions data, a measure of downstream CO2 emissions by metal consumers. Data transparency is key, says Valeur.

"It has to be deeds, not words," she said. "What it's easy to do is have some fluff - but what we want is hard numbers."

(Reporting by Helen Reid in Johannesburg, Melanie Burton in Melbourne and Marta Nogueira in Rio de Janeiro; Writing by Helen Reid; Editing by Amran Abocar and Jan Harvey)

Elizabeth Warren says the government should fire student loan servicer Navient, which should fire its CEO

asheffey@businessinsider.com (Ayelet Sheffey) 4/13/2021

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© Provided by Business Insider Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Navient CEO John Remondi should be fired at a hearing on Tuesday.
Navient, one of the largest student loan servicers, has been accused of misleading borrowers.

Remondi said the allegations are untrue and "not necessarily based on facts."

Navient CEO John Remondi was at Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts' first hearing on student debt relief. Warren told Remondi that he should be fired for misleading student loan borrowers, but that wasn't all.

"The federal government should absolutely fire Navient, and because this happened under your leadership, Navient should fire you," Warren told Remondi during the hearing.

Warren, as the chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Economic Policy, called 11 witnesses to testify at the hearing to discuss the impact of student debt on borrowers, racial justice, and the economy.

Warren said in her letter to Remondi inviting him to testify at the hearing that while Navient currently services federal loans to 5.6 million borrowers and holds over $58 billion annually in federally guaranteed Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) loans, it also has "been a contributor to the problem, with a decade-long history of allegations of abusive and misleading practices aimed at student loan borrowers."

She added that between 2009 and 2019, Navient has been accused or fined for "actions that ripped off borrowers," including the improper marketing of loans and failing to notify borrowers of their rights.

And an ongoing Consumer Financial Protection Bureau investigation found evidence that Navient "systematically steered thousands of borrowers who were having difficulty paying their loans into plans that were worse for the borrowers - but more profitable for Navient."

In February, three student loan borrowers filed a legal action against Navient, arguing that Navient owed them over $45,000 in overpayments that the company had wrongfully collected after their student loans had been discharged. This followed an Education Department ruling that Navient must repay the government $22 million in overcharged student loan subsidies.

In response to Warren's questioning on investigations into Navient, Remondi said his job is "obviously to comply with the rules and laws, and we work hard to make sure all borrowers successfully manage their loans."

"These allegations are not true," Remondi said. "They're accusations and not necessarily based on facts," he added.

Also testifying at the hearing were Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Maura Healey, the attorney general of Massachusetts, and James Steeley, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency.

Biden could wipe out 84% of the federal student-debt pile by canceling $50,000 per person

asheffey@businessinsider.com (Ayelet Sheffey) 

4/13/2021

© Provided by Business Insider recep-bg/Getty Images

DOE data shows canceling $50,000 in student debt per person would erase debt for 84% of federal borrowers.

It shows that canceling $10,000 per person would erase debt for 35% of them, Yahoo Finance reports.

The DOE and DOJ are reviewing Biden's authority to cancel $50,000 in student debt.

Democratic lawmakers are continuing to push for President Joe Biden to cancel $50,000 in student debt per person, and new data from the Department of Education may have helped them make their case to the president.

A DOE analysis obtained by Yahoo Finance on Monday found that $50,000 in student-loan forgiveness per person would erase the entire debt for 36 million - or 84% - of the roughly 43 million borrowers in the US with federal loans, while $10,000 in forgiveness would erase the entire debt for 15 million - or 35% - of those borrowers.

The data also showed that 9.4 million of the 36 million borrowers who would benefit from a $50,000 loan cancelation are at risk of default, meaning they could fail to repay the loans. Also, 4.4 million borrowers, each holding an average of $48,000 in student debt, have had loans for more than two decades since graduation. Another 10.7 million borrowers have held their loans for over a decade.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have led efforts in calling on Biden to cancel $50,000 in student debt per person using executive powers, but the president has argued he does not have the authority to cancel $50,000, and he said he would welcome legislation to cancel $10,000 per person.

In response to Biden's comments, Warren said in a press call last month: "We have a lot on our plate, including moving to infrastructure and all kinds of other things. I have legislation to do it, but to me, that's just not a reason to hold off. The president can do this, and I very much hope that he will."

Biden has since asked the Justice Department and the Education Department to review his authority to use executive action to cancel student debt, and White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in early April that the $50,000 cancelation figure hasn't been ruled out.

The DOE data comes ahead of Warren's Senate Banking hearing on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the burden of student debt.

"I graduated from a state school that cost $50 a semester," Warren said on Twitter on Monday. "That opportunity is simply not out there today. Two out of every three people who go to a state school today have to borrow money to graduate. That is not how we build a future. #CancelStudentDebt.

Pope asks US bishop to resign after coverup investigation

ROME — A bishop in Minnesota resigned Tuesday at the request of Pope Francis after he was investigated by the Vatican for allegedly interfering with past investigations into clergy sexual abuse, officials said.

The Vatican said Francis accepted the resignation of Crookston Bishop Michael Hoeppner and named a temporary replacement to run the diocese. Hoeppner is 71, four years shy of the normal retirement age for bishops.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Crookston said the pontiff asked Hoeppner to resign following the Vatican probe, which it said arose from reports that the bishop "had at times failed to observe applicable norms when presented with allegations of sexual abuse involving clergy."

The Vatican and U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops simultaneously announced Hoeppner’s resignation and the appointment of the Most Rev. Richard E. Pate, the retired bishop of Des Moines, as a temporary administrator without commenting on the reason for the change.

The diocese of Crookston counts nearly 35,000 Catholics in northern Minnesota.

The Vatican had tasked St. Paul-Minneapolis Archbishop Bernard Hebda with conducting a preliminary investigation. Last year, Hebda's office announced that the Holy See had authorized a more in-depth probe.

Hoeppner is accused of stating that a priest was fit for ministry despite allegedly knowing the priest had abused a 16-year-old boy in the early 1970s. The victim, Ron Vasek, later sued the diocese, alleging that Hoeppner blackmailed him into retracting his allegations against Monsignor Roger Grundhaus. The lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed sum in 2017.

Hoeppner was the first bishop known to be investigated by the Vatican under a 2019 law that Francis approved laying out the procedures to conduct preliminary investigations against bishops accused of sex abuse or coverup.

He has said in sworn testimony that he was trying to protect the victim's confidentiality by stating that Grundhaus was fit for ministry. He has said Grundhaus continues to deny Vasek's allegations.

Hebda's office said the investigation took 2,000 hours, involved interviews with 38 people and that Hoeppner was interviewed more than once. The resulting reports totalled 1,533 pages, including recommendations, and were reviewed by two lay experts who determined the probe was thorough and had been “conducted in a fair and impartial manner," the archdiocese said.

A survivor advocacy group, SNAP, said it was pleased with the outcome, but said Francis could have simply fired Hoeppner rather than asked him to resign.

“While the result is the same, we feel that a stronger message would have been sent by ousting Bishop Hoeppner instead of asking him to leave, as there is a difference in forcing someone out versus asking them to remove themselves," SNAP said.

Grey whale off Vancouver Island given antibiotics after lesions found around tag site

VANCOUVER — Canadian and American officials say they're monitoring a grey whale after lesions were spotted in the same area where a satellite tag was attached by researchers.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Officials said during a joint news conference Tuesday they've taken the whale's breath sample and given it antibiotics, and it appears to be active and doing well in the waters off Vancouver Island.


Photos show the tag protruding from a patch of the whale's flesh, which appears white around the foreign object.

"The whale is fairly robust, it's feeding," said Marjorie Mooney-Seus, a spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the United States, which administered the tag.

"It is behaving normally and making quite long trips up and down the coast of Vancouver Island."

The animal is part of a small group of about 250 grey whales that spend their summers in the waters off British Columbia and Washington state.

The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada designated the Pacific Coast Feeding Group endangered in 2017 and the pod is under consideration for protection under the Species at Risk Act. It is not considered endangered in the United States.

Stephen Raverty, a veterinary pathologist with the B.C. government's Animal Health Centre, said the whale is being monitored for the same type of fungal infection linked to a tagging that killed an endangered orca in 2016.

NOAA temporarily suspended its tagging program after the death of the whale known as L95.

"Fungi is certainly a consideration in this case as well, however there's no real way to determine whether there is a fungal infection involved in this site," Raverty said.

The breath samples are being studied for fungal culture, as well as viral and bacterial content, but results will take two to three weeks, he said.

Martin Haulena, a veterinarian with the Vancouver Aquarium and Marine Mammal Rescue Centre, said there's likely bacterial inflammation around the tag but the antibiotics are mainly designed to prevent a more serious spread.

"Their purpose is to prevent an overwhelming secondary and systemic infection," Haulena said.

The whale was tagged Sept. 8 by researchers with NOAA Fisheries, said Sharon Melin, program manager of its California Current Ecosystems Program.

The tags are designed so that the whale's body will reject them over time and heal over, a process that can take from one month to over a year.

Safety protocols, including sterilization of the tag before deployment, were followed, another official said.

The lesions were spotted both around the tag and on the opposite side of the animal on March 16 by a NOAA contractor.

A panel of scientists determined on March 31 that the lesions do not pose an imminent danger to the animal's health, Melin said.

"The consensus of the panel was that the lesion around the tag site was within the range of reaction that would be expected as the body extruded the tag, however it was unusual compared to other records of whales tagged with similar tags," Melin said.

The panel does not know if the lesions on the other side of its body are related to the ones around the tag, she said.

NOAA said in a statement that it is hopeful that once the tag falls off, the tissue around the site will heal.

Satellite tags are an important part of the way scientists learn about the whales' migration, habitat, feeding and breeding areas, as well as identifying where they share the waters with humans, Melin said.

There are about 20,000 whales in the entire Eastern North Pacific grey whale population, including this whale's small group. The larger group has fully recovered from the historic whaling era and was taken off the endangered species list in the United States in 1994.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 13, 2021.

Amy Smart, The Canadian Press

Cargill temporarily closes its London, Ont., poultry plant due to COVID-19 outbreak


LONDON, Ont. — Food giant Cargill Limited says it has temporarily closed its London, Ont., poultry processing plant due to a COVID-19 outbreak among some of its workers.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The company says there is an active case count of 82 and that 900 people work at the facility.

In a release Tuesday the company says it has no definite timeline on when the plant will reopen.

Cargill says it made the decision out of an abundance of caution as its workforce deals with the community-wide impacts of COVID-19 and employees will receive a weekly guarantee of 36 hours of pay.

It says it has made testing available to all its employees and has encouraged anyone who is sick or has been exposed to anyone with COVID-19 in the last 14 days to stay home.

Cargill says it is working closely with public health officials to ensure appropriate prevention, testing and cleaning in its facilities and that employees are following quarantine protocols at home.

"As we continue to prioritize the health and safety of Cargill employees, we have decided to temporarily idle our London protein facility," Derek Hill, general manager for Cargill’s London plant, said in an email.

"Our focus is on continuing to keep our employees safe and getting our facility back to normal operations."

Cargill noted that safety measures at the facility, including temperature testing, enhanced cleaning and sanitizing, face coverings, screening between employee stations, prohibiting visitors, adopting social distancing practices, offering staggered breaks and reducing carpooling have been in place for months.

Cargill's website says its London facility processes 80,000 chickens per day.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 13, 2021

The Canadian Press

CEOs say the Trump tax cut created the best economy ever. The data disagrees.
bwinck@businessinsider.com (Ben Winck)

Trump holds an example of what a new tax form may look like during a meeting on tax policy with Republican lawmakers in November 2017. Evan Vucci/AP

Many CEOs are fighting President Joe Biden's planned corporate tax hike.

CEOs surveyed by Business Roundtable say reversing Trump's 2017 cuts boosted growth and employment.

Data disagrees, showing the Trump cuts did little to stimulate the US economy despite costing trillions.

The inflation debate is dead. Long live the tax-hike debate.

President Joe Biden's spending spree was just getting started when he signed a $1.9 trillion stimulus into law on March 11. The administration now aims to spend up to $4 trillion more, split between two infrastructure packages.

Included in the proposal are tax hikes set to offset most of the new spending. Biden aims to lift the corporate tax rate to 28%, implement a global minimum corporate tax rate, and lift federal income taxes on households earning more than $400,000. The measures would undo some of the key elements of President Donald Trump's 2017 tax cuts, which is setting up a new argument between economists and business leaders.

In one corner, 98% of CEOs surveyed by the Business Round Table said Biden's proposed hikes would have a "moderate" to "very" significant negative impact on competitiveness. About 66% said the changes would stifle wage growth in the US, and more than seven in 10 said it would make hiring more difficult.

"As we look toward recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, keeping competitive tax policies in place is needed to help reinvigorate the US economy and lead to more opportunity for Americans," Gregory J. Hayes, chief executive of Raytheon and chair of the Business Round Table Tax and Fiscal Policy Committee, said in a statement.

The 2017 cuts drove economic growth before the pandemic, dragged the unemployment rate to a 50-year low, and lifted middle-class wages, Hayes added.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell echoed the CEOs on Tuesday, saying a reversal from Trump's policy will do far more harm than good.

"This tax bill of 2017 undone would create an extensive loss of jobs in our country, do exactly the wrong thing, and move us in the wrong direction."

Economists largely disagree. The previous president's cuts padded balance sheets while doing little to solve tax avoidance, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman said in a New York Times blog post published Friday.

Strong demand, not lower tax rates, was the primary factor lifting business investment after 2017, economists at the International Monetary Fund said in a 2019 paper. The investment response to the 2017 cuts was also smaller than those seen after previous cuts, they added.

© Scott J. Applewhite/AP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Scott J. Applewhite/AP

What happened to the rocket fuel?

To be exact, Trump deemed his tax cuts "rocket fuel for our economy" that would kickstart a "rebirth of American industry." That rebirth did not arrive, as evidenced by various indicators of economic growth and labor-market health.

To start, connecting the tax cut to the record-low unemployment rate seen before the pandemic ignores several previous years of growth. The expansion that ended in March 2020 predated Trump by several years and was the longest in US history; job creation from 2012 to 2019 trended at about 2 million to 2.5 million nonfarm payrolls per year.

And after the 2017 tax cut? Job gains in 2018 were only slightly higher than those seen the year prior, and they actually went down in 2019 to the lowest since 2011, signaling the tax cut didn't spark a hiring spree.

The unemployment rate tells a similar story. The headline gauge's pace of decline was roughly the same after 2017 despite Republicans touting the cuts as a boon for the labor market.

Trump also claimed his tax policy would supercharge business investment, but data details an increase that paled in comparison to prior expansions. Domestic business investment climbed by roughly $251 billion from the first quarter of 2017 to its peak in the first quarter of 2019. Yet gains were just as large and more sustained during the dot-com boom of the 1990s and in the immediate wake of the financial crisis.

Productivity did increase in the years after the tax cut, but the trajectory only tells half of the story. The gauge - which measures output per hour of labor - remains well below levels seen just before the financial crisis and the peak seen after the 1990s expansion

As for Biden and his corporate tax hike? He's arguing for an expanded definition of infrastructure that includes mass availability of high-speed broadband and an electrified federal fleet. Time will tell whether the policy can drive the kind of growth Trump promised, or the kind that corporate leaders are still claiming was exceptional, data notwithstanding.

But with the Biden administration claiming its infrastructure plan will create millions of jobs, Democrats argue it's high time the government gets its shot at providing the kind of "rocket fuel" that could create a stronger economy.

These ants can shrink and regrow their brains 

Troy Farah 

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

4/13/2021

For most ant colonies, there’s a straightforward hierarchy: a single queen lays all the eggs, while a caste system of workers manages everything else—foraging for food, nursing baby ants, going to war, and so on. Only males and queens can reproduce, and the rest of the ants are sterile. If the queen dies, the colony usually does, too.

© Photograph by Clint Penick Ant with an ability to regrow its brain

OVARIES GROW BRAIN SHRINKS

Things are different for the Indian jumping ant, a species with forceps-like jaws and large black eyes that inhabits forests along India’s western coast. In these colonies, if the queens die, workers host bizarre competitions in which the winner becomes the monarch—and capable of producing eggs. The triumphant female ant’s ovaries expand and her brain shrinks up to 25 percent.

But new research shows these queens can be taken off their pedestal, reverting back to workers. This causes the ovaries to shrink again, and the brain to regrow, an extraordinary feat not previously known to occur in insects.

“In the animal world, this level of plasticity—and especially reversible plasticity —is pretty unique,” explains Clint Penick, the lead author of the study documenting this discovery, published Wednesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

Game of ants

Penick, an assistant professor of ecology, evolution, and biology at Kennesaw State University, in Georgia, has spent years studying Indian jumping ants, known as Harpegnathos saltator. When these workers shift into queen-like reproductive mode, scientists call them gamergates (not to be confused with the online harassment campaign tied to video games). The term gamergate comes from the Greek for “married worker” and was coined in the 1980s; The “gam” in gamergate rhymes with “ham.”

Every member of H. saltator can reproduce, but this can only occur if an individual wins a drawn-out series of dominance tournaments that take place after a queen dies. Like a tiny jousting championship, the ants take turns rapidly jabbing each other with their antennae.

Half the colony can become engaged in these boxing matches, which can last up to 40 days, and all the ants save for the sole winner remain workers.

Complex behaviors to sort out dominance are known in other insects; queen wasps, example, compete for the ability to produce offspring, says Rachelle Adams, who studies ant evolution and chemical ecology at Ohio State University. But “in this case, it’s workers that are fighting for the reproductive role, which is really neat.”

When a gamergate takes over, it goes through many internal changes. Most notably, its brain shrinks by a quarter, “which is just a massive loss in brain mass,” Penick says. The researchers also found that these queen-like ants stop producing venom and also change behaviorally, hiding from intruders and stopping all hunting behavior.

To learn more about the ant’s brain plasticity, and to see if these changes could be reversed, Penick and his colleagues picked 60 gamergates and painted them specific colors to tell them apart. Half the ants were randomly chosen and put in isolation for a few weeks. The other 30 acted as controls. The isolation seemed to reduce the queen-like ants’ fertility, and when they were introduced back to the colony, they were immediately seized and detained by other workers.

This is called being “policed,” Penick explains, which researchers think is how these ants prevent their colonies from having too many reproductive members. If a queen-like ant with partially developed ovaries is detected, other workers will bite and hold the ant for hours or even days, albeit without causing bodily harm. “It’s almost like putting them in ant jail,” Penick says.

Scientists theorize that the stress of this situation triggers a cascade of chemical changes that revert the gamergates back to a workers, usually within a day or so.

“Once we sacrificed them and did the brain scans, we found that they completely reverted in every trait,” Penick says. “Their ovaries shrunk down, they started producing venom again … and then their brain grew back to its original size.”

‘Another thing entirely’

Significant changes in brain size and complexity have been recorded in a few other species, such as hibernating ground squirrels and some birds. For example, white-crowned sparrows will grow as many as 68,000 new neurons when breeding season begins to help them learn new mating calls. By winter, when food is scarce, an equivalent number of neurons die back. When spring returns, the cycle repeats. But the phenomenon is new for insects.

“There are lots of insects with documented plasticity in all of the traits here—but none that I know of with this level of reversible plasticity,” says Emilie Snell-Rood, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Minnesota. “Many social insects show changes in these brain regions as they transition between phases of their worker life, or move from foraging behavior to queen behavior. But shifting neural investment once, and then back later, is another thing entirely.”

Adams says these types of reversible brain changes may not be as rare as we think—we just haven’t looked hard enough. “I wouldn't be surprised if we see more of this,” she says.

She suggests looking at ant species that can have multiple queens, one example being Australian meat ants. When queens divide their labor, with some remaining in the colony and others foraging, this might be accompanied by corresponding difference in brain size or function, Adams says.

The more this question of reversible plasticity is investigated in all species, the more implications it could hold for understanding human brains as well. “Very, very, very far downstream, there could be insights into like the way human brains develop,” Penick says.

Such research could, for example, teach scientists more about the genes related to neural plasticity and how they work.

“Someone may wonder ‘why study this random ant species’ but they may have, over evolutionary time, stumbled on some fascinating mechanism of neural plasticity,” Snell-Rood says. “I think we have a lot to learn from amazing neural adaptations across animals.”