It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Wednesday, May 05, 2021
Citrus derivative makes transparent wood 100 percent renewable
: AIMAGE PIECE OF THE TRANSPARENT WOOD IS DISPLAYED. view more
T: CÉLINE MONTANARI
Since it was first introduced in 2016, transparent wood has been developed by researchers at KTH Royal Institute of Technology as an innovative structural material for building construction. It lets natural light through and can even store thermal energy.
The key to making wood into a transparent composite material is to strip out its lignin, the major light-absorbing component in wood. But the empty pores left behind by the absence of lignin need to be filled with something that restores the wood's strength and allows light to permeate.
In earlier versions of the composite, researchers at KTH's Wallenberg Wood Science Centre used fossil-based polymers. Now, the researchers have successfully tested an eco-friendly alternative: limonene acrylate, a monomer made from limonene. They reported their results in Advanced Science.
"The new limonene acrylate it is made from renewable citrus, such as peel waste that can be recycled from the orange juice industry," says lead author, PhD student Céline Montanari.
An extract from orange juice production is used to create the polymer that restores delignified wood's strength and allows light to pass through.
The new composite offers optical transmittance of 90 percent at 1.2 mm thickness and remarkably low haze of 30 percent, the researchers report. Unlike other transparent wood composites developed during the past five years, the material developed at KTH is intended for structural use. It shows heavy-duty mechanical performance: with a strength of 174 MPa (25.2 ksi) and elasticity of 17 GPa (or about 2.5 Mpsi).
Yet all along, sustainability has been a priority for the research group, says Professor Lars Berglund, the head of the KTH's Department of Fibre and Polymer Technology.
"Replacing the fossil-based polymers has been one of the challenges we have had in making sustainable transparent wood," Berglund says.
Environmental considerations and so-called green chemistry permeate the entire work, he says. The material is made with no solvents, and all chemicals are derived from bio-based raw materials.
The new advances could enable a yet unexplored range of applications, such as in wood nanotechnology, Berglund says. Possibilities include smart windows, wood for heat-storage, wood that has built-in lighting function - even a wooden laser.
"We have looked at where the light goes, and what happens when it hits the cellulose," Berglund says. "Some of the light goes straight through the wood, and makes the material transparent. Some of the light is refracted and scattered at different angles and gives pleasant effects in lighting applications."
The team is also working with Sergei Popov's photonics group at KTH to explore the nanotechnology possibilities even further.
CAPTION
Previous versions of the see-through wood developed at KTH, left, are seen together with the latest, more translucent type developed with citrus derivatives.
CREDIT
Céline Montanari
Surfaces can be designed with antiviral properties to mitigate COVID-19
An optimally designed surface can speed the decay of a viral load
IMAGE: SURFACES WITH TALLER AND CLOSELY PACKED PILLARS WITH A CONTACT ANGLE OF AROUND 60 DEGREES SHOW THE STRONGEST ANTIVIRAL EFFECT OR SHORTEST DRYING TIME. view more
CREDIT: S. CHATTERJEE, J.S. MURALLIDHARAN, A. AGRAWAL, AND R. BHARDWAJ
WASHINGTON, May 4, 2021 -- If a respiratory droplet from a person infected with COVID-19 lands on a surface, it becomes a possible source of disease spread. This is known as the fomite route of disease spread, in which the aqueous phase of the respiratory droplet serves as a medium for virus survival.
The lifespan of the respiratory droplet dictates how likely a surface is to spread a virus. While 99.9% of the droplet's liquid content evaporates within a few minutes, a residual thin film that allows the virus to survive can be left behind.
This begs the question: Is it possible to design surfaces to reduce the survival time of viruses, including the coronavirus that causes COVID-19? In Physics of Fluids, from AIP Publishing, IIT Bombay researchers present their work exploring how the evaporation rate of residual thin films can be accelerated by tuning surfaces' wettability and creating geometric microtextures on them.
An optimally designed surface will make a viral load decay rapidly, rendering it less likely to contribute to the spread of viruses.
"In terms of physics, the solid-liquid interfacial energy is enhanced by a combination of our proposed surface engineering and augmenting the disjoining pressure within the residual thin film, which will speed drying of the thin film," said Sanghamitro Chatterjee, lead author and a postdoctoral fellow in the mechanical engineering department.
The researchers were surprised to discover that the combination of a surface's wettability and its physical texture determine its antiviral properties.
"Continuously tailoring any one of these parameters wouldn't achieve the best results," said Amit Agrawal, a co-author. "The most conductive antiviral effect lies within an optimized range of both wettability and texture."
While previous studies reported antibacterial effects by designing superhydrophobic (repels water) surfaces, their work indicates antiviral surface design can be achieved by surface hydrophilicity (attracts water).
"Our present work demonstrates that designing anti-COVID-19 surfaces is possible," said Janini Murallidharan, a co-author. "We also propose a design methodology and provide parameters needed to engineer surfaces with the shortest virus survival times."
The researchers discovered that surfaces with taller and closely packed pillars, with a contact angle of around 60 degrees, show the strongest antiviral effect or shortest drying time.
This work paves the way for fabricating antiviral surfaces that will be useful in designing hospital equipment, medical or pathology equipment, as well as frequently touched surfaces, like door handles, smartphone screens, or surfaces within areas prone to outbreaks.
"In the future, our model can readily be extended to respiratory diseases like influenza A, which spread through fomite transmission," said Rajneesh Bhardwaj, a co-author. "Since we analyzed antiviral effects by a generic model independent of the specific geometry of texture, it's possible to fabricate any geometric structures based on different fabrication techniques -- focused ion beams or chemical etching -- to achieve the same outcome."
###
The article "Designing antiviral surfaces to suppress the spread of COVID-19" is authored by Sanghamitro Chatterjee, Janani Srree Murallidharan, Amit Agrawal, and Rajneesh Bhardwaj. It will appear in Physics of Fluids on May 4, 2021 (DOI: 10.1063/5.0049404). After that date, it can be accessed at https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0049404.
ABOUT THE JOURNAL
Physics of Fluids is devoted to the publication of original theoretical, computational, and experimental contributions to the dynamics of gases, liquids, and complex fluids. See https://aip.scitation.org/journal/phf.
How the Full Moon briefly vanished, nearly a thousand years ago
Scott Sutherland
According to records over nine hundred years old, witnesses reported that the Full Moon briefly vanished from the sky during a total lunar eclipse.
Provided by The Weather Network
This image of the Super Blood Wolf Moon total lunar eclipse was shot on January 20, 2019, from Richmond, BC, before the Moon was completely enveloped in Earth's shadow. Credit: Tony Venezuela/UGC
According to the Peterborough Chronicle, which catalogued noteable events throughout out England's history, in the year 1110: "On the fifth night of the month of May the moon appeared shining brightly in the evening, and afterwards his light waned by little and little, and early in the night he was so wholly gone that neither light, nor circle, nor anything at all of him was to be seen, and thus it continued till near day, and then he appeared shining full and bright; he was a fortnight old the same day: the sky was very clear all the night, and the stars shone very brightly all over the heavens, and the fruit trees were greatly injured by that night's frost." How did this vanishing act occur, though?
During a total lunar eclipse, the Moon passes directly through Earth's shadow. First, it simply grows dinner, then it appears as though a great disk of darkness slowly advances across its face until it is completely immersed in the darkest part of the shadow, the umbra. That is when we see it shine with the familiar dusky red colour we've come to expect during one of these events.
At no time does the Moon appear to vanish, though. So, what happened during the May 5, 1110 eclipse to cause the Moon to disappear from sight?
The red colouration we see during a total lunar eclipse is from sunlight filtering through the planet's atmosphere. Essentially, it is the red tinge of every sunrise and sunset happening on Earth at the time, shining into the umbra and onto the Moon, all at once.
This simulated view shows what an astronaut on the Moon would see during a total lunar eclipse — all of Earth's sunrises and sunsets, all at once. Credit: NASA
What happens, though, if Earth's atmosphere doesn't allow any light to escape and shine into the umbra?
This appears to be what happened in 1110. As reported in a study published in 2020, scientists found that a series of eruptions of Japan's Mount Asama, starting two years before in August to October of 1108, may have been responsible.
During powerful volcanic eruptions, ash and other fine particles are blasted up into the stratosphere, high above the ground, where they can linger for years. The extra scattering of light produced by these particles can treat us to some vivid red sunsets. At the same time, though, they can completely scatter the visible light before it can escape back into space and shine into the umbra. Thus, a uniform blackness would replace the umbra's typical hue, and an eclipsed Moon could appear to vanish from the sky.
Although such a 'dark' lunar eclipse is extremely rare, it is possible that one could happen again. It only requires a sufficiently powerful volcanic eruption and an appropriately timed eclipse.
The next total lunar eclipse is the Super Blood Flower Moon, which will be visible across parts of Canada on the morning of May 26, 2021, with western regions of the country getting the best view.
This Day In Weather History is a daily podcast by The Weather Network that features unique and informative stories from host Chris Mei.
Can Maya Wiley Break New York City’s Glass Ceiling?
Natalie Gontcharova
In the early 1970s, when Maya Wiley was in first grade, attending a de facto segregated, underfunded public school in Washington, D.C., a boy named Carlos — Wiley described him as her “little boyfriend” — showed up at her door every morning and walked to school with her. But one day, he didn’t show up; it was like he’d “disappeared,” remembered Wiley. A year or so later, her best friend Charlene — “we ran the streets together” — disappeared from Wiley’s life, too.
Wiley asked her mother where all her friends were going. Why couldn’t they play together anymore? Wretha Wittle Wiley, a civil rights activist, explained to her daughter that Charlene’s family had moved after the landlord had increased their rent, and that a similar thing had happened with Carlos’ family. Although Wiley was too young to fully understand that there was a name for why her friends and neighbors were disappearing from their neighborhood of Adams Morgan — gentrification — she was old enough for the experience to make a lasting impression on her, one that still informs how she views local government’s responsibility toward preserving the homes and livelihoods of its most vulnerable citizens, even as it works to expand public projects. One reason gentrification was accelerated when Wiley was a child in Adams Morgan was the construction of a nearby Metro stop, which made the formerly working class neighborhood more desirable and accessible to people with more money. It’s not that having more access to public transit was a bad thing in itself, says Wiley now, but it’s that no one in city government thought about how to protect the homes of the people who already lived there. Eventually, their landlord increased Wiley’s family’s rent, and they also had to move out.
Realizing from a young age that her city wasn’t invested — or investing — in her livelihood deeply shaped Wiley’s career and her sense of how local government should work. It was also a big influence in why Wiley is now among the top contenders running to replace Bill de Blasio as Mayor of New York City.
“I think for all of us, our early experiences absolutely shape our understanding of the world and what we want to do in it,” Wiley tells Refinery29. “It was a traumatic experience to just have a friend disappear. You don’t even get to say goodbye. You don’t know where they end up. Even as a little kid, you know it’s wrong, that there’s something unfair about working hard and not being able to afford the rent. … So, my experience was literally losing a whole neighborhood, and one that shaped me.”
“It was a very personal and emotional experience,” she adds. “But as a civil rights lawyer and as a racial justice advocate, I also [came to understand] how all of these were decisions being made by people in government. And it hurt us — it hurt us.”
Perhaps another reason why seeing all her friends disappear was so formative for Wiley, was that it was also at this point in her life that Wiley lost her father, George Wiley, a civil rights activist, who died in a boating accident for which 9-year-old Maya and her brother, Dan, were present. Wiley’s mother encouraged her children to talk about and process their feelings, rather than staying silent and treating it as taboo, she has said, explaining how important that was for her ability to heal. It was also an approach that seems to have helped lead Wiley toward a life of public service and speaking on issues that affect vulnerable people. After receiving a law degree from Columbia University, Wiley worked at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, at the ACLU, and as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. She was also a co-founder and the president of the Center for Social Inclusion, a group devoted to ending structural racism. From 2014 to 2017, she served as counsel to de Blasio, before chairing the NYC Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), where she recommended the city bring charges against Daniel Pantaleo, the police officer who killed Eric Garner, a move that was critical to Pantaleo’s eventual firing. Over the last few years, she has appeared as a political and legal analyst on MSNBC, where she convinced ex-Trump aide Sam Nunberg to comply with Robert Mueller’s subpoena, and gained a national following — one that might help her win the biggest local election in the country.
New York City is at a turning point. The departure of a two-term mayor — even one as polarizing as de Blasio — is always a major event, but at this point in history the city is in a precarious position for other reasons: Not only has the coronavirus been devastating to the population in terms of its human toll, with over 32,000 deaths and hundreds of thousands more cases, but it has also had a catastrophic impact on New York’s economy. The city lost 631,000 jobs to the pandemic in 2020; restaurants and other businesses shuttered, leaving empty storefronts; the subway lost billions in revenue, cutting service; and at the same time that many wealthy residents left the city, service workers were left to fend for themselves with few government protections. Unemployment and an evictions crisis have served to exacerbate inequality. The Mayor of New York has often been called the toughest job in politics, but never more so than it is now. So, who could possibly want it?
As it turns out, a lot of people — including Wiley. In this heavily Democratic city, many acknowledge that the true mayoral election will take place not on November 2, but on June 22, with the Democratic primary — and there are a lot of people running in that primary, 13 to be exact, including current frontrunners Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and former-presidential candidate Andrew Yang. Among this crowded field, Wiley may not stand out for her political experience (or headline-making tweets), but she does for her ambitious, comprehensive plans, including her cornerstone policies, like the New Deal New York, a $10 billion investment meant to reinvigorate the city’s economy at a time when 1.5 million New Yorkers can’t afford food and the unemployment rate is double the national rate. She also has a plan to end the eviction crisis, which affects Black renters at twice the rate of white ones, and an interagency plan to redirect $300 million from incoming NYPD and Department of Corrections Cadet classes toward stipends for informal caregivers. Following a year of massive protests against police brutality and calls to defund police departments, Wiley has also suggested cutting the city’s “bloated” $6 billion police budget by $1 billion a year.
For Wiley, many of these plans, like the one for caregiving, come from a personal place. “I’m a mother,” she says. “My mother was a working mother. And I am a working mother. And so many women carry the burdens both of being breadwinners and caring for family members — literally unpaid work. When I was first thinking whether I should run to be the next mayor of New York City, one of the big factors that was calling me in was the fact that this city is becoming far too expensive for far too many people. And childcare is actually one of the top costs of living in the city.”
After Wiley’s mother developed Alzheimer’s, she suddenly had to care for her, as well as for her two daughters — all while working full-time. “I’m one of the lucky ones, and it was bone-crushing. And so many women, their bones are being crushed every single day. And many of them are struggling and working long hours and still aren’t able to pay the rent, still not able to get the childcare they need, and then COVID hits, right? And women lose a decade of gain in the labor market. Either pushed out in order to help care for their kids who are struggling with online learning, or literally losing a job.”
Wiley has a solid set of ideas aimed toward the monumental task of rebuilding the city after a (hopefully) once-in-a-lifetime crisis. But can she prevail in such a crowded field? The most recent polls show Yang in the lead at 26%, followed by Adams with 20%, city comptroller Scott Stringer with 12%, and Wiley with 10%. Stringer, however, is facing serious and disturbing allegations of sexual assault from former intern Jean Kim, and has been losing support, including major endorsements, which could give Wiley a boost. Of the scandal, Wiley says in a statement: “I believe Kim and admire her strength and courage to come forward to tell her story.” Other still-in-contention candidates include former Sanitation Commissioner and City Hall veteran Kathryn Garcia and progressive, former-nonprofit leader Dianne Morales; some observers speculate that Wiley and Morales are splitting the progressive vote. However, with 14% of likely Democratic primary voters still undecided, and the first debate still to come on May 13, there is still some opportunity to move around in the polls in the coming weeks. And while Yang is benefiting a lot from his name recognition, which is at 76% to Wiley’s 46%, that is already changing as more voters tune in and become more educated on the race in the weeks before the primary: Wiley’s name recognition seems to have jumped by 10% between mid- and late April, while Yang’s has remained virtually unchanged. Another wild-card factor is that this will be New York City’s first primary to feature ranked-choice voting, something that could be important given the crowded field of candidates.
Karen Hinton, a communications consultant and de Blasio’s former press secretary, believes the ranked-choice system could hurt leading candidate Yang, and help someone in Wiley’s position. “I think ranked choice helps defeat Yang, because I think he has a very defined universe of supporters, and then there’s everybody else. It’s basically white Manhattanites,” Hinton tells Refinery29. “You have a lot of undecided voters. So, when it comes time to choosing your second choice, your third choice, that could help because I don’t think Yang will get a majority. Then, that could help push up numbers for the other candidates.”
Helen Rosenthal, a New York City Council member who has worked for three different New York mayors and who endorsed Wiley back when she announced her run in October, agrees with Hinton that Wiley still has time to make an impression on voters. She also believes Wiley will truly focus on the job, unlike some predecessors.
“Her eye will not be on running for president,” Rosenthal tells Refinery29, referring to de Blasio’s ill-fated presidential run. “Her eye will not be on an intern,” she continues, referring to Stringer’s scandal. “She will be thinking about how New Yorkers experience life and how the city can stand on its own. … A good mayor is thinking about New York City and what’s best for New York City 24/7. They’re eating, breathing, sleeping New York City. You’re not thinking about, What is my signature public policy reform that everyone in the nation will think about and think is great? You won’t be thinking, like [Michael] Bloomberg, I gotta get out of here on the weekends and go to my private island. You’ll be riding the subway. You’ll be spending time in all of the very diverse communities.”
Rosenthal says she remembers running into Wiley at an event for a political club in Morningside Heights about three years ago, where Wiley gave a talk on criminal justice and everyone swarmed around her afterward asking to take pictures. Impressed with her, she asked Wiley then if she had plans to run for mayor. “She said, absolutely not,” Rosenthal recalls. “I remember feeling super-disappointed and just sort of like, ‘Ah, you should really run for mayor!’ And so when she announced, I was just thrilled that she had come to that conclusion herself.” Rosenthal adds that it would be incredibly meaningful if Wiley broke through the “boys’ network” permeating New York City politics.
Were she to win, Wiley would be the first woman mayor of New York City, after 109 men have held the position. She would also be the second Black mayor, after the late David Dinkins. These would be notable accomplishments, so it’s little wonder that her campaign has created a video where Gabrielle Union, Yvette Nicole Brown, and Dr. Brittney Cooper, among others — many of whom are not New Yorkers, attesting to the national attention her campaign has gotten — urge voters, “It’s time to put your money where your mouth is, New York City, and elect the first Black woman to lead this city.”
But exciting as a public statement like that can be, it’s also not enough to win an election, something that Wiley knows well. “Symbolism is not enough,” Wiley said at an event in Brooklyn on April 9. She was surrounded by a couple of dozen members of the Local Employees 1199 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which represents over 200,000 healthcare workers, a key endorsement, and supporters — like Rep. Yvette Clarke — the majority of them Black women. “Calling us queens is not enough. Recognizing we are qualified is what we demand.” She continued, gesturing around her, “These women put me through my paces — [they said,] ‘I don’t want to hear that you care, I want to hear that I’m going to be able to pay the rent, and when I pull the dollars out of my pocket there’s something left over to buy food.’”
Clarke, wearing a pink suit and flashing the Delta Sigma Theta sorority sign (both she and Wiley are members), formally endorsed Wiley, and spoke of the historical importance Wiley’s leadership would take. “We have a unique opportunity here in the city of New York to make a difference and to join the ranks of such cities as Atlanta, New Orleans, Boston, and Washington, D.C., where Black women have taken the helm and have demonstrated confidence, ability, and compassion,” Clarke said. Rita Joseph, a New York City Council candidate, echoed Clarke when speaking to Refinery29, “New York is such a progressive city; we need to lead by example. Normally we do, but we haven’t.”
It’s hard to overstate how important it would be to have a Black woman — one who intimately knows the plight of working mothers in this city, because she is a working mother; one who doesn’t only prioritize the needs of Manhattanites, because she lives in an outer-borough — as New York’s 110th mayor. Wiley’s leadership feels like it could change everything, even as it could also signify a prioritization of the kinds of things people have always cared about most: friendship, family, and connection. When asked what helps ground her as the race heats up and among a fraught news landscape, Wiley brought up her family, as well as regular Saturday night Zoom gatherings with a group of friends where they talk and support each other. After the Clarke event, Wiley walked home — she lives in Prospect Park South — to her husband, daughters, and four cats for some much-needed family time. “We protect family dinner, so we have a family dinner every night.” Now, she is cherishing those close to her as major parts of her campaign, hoping these very things will help her rise to the top so she can implement her plans to strengthen New York City and take it in a more equitable direction.
Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?
Zapatistas set sail for Spain on mission of solidarity and rebellion
David Agren in Mexico City and Sam Jones in Madrid
THE GUARDIAN
MAY 4,2021 Five hundred years after Hernán Cortés and his men conquered Mexico, a small boatload of indigenous Zapatistas are making the return journey across the Atlantic to “invade” Spain, rail against capitalist oppression, and perhaps throw the odd cumbia party.
The two men and five women set out on Sunday evening from Isla Mujeres, Mexico’s most eastern point. Although Subcomandante Galeano – the pipe-smoking former Zapatista spokesman once known as Subcomandante Marcos – said they were travelling with the message that “the invasion has started”, their mission is one of solidarity and rebellion rather than belated conquest.
“We’re following the route that they came from 500 years ago,” Subcomandante Moisés, another Zapatista leader, told Mexican media at the departure ceremony. “In this case, we’re following the route to sow life, not like 500 years ago. It’s completely the opposite.”
The group explained that their rusty vessel, named La Montaña, would carry them to Europe on “an odyssey that has everything to do with defiance and nothing to do with a rebuke”
If they are unable to enter the country, they plan to unfurl a banner reading “Wake up!”, according to a Zapatista statement. “But if we are able to disembark and embrace with words those who fight, resist and rebel there,” the statement said, “then there will be parties, dancing, songs and cumbias … shaking the floors and distant skies.”
The Zapatistas will then embark on a tour across Europe to meet NGOs and other groups in order to share their thoughts on how best to tackle “the inequality that comes from the capitalist socio-economic system”. The Zapatista National Liberation Army became famous as representatives of the anti-globalisation movement after briefly leading an uprising in the southern Chiapas state on New Year’s Day 1994, which coincided with the enactment of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Known for wearing balaclavas and traditional Mayan dress, the Zapatistas live in autonomous municipalities, which are self-sufficient and do not participate in government assistance programmes.
Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has promoted 2021 as a year of remembrance. On Monday he travelled to the Maya community of Tihosuco to ask forgiveness for the 18th-century war of the castes, in which the Maya people of the Yucatán peninsula rose up against the slave-like conditions they worked under harvesting henequin, which was used to make rope.
“We offer the most sincere apologies to the Maya people for the terrible abuses committed by private individuals and Mexican and foreign authorities during the three centuries of colonial dominion and two centuries of the independent Mexico,” said López Obrador, commonly known as Amlo.
Amlo has had a complicated relationship with indigenous peoples, however. He promised to put the poor and excluded – including indigenous people – first in his government and received a consecrated staff representing governance from indigenous leaders at his inauguration.
But he has pushed forward with mega-projects such as a train line around the Yucatán peninsula, which Maya communities say they have not been properly consulted about.
“You can’t support the exploited and the people doing the exploiting,” Subcomandante Moisés said in a 2019 message directed at Amlo. “You have to pick one.”
López Obrador has previously asked the Spanish crown and the Vatican to apologise for the conquest. Spain dismissed the request, saying it “profoundly regretted” the publication of a letter from the Mexican president to King Felipe.
“The arrival of the Spanish on Mexican soil 500 years ago cannot be judged in the light of contemporary considerations,” it said in a statement at the time. “Our closely related peoples have always known how to view our shared history without anger and from a shared perspective, as free peoples with a common heritage and an extraordinary future.” The Vatican said it had already addressed the issue.
The Zapatistas, however, have a rather different agenda. “We are going to tell the people of Spain two simple things,” they said in a statement. “One, they did not conquer us, we are still here resisting, in rebellion. Second, they do not have to ask that we forgive them for anything.”
A spokeswoman for Vigo city hall said there were currently no plans to formally receive the Zapatistas as the visitors had not requested a meeting.
ABOUT TIME
Mexico apologizes to indigenous Maya for centuries of abuse
Joseph Choi The Mexican government on Monday issued an apology to the indigenous Maya people for years of abuse and discrimination, marking the anniversary of a 1901 battle that ended one of the last indigenous rebellions to take place in North America
The Associated Press reports that a ceremony was held in the town of Tihosuco, which is located in Felipe Carrillo Puerto, the headquarters of the indigenous rebellion and also where it ultimately ended. It is now known as the "Maya capital" due to its history in the rebellion.
"For centuries, these people have suffered exploitation and abuse," Mexican Interior Secretary Olga Sánchez Cordero said. "Today we recognize something which we have denied for a long time: the wrongs and injustices committed against the Mayan people."
"Today, we ask forgiveness in the name of the Mexican government for the injustices committed against you throughout our history and for the discrimination which even now you are victims of," Sánchez Cordero added.
The AP reports that this apology comes as Mexico commemorates 500 years since the Spanish conquest, and 200 years of Mexican independence.
Although the AP notes that Maya iconography and motifs are often used to attract tourists to Mexico, most Maya are excluded from benefitting from the money brought in from such attractions.
"We realize that we have a great history, that we are held up as an example, and people make a lot of money off our name, but that money never shows up in our communities," Mayan activist Alfaro Yam Canul said.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador was also present at the ceremony, accompanied by Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei, whose country holds the majority of the current Maya population.
Yam Canul called on López Obrador to revise rules regarding a nature reserve along the coast in order to allow the Maya to promote tourism there. The activist says the reserve called Sian Ka'an was "taken, stolen from us in a bad way, without our knowledge or consulting us."
Experts have said that tourism activity in the reserve could severely threaten its delicate ecosystem, the AP reports.
Yam Canul asked the Mexican president to change the rules "so that we Maya, followers of the cross, can enter and develop community ecological tourism, in which we do not want really big buildings."
Academic journals don't pay writers, excluding scholars who can't afford to work for free from getting published. Here's why that's a problem.
insider@insider.com (Elline Lipkin)
Elline Lipkin is an author and research scholar with UCLA's Center for the Study of Women.
Throughout her career, she says she's often written articles for academic journals without payment.
When journals don't pay writers, Lipkin says scholars with fewer financial resources are edged out.
The journal to which I contributed my article is available for purchase through its distributor Taylor & Francis - for $303 an issue. My article is downloadable for $45
After nearly 15 years as an independent academic, I always appreciate the impact of an eye-opening statement like: "Did you know most adjunct faculty, working full time, even with a doctorate, earn under $40,000 a year?"
Recently, I watched mouths drop during a weekend Zoom seminar on freelance writing when I held up a copy of a book, freshly published by a major university press, to which I'd contributed a chapter, and explained my "payment" consisted of two free copies of the volume. Then I casually mentioned that a recent book review I completed - for a prominent scholarly journal - would yield zero dollars.
The would-be journalists shook their heads, as most professionals do since payment for their labor, in dollars, is considered standard - which is to say pretty much all other fields.
Not so in academia.
To further drive my point home to the freelance writers, I held up the two books I've solo-authored and explained that one yielded an advance of exactly $1,000 and the other $4,000, since they were marketed as academic and literary work.
Pulling back the curtain on academic exploitation gets a great reaction every time. And after I began to directly question the gatekeepers of this system, the shock began to come from the other side. Simply asking to be paid for your work in academia comes across as heresy
Some people act as if money taints the lofty ideas and intellectual labor of academic work.
"It's just not done," one editor said to me when I asked why I couldn't be compensated for a recent article. "Since we're an academic journal, we never pay."
Another editor moved from initial confusion to outrage at my audacity for even asking to get paid. The trouble with this archaic system - where 'it's just not done' - is who it systemically leaves out
It's no secret that if you're inside the academic system - that is, lucky enough to land a tenure-track job - you're in for approximately seven years of intense ladder-climbing in which publication by a vetted journal equals the golden ticket to tenure, which secures a job, benefits, and retirement, for life.
For scholars on this path, each article, conference presentation, or book is another rung climbed to the promised security at the top.
This path is reliant on the fact that tenure-track faculty receive full-time salaries, and often use additional travel and grant money to support their work. As a result, not receiving a penny for an article is considered acceptable, since this work is underwritten by their departments and the expectation to publish is built into the very definition of their jobs.
This model - to work for free to net the 'currency' of a publication credit - works only for salaried academics
The trouble is that tenure track jobs have shrunk exponentially, leaving everyone else who wants to participate in their field - adjuncts, lecturers, and independent academics - to essentially self-fund their own labor.
Also, it reinforces a system where separating labor from actual currency is acceptable, while others (literally) profit from it - all without questioning what it costs people to work for free and makes a level of economic privilege a baseline to participate within academia.
In the world of independent academics, some can afford to work for free, most likely because they're supported by a partner or other means. Then there are those, like myself, who continue to do this work because we want to contribute to our fields. Why should our voices be barred from the intellectual conversation? Without payment for our work, the scholars most likely to stop participating are those with the fewest financial resources
This is a demographic which I suspect breaks down along race and class lines. What loss is there to the profession when swathes of scholars are edged out or chased from the conversation because they dared to think they should be paid for their work?
When I surveyed junior academics who were outside the tenure track, the concept of "choice" came up repeatedly. If you're adjuncting and want to make yourself competitive for a tenure-track job, most argued, it's a choice to put in the time during late nights and weekends to keep submitting to journals.
The reality of this is undeniable, but this argument seems suspiciously close to one I've heard for years about women opting out of the workforce simply by "choice." While people with economic privilege can exercise their "choice" to work for free, those who are worrying about rent, bills, and in all likelihood, mountains of student loans, have no actual choice at all.
The journal to which I contributed my article is available for purchase through its distributor Taylor & Francis - for $303 an issue. My article is downloadable for $45.
I refrained from asking the editor-in-chief if the printing paper was donated or if workers at the production plant were asked to work off the clock while they put together this issue.
I know the answer. If everyone else gets paid - an actual wage - for creating this volume, why are those whose labor make up its essential content asked to work for free?
Imagine it - money being exchanged for labor, even the intellectual kind. That this idea would come as a jolt to those within academia, who pay mortgages, bills, and need to eat, yet expect ideas to circulate in a kind of intellectual aerie - is itself shocking
Climate change impacts conservation sites across the Americas
CONSERVE IS IN THEIR NAME; CONSERVATIVES, BUT NOT THEIR IDEOLOGY
IMAGE: AN INCA JAY AT OTUN QUIMBAYA, COLOMBIA view more
CREDIT: PROFESSOR STEPHEN WILLIS
A continental-scale network of conservation sites is likely to remain effective under future climate change scenarios, despite a predicted shift in key species distributions.
New research, led by Durham University and published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, investigates the impacts of potential climate change scenarios on the network of Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs) across the Caribbean, and Central and South America.
The research was carried out in collaboration with Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, BirdLife International and the National Audubon Society.
IBAs are sites identified as being internationally important for the conservation of bird populations, with over 13,000 sites identified across 200 countries in the last 40 years. Many are covered by formal protected areas, while others are conserved by community-managed reserves or indigenous lands.
Two of the principal responses of species to recent climate change events are changes in range and abundance, leading to a global reshuffling of populations.
Range changes may cause species to disappear from areas they occupy, whilst providing them with opportunities to colonise new sites.
This redistribution could affect the ability of international site networks (including protected areas) to conserve species. Therefore, identifying which sites will continue to provide suitable conditions and which are likely to become unsuitable is important for effective conservation planning as our planet continues to warm.
Estimating the impact of climate change on species' distributions, and the consequences for networks of sites identified to conserve them, can help to inform conservation strategies to ensure that these networks remain effective.
The research modelled the effects of different scenarios of climate change on the wider network.
It determined that, for 73 percent of the 939 species of conservation concern for which IBAs have been identified, more than half of the IBAs in which they currently occur were projected to remain climatically suitable and, for 90 per cent of species, at least a quarter of sites remain suitable.
These results suggest that the network will remain robust under climate change. What is concerning however, is that seven percent of the species of conservation concern are projected to have no suitable climate in the IBAs currently identified for them."
Professor Stephen Willis, Director of Research in the Durham University Department of Biosciences said "The Caribbean and Central and South American region supports about 40% of all the bird species of the world, so this network is vital for a large proportion of the world's birds.
To develop realistic predictions of future changes, we not only considered where suitable climate will occur for species in future but also the likelihood of species dispersing to newly suitable sites.
This information is helping to identify potential management strategies across the IBA network.
CAPTION
Itai National Park, Brazil
CREDIT
Professor Stephen Willis
Stuart Butchart, Chief Scientist at BirdLife International and a co-author on the study, said: "These results highlight how critical it is to effectively conserve the network of Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas across the Americas in order to help safeguard birds in the region under climate change.
"Despite projections of significant shifts in the distributions of individual species, the network as a whole will continue to play a key role in future conservation efforts."
Aurelio Ramos, Senior VP, Audubon International Alliances Program said "Applying this science to secure and strengthen IBAs in the Americas is essential to support the future of birds and people. Audubon, BirdLife International, American Bird Conservancy and REDLAC have partnered in the Americas on a project to strengthen protection of Climate secure IBAs identified in the research called Conserva Aves"
Alke Voskamp of the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre added "The results of this study highlight the importance of a network-wide perspective when making conservation management decisions for individual sites when planning for climate change."
The researchers note that designating protected areas to safeguard biodiversity is a cornerstone of species conservation and the importance of considering local environmental management decisions and their impacts on wider, global conservation networks has never been more relevant.
CAPTION
Plovercrest Hummingbird
CREDIT
Professor Stephen Willis
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For further information please contact Professor Stephen G Willis at +44 (0) 191 33 41379 or email at s.g.willis@durham.ac.uk
Durham University is a globally outstanding centre of teaching and research based in historic Durham City in the UK.
We are a collegiate university committed to inspiring our people to do outstanding things at Durham and in the world.
We conduct boundary-breaking research that improves lives globally and we are ranked as a world top 100 university with an international reputation in research and education (QS World University Rankings 2021).
We are a member of the Russell Group of leading research-intensive UK universities and we are consistently ranked as a top 10 university in national league tables (Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide, Guardian University Guide and The Complete University Guide).
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Forest fires drive expansion of savannas in the heart of the Amazon
Researchers analyzed the effects of wildfires on plant cover and soil quality in the last 40 years. The findings of the study show that the forest is highly vulnerable even in well-conserved areas far from the 'deforestation arc'.
FUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO
IMAGE: FOREST DESTROYED BY FIRE IN MIDDLE NEGRO.THE EFFECTS OF WILDFIRES ON PLANT COVER AND SOIL QUALITY view more
CREDIT: BERNARDO MONTEIRO FLORES
Agência FAPESP – White-sand savannas are expanding in the heart of the Amazon as a result of recurring forest fires, according to a study published in the journal Ecosystems.
The study was supported by FAPESP, and conducted by Bernardo Monteiro Flores, currently a postdoctoral fellow in ecology at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) in Brazil, and Milena Holmgren, a professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
“The edges of the Amazon Rainforest have long been considered the most vulnerable parts owing to expansion of the agricultural frontier. This degradation of the forest along the so-called ‘deforestation arc’ [a curve that hugs the southeastern edge of the forest] continues to occur and is extremely troubling. However, our study detected the appearance of savannas in the heart of the Amazon a long way away from the agricultural frontier,” Flores told Agência FAPESP.
The authors studied an area of floodplains on the middle Negro River near Barcelos, a town about 400 km upstream of Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state, where areas of white-sand savanna are expanding, although forest ecosystems still predominate. They blame the increasing frequency and severity of wildfires in the wider context of global climate change.
“We mapped 40 years of forest fires using satellite images, and collected detailed information in the field to see whether the burned forest areas were changing,” Flores said. “When we analyzed tree species richness and soil properties at different times in the past, we found that forest fires had killed practically all trees so that the clayey topsoil could be eroded by annual flooding and become increasingly sandy.”
They also found that as burnt floodplain forest naturally recovers, there is a major shift in the type of vegetation, with native herbaceous cover expanding, forest tree species disappearing, and white-sand savanna tree species becoming dominant.
Less resilient
Where do the savanna tree species come from? According to Flores, white-sand savannas are part of the Amazon ecosystem, covering about 11% of the biome. They are ancient savannas and very different from the Cerrado with its outstanding biodiversity, yet even so they are home to many endemic plant species. They are called campinas by the local population. Seen from above, the Amazon is an ocean of forest punctuated by small islands of savanna. The seeds of savanna plants are distributed by water, fish and birds, and are more likely than forest species to germinate when they reach a burnt area with degraded soil, repopulating the area concerned.
“Our research shows native savanna cover is expanding and may continue expanding in the Amazon. Not along the ‘deforestation arc’, where exotic grasses are spreading, but in remote areas throughout the basin where white-sand savannas already exist,” Flores said.
It is important to stress that in the Amazon floodplain forest is far less resilient than upland terra firma forest. It burns more easily, after which its topsoil is washed away and degrades much more rapidly. “Floodplain forest is the ‘Achilles heel’ of the Amazon,” Holmgren said. “We have field evidence that if the climate becomes drier in the Amazon and wildfires become more severe and frequent, floodplain forest will be the first to collapse.”
These two factors – a drier climate, and more severe and frequent fires – are already in play as part of the ongoing climate change crisis. The study shows that wildfires in the middle Negro area during the severe 2015-16 El Niño burned down an area seven times larger than the total area destroyed by fire in the preceding 40 years.
“The additional loss of floodplain forest could result in huge emissions of carbon stored in trees, soil and peatlands, as well as reducing supplies of resources used by local people, such as fish and forest products. The new discoveries reinforce the urgency of defending remote forest areas. For example, a fire management program should be implemented to reduce the spread of wildfires during the dry season,” Flores said.
