Analysis: Big oil may get more climate lawsuits after Shell ruling - lawyers, activists

© Reuters/Tim Chong FILE PHOTO: 

A general view of Royal Dutch Shell's Pulau Bukom offshore petroleum complex in Singapore after a fire was contained

By Shadia Nasralla and Tom Hals

LONDON (Reuters) - A Dutch court's decision to force Royal Dutch Shell to make deeper, faster cuts to its climate warming emissions on the basis of human rights could set a precedent, especially in European countries, according to lawyers and activists.

The court on Wednesday ordered the Anglo-Dutch company to slash its global greenhouse gas emissions, which stood at around 1.6 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2019, by 45% by 2030. Shell said it would appeal the decision forcing it to cut by an amount roughly equivalent to four times Britain's annual emissions.

(Graphic: Shell's greenhouse gas emissions: https://graphics.reuters.com/SHELL-EMISSIONS/yzdvxeoznpx/chart.png)

"We expect a ripple effect into other jurisdictions. Now that we have this first established liability, it definitely creates a momentum we can build on," said Roger Cox, lawyer for activist group Friends of the Earth, which brought the case along with Greenpeace, other activists and Dutch citizens.

They brought the lawsuit in the Netherlands, where Shell's headquarters are based.

The court held that Shell violated its duty of care under Dutch law because its policies and emissions contributed to dangerous climate change.

Shell had argued that its global emissions were not subject to Dutch law, that the plaintiffs' claims were a matter for lawmakers and that the company was acting lawfully and its emissions were permitted. The company also said the plaintiffs could not establish that reducing Shell's emissions would have an impact on climate change.

Michael Burger, a litigation specialist who represents local U.S. governments in climate cases including against Shell, said while Wednesday's decision was based on Dutch law, the concept of a duty to care exists in legal systems in Europe and around the globe.

"I think it's quite likely that we'll see other lawsuits filed in other jurisdictions, seeking to accomplish the same thing," he said, noting a similar case is pending against Total in France.

Myfanwy Wood, dispute resolution partner at law firm Ashurst, said duplicating the approach will depend on the standard of care that applies to corporations in other jurisdictions.

Dutch climate rulings have inspired global climate litigation before.

In 2019, the country's High Court ruled that the government had to commit to stronger climate targets in a case brought by the Urgenda Foundation. That decision, which paved the way for the Shell case, established that the government had a duty of care to significantly reduce emissions.

The case "sparked a wave of similar lawsuits around the world against governments, and we can expect that with the decision yesterday," said Louise Fournier, a climate lawyer for Greenpeace.

There are about 425 pending climate lawsuits in various countries and about 1,375 lawsuits in U.S. courts, according to the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School.

The U.S. cases target the industry, while most cases in other jurisdictions take aim at governments.

Experts said the Dutch ruling will have no legal impact on the U.S. cases, which are generally based on different laws and accuse the industry of misleading the public about climate change and seek financial damages.

However, the Dutch ruling could still influence the U.S. cases, said Karen Sokol, a professor at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law. She said the Dutch decision reassures U.S. judges that climate change involves more than policymaking.

“The industry has done everything it can to scare courts into 'you have no role,'” said Sokol. “It is going to get demystified and courts will get comfortable with it.”

European legislators are working on a raft of new rules on what type of investments should be labeled sustainable and how to reduce planet-warming leaks from natural gas infrastructure.

"This ruling (...) increases the pressure on large polluters and helps us in Europe to tighten climate policy for them as well," said the Greens' European legislator Bas Eickhout, Vice Chair of the European Parliament's Environment Committee.

"They can no longer escape the climate crisis: International climate targets must also apply to them."

(Reporting by Shadia Nasralla in London and Tom Hals in Delaware ; Editing by Veronica Brown, Alexander Smith, Noeleen Walder and David Gregorio)

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Credit Suisse scandals prompt Switzerland to think unthinkable: punish bankers

© Reuters/ARND WIEGMANNFILE PHOTO:

 Switzerland's national flag flies above the logo of Swiss bank Credit Suisse in Zurich

By John O'Donnell and Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Exasperation with Credit Suisse following a string of scandals is prompting Switzerland to rethink a system in which top bankers have been largely untouchable.

Credit Suisse's heavy losses from the collapse of family office Archegos and the decimation of billions of client investments backed by insolvent British financier Greensill have angered regulators and triggered a rare discussion among lawmakers about fining bankers.

The debate, the biggest public discussion about banking reform since the financial crash, centres on ending the current laissez-faire regime, where fines on bankers are not possible, to copy Britain's stricter rule book.

"Bank directors don't take responsibility for their action because there is no need to. There are no real sanctions for mismanagement," said Gerhard Andrey, a Green member of the Swiss parliament.

"The scandals that have hit Credit Suisse, from Mozambique to Greensill, are damaging for Switzerland's reputation. We have proposed a reform ... that would mean if something goes wrong, then the manager is on the hook," he said.

Andrey's proposals, which follow the ground-breaking British model that makes top management of financial firms directly accountable for their actions, are set to be discussed by Swiss lawmakers in the coming days.

The debate has unfolded after Credit Suisse lost more than $5 billion from the collapse of family office Archegos and faced a barrage of legal action over $10 billion of client investments linked to Greensill.

A bank spokesman said its board of directors had launched investigations that would "reflect on the broader consequences" of those events, adding that it had made management changes in investment banking and risk controls.

The string of scandals angered officials at supervisor FINMA, who struggle to hold bankers to account because Swiss rules only allow it sanction directors if directly involved in wrongdoing rather than for general managerial lapses.

A FINMA spokesman told Reuters that it welcomed a discussion about "optimising" "questions about personal responsibility", adding that other financial centres "go significantly further than Switzerland".

He said current Swiss rules allowed penalties, such as banning bankers from working, only if there was a direct link between the manager and wrongdoing, and that it was not enough to show that person was simply in charge.

Despite more than $15 billion in writedowns and penalties at Credit Suisse and multiple scandals, FINMA has struggled to get the bank under control and dissenting shareholders also failed to oust its chairman, Urs Rohner, before he retired this year.

As well as Archegos and Greensill, Credit Suisse's has had other problems, including a spying scandal that forced the departure of its former CEO.

Its bankers also faced proceedings in Britain and the United States related to loans granted to Mozambique that plunged it into a debt crisis.

U.S. prosecutors last year said they were investigating Credit Suisse's role in the $2 billion corruption case, which stems from loans the bank helped arrange to develop Mozambique's coastal defences. The bank has said it is cooperating with the enquiry.

Commenting on its most recent setbacks, the bank said it had suspended some pay to employees involved, including executive board members so that it would be able to claw back the money if needed.

Monika Roth, a Swiss lawyer and compliance expert, said it was prohibitively expensive for bank shareholders to seek justice by pursuing directors over failings in Swiss courts and that it should be made possible for supervisors to claw back director pay.

Any reform, however, is likely to meet resistance. The Swiss Banking Association said that current supervision was "well-balanced" and rigorous and that any improvements should take into account the "peculiarities" of Swiss banking.

Dominik Gross, of the Swiss Alliance of Development Organisations, predicted that Swiss lawmakers would be reluctant to change.

"There is an understanding that a strong financial centre is part and parcel of Switzerland - just like watches and chocolate. A large part of the population profits from the money that comes in."

(Writing By John O'Donnell; editing by David Evans)

Thousands evacuate Congo's Goma amid renewed volcano threat

GOMA, Congo (AP) — Tens of thousands of people are fleeing the city of Goma in eastern Congo fearing another volcanic eruption by Mount Nyiragongo, which spewed lava near the city last week. Traffic was jammed and pedestrians streamed through the streets, desperate to escape the impending danger.

A new eruption could occur at any moment, the military governor of Congo’s North Kivu province, Lt. Gen. Constant Ndima Kongba, announced Thursday. He ordered the evacuation of 10 of the 18 neighborhoods in the city of nearly 2 million residents.

Full of fear, residents from many of the unlisted neighborhoods also fled after no warnings of Saturday’s eruption left so many in harm’s way.

The center of Goma, which was spared when the volcano erupted last week, is now under threat, with activity being reported near the urban area and Lake Kivu, Kongba said.

“Based on these scientific observations, we cannot currently rule out an eruption on land or under the lake. And this could happen with very little, or no, warning,” he said. An eruption under Lake Kivu could also have harmful consequences by leading to an explosion of gas in the lake, which could destroy parts of Goma and Gisenyi in neighboring Rwanda.

Residents were advised to carry very little and told not to return to their homes until advised by authorities. Authorities provided vehicles for the evacuations.

Many people were seen heading northwest toward the town of Sake and east toward Rwanda. International organizations such as the U.N. mission in Congo had on Wednesday already begun evacuating their staff.

Maguy Balume told The Associated Press by phone that she left her home with her two children and is heading for Sake.

“I am with my two children heading toward Sake, after leaving my home. My husband is on a mission in Kinshasa and I don’t know how I’m going to meet him,” she said. “I don’t think about my house because my family’s safety and health come first. I can build another house if I want to. I know that my God will save Goma.”



Video: Thousands evacuate DR Congo's Goma amid more volcanic activity (France 24)

Mount Nyiragongo, one of the world’s most active volcanos, turned the dark sky fiery red Saturday night and then spewed torrents of lava into villages on the outskirts of Goma destroying more than 500 homes and resulting in the deaths of more than 32 people.

Scientists at the volcano observatory weren’t able to adequately warn the public of the eruption because of a funding cut, according to the scientific director of the Volcanic Observatory of Goma, Celestin Kasereka Mahinda.

A partnership between the government and the World Bank that had supported the observatory was cut in October 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic, leaving the observatory without even internet, he said. The observatory had just started to resume operations last month thanks to new funding from the U.S. Geological Survey’s Volcano Disaster Assistance Program, which means the observatory can at least gather data after the eruption.

Data wasn’t needed for many who felt hundreds of aftershocks this past week that have left gigantic cracks in the ground and destroyed buildings. The volcano sits about 6 miles from Goma.

“I am fleeing the volcano, I am going to Rutshuru because I have no choice,” said Alliance Simba who was leaving with her son.

Aminata Kavira, another woman evacuating, said had no idea where she would go, but grabbed her belongings and left her home.

“We knew that the situation was becoming precarious,” Kizito Alexis, a resident of Goma told AP, adding they have been told lava will likely hit their homes. “The situation is serious and all the people are leaving and I am leaving for Bukavu,” a city about 100 kilometers (62 miles) from Goma.

Suzana Komayombi said the need to flee was all too familiar, as she also evacuated in 2002 before an eruption took everything she owned.

“The first time there was an eruption we lost everything, today we still take the same road as in 2002,” she said.

Government spokesman Patrick Muyaya said the situation was complex and Goma faced a number of risks: increased earthquakes, another volcanic eruption, a gas explosion under the lake, and ambient environmental toxicity caused by volcanic ash.

Mount Nyiragongo’s last eruption was in 2002, leaving hundreds dead. The lava coated the airport runways and also left more than 100,000 homeless in the aftermath. The volcano also erupted in 1977, killing more than 600 people.

___

Kudra reported from Kasindi, Congo. AP writer Jean-Yves Kamale in Kinshasa, Congo and Carley Petesch in Dakar, Senegal, contributed.

Justin Kabumba Katumwa And Al-hadji Kudra Maliro , The Associated Press

STALINISM IS LEFT WING FASCISM

Hong Kong PUPPET lawmakers overhaul electoral system

 new law effectively eliminated "separation of powers" under Hong Kong's Basic Law established in 1997 after Britain relinquished control of the city to Beijing.

Lawmakers cast their vote Thursday for electoral reforms at the Legislative Council in Hong Kong, China. Photo by Jerome Favre/EPA-EFE

May 27 (UPI) -- Hong Kong lawmakers passed a bill Thursday to overhaul the electoral system and ensure only "patriots" govern.

Lawmakers voted 40-2 in favor of the bill, with pro-establishment lawmakers voting in favor of it, and two non-pro-establishment forces voting against it, Hong Kong Free Press reported.

The bill meets Beijing's requirement that only "patriots" govern the city and expands pro-establishment influence, South China Morning Post reported.

It also includes other sweeping amendments to overhaul Hong Kong's electoral system.

The changes to the former British colony's electoral system include a first amendment reducing the number of elected officials in Hong Kong's Legislative Council, known as LegCo, from 35 to 20. The first amendment also allows Chief Executive Carrie Lam to appoint 40 members with another 30 filled by trade representatives. The number of seats in LegCo will also be expanded from 70 to 90 and national security will run background checks to ensure they uphold Hong Kong's mini-constitution.

A second amendment to the bill also makes sweeping changes, bolstering the Beijing-controlled Elections Committee, charged with electing the chief executive, by 300 members to 1,500.

"Having to state explicitly that 'patriots govern Hong Kong' is pathetic, it is a basic [requirement]," lawmaker Tommy Cheung told HKFP. "But Hong Kong was on a wrong track after the handover because of the bomb left by the British government, troublemakers in Hong Kong kept on poisoning Hong Kong people.

Pierre Chan, one of the two non-pro-establishment lawmakers, told HKFP the overhauled election system was a "regression in democracy."

Lam hailed the bill in a statement as a landmark for ensuring patriots govern, in accordance with the principle of "One Country, Two Systems."

She also hailed the legislation for "plugging the loopholes in Hong Kong's electoral system that seriously jeopardized Hong Kong's constitutional order, endangered national security and obstructed governance as reflected in the political chaos in recent years," in the statement.

RELATED G7 expresses concern over China's human rights abuses, calls on it to join int'l system

The bill was first proposed in March and passed after just over a month of LegCo meetings in the absence of opposition lawmakers.

All of Hong Kong's pro-democracy lawmakers resigned last year to protest a new law by the National People's Congress Standing Committee, China's top legislative body, which allowed for removal of "unpatriotic" sitting legislators, after four of their colleagues were removed under the new measure.

The new law stipulated legislators would lose their positions for infractions that included promoting independence, along with engaging in "unpatriotic " acts considered a threat to national security.

Democratic Party Chairman Wu Chi-wai said the new law effectively eliminated "separation of powers" under Hong Kong's Basic Law established in 1997 after Britain relinquished control of the city to Beijing.


upi.com/7100454

OF COURSE IT DID

Email provider says bomb threat came after flight diverted to Belarus

IT WAS COVER IF THE MIG SHOT IT DOWN

Swiss email provider ProtonMail said Thursday that an email containing a bomb threat, which Belarusian authorities said contained a bomb threat arrived after the flight containing Roman Protasevich was diverted. Photo by EPA-EFE


May 27 (UPI) -- A Swiss email provider on Thursday said that an email Belarusian authorities said contained an in-flight bomb threat arrived after a plane carrying opposition journalist Roman Protasevich was diverted to Minsk.

ProtonMail issued a statement contradicting claims from Belarusian officials that they alerted cockpit crew after receiving a bomb threat against the plain carrying Protasevich -- a vocal opponent of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko who had been in self-exile -- by the militant group Hamas, The Washington Post reported.
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"We haven't seen credible evidence that the Belarusian claims are true," ProtonMail said. "We will support European authorities in their investigations upon receiving a legal request."

Swiss authorities also said they had no knowledge of a bomb threat on the Ryanair flight traveling from Athens, Greece, to Vilnius, Lithuania, and did not alert Belarusian authorities of one.
RELATED U.N.: Belarus' 'abduction' of journalist escalates crackdown on civil society



Lukashenko, however, told the Belarusian Parliament that the diversion of the flight was legal while denouncing critics.

"The West has moved from revolts to strangling the country," he said.

The European Union on Monday banned flights from its 27 member states from flying over Belarus and blocked Belarusian national airline, Belavia, from flying over or landing in European territory.
RELATED Singapore Airlines to stop flying over Belarus after reporter's arrest



On Thursday, in an apparent show of support for Lukashenko's government, Russian authorities refused Austrian Airlines and Air France permission to fly to Moscow.

"A change in flight routes must be approved by the authorities. The Russian authorities did not give us this permit. As a result, Austrian Airlines had to cancel today's flight from Vienna to Moscow," Austrian Airlines said in a statement.

Air France canceled a flight between Paris and Moscow on Wednesday after it also failed to receive authorization to bypass Belarusian airspace.
RELATED EU, U.S. to punish Belarus over arrest of activist in forced landing



Belavia also canceled flights to Amsterdam, Berlin, Barcelona and the Russian city of Kaliningrad through Oct. 30.

Also Thursday, Protasevich's parents called on the United States to take more definitive measures against the Belarusian regime, stating they believe he had been tortured before making a video stating he organized mass riots.

"Please understand that every single day of waiting counts and more innocent lives are being taken. Please save my son and all the other people that are being tortured," his mother said.
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Alexander

Solving one of Viking Age Britain’s greatest mysteries

David Keys considers a discovery that sheds fresh light on gold, silver, sacred relics and fear in the medieval era


(National Museums Scotland)

Archaeologists have determined that a treasure cache, discovered by metal detectorists in Scotland seven years ago, is the richest and most complex Viking era hoard ever found in Britain.

The finding comes after three and a half years of detailed scientific analysis and sheds unprecedented new light on the geopolitical and religious realities of early medieval times.

Most of the major silver and gold items from the hoard will be on public display for the first time at the National Museum of Scotland from this Saturday.

Originally the treasure, unearthed in the Glenkens area of Galloway, south-west Scotland, was thought to be a Viking hoard, buried by pagan Viking warlords – but the emerging evidence is now beginning to suggest that it was, instead, probably an Anglo-Saxon hoard buried by Christian monks or priests.

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The painstaking investigation – using x-rays, CT scans, microscopy and molecular analysis – has revealed that the hoard consists mainly of two very different types of treasure – silver bullion, as well as sacred Christian relics and ritual equipment.

What’s more, the emerging evidence suggests that the treasure - known as the Galloway Hoard - was not only non-Viking, but was probably hidden in around 900 AD, to prevent it from falling into Viking hands.

Partly reflecting the treasure’s division, into secular and religious components, was the way it was buried. The investigation has shown that the hoard had been deliberately buried in two layers, in order to deceive any Vikings (or others) who succeeded in locating it.

The upper layer – a ‘sacrificial’ decoy – mainly consisted of silver bullion (plus a beautiful silver cross). However, the hoard’s owners had deliberately constructed a false bottom to the part of the pit where the upper layer was placed

.
3D digital model of the vessel from the Galloway Hoard
(National Museums Scotland)

For underneath 8cm of ‘natural’ gravel, those original owners had hidden a much bigger layer of treasure – consisting of sacred relics and high prestige religious equipment, as well as more silver bullion.

That lower layer – which the owners clearly considered much more valuable than the upper ‘decoy’ layer - consisted of more than 80 items, which give an unprecedented glimpse into the sort of religious and other treasures that major Anglo-Saxon churches and monasteries would have owned. Normally, elsewhere, such items have not survived – but in this remarkable instance, probably courtesy of a Viking threat, they did.

There are no less than five likely sacred relics, each presumably associated in some way with specific Christian saints and martyrs whose identities are as yet unknown.


These sacred relics include:

Two tiny scoops of earth and dust - containing microscopic fragments of gold, invisible to the naked eye. It’s likely that they were formed by rolling earth in the dust adjacent to an important relic. Rare other examples are from the Vatican in Rome and from an Irish-established abbey at Bobbio, 60 miles south of Milan – and it’s known that at least the Vatican ones were formed and brought back by pilgrims who had visited Bethlehem, the banks of the River Jordan and Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre between the seventh and ninth centuries. Those Vatican ‘earth relics’ were therefore from the places specifically associated with Jesus’ birth, baptism and burial. It is therefore conceivable that the two earth relics in the Galloway Hoard may have similar religiously significant origins.

A 5cm long touchstone (a precious metal assayer’s tool) made of black schist, encased in gold filigree. Clearly the touchstone itself had no great intrinsic value – but the gold surrounding it suggests that it nevertheless probably had great spiritual significance.

There are a number of saints who had been goldsmiths or silversmiths (including the 7th-century French saint, Eligius) – so it is conceivable that the black schist touchstone was associated with one of them.

Likewise, there is a 3cm diameter blue glass potentially Anglo-Saxon bead (again with no great intrinsic value), which is set in a beautifully decorated silver mount. It’s possible that this too was a relic or derived from a reliquary, associated with an as yet unidentified saint.

Finally, in terms of potential relics, the archaeologists have found a small rock crystal sphere set in a cross-shaped silver mount. It’s possible that the crystal ball was either perceived as a relic or as a talisman or as both. Crystal spheres had, since pre-Christian times, been perceived as protective charms.

However, quite apart from these sacred relics and possible relics, the investigation has identified two other likely religious objects – also in the lower ‘high security’ part of the hoard

.
(National Museums Scotland)

The largest is a beautiful highly decorated 14 cm tall lidded container, made of gilded silver. It’s conceivable that it was used to hold sacred oil (used for anointing priests and healing the sick) or holy water – but it’s the origin of the object that makes it unique in Britain. Using 3D x-ray imaging techniques, the archaeologists have succeeded in revealing its iconography – and have concluded that it was almost certainly produced in the Middle East by Persian or Persian-influenced silversmiths in the 6th to 8th century A.D. Decorated with Zoroastrian-style fire altars, winged crowns, leopards and tigers, It’s the first time that anything like it has ever been found in Britain.

The second potentially non-relic-related religious object in the hoard is a spectacular rock crystal jar with a pure gold spout, probably used to dispense holy oil - or to hold water to add to the eucharistic wine. In Christian symbolism, the mixing of water with wine represented and still symbolises the union between humanity (represented by water) and divinity, symbolised by wine. The jar, inside a silk-lined leather pouch, was made from a fragment of a much older object – a rock crystal column. The only known similar pieces of rock crystal are in the Vatican - and the only known context of discovery for these crystal columns is from the second century A.D. Catacomb of Domitilla, an underground burial area used by Roman Christians, almost certainly including a number of early martyrs.

Although most of the hoard’s religious items are in the ‘high security’ lower layer (below the upper layer’s false bottom), that part of the pit also contained 45 pieces of silver bullion (weighing almost three kilos), four silver arm-rings, two gold ingots, a gold finger ring, a gold probable cloak-pin (in the shape of a bird), 3 gold items (shaped like animals) and substantial quantities of textiles including Scotland’s earliest examples of silk

.
Some of the silver pieces found in the lower layer of the Galloway hoard
(National Museums Scotland)

The decoy upper layer of the hoard (above that layer’s false bottom) contained more than two kilograms of silver bullion – and a magnificent cross which would have almost certainly adorned the chest of a very high-status cleric – probably a bishop or an abbot.

The big question is therefore which bishop or abbot – and where did the treasure therefore originally come from.

There are a number of possibilities – but one of the leading candidates would be the famous monastic and episcopal centre at Whithorn, more than 20 miles to the south-west.

At around the same time that the treasure was buried (i.e. around 900 A.D.), the Vikings appear to have taken control over the Whithorn area. Certainly, a large wooden church, at Whithorn itself, ceased to exist – and new structures were built nearby in a style usually used by Dublin-based Vikings. What’s more, it’s known historically that the Dublin Vikings were driven out of that city by the Irish at around that time – and that they then turned their attention to other areas around the Irish Sea, including what is now south-west Scotland.

Archaeological investigations, in and around where the hoard was discovered, has revealed the existence of a large previously unknown probable ecclesiastical site – potentially a monastery and/or a manor and church belonging to a local bishop.

Medieval bishops used to spend much of their time visiting local churches throughout their episcopal territories – so it is conceivable that a local bishop (perhaps the one from Whithorn) merely happened to be visiting the Glenkens area when a threat from Viking raiders suddenly emerged

.
This piece, made of gold and in the shape of a bird, is believed to be a cloak pin
(National Museums Scotland)

Certainly, such bishops would probably have travelled with a substantial retinue of assistants (and with a supply of relics and possibly bullion) – so those valuables would have had to be buried for safekeeping, if a Viking raid was thought to be imminent. Alternatively, a local bishop (again, potentially from Whithorn) could have dispatched his key sacred relics and his institution’s worldly wealth to the Glenkens area for burial and safekeeping for the duration of the looming crisis.

If the newly discovered ecclesiastical complex in that area was indeed a monastery or other major religious centre, then it’s also possible that they (or priests from nearby Kirkcudbright) could have had their own relics and silver bullion that needed hiding in the face of a Viking threat. Only further archaeological investigations will potentially help reveal precisely who buried the treasure – and which ecclesiastical centre they were from.

The only certainty is that the treasure’s owners never returned to retrieve their or their institution’s spiritual and worldly wealth. It’s possible that they were killed by Viking raiders – but it’s also conceivable that they fled to a safer environment and were never able to return to reclaim their treasures. Certainly at around this time, there is a tantalising record of refugees from the Solway Firth area fleeing the Viking threat and arriving in Anglo-Saxon-controlled Durham.

The Galloway hoard provides extraordinary new evidence for the remarkably interconnected nature of the early medieval world.

Although the Glenkens area is now in south-west Scotland, the area was under the control of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria from the mid 7th to at least the late 9th century, but the Galloway area then came under the influence of Vikings from Ireland. But before the Northumbrians and the Vikings arrived on the scene, the area had been Brythonic (Welsh) speaking.
Quatrefoil brooch from the Galloway Hoard
(National Museums Scotland)

The material in the hoard was originally made in a large variety of places.

The gilded silver container probably came from western or central Asia.

The silk almost certainly came from the Eastern Mediterranean or from the Arab world – or possibly even from China.

The rock crystal jar may well have come from Rome - with the crystal itself originating from quartz deposits in the Alps or in Turkey or possibly even in India.

The silver bullion is likely to have been from Viking sources (silver being their preferred currency!) - but may well have been made from melted-down Middle Eastern Islamic coins. The Vikings gained much of their wealth by operating a vast slave trade – and Middle Eastern customers usually paid them in vast quantities of Arab silver coins.

Some of the silver had almost certainly belonged at some stage to wealthy Anglo-Saxons - because several pieces of the hoard’s silver bullion have Anglo-Saxon names inscribed on them in an Anglo-Saxon script known as runes.

The treasure has more gold than any other Viking era hoard ever found in Britain – but precisely where the gold was originally mined is currently not known. However, it is likely to have been endlessly recycled – perhaps initially from Roman gold originally obtained from Spain or West Africa.

The great treasure hoard about to go on display at Edinburgh’s National Museum therefore symbolises the globalised nature of the ancient and medieval worlds.

One of Britain’s leading specialists in early medieval history, Dr Alex Woolf of the University of St Andrews believes that this extraordinary hoard is “a very rare opportunity to catch a moment in the long history of the Viking Age”.

“The location of the hoard and the nature of some of its material strongly suggests that it was buried by members of the Northumbrian Church in the face of a threat, probably from the Vikings,” said Dr Woolf, author of a major book on Viking Age Scotland (from Pictland to Alba).

Gilbert Márkus, a University of Glasgow historian who has carried out extensive early medieval research in Galloway believes that the hoard helps give an insight into “a time of crisis”.

“The painstaking and methodical investigation of the Galloway Hoard is revealing more and more about its origins, and about the extraordinary far-flung connections enjoyed by the communities of Viking Age Britain,” said Mr Marcus, a historian of early medieval Scotland and author of a key book on that era (Conceiving a Nation: Scotland to 900 AD).

“The possibility that the hoard was buried by churchmen to keep it from falling into the hands of their enemies is even more tantalising, offering a real insight into the life of a community in a time of crisis,” he said.

Dr Martin Goldberg, curator of the National Museum of Scotland’s Galloway Hoard exhibition says the treasure is “a fascinating find“.

“This exhibition offers a rare ‘snapshot’, the chance to see real archaeological work in progress, both what we have learned so far and the work still to be done,” he said.

The exhibition, which is supported by the UK-based global investment company, Baillie Gifford, opens at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh on 29 May 2021 and will run until 12 September. It will then transfer to Kirkcudbright Galleries in Kirkcudbright, Galloway (9 Oct 2021 to10 July 2022) and then Aberdeen Art Gallery (30 July to 23 October 2022).


More about VikingsScotland

When Severed, This Solitary Tunicate Regrows as Three New Animals

While regeneration has long been the domain of colonial tunicates, a solitary species of sea squirt was able to regenerate into multiple, fully functional individuals within a month of being cut up.

Amanda Heidt
May 13, 2021
ABOVE: The solitary tunicate Polycarpa mytiligera (center) growing on a yellow coral
TAL ZAQUIN

Ascidians, marine invertebrates more commonly known as tunicates or sea squirts, come in two flavors: solitary or colonial. Colonial species are known for their extensive ability to rebuild damaged tissue and even generate entirely new individuals through budding, while solitary species have long been thought to be much more limited in what they can regrow. A study published April 15 in Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology has documented for the first time the ability of a solitary tunicate to generate as many as three new individuals in response to amputation.

Tal Gordon, a marine biologist at Tel Aviv University in Israel who completed this work as part of her dissertation (she’s now a postdoc at the same institution), has been studying the tunicate Polycarpa mytiligera since her undergraduate research, and it was during that time when she first noticed something unique about her study species. One day, while trying to pry a specimen off a rock, the tunicate eviscerated itself, a defense tactic that involves ejecting most of its internal organs. The gruesome, but not lethal, move serves up a tasty snack to satisfy would-be predators. Previously, this behavior had only been noted in sea cucumbers, distant evolutionary relatives that are able to regenerate their lost body parts. When Gordon brought the tunicate into the lab, it too seemed to heal within a few weeks.

“For colonial [species], we expect that this is how they live. . . . We expect them to have these high regenerative capabilities,” says Ayelet Voskoboynik, a molecular biologist at Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station who has previously collaborated with Gordon but was not involved in the current work. Colonial species can reproduce both sexually and asexually by budding, which requires them to grow new organs. In solitary species that only reproduce sexually, “we thought that it’s more limited, so this is beautiful work establishing essentially a new model system from the perspective of regeneration,” Voskoboynik tells The Scientist.

That assumption is rooted in observations of the most commonly studied tunicate, the solitary Ciona intestinalis. When cut in half along the midline, the bottom, posterior portion of Ciona that contains the gut can repair its missing siphons and central nervous system, but the top, anterior part cannot do the same and ultimately dies. After watching P. mytiligera spill its guts and survive, Gordon tells The Scientist, she “was curious in finding out the limits of its regenerational ability.”

For the latest study, Gordon divided tunicates up in different ways. She cut individuals into two pieces either vertically or horizontally, and cut others horizontally into three pieces. She tracked their regeneration at 7, 30, and 40 days post-amputation, analyzing the segments under a microscope.

A solitary tunicate, Polycarpa mytiligera, that has been cut into two pieces horizontally. Both pieces will regrow into complete animals within a month.
TAL GORDON

In all cases, each fragment was able to regenerate into a whole, functioning animal within a month—growing entirely new hearts, guts, siphons, and nerves—although in some cases the regrown organs were smaller than those in nonamputated controls. This ability of Polycarpa to regenerate two or even three body segments shows, for the first time, “that there is something special here,” Gordon says, particularly that the upper body is able to generate the lower, which has never been shown in a solitary species.

“This is a novel result, and it opens new areas . . . for people to look at a number of different ascidians going forward,” says William Jeffery, a developmental biologist at the University of Maryland who was not involved in the current study. Jeffery has spent many years using Ciona to study regeneration, and after so long, he adds, “it was surprising to see that a solitary [species] would regenerate in the way it did.”

Gordon next wanted to understand what was happening at a cellular level. She used one dye to stain the nucleus of each cell, and another dye called 5-ethynyl-2′-deoxyuridine, or EdU, to mark only those cells that are proliferating. Prior to being amputated, the number of proliferating cells in circulation were evenly distributed throughout the tunicate, but in the first five days after being cut into pieces, they quickly migrated to the margins of the incisions and began to divide.

While Gordon wasn’t able to study the cells in more detail, their behavior, according to Voskoboynik, “really suggests that we are talking about stem cells.” Voskoboynik is a stem cell specialist, and her prior work with the colonial species Botryllus schlosseri has shown that tunicates often use these adult stem cells to regenerate damaged tissues, as has been shown by other researchers to occur in Ciona. More work will be needed to confirm this for Polycarpa, but “I will be very surprised if solitary tunicates are behaving differently,” Voskoboynik says.


Tal Gordon diving in the Red Sea in Israel looking for tunicates
TAL ZAQUIN

As a final component of her study, Gordon used RNA-seq to create a phylogenetic tree. She wanted to see which species were most closely related to Polycarpa. Surprisingly, it turned out that the tunicate’s nearest relative was a colonial species, Polyandrocarpus zorritensis. Her working hypothesis, Gordon tells The Scientist, is that Polycarpa may actually be in a transitional state between a solitary and a colonial species. “This is only a hypothesis, but if we look at the tree, it’s reasonable to assume.”

All three scientists who spoke with The Scientist stressed that the next step will be a comparative analysis of Polycarpa and other tunicates to study the evolution of regeneration in tunicates more broadly—when regeneration first emerged, how often the ability has been lost or regained, and which species are transitioning, as Polycarpa might be. And because Polycarpa has bucked the usual trend, they say, it could prompt researchers to study solitary species more scrupulously.

T. Gordon et al., “And then there were three…: Extreme regeneration ability of the solitary chordate Polycarpa mytiligera,” Front Cell Dev Biol, doi:10.3389/fcell.2021.652466, 2021.

SOCIAL ECOLOGY


Few Car Crashes with Deer in Wisconsin, 

Perhaps Thanks to Wolves

#MUTUALAID
In areas where gray wolf populations have grown, motorists have fewer collisions with deer, 

likely due to the predators keeping deer away from roadways.

#STOPWOLFHUNTING

Jef Akst
May 25, 2021
ABOVE: © ISTOCK.COM, CAVAL

Rebounding populations of gray wolves (Canis lupus) in Wisconsin are associated with reduced car accidents with deer, researchers have found. These predators frequent certain routes, or travel corridors, that include manmade roads, and the authors conclude that by keeping the deer away, the wolves did humans a favor. According to the study, published online May 24 in PNAS, counties where wolf populations returned after being wiped out in the middle of the 20th century saw declines in vehicle crashes with deer of 24 percent, on average, saving the state nearly $11 million annually.

“The icing on the cake is that wolves do this work all year long at their own expense,” Liana Zanette, an ecologist at Western University in Canada who was not involved in the study, tells The Atlantic. “It all seems like a win-win for those wolf counties.”

Because wolves prowl on roads, trails, and pipelines conveniently cleared by humans, they deter prey species from hanging about, the authors of the new study suggest. And, of course, wolves eat deer, directly reducing the numbers of deer on roadways, though this only seemed to account for about 6 percent of the decline in deer-vehicle collisions that the team documented. Overall, counties with wolves had 38 fewer deer-vehicle collisions per year by the end of the study period.

Study coauthor Jennifer Raynor, a natural-resource economist at Wesleyan University, tells Science News that there are other potential advantages of wolves, such as reducing the transmission of Lyme disease with fewer deer hosts, that the study did not address.

The importance of predators is well recognized, to the point that some regions of the US and the world have reintroduced the animals. Gray wolves were brought back to Yellowstone National Park in the mid-1990s, for example, to help restore an ecosystem ravaged by elk herbivory, among other contributing factors. The idea of introducing wolves to places with larger human populations such as Wisconsin is more controversial, but some states such as Colorado are considering it.

The benefit of seeing a reduction in deer collisions was previously suggested in a 2016 study that estimated cougars in the eastern US could contribute to about a 22 percent drop in accidents. The wolf study “adds to growing awareness that scientists should consider both the costs and the benefits of having large carnivores on the landscape,” University of Wisconsin conservation biologist Adrian Treves, who did not participate in the research, tells the Associated Press.

Amanda Tokash-Peters Links the Microbiome to Ecology

The Centenary University professor studies the far-reaching effects of changes in the gut bacteria of mosquitos and other species.

Shawna Williams
May 1, 2021
ABOVE: JENNA O’CONNOR

Amanda Tokash-Peters’s research career hasn’t been a long one, but it’s already involved some dramatic changes in focus, including a switch from amphibians to mosquitos as subjects, and a recent foray into seal poop. The central question that unites her work, she says, is: “How is the environment . . . shaping microbiomes across different systems?”

Tokash-Peters first felt the pull of life science thanks to an honors biology course during her first year in a New Jersey high school, she recalls. The teacher “was no nonsense and expected you to really, truly understand and be able to apply material in a way that other folks hadn’t at that point.” And along with her high expectations, the teacher conveyed a passion for the subject, Tokash-Peters recalls.

Hooked, she went on to study biology as an undergraduate at Washington College in Maryland, where she sought out opportunities for hands-on learning, including a summer internship with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at Elkhorn Slough in California where she worked on several research projects, including an investigation of factors that influence oyster attachment and fecundity and a study of sea otter behavior.

Being able to see how readily mosquito-borne disease affects people—it made my research feel much more tangible and much more applied.

—Amanda Tokash-Peters, Centenary University

For her graduate work, Tokash-Peters wanted to study interactions between ecology and disease. Doug Woodhams’s lab at the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Boston focuses on finding ways to manage the amphibian disease chytridiomycosis, and it “seemed like a pretty good fit right off the bat,” Tokash-Peters says. She started investigating the ability of the skin microbiome to combat infection by the chytrid fungus, and she also participated in a few other amphibian-related projects during her time in the lab. But she soon became interested in the mosquito microbiome, which influences the transmission of mosquito-borne pathogens, and a fellowship that took her to Rwanda in her second year sealed the deal.

“Being able to see how readily mosquito-borne disease affects people—it made my research feel much more tangible and much more applied,” she says. “At that point, I kind of fell in love with the topic.”

Back in Woodhams’s lab, Tokash-Peters set up an insectary for rearing the insects. One question Tokash-Peters was interested in had to do with Wolbachia, parasitic bacteria that, when they infect mosquitoes, limit the insects’ spread of disease. Tokash-Peters wondered whether rising temperatures as a result of climate change would affect Wolbachia’s ability to thrive in mosquitoes. Raising the insects at different temperatures and characterizing their microbiomes, she found that higher temperatures didn’t affect the quantity of a mosquito’s Wolbachia within its lifetime but did decrease the transmission of the bacteria from mother to offspring, ultimately reducing the Wolbachia population over multiple generations. That work has not yet been published.

“She was definitely a leader in the lab,” devising her own methods and training undergraduates to help out with the work, Woodhams says.
See “How Bacteria Interfere with Insect Reproduction”

In another graduate project, which is ongoing, Tokash-Peters began characterizing the microbiomes of mosquitoes captured at various sites in Rwanda. Ultimately, she says, better understanding of mosquito microbiomes could enable people “to better control and understand mosquitoes” over the long term.

A few years into her graduate studies, Tokash-Peters also began collaborating with another UMass Boston biologist, Stephanie Wood, on a study analyzing diet, microplastics, and microbiomes in gray seals using scat collected in Nantucket. That work, too, is ongoing. “Her energy and her enthusiasm and her level of engagement in the science and the work just struck me right from the start,” Wood says of Tokash-Peters.

After graduating last year, Tokash-Peters went straight into a faculty position in the science department at Centenary University, a small liberal arts college in New Jersey. She spends most of her time teaching, but has also continued her mosquito and seal microbiome research and has launched a new project examining the microbiomes of lanternflies, an agricultural pest.

She says she’s making it a priority “to develop a culture of inclusivity within my own lab,” by including undergraduates from diverse backgrounds in hands-on research that’s destined for publication.

Cities Have Distinct Microbial Signatures: Study

The researchers found thousands of species not previously documented.


Lisa Winter
May 27, 2021
ABOVE: © ISTOCK.COM, WILLIAM BARTON

Paris has the Eiffel Tower, New York has the Statue of Liberty, and Rome has the Colosseum, but a new study finds that cities also have other signature distinctions, even if they never appear on a postcard: their resident microbes. Over a three-year span, dozens of scientists took nearly 5,000 samples from 60 cities around the globe. As reported in Cell on Wednesday (May 26), these locales appear to have distinct microbial communities that include thousands of species of viruses and bacteria that had never been documented before.

The samples were taken between 2015 and 2017 on a variety of surfaces in transit stations of major cities. From ticket counters to turnstiles to seats on the subway, the scientists would swab surfaces for three minutes to gather genetic material for sequencing. The data, which the researchers uploaded to the open-source database MetaSUB, showed that the relative abundances of microbes varied greatly. Although 31 species could be found in 97 percent of the cities—what the authors call the “core urban microbiome”—each area’s microbiome was a unique mix.


Graphical representation of the study’s abstract, numerating 

total samples taken and all of the findings
D. DANKO ET AL., CELL, 2021

“Every city has its own ‘molecular echo’ of the microbes that define it,” coauthor Christopher Mason says in a press release. “If you gave me your shoe, I could tell you with about 90% accuracy the city in the world from which you came.” A companion paper in Microbiome, also published on Wednesday, analyzed air samples from transit stations of six cities for microbial genetic signatures and found that these, too, held geographical variations.

What isn’t as clear is why each area’s microbiome is so different. The authors speculate that it could be to do with the area’s climate, plant and wildlife, or the humans that live there.

The team examining microbes on surfaces found more than 4,000 known species and more than 14,000 species (nearly 11,000 of which are viruses) that had DNA sequences not found in any database. But at this point, researchers say that there isn’t a reason to suspect the newly discovered microbes pose a significant risk to human health.

“I think the most important thing is not to freak out,” Noah Fierer, a microbiologist at the University of Colorado Boulder who was not involved in the study, tells The New York Times. “Most of these aren’t pathogens, most of them are probably innocuous, and some may actually be beneficial.”

Still, the authors note that it would be beneficial for cities to keep tabs on any shifts in a city’s microbiome as it might help identify outbreaks before they become widely problematic. “The coronavirus disease 2019 crisis has thrown the need for broad microbial surveillance into sharp relief,” the authors write in the paper. “Microbial genetic mapping of urban environments will give public health officials tools to assess risk, map outbreaks, and genetically characterize problematic species.”