Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Microbes in ocean play important role in moderating Earth's temperature

Methane-eating microbes help regulate Earth's temperatures with remarkably high metabolic rates within seafloor carbonate rocks

HARVARD UNIVERSITY, DEPARTMENT OF ORGANISMIC AND EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY

Research News

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IMAGE: TWO VIEWS OF THE CARBONATE CHIMNEYS AT THE POINT DUME METHANE SEEP OFF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ARE COVERED WITH COLORFUL MICROBIAL MATS AND PERMEATED BY METHANE-EATING MICROBES. view more 

CREDIT: COURTESY OF COURTESY OF THE SCHMIDT OCEAN INSTITUTE (PERMISSION TO USE WITH PROPER CITATION)

Methane is a strong greenhouse gas that plays a key role in Earth's climate. Anytime we use natural gas, whether we light up our kitchen stove or barbeque, we are using methane.

Only three sources on Earth produce methane naturally: volcanoes, subsurface water-rock interactions, and microbes. Between these three sources, most is generated by microbes, which have deposited hundreds of gigatons of methane into the deep seafloor. At seafloor methane seeps, it percolates upwards toward the open ocean, and microbial communities consume the majority of this methane before it reaches the atmosphere. Over the years, researchers are finding more and more methane beneath the seafloor, yet very little ever leaves the oceans and gets into the atmosphere. Where is the rest going?

A team of researchers led by Jeffrey J. Marlow, former postdoctoral researcher in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, discovered microbial communities that rapidly consume the methane, preventing its escape into Earth's atmosphere. The study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences collected and examined methane-eating microbes from seven geologically diverse seafloor seeps and found, most surprisingly, that the carbonate rocks from one site in particular hosts methane-oxidizing microbial communities with the highest rates of methane consumption measured to date.

"The microbes in these carbonate rocks are acting like a methane bio filter consuming it all before it leaves the ocean," said senior author Peter Girguis, Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University. Researchers have studied microbes living in seafloor sediment for decades and know these microbes are consuming methane. This study, however, examined microbes that thrive in the carbonate rocks in great detail.

Seafloor carbonate rocks are common, but in select locations, they form unusual chimney-like structures. These chimneys reach 12 to 60 inches in height and are found in groups along the seafloor resembling a stand of trees. Unlike many other types of rocks, these carbonate rocks are porous, creating channels that are home to a very dense community of methane-consuming microbes. In some cases, these microbes are found in much higher densities within the rocks than in the sediment.

During a 2015 expedition funded by the Ocean Exploration Trust, Girguis discovered a carbonate chimney reef off the coast of southern California at the deep sea site Point Dume. Girguis returned in 2017 with funding from NASA to build a sea floor observatory. Upon joining Girguis's lab, Marlow, currently Assistant Professor of Biology at Boston University, was studying microbes in carbonates. The two decided to conduct a community study and gather samples from the site.

"We measured the rate at which the microbes from the carbonates eat methane compared to microbes in sediment," said Girguis. "We discovered the microbes living in the carbonates consume methane 50 times faster than microbes in the sediment. We often see that some sediment microbes from methane-rich mud volcanoes, for example, may be five to ten times faster at eating methane, but 50 times faster is a whole new thing. Moreover, these rates are among the highest, if not the highest, we've measured anywhere."

"These rates of methane oxidation, or consumption, are really extraordinary, and we set out to understand why," said Marlow.

The team found that the carbonate chimney sets up an ideal home for the microbes to eat a lot of methane really fast. "These chimneys exists because some methane in fluid flowing out from the subsurface is transformed by the microbes into bicarbonate, which can then precipitate out of the seawater as carbonate rock," said Marlow. "We're still trying to figure out where that fluid - and its methane - is coming from."

The micro-environments within the carbonates may contain more methane than the sediment due to its porous nature. Carbonates have channels that are constantly irrigating the microbes with fresh methane and other nutrients allowing them to consume methane faster. In sediment, the supply of methane is often limited because it diffuses through smaller, winding channels between mineral grains.

A startling find was that, in some cases, these microbes are surrounded by pyrite, which is electrically conductive. One possible explanation for the high rates of methane consumption is that the pyrite provides an electrical conduit that passes electrons back and forth, allowing the microbes to have higher metabolic rates and consume methane quickly.

"These very high rates are facilitated by these carbonates which provide a framework for the microbes to grow," said Girguis. "The system resembles a marketplace where carbonates allow a bunch of microbes to aggregate in one place and grow and exchange - in this case, exchange electrons - which allows for more methane consumption."

Marlow agreed, "When microbes work together they're either exchanging building blocks like carbon or nitrogen, or they're exchanging energy. And one kind of way to do that is through electrons, like an energy currency. The pyrite interspersed throughout these carbonate rocks could help that electron exchange happen more swiftly and broadly."

In the lab, the researchers put the collected carbonates into high pressure reactors and recreated conditions on the sea floor. They gave them isotopically labeled methane with added Carbon-14 or Deuterium (Hydrogen-2) in order to track methane production and consumption. The team next compared the data from Point Dume to six additional sites, from the Gulf of Mexico to the coast of New England. In all locations, carbonate rocks at methane seeps contained methane-eating microbes.

"Next we plan to disentangle how each of these different parts of the carbonates - the structure, electrical conductivity, fluid flow, and dense microbial community - make this possible. As of now, we don't know the exact contribution of each," said Girguis.

"First, we need to understand how these microbes sustain their metabolic rate, whether they're in a chimney or in the sediment. And we need to know this in our changing world in order to build our predictive power," said Marlow. "Once we clarify how these many interconnected factors come together to turn methane to rock, we can then ask how we might apply these anaerobic methane-eating microbes to other situations, like landfills with methane leaks."

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New health benefits of red seaweeds unveiled

CARL R. WOESE INSTITUTE FOR GENOMIC BIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

Research News

Red seaweeds have been prevalent in the diets of Asian communities for thousands of years. In a new study, published in Marine Drugs, researchers have shown how these algae confer health benefits.

"In the past, people have wondered why the number of colon cancer patients in Japan is the lowest in the world," said Yong-Su Jin (CABBI/BSD/MME), a professor of food microbiology. "Many assumed that it was due to some aspect of the Japanese diet or lifestyle. We wanted to ask whether their seaweed diet was connected to the lower frequency of colon cancer."

Although several studies have shown that Asians who eat seaweed regularly have lower risk of colon, colorectal, and breast cancer, it was unclear which component was responsible for the anti-cancer effects.

In the study, the researchers broke down the structure of different types of red seaweed using enzymes and tested the sugars that were produced to see which one of them caused health benefits. Among the six different sugars produced, agarotriose and 3,6-anhydro-L-galactose, or AHG, showed the most promise.

"After we produced these sugars, we tested their prebiotic activity using the bacteria Bifidobacterium longum ssp. infantis," said Eun Ju Yun, a former postdoctoral researcher at the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology. B. infantis is a probiotic bacterium; it colonizes the gut of infants and provides health benefits. Among the seaweed-derived sugars, the bacteria could only consume agarotriose, indicating that it works as a prebiotic i.e., it improves the growth of probiotic bacteria.

"We also tested another strain, B. kashiwanohense, and found that it also consumed agarotriose," Jin said. "These results show us that when we eat red seaweed, it gets broken down in the gut and releases these sugars which serve as food for the probiotic bacteria. It could help explain why Japanese populations are healthier compared to others."

The researchers also tested the sugars to see if they had any anti-cancer activity. "We found that AHG specifically inhibits the growth of human colon cancer cells and does not affect the growth of normal cells," Yun said. The anti-cancer activity of AHG is due to its ability to trigger apoptosis or cell death.

"There is a lot of information on how red seaweeds are degraded by microorganisms in the ocean and in the human body," said Kyoung Heon Kim, a professor of biotechnology and the co-advisor on the paper. "Our work explains why red seaweeds are beneficial by providing the molecular mechanism. We will continue studying their function in animal models and hopefully we will be able to use them as a therapeutic agent in the future."

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The paper "In vitro prebiotic and anti-colon cancer activities of agar-derived sugars from red seaweeds" can be found at 10.3390/md19040213. The work was funded by the Mid-career Researcher Program through the National Research Foundation (NRF) of Korea; by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, Korea; by the Korea Institute of Planning and Evaluation for Technology in Food, Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries (iPET); and by the Brain Pool Program through the Korean Federation of Science and Technology Societies.

New research finds 1M deaths in 2017 attributable to fossil fuel combustion

Contemporary and comprehensive evaluation of source sector and fuel contributions to the PM2.5 disease burden across over 200 countries

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS

Research News

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IMAGE: MAP: NATIONALLEVEL OUTDOOR PM2.5 DISEASE BURDEN IN 2017 (FROM THE 2019 GLOBAL BURDEN OF DISEASE CONCENTRATION-RESPONSE RELATIONSHIPS). PANELS: ANNUAL AVERAGE POPULATION-WEIGHTED PM2.5 EXPOSURE LEVELS AND ATTRIBUTABLE MORTALITY (ROUNDED TO THE NEAREST... view more 

CREDIT: LAB OF RANDALL MARTIN

An interdisciplinary group of researchers from across the globe has comprehensively examined the sources and health effects of air pollution -- not just on a global scale, but also individually for more than 200 countries.

They found that worldwide, more than one million deaths were attributable to the burning of fossil fuels in 2017. More than half of those deaths were attributable to coal.

Findings and access to their data, which have been made public, were published today in the journal Nature Communications.

Pollution is at once a global crisis and a devastatingly personal problem. It is analyzed by satellites, but PM2.5 -- tiny particles that can infiltrate a person's lungs -- can also sicken a person who cooks dinner nightly on a cookstove.

"PM2.5 is the world's leading environmental risk factor for mortality. Our key objective is to understand its sources," said Randall Martin, the Raymond R. Tucker Distinguished Professor in the Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis.

Martin jointly led the study with Michael Brauer, a professor of public health at the University of British Columbia. They worked with specific datasets and tools from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, the Joint Global Change Research Institute at the University of Maryland and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, as well as other researchers from universities and organizations across the world, amassing a wealth of data, analytical tools and brainpower.

First author Erin McDuffie, a visiting research associate in Martin's lab, used various computational tools to weave the data together, while also enhancing them. She developed a new global dataset of air pollution emissions, making it the most comprehensive dataset of emissions at the time. McDuffie also brought advances to the GEOS-Chem model, an advanced computational tool used in the Martin lab to model specific aspects of atmospheric chemistry.

With this combination of emissions and modeling, the team was able to tease out different sources of air pollution -- everything from energy production to the burning of oil and gas to dust storms.

This study also used new techniques to remote sensing from satellites in order to assess PM2.5 exposure across the globe. The team then incorporated information about the relationship between PM2.5 and health outcomes from the Global Burden of Disease with these exposure estimates to determine the relationships between health and each of the more than 20 distinct pollution sources.

As McDuffie put it: "How many deaths are attributable to exposure to air pollution from specific sources?"

Ultimately, the data reinforced much of what researchers already suspected, particularly on a global scale. It did offer, however, quantitative information in different parts of the world, teasing out which sources are to blame for severe pollution in different areas.

For instance, cookstoves and home-heating are still responsible for the release of particulate matter in many regions throughout Asia and energy generation remains a large polluter on the global scale, McDuffie said.

Apples to apples One unique aspect of this research is its use of the same underlying datasets and methodology to analyze pollution on different spatial scales.

"Previous studies end up having to use different emissions data sets or models all together," said first author Erin McDuffie. In those instances, it is difficult to compare results in one place versus another.

"We can more directly compare results between countries," McDuffie said. "We can even look at pollution sources in places that have implemented some mitigation measures, versus others that haven't to get a more complete picture of what may or may not be working."

And natural sources play a role, as well. In West sub-Saharan Africa in 2017, for instance, windblown dust accounted for nearly three quarters of the particulate matter in the atmosphere, compared with the global rate of just 16 percent. The comparisons in this study are important when it comes to considering mitigation.

"Ultimately, it will be important to consider sources at the subnational scale when developing mitigation strategies for reducing air pollution," McDuffie said.

Martin and McDuffie agreed that, while a takeaway from this work is, simply put, air pollution continues to sicken and kill people, the project also has positive implications.

Although pollution monitoring has been increasing, there are still many areas that do not have the capability. Those that do may not have the tools needed to determine, for instance, how much pollution is a product of local traffic, versus agricultural practices, versus wildfires.

"The good news is that we may be providing some of the first information that these places have about their major sources of pollution," McDuffie said. They may otherwise not have this information readily available to them. "This provides them with a start."

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Rocky Mountain subalpine wildfires higher now than past 2,000 years

By Rachel Ramirez 
CNN


Following a devastating wildfire season in 2020, new research shows that high-elevation forests in the Rocky Mountains are burning more now than any time in the past 2,000 years amid extreme, climate change-induced drought.
© Canyon Lakes Ranger RD Canyon Lakes Ranger RD shared photos from one of their firefighters of the Cameron Peak fire taken on August 13.

The study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded that fire activity in subalpine forests of northern Colorado and southern Wyoming is unprecedented in the last several millennia -- a clear signal that the climate crisis is increasing the severity and extent of wildfires in the West.

Rising temperatures and prolonged drought in the West will continue to exacerbate and accelerate wildfire activity for at least several decades, scientists say. Philip Higuera, lead author of the study and fire ecology professor at the University of Montana, told CNN last year's wildfire season was a game changer.

"After 2020, it's clear we're in uncharted territory," Higuera said. "People are being negatively impacted by these wildfires either directly or indirectly. Climate models suggest that this trend is only set to continue."

The current drought sets the stage for another brutal fire season in 2021, particularly in California where rainfall deficits and dead vegetation are already breaking records that scientists didn't expect until August, Higuera said.

The 2020 wildfire season pushed Higuera and his colleagues to analyze historical fire records to understand how 21st century activity differs from the past. In addition to historical records, they also used charcoal found in lake sediments around the subalpine forests -- or high-elevation forests -- to compare how often fires have occurred in the area on average in the last two millennia.

Higuera's team found that last year's wildfires accounted for 72 percent of the total charred area in the subalpine forests since 1984. They also found the current rate of burning is 22 percent higher than the maximum average rate over the past 2,000 years -- a period of time the temperature in the Northern Hemisphere was actually slightly higher than it was during the 20th century.

The study's authors say the increase is a particularly significant climate impact, since subalpine forests typically burn less frequently than lower elevation forests.

Higuera called the results "sobering."

"Understanding how ecosystems have changed in the past is one of our best ways to learn more about how our forests change as climate changes," Higuera said. "Studying the past is so important because it really helps highlight the degree to which we are changing the landscapes that we live in now."

Jennifer Marlon, a climate scientist at the Yale School of the Environment who was not involved with the study, said these results suggest the seasons are shifting.

"When you get extreme heat and drought together, that's a recipe for really severe wildfires," Marlon told CNN. "The fingerprints of global warming are all over this kind of fire behavior."

Concerningly, Higuera said, what has worked to prevent wildfires at low elevations -- controlled burns -- is not an easy solution for subalpine forests.

"In lower elevation forests, it's an easier proposition to say we need to return prescribed fire to these forests to help get them back to conditions similar to how they were before fire suppression," Higuera said. "It's not as feasible in high elevation forests."

"Fire managers are faced with challenging decisions," he added, "whether having to modify the way that fire exists in these systems versus accepting these high severity fires, which is hard when they burn close to human communities."

Forests are vital to addressing the most dire effects of the climate crisis. They not only protect biodiversity, but also absorb and store carbon dioxide emitted from human activities. But as wildfires worsen, the carbon stored in these forests is increasingly released back into the atmosphere, an impact compounded by bad air quality.

Scientists say that forest ecosystems including the subalpine in the Rocky Mountains could soon reach a tipping point unless climate change is addressed. But Higuera warns that the solution isn't to eliminate fire from management systems because it has historically been part of the life cycle of forests.

"One of the challenges of living in the West is that we know that fire is an important component on these landscapes," he said. "If we remove it, that will take away a lot of the things we've come to expect such as species composition. The challenge for us is to be able to learn how to live with fire on the landscapes in ways that do not turn into human disasters."

Climate change leads to unprecedented Rocky Mountain wildfires

UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING

Research News

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IMAGE: THE MULLEN FIRE LOOMS NEAR A PROPERTY IN CENTENNIAL, WYO., LAST FALL. BRYAN SHUMAN, A PROFESSOR IN UW'S DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGY AND GEOPHYSICS, WAS A MAIN CO-AUTHOR OF A PAPER,... view more 

CREDIT: JASON SHOGREN

June 14, 2021 - Last fall, the Mullen fire west of Laramie raged for the better part of two months, burning more than 176,000 acres and 70 structures in Wyoming's Carbon and Albany counties, and in Jackson County, Colo.

Unfortunately, this scenario was typical during the intense 2020 fire season in the Rocky Mountain region, an area of Colorado and southern Wyoming where high-elevation forests are burning more than at any point in the past 2,000 years, according to a study in which a University of Wyoming faculty member was instrumental.

"Global warming is causing larger fires in Rocky Mountain forests than have burned for thousands of years," says Bryan Shuman, a professor in the UW Department of Geology and Geophysics. "The last time anything similar may have occurred was during a warm portion of the medieval era."

Shuman was the main co-author of a paper, titled "Rocky Mountain Subalpine Forests Now Burning More Than Any Time in Recent Millennia," that was published today (June 14) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The journal is one of the world's most prestigious multidisciplinary scientific serials, with coverage spanning the biological, physical and social sciences.

Philip Higuera, a professor of fire ecology in the W.A. Franke College of Forestry and Conservation at the University of Montana, was the paper's lead author. Kyra Wolf, a Ph.D. candidate in paleoecology and forest ecology at the University of Montana, also contributed to the paper.

Higuera and Shuman conceived and designed the study, while Higuera and Wolf analyzed the data, a unique network of fire-history records, to understand how current fire activity compared to wildfires of the past. The 2020 fire season marks the emergence of 21st century fire regimes with distinctly higher rates of burning, not only from the late 20th century but relative to the past two millennia.

By November 2020, wildfires in southern Wyoming and northern Colorado were responsible for 72 percent of the total area burned in high-elevation, subalpine forests since 1984. During 2020, Colorado had experienced three of its largest fires on record.

"As the 2020 fire season unfolded, we realized we already had a well-defined understanding of the fire history of many of the places burning, based on over 20 lake sediment records our teams had collected over the past 15 years," Higuera says. "When the smoke settled, we thought 'Wow, we may have witnessed something truly unprecedented here.' So, we combined the existing records for the first time and compared them to recent fire activity. To our surprise, 2020 indeed pushed fire activity outside the range of variability these forests have experienced over at least the past two millennia."

Researchers used charcoal found in lake sediment records to assemble the fire history across the Rocky Mountains. They discovered that, since 2000, wildfires are burning nearly twice as much area, on average, compared to the last 2,000 years.

Over that 2,000-year period, fires in high-elevation, subalpine forest historically burned, on average, once every 230 years. In the 21st century, those fires now occur, on average, every 117 years. This is 22 percent higher than the maximum rate -- which took place during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (770-870) -- reconstructed over the past two millennia. During the Medieval Climate Anomaly, Northern Hemisphere temperatures were 0.3 degrees Celsius above the average in the 20th century.

"The results indicate that, if fires continue to burn as often as they do now, every forest in the region could be burned by the beginning of the next century," Shuman explains. "In the past, it would have taken 200 to 300 years, if not longer, for fires to affect that much area."

In the Rocky Mountains of northern Colorado and southern Wyoming, 840,000 acres burned between 1984 and 2019, Shuman says. Another 660,000 acres burned in 2020 alone. Approximately 1.1 million acres burned in the past decade in the Colorado-Wyoming study area, even though only 400,000 acres -- less than half as much -- burned in the previous 25 years, Shuman says.

Subalpine forests are becoming less resilient and more susceptible to fires because the climate is warming. Because humidity was extremely low, temperatures were high, and storm events produced high winds, forest management had little impact on the 2020 fires. They burned designated wilderness and national parks with limited fuel management; heavily managed areas with substantial timber removal; and intact forest and areas with extensive beetle kill. The extreme climate completely overrode all types of forest management, according to Shuman.

"Snowfall in our high-elevation forests is lower now than in past decades, and summers are hotter. The changes convert trees into dry fuel, primed and ready to burn," Shuman says. "With less snow now, the fire season lasts longer than before. When areas burn, the fires are bigger. They can burn longer.

"Then, after the fires, big areas with few live trees mean few seeds to help forests regrow and, even when seeds are plentiful, seedlings can often die from drought and heat," he continues. "Some forests may never grow back."

"It isn't unexpected to have more fires as temperatures rise. Our records show that fire tracked past variations in climate just as it does today," Wolf adds. "What's striking is that temperatures and, correspondingly, fire are now exceeding the range that these forests have coped with for thousands of years -- largely as a result of human-caused climate change."

Continual warming will reinforce newly emerging fire activity in these high-elevation forests, with significant implications for ecosystems and society, according to the paper.

"It may sound dire, but it's critical to remember that we have ample opportunities to limit or reverse climate warming, while still working to adapt to the increasing fire activity expected in upcoming decades," Higuera says.

Shuman helped plan the study, which came about because of more than $600,000 in grants he was able to obtain from the National Science Foundation to support undergraduate and graduate student research at UW.

"We were able to examine the 2020 fire season because of a decade of student projects at UW that revealed how often our forests have burned in the past few thousand years," Shuman says.

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Monday, June 14, 2021

Google, Facebook, Amazon and more urge SEC to mandate regular climate reports
Lauren Feiner 
CNBC

In a letter to SEC Chairman Gary Gensler on Friday, Google-parent Alphabet, Amazon, Autodesk, eBay, Facebook, Intel and Salesforce shared their view in response to a request for public input on such disclosures.
The tech industry has been vocal on climate issues in the past, even as employees have pressed the companies themselves to do better.
© Provided by CNBC Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announces the co-founding of The Climate Pledge at the National Press Club on September 19, 2019, in Washington.

A group of seven tech companies urged the Securities and Exchange Commission to require businesses to regularly disclose climate-related matters to their shareholders.

In a letter to SEC Chairman Gary Gensler on Friday, Google parent Alphabet, Amazon, Autodesk, eBay, Facebook, Intel and Salesforce shared their view in response to a request for public input on such disclosures. The tech industry has been vocal on climate issues in the past, even as employees have pressed the companies themselves to do better.

"We believe that climate disclosures are critical to ensure that companies follow through on stated climate commitments and to track collective progress towards addressing global warming and building a prosperous, resilient zero-carbon economy," the companies wrote.

In the letter, the group outlined several principles they believe the SEC should incorporate into rules around climate disclosures. They said businesses should report on their relevant greenhouse gas emissions measured by relevant global standards and the SEC should lean on existing frameworks to ensure disclosures are consistent and comparable to one another.

The group said that collectively, it's purchased 21 gigawatts of clean energy and each aims to procure 100% renewable energy.

Separately, Microsoft submitted its own letter to encouraging the SEC to adopt rules requiring material disclosures related to climate impact. Microsoft similarly emphasized that the reports should be based on common standards but said rules should not be "excessively prescriptive."
Honolulu Police Department Used $150,000 in CARES Funds on Robot Dog

Whitney Kimball 

The Honolulu Police Department spent $150,045 in CARES Act funding to buy Spot the robot dog from Boston Dynamics, the world’s sickest dogbot famed for backflips, games of fetch, and also hanging out with law enforcement. As the Honolulu City Beat reported last week, some feel that the expense was a bit excessive.
© Photo: Josh Reynolds (AP)

“Toys, toys, toys,” one anonymous officer told the paper. “Everything we could buy, we would buy.”

Two department officials can be seen defending the purchase in a video of a Honolulu City Council meeting in January. In a presentation, Major Mike Lambert and Acting Lieutenant Joseph O’Neal explained that Spot is intended for the POST program, “Provisional Outdoor Screening and Triage facility,” an encampment of tents to shelter people experiencing homelessness who are unable to quarantine in existing facilities. As the Star Advertiser has reported, thousands of people are living on the streets in Honolulu.

“We’ve been waiting for this moment to vindicate ourselves on the bad press that’s been going around, so thank you so much,” Major Mike Lambert told the City Council.

They opened the presentation with mention of another reference to “bad press” involving a pricey fleet of vehicular toys such as ATVs that the police department also purchased around the time it received CARES funding. As Hawaii News Now reported in April, the department spent $16.5 million after it received the pandemic relief aid. (At the hearing, the Honolulu Police Department reported that the money was gone.) A Spot model for developers can be purchased for about half of what the Honolulu Police Department paid for theirs.

Lambert and O’Neal went on to explain that the robot protects officers working onsite by reducing contact with covid-positive and symptomatic people. “To put a price tag on a possible exposure to the officers and their families... $150,000 is... I wouldn’t put that price on anybody,” O’Neal said. “Not one of the homeless people, not a social worker, and not one of the officers.” They didn’t expand on how the robot benefits unhoused people more than a less expensive contactless option or other health amenities.

They confusingly referenced the need for “infrastructure” (technology), and minutes later, O’Neal mentioned that “this is an outdoor environment with no infrastructure.” It’s unclear why the Spot money couldn’t be spent constructing traditional infrastructure such as shelter.

It’s also unclear why they need the robot at all, given that one of the major perks mentioned was that it carries a temperature screening device that can be used from several feet away and logically might be altered as a handheld gadget.

“Spot carries a camera that is so advanced it can scan someone from 8 feet away,” O’Neal boasted. “Now this is not a scan of general temperature. This camera...scans a three-pixel area in the corner of your eye. So the most accurate body temperature you can possibly get in that site and probably almost anywhere—this is the same camera that’s been used at the Pentagon.” This supposedly helps solve the problem of “accuracy problems” in measuring body temperature from heat exposure. And Spot can disinfect areas with UVCs and atomizers, they added.

In a slide, the department displayed an estimate of staffing and equipment costs which supposedly justify Spot paying itself off in around 90 days. This includes two shifts with two officers to cover operation and set up for alternative equipment, which, they claim, would cost about $1,800 daily including overtime.

Another was providing a communication and telehealth portal which also could be installed as an iPad with advanced two-way communication capabilities that can also be held and operated remotely by humans. Why the delivery device for a screen and a temperature scan needs to be a bad boy with unparalleled agility and dog legs rather than wheels? The City Council didn’t probe the matter.

Instead, Councilmember Augusto E. Tulba inquired about potential non-covid-related uses, such as cracking down on a fireworks problem.

“You could send this technology into a neighborhood to give you a visual perspective of what’s occurring in a neighborhood or detect explosions in the air, that’s not beyond reason,” O’Neal answered. He paused and added: “Or capture people lighting them. Capture people lighting the fireworks. You could.”

The New York City Police Department retired their own $94,000 Spot after activists made noise over a viral video of the robot policing streets in the Bronx. “Shout out to everyone who fought against community advocates who demanded these resources go to investments like school counseling instead,” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted in February. “Now robotic surveillance ground drones are being deployed for testing on low-income communities of color with under-resourced schools.”

Homeless encampments certainly fall in the “under-resourced” category.

Neither Boston Dynamics nor the Honolulu Police Department, which was contacted by Gizmodo at 3:30am Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time, was immediately available for comment. We will update this post when we hear back.
Wuhan virologist Dr. Shi Zhengli denies COVID-19 lab leak theory in rare interview

aharoun@businessinsider.com (Azmi Haroun) 

This aerial view shows the P4 laboratory (C) on the campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province on May 27, 2020. - Opened in 2018, the P4 lab conducts research on the world's most dangerous diseases and has been accused by some top US officials of being the source of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images


"I'm sure that I did nothing wrong," she told The New York Times. "So I have nothing to fear."

In a rare interview with The New York Times, Wuhan virologist Dr. Shi Zhengli denied claims that the COVID-19 virus originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

"My lab has never conducted or cooperated in conducting gain-of-function experiments that enhance the virulence of viruses," she told The Times. Experts in the international community have struggled to gain transparent access to the lab, in order to determine the coronavirus' origin.

Video: WHO Weighs in On Covid-19 Wuhan Lab Leak Theory (The Independent)


"How on earth can I offer up evidence for something where there is no evidence?" Zhengli said in the interview. "I don't know how the world has come to this, constantly pouring filth on an innocent scientist," she said.

Dr. Zhengli said that claims that the lab bolstered the virus and kept information about it's spread under wraps are "speculation rooted in utter distrust."

"I'm sure that I did nothing wrong," she told the Times. "So I have nothing to fear."
Read the original article on Business Insider
RIGHT WING CONSPIRACY THEORY
GOP senators call for HHS and NIH to hand over records on COVID-19 origins and Wuhan lab

Jerry Dunleavy 
WASHINGTON EXAMINER


Five Senate Republicans are urging the leaders of the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health to hand over records related to the origins of COVID-19 and China's Wuhan Institute of Virology following recent revelations within heavily-redacted emails from Dr. Anthony Fauci.

© Provided by Washington Examiner

THE USUAL COLLECTION OF BAT SHIT CRAZY NUTTERS
Sen. Ron Johnson, ranking member on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, along with Sens. Josh Hawley, James Lankford, Rand Paul, and Rick Scott, sent a letter obtained by the Washington Examiner to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra and NIH Director Francis Collins on Monday. In the letter, Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee members wrote they wanted answers about NIH’s “handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

“The recent release of approximately 4,000 pages of NIH email communications and other documents from early 2020 has raised serious questions about NIH’s handling of COVID-19,” the GOP letter said. “Between June 1 and June 4, 2021, the news media and public interest groups released approximately 4,000 pages of NIH emails and other documents these organizations received through Freedom of Information Act requests. These documents, though heavily redacted, have shed new light on NIH’s awareness of the virus’ origins in the early stages of the COVID19 pandemic.”

Newly released emails from early 2020 sent by Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, show he seemed aware of the looming gain-of-function research and Chinese collaboration controversies. They also indicate Fauci worked behind the scenes to promote the natural origins hypothesis.

EVIDENCE MOUNTS WUHAN LAB STUDIED LIVE BATS DESPITE DENIALS

EcoHealth Alliance received at least $3.7 million from NIH from 2014 to 2020, and Peter Daszak — a key member of the World Health Organization-China joint study team — maintained a long collaborative relationship with Wuhan lab “bat lady” Shi Zhengli, steering at least $600,000 in NIH funding to that lab for bat coronavirus research. He also criticized the Biden administration earlier this year for appearing skeptical of the WHO’s findings and defended China to Chinese Communist Party-linked outlets.

U.S. Embassy officials in China raised concerns in 2018 about lax biosecurity at the Wuhan lab.

The new GOP letter noted an email from Jan. 9, 2020, in which Fauci senior scientific adviser David Morens asked Daszak for “any inside info on this new coronavirus that isn’t yet in the public domain.”

The letter also pointed to a Jan. 27, 2020, message from Daszak to Morens with the subject line: “Wuhan novel coronavirus – NIAID’s role in bat-origin Covs” and the message, “Happy to have a phone call re: the Wuhan CoV, but just wanted to mention a few things for your information and hopefully to pass on to Tony Fauci for when he’s being interviewed re. the new CoV: NIAID has been funding coronavirus research for the past 5 years… Collaborators include Wuhan Institute of Virology (currently working on the nCoV) and Ralph Baric.”

The Republican letter highlighted the fact Fauci sent an email to NIH Principal Deputy Director Hugh Auchincloss on Feb. 1, 2020, with an attachment labeled “Baric, Shi et al - Nature medicine - SARS Gain of function.pdf” and the subject line, “IMPORTANT.” Fauci’s message had a tone of urgency, saying, “Hugh: It is essential that we speak this AM. Keep your cell phone on... Read this paper as well as the e-mail that I will forward to you now. You will have tasks today that must be done.”

Auchincloss replied to Fauci, saying, “The paper you sent me says the experiments were performed before the gain of function pause but have since been reviewed and approved by NIH. Not sure what that means since Emily is sure that no Coronavirus work has gone through the P3 framework ... She will try to determine if we have any distant ties to this work abroad.”

Fauci replied: “OK. Stay tuned.”

After a pause in 2014, HHS announced the Potential Pandemic Pathogen Care and Oversight Framework in 2017, which was ostensibly set up to review any grants that might involve gain-of-function research. But, the 2019 renewal of EcoHealth grants was not subjected to the P3CO review.

During a Senate hearing, Paul pointed to the work between Baric and Shi as evidence of U.S. support for gain-of-function research in China and asked, “Dr. Fauci, do you still support funding of the NIH funding of the lab in Wuhan?”

Fauci replied, “Sen. Paul, with all due respect, you are entirely and completely incorrect — that the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

He added, “Dr. Baric is not doing gain-of-function research, and if it is, it is according to the guidelines, and it is being conducted in North Carolina, not in China … If you look at the grant and you look at the progress reports, it's not gain-of-function.”

An article in Nature Medicine published in 2015 following a study by Baric, Shi, and others noted, “Using the SARS-CoV reverse genetics system, we generated and characterized a chimeric virus expressing the spike of bat coronavirus SHC014.”

An “editor’s note” added to the article in March 2020 added, “We are aware that this article is being used as the basis for unverified theories that the novel coronavirus causing COVID-19 was engineered. There is no evidence that this is true; scientists believe that an animal is the most likely source of the coronavirus.”

Baric was among several scientists who signed a letter in Science magazine in May arguing "theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable."

The Republican senators said Monday that “in order to better assist Congress in performing its oversight function,” HHS and NIH should hand over “all records” involving Fauci, Collins, Daszak, Baric, Shi, Auchincloss, Morens, and other Chinese and international scientists “referring or relating to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, COVID-19, coronavirus, EcoHealth Alliance, or Dr. Baric’s 2015 coronavirus study.”

A State Department fact sheet in January contended Wuhan lab researchers “conducted experiments involving RaTG13, the bat coronavirus identified by the WIV in January 2020 as its closest sample to SARS-CoV-2 (96.2% similar)” and that the lab “has a published record of conducting ‘gain-of-function’ research to engineer chimeric viruses.”

The fact sheet said the lab “engaged in classified research, including laboratory animal experiments, on behalf of the Chinese military” and that lab workers became sick with COVID-19-like symptoms in autumn 2019.

“It is unclear the extent to which NIH officials, including Dr. Fauci, considered the possibility that the virus originated in a laboratory and what, if any, actions they took to seriously investigate this possibility,” the new GOP letter contends. “It is also unclear why NIAID officials eventually decided to downplay the likelihood that the virus originated in a laboratory and, instead, promote that it originated naturally.”

The GOP letter asked for “complete and unredacted copies of all documents and communications responsive” to Freedom of Information Act requests made by the Washington Post, BuzzFeed, and Judicial Watch. It also requested similar FOIA requests by other organizations and outlets related to U.S. government officials, the Wuhan lab, and other coronavirus-related issues, which are listed on NIH’s online FOIA log.

Citing legal authorities, the Republican senators asked for the information “as soon as possible” but no later than the end of the business day on June 25.

Last year, Fauci laughed off the possibility that COVID-19 escaped from a lab, arguing "a number of very qualified evolutionary biologists have said that everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that it evolved in nature and then jumped species."

However, Fauci said last month he was unsure about whether he was still confident COVID-19 emerged naturally.

The U.S. intelligence community said at least one of its 18 agencies is leaning toward the lab leak hypothesis, and Biden ordered all of the spy agencies to “redouble” their investigative efforts last month. Those findings are expected to be delivered to Biden later this summer.

Tags: News

Original Author: Jerry Dunleavy

Original Location: GOP senators call for HHS and NIH to hand over records on COVID-19 origins and Wuhan lab
Broadway Tour Crews Must Be Fully Vaccinated as Part of New Labor Deal

Jeremy Fuster 
THE WRAP

In a big step towards the reopening of live theater, Actors Equity announced on Monday that it has reached an agreement with Broadway producers on COVID-19 safety protocols for touring productions, including a mandate that all cast and crew must be fully vaccinated
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© TheWrap

The agreement also requires cast and crew to undergo weekly COVID-19 tests and bans interaction between performers and audience members. Other rules are similar to the ones implemented by Hollywood guilds for film and television productions, including requiring masks and social distancing, except when job responsibilities do not allow for it, face shields and regular glove changes for hair and makeup artists, and the appointment of a compliance officer to make sure that all protocols are upheld.

The agreement only covers touring companies and not shows on Broadway itself, which are still under negotiation. Actors Equity will also work with the Broadway League to determine "appropriate Health & Safety protocols" in states where vaccine mandates are not allowed by law.

"After months of working together in the midst of an ever-changing landscape, it was great to finalize the protocols with Actors Equity that will help bring Touring Broadway back and keep our employees safe," read a statement from the Broadway League sent to TheWrap.

The new rules come as national tours for major Broadway musicals have announced plans to resume performances, including "Hamilton" at the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles this August. Broadway tours of "My Fair Lady" and "Moulin Rouge" are also set to arrive in L.A. later this year.

Meanwhile, Hollywood guilds are preparing to once again review COVID-19 safety protocols to determine if any can be loosened as California prepares to lift nearly all COVID-19 safety requirements and capacity limits on Tuesday. The guilds will also consider whether to require vaccinations for all production crew members for film and TV shoots as it continues to monitor potential variant cases of the virus in parts of the world where infection rates remain high.
THIRD WORLD USA
COVID-19 vaccines are low in areas where eviction rates are high, report finds

asheffey@businessinsider.com (Ayelet Sheffey) 
© Provided by Business Insider Housing activists gathering in Massachusetts in October. Michael Dwyer/AP Photo

The Eviction Lab found vaccinations rates are low in areas where eviction filings are the highest.

These evictions are happening despite a CDC eviction ban, which is set to expire on June 30.

Several courts have ruled the ban unconstitutional, but this suggests COVID-19 cases will pick up along with evictions.

The eviction moratorium from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is set to expire at the end of June, but courts have begun overruling the ban, putting tenants at risk of eviction.

New data suggests that lifting the moratorium will not only increase evictions, but also increase the spread of COVID-19
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Insider reported last month that US District Judge Dabney Friedrich, the first judge to strike down the CDC's eviction ban nationwide, also issued an order keeping the ban in place for the time being because she agreed with the Department of Health and Human Services' projections that lifting the moratorium would amount to 433,000 additional cases of COVID-19. In other words, infection risk could go up with evictions.

Princeton University's Eviction Lab, which examines eviction data, released a report last week that found that in every jurisdiction the lab could locate data, eviction rates were higher in neighborhoods with lower vaccination rates.

It analyzed nine cities with sufficient data: Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, Phoenix, New York, and South Bend, and found those most at risk of being evicted are still at high risk of contracting and passing on the virus.

"The COVID-19 pandemic is far from over, and while vaccination access is improving, it's still limited in disadvantaged communities that are at greatest risk for eviction," the report said. "The CDC eviction moratorium is, for many tenants behind on rent, the last remaining protection from the threat of displacement."

In Phoenix, for example, the average neighborhood with a low eviction filing rate of under 5% since the start of the pandemic had a vaccination rate of 56%, while the average zip code with a high eviction filing rate of above 15% had a vaccination rate of just 35%, according to the report.

The report also found that the relationship between eviction filings and vaccination rates is "deeply linked with race." Black renters routinely face higher eviction rates, and Black and Latinx people are also much less likely to be vaccinated against COVID-19, reflecting the higher transmission rates that would result when evictions restart.

The Eviction Lab's findings only further strengthen the concerns that experts, and judges, have had with lifting CDC's eviction ban early.

Since the eviction ban extension was implemented, multiple landlords have filed lawsuits questioning its legality, with multiple courts ruling the ban unconstitutional. These rulings came at a time when the Treasury Department still had $50 billion in emergency aid to give to renters, but the department needed to get the funds to renters quickly before the ban lifts and they're at risk of eviction.

The Alabama Association of Realtors, which sued to challenge the moratorium in Friedrich's case, argued landlords will lose $13.8 billion to $19 billion each month in unpaid rent as as a result of the moratorium. Landlords and housing organizations have been making this argument since the ban was implemented.

But some lawmakers and advocates are concerned with the implications of overruling the eviction ban and want to ensure that renters remain protected. Insider reported on April 26 that Washington became the first state to ensure that if its residents do get evicted, they will have access to legal aid.

Nevertheless, the CDC has not commented on whether its eviction ban will be extended past June 30. New York previously extended its own eviction ban through August, but if evictions pick up, the spread of COVID-19 might also pick up.

The report said: "As its expiration nears, few protections stand in the way of a family losing their home, and potentially contracting a life-threatening virus."