Curiosity, technology drive quest for fundamental secrets of the universe

by John Spizzirri, Argonne National Laboratory

The South Pole Telescope is part of a collaboration between Argonne and a number of national labs and universities to measure the CMB, considered the oldest light in the universe. The high altitude and extremely dry conditions of the South Pole keep water vapor from absorbing select light wavelengths. Credit: Argonne National Laboratory.

Argonne-driven technology is part of a broad initiative to answer fundamental questions about the birth of matter in the universe and the building blocks that hold it all together.

Imagine the first of our species to lie beneath the glow of an evening sky. An enormous sense of awe, perhaps a little fear, fills them as they wonder at those seemingly infinite points of light and what they might mean. As humans, we evolved the capacity to ask big insightful questions about the world around us and worlds beyond us. We dare, even, to question our own origins.

"The place of humans in the universe is important to understand," said physicist and computational scientist Salman Habib. "Once you realize that there are billions of galaxies we can detect, each with many billions of stars, you understand the insignificance of being human in some sense. But at the same time, you appreciate being human a lot more."

With no less a sense of wonder than most of us, Habib and colleagues at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory are actively researching these questions through an initiative that investigates the fundamental components of both particle physics and astrophysics.

The breadth of Argonne's research in these areas is mind-boggling. It takes us back to the very edge of time itself, to some infinitesimally small portion of a second after the Big Bang when random fluctuations in temperature and density arose, eventually forming the breeding grounds of galaxies and planets.

It explores the heart of protons and neutrons to understand the most fundamental constructs of the visible universe, particles and energy once free in the early post-Big Bang universe, but later confined forever within a basic atomic structure as that universe began to cool.

And it addresses slightly newer, more controversial questions about the nature of dark matter and dark energy, both of which play a dominant role in the makeup and dynamics of the universe but are little understood.

"And this world-class research we're doing could not happen without advances in technology," said Argonne Associate Laboratory Director Kawtar Hafidi, who helped define and merge the different aspects of the initiative.

"We are developing and fabricating detectors that search for signatures from the early universe or enhance our understanding of the most fundamental of particles," she added. "And because all of these detectors create big data that have to be analyzed, we are developing, among other things, artificial intelligence techniques to do that as well.

Fleshing out a theory of the universe on cosmic or subatomic scales requires a combination of observations, experiments, theories, simulations and analyses, which in turn requires access to the world's most sophisticated telescopes, particle colliders, detectors and supercomputers.

Argonne is uniquely suited to this mission, equipped as it is with many of those tools, the ability to manufacture others and collaborative privileges with other federal laboratories and leading research institutions to access other capabilities and expertise.

As lead of the initiative's cosmology component, Habib uses many of these tools in his quest to understand the origins of the universe and what makes it tick.

And what better way to do that than to observe it, he said.

"If you look at the universe as a laboratory, then obviously we should study it and try to figure out what it is telling us about foundational science," noted Habib. "So, one part of what we are trying to do is build ever more sensitive probes to decipher what the universe is trying to tell us."

To date, Argonne is involved in several significant sky surveys, which use an array of observational platforms, like telescopes and satellites, to map different corners of the universe and collect information that furthers or rejects a specific theory.

For example, the South Pole Telescope survey, a collaboration between Argonne and a number of national labs and universities, is measuring the cosmic microwave background (CMB), considered the oldest light in the universe. Variations in CMB properties, such as temperature, signal the original fluctuations in density that ultimately led to all the visible structure in the universe.

Additionally, the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument and the forthcoming Vera C. Rubin Observatory are specially outfitted, ground-based telescopes designed to shed light on dark energy and dark matter, as well as the formation of luminous structure in the universe.

Darker matters

All the data sets derived from these observations are connected to the second component of Argonne's cosmology push, which revolves around theory and modeling. Cosmologists combine observations, measurements and the prevailing laws of physics to form theories that resolve some of the mysteries of the universe.

But the universe is complex, and it has an annoying tendency to throw a curve ball just when we thought we had a theory cinched. Discoveries within the past 100 years have revealed that the universe is both expanding and accelerating its expansion—realizations that came as separate but equal surprises.

"To say that we understand the universe would be incorrect. To say that we sort of understand it is fine," exclaimed Habib. "We have a theory that describes what the universe is doing, but each time the universe surprises us, we have to add a new ingredient to that theory."

A section of a detector array with architecture suitable for future CMB experiments, such as the upcoming CMB-S4 project. Fabricated at Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials, 16,000 of these detectors currently drive measurements collected from the South Pole Telescope. Credit: Argonne National Laboratory

Modeling helps scientists get a clearer picture of whether and how those new ingredients will fit a theory. They make predictions for observations that have not yet been made, telling observers what new measurements to take.

Habib's group is applying this same sort of process to gain an ever-so-tentative grasp on the nature of dark energy and dark matter. While scientists can tell us that both exist, that they comprise about 68 and 26% of the universe, respectively, beyond that not much else is known.

Observations of cosmological structure—the distribution of galaxies and even of their shapes—provide clues about the nature of dark matter, which in turn feeds simple dark matter models and subsequent predictions. If observations, models and predictions aren't in agreement, that tells scientists that there may be some missing ingredient in their description of dark matter.

But there are also experiments that are looking for direct evidence of dark matter particles, which require highly sensitive detectors. Argonne has initiated development of specialized superconducting detector technology for the detection of low-mass dark matter particles.

This technology requires the ability to control properties of layered materials and adjust the temperature where the material transitions from finite to zero resistance, when it becomes a superconductor. And unlike other applications where scientists would like this temperature to be as high as possible—room temperature, for example—here, the transition needs to be very close to absolute zero.

Habib refers to these dark matter detectors as traps, like those used for hunting—which, in essence, is what cosmologists are doing. Because it's possible that dark matter doesn't come in just one species, they need different types of traps.

"It's almost like you're in a jungle in search of a certain animal, but you don't quite know what it is—it could be a bird, a snake, a tiger—so you build different kinds of traps," he said.

Lab researchers are working on technologies to capture these elusive species through new classes of dark matter searches. Collaborating with other institutions, they are now designing and building a first set of pilot projects aimed at looking for dark matter candidates with low mass.

Tuning in to the early universe

Amy Bender is working on a different kind of detector—well, a lot of detectors—which are at the heart of a survey of the cosmic microwave background (CMB).

"The CMB is radiation that has been around the universe for 13 billion years, and we're directly measuring that," said Bender, an assistant physicist at Argonne.

The Argonne-developed detectors—all 16,000 of them—capture photons, or light particles, from that primordial sky through the aforementioned South Pole Telescope, to help answer questions about the early universe, fundamental physics and the formation of cosmic structures.

Now, the CMB experimental effort is moving into a new phase, CMB-Stage 4 (CMB-S4). This larger project tackles even more complex topics like inflationary theory, which suggests that the universe expanded faster than the speed of light for a fraction of a second, shortly after the Big Bang.

While the science is amazing, the technology to get us there is just as fascinating.

Technically called transition edge sensing (TES) bolometers, the detectors on the telescope are made from superconducting materials fabricated at Argonne's Center for Nanoscale Materials, a DOE Office of Science User Facility.

Each of the 16,000 detectors acts as a combination of very sensitive thermometer and camera. As incoming radiation is absorbed on the surface of each detector, measurements are made by supercooling them to a fraction of a degree above absolute zero. (That's over three times as cold as Antarctica's lowest recorded temperature.)

Changes in heat are measured and recorded as changes in electrical resistance and will help inform a map of the CMB's intensity across the sky.

CMB-S4 will focus on newer technology that will allow researchers to distinguish very specific patterns in light, or polarized light. In this case, they are looking for what Bender calls the Holy Grail of polarization, a pattern called B-modes.

Capturing this signal from the early universe—one far fainter than the intensity signal—will help to either confirm or disprove a generic prediction of inflation.

It will also require the addition of 500,000 detectors distributed among 21 telescopes in two distinct regions of the world, the South Pole and the Chilean desert. There, the high altitude and extremely dry conditions keep water vapor in the atmosphere from absorbing millimeter wavelength light, like that of the CMB.

While previous experiments have touched on this polarization, the large number of new detectors will improve sensitivity to that polarization and grow our ability to capture it.

"Literally, we have built these cameras completely from the ground up," said Bender. "Our innovation is in how to make these stacks of superconducting materials work together within this detector, where you have to couple many complex factors and then actually read out the results with the TES. And that is where Argonne has contributed, hugely."

Electrons colliding with ions will exchange virtual photons with the nuclear particles to help scientists ​“see” inside the nuclear particles; the collisions will produce precision 3D snapshots of the internal arrangement of quarks and gluons within ordinary nuclear matter; like a combination CT/MRI scanner for atoms. Credit: Brookhaven National Laboratory

Down to the basics

Argonne's capabilities in detector technology don't just stop at the edge of time, nor do the initiative's investigations just look at the big picture.

Most of the visible universe, including galaxies, stars, planets and people, are made up of protons and neutrons. Understanding the most fundamental components of those building blocks and how they interact to make atoms and molecules and just about everything else is the realm of physicists like Zein-Eddine Meziani.

"From the perspective of the future of my field, this initiative is extremely important," said Meziani, who leads Argonne's Medium Energy Physics group. "It has given us the ability to actually explore new concepts, develop better understanding of the science and a pathway to enter into bigger collaborations and take some leadership."

Taking the lead of the initiative's nuclear physics component, Meziani is steering Argonne toward a significant role in the development of the Electron-Ion Collider, a new U.S. Nuclear Physics Program facility slated for construction at DOE's Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Argonne's primary interest in the collider is to elucidate the role that quarks, anti-quarks and gluons play in giving mass and a quantum angular momentum, called spin, to protons and neutrons—nucleons—the particles that comprise the nucleus of an atom.

While we once thought nucleons were the finite fundamental particles of an atom, the emergence of powerful particle colliders, like the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center at Stanford University and the former Tevatron at DOE's Fermilab, proved otherwise.

It turns out that quarks and gluons were independent of nucleons in the extreme energy densities of the early universe; as the universe expanded and cooled, they transformed into ordinary matter.

"There was a time when quarks and gluons were free in a big soup, if you will, but we have never seen them free," explained Meziani. "So, we are trying to understand how the universe captured all of this energy that was there and put it into confined systems, like these droplets we call protons and neutrons."

Some of that energy is tied up in gluons, which, despite the fact that they have no mass, confer the majority of mass to a proton. So, Meziani is hoping that the Electron-Ion Collider will allow science to explore—among other properties—the origins of mass in the universe through a detailed exploration of gluons.

And just as Amy Bender is looking for the B-modes polarization in the CMB, Meziani and other researchers are hoping to use a very specific particle called a J/psi to provide a clearer picture of what's going on inside a proton's gluonic field.

But producing and detecting the J/psi particle within the collider—while ensuring that the proton target doesn't break apart—is a tricky enterprise, which requires new technologies. Again, Argonne is positioning itself at the forefront of this endeavor.

"We are working on the conceptual designs of technologies that will be extremely important for the detection of these types of particles, as well as for testing concepts for other science that will be conducted at the Electron-Ion Collider," said Meziani.

Argonne also is producing detector and related technologies in its quest for a phenomenon called neutrinoless double beta decay. A neutrino is one of the particles emitted during the process of neutron radioactive beta decay and serves as a small but mighty connection between particle physics and astrophysics.

"Neutrinoless double beta decay can only happen if the neutrino is its own anti-particle," said Hafidi. "If the existence of these very rare decays is confirmed, it would have important consequences in understanding why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe."

Argonne scientists from different areas of the lab are working on the Neutrino Experiment with Xenon Time Projection Chamber (NEXT) collaboration to design and prototype key systems for the collaborative's next big experiment. This includes developing a one-of-a-kind test facility and an R&D program for new, specialized detector systems.

"We are really working on dramatic new ideas," said Meziani. "We are investing in certain technologies to produce some proof of principle that they will be the ones to pursue later, that the technology breakthroughs that will take us to the highest sensitivity detection of this process will be driven by Argonne."

The tools of detection

Ultimately, fundamental science is science derived from human curiosity. And while we may not always see the reason for pursuing it, more often than not, fundamental science produces results that benefit all of us. Sometimes it's a gratifying answer to an age-old question, other times it's a technological breakthrough intended for one science that proves useful in a host of other applications.

Through their various efforts, Argonne scientists are aiming for both outcomes. But it will take more than curiosity and brain power to solve the questions they are asking. It will take our skills at toolmaking, like the telescopes that peer deep into the heavens and the detectors that capture hints of the earliest light or the most elusive of particles.

We will need to employ the ultrafast computing power of new supercomputers. Argonne's forthcoming Aurora exascale machine will analyze mountains of data for help in creating massive models that simulate the dynamics of the universe or subatomic world, which, in turn, might guide new experiments—or introduce new questions.

And we will apply artificial intelligence to recognize patterns in complex observations—on the subatomic and cosmic scales—far more quickly than the human eye can, or use it to optimize machinery and experiments for greater efficiency and faster results.

"I think we have been given the flexibility to explore new technologies that will allow us to answer the big questions," said Bender. "What we're developing is so cutting edge, you never know where it will show up in everyday life."

Will this solve the mystery of the expansion of the universe?

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Provided by Argonne National Laboratory 

 

Why do scientific discoveries take long to reach the general public?

by Nathalie Jollien, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne

The retinal implant that Prof. Diego Ghezzi’s laboratory has been working on since 2015 is now ready for clinical trials. Credit: EPFL’s Neuroengineering Laboratory (LNE)

The results of scientific research can often bring considerable societal and economic benefits. But the path from the lab bench to a real-world application can take years, even for projects that are designed from the outset with a concrete use in mind. For instance, it took seven years for the pipetting robot developed by EPFL spin-off SEED Biosciences to reach the market, which it did in 2020. "Our robot lets scientists dispense cells one by one," says Eric Meurville, a SEED Biosciences co-founder who now works at EPFL's Technology Transfer Office. "The technology isn't really all that complicated, but it still took a long time to turn the idea we came up with in the lab into a commercial product."

New discoveries are often developed in response to a specific problem. "In my field, we first have to identify a concrete need," says Diego Ghezzi, who holds the Medtronic Chair in Neuroengineering at EPFL. "Then we come up with a way to meet that need. My lab typically relies on technological advances to overcome such challenges." Ghezzi and his research group have been working since 2015 on a new kind of retinal implant that can partially restore vision in blind people.

Once scientists have fleshed out an idea in the laboratory, the next step is to develop a tangible application. That usually starts with building and testing a prototype, and then performing different kinds of analyses to measure the prototype's properties and behavior. "There are several rounds of development and characterization before we are able to come up with a device that meets all our specifications and delivers optimal performance," says Ghezzi. "This process can take several years."

For biomedical devices, the testing step also includes biological trials. "We first tested our implants in vitro on animal retina, then in vivo on living organisms. That was of course after obtaining all the necessary approvals from the cantonal agencies," he says.

Reproducing results and getting them peer reviewed

Scientists must repeat their experiments many times to make sure their results are consistent and not just a fluke. An experiment to quantify a device's effectiveness, for example, could be repeated dozens of times. Exactly how many times depends on statistical criteria and numerous variables.

Peer review is another important milestone on the road to commercialization. As scientists work on a project, they usually publish their findings in journals and present them at industry conferences. This gives them valuable feedback and comments—both positive and negative—that help them orient their research. Most journals require articles to be peer reviewed before they are published. Peer reviewing entails having experts read and comment on a research paper, with the author generally incorporating the reviewers' suggestions.

Market launch

The next step in getting a product to market requires bringing on board experts from outside the scientific community. There are generally two ways researchers can commercialize their discoveries: by selling a license to an established firm, or—if the inventor has an entrepreneurial bent—by creating a startup.

"EPFL offers a range of support in both cases," says Meurville. "There's the enable program, for instance, which provides funding and know-how to help scientists quickly take their products to a level of maturity that could attract interest from companies in Switzerland and abroad. And there's the EPFL Startup Unit, which supplies both coaching and funding."

Scientists generally present their prototypes to potential customers and investors, explaining how their development meets a market need or offers a major competitive advantage over existing products.

Clinical trials

In addition, medical devices must undergo clinical trials to demonstrate they are both safe and effective in humans. But before the trials can even start, scientists have to prove their devices are manufactured to adequate health and safety standards—a level of testing and approval that isn't included in the prototyping step. In Switzerland, this approval is given by Swissmedic, the Swiss regulator for medical products and treatments. The first round of clinical trials usually involves one to five patients in a single hospital. If these trials are successful, further rounds are carried out with more hospitals and several dozen patients.

Next comes market approval. Products sold in the EU must bear the CE marking. In the US, drugs and medical devices must obtain FDA approval. These certifications indicate that a product has been thoroughly tested by its manufacturer and meets all requisite health, safety and environmental standards.

Turning a scientific breakthrough into a product that can enhance our everyday lives is a long process. "The amount of time required depends on how complicated the technology is and what industry it's intended for. New drugs and medical implants obviously take much longer," says Meurville. "But for a product to be successful, it has to hit the market at the right time—and fill a need that hasn't yet been met."

Retinal implants can give artificial vision to the blind

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Provided by Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne 

 

Activity discovered on largest comet ever found

by Las Cumbres Observatory

An orbital diagram showing the path of Comet C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein) through the Solar System. The comets’ path is shown in gray when it is below the plane of the planets and in bold white when it is above the plane. Credit: NASA

A newly discovered visitor to the outer edges of our solar system has been shown to be the largest known comet ever, thanks to the rapid response telescopes of Las Cumbres Observatory. The object, which is named Comet C/2014 UN271 Bernardinelli-Bernstein after its two discoverers, was first announced on Saturday, June 19th, 2021. C/2014 UN271 was found by reprocessing four years of data from the Dark Energy Survey, which was carried out using the 4-m Blanco telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile between 2013 and 2019. At the time of the announcement, there was no indication that this was an active world. Anticipation was immediately high among astronomers. C/2014 UN271 was inbound from the cold outer reaches of the solar system, so rapid imaging was needed to find out: when would the big new-found world start to show a comet's tail?

Las Cumbres Observatory was quickly able to determine whether the object had become an active comet in the three years since it was first seen by the Dark Energy Survey. "Since the new object was far in the south and quite faint, we knew there wouldn't be many other telescopes that could observe it," says Dr. Tim Lister, Staff Scientist at Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO). "Fortunately LCO has a network of robotic telescopes across the world, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere, and we were able to quickly get images from the LCO telescopes in South Africa,"' explained Tim Lister.

The images from one of LCO's 1-meter telescopes hosted at the South African Astronomical Observatory, came in around 9pm PDT on Monday night June 22. Astronomers in New Zealand who are members of the LCO Outbursting Objects Key (LOOK) Project were the first to notice the new comet.

"Since we're a team based all around the world, it just happened that it was my afternoon, while the other folks were asleep. The first image had the comet obscured by a satellite streak and my heart sank. But then the others were clear enough and gosh: there it was, definitely a beautiful little fuzzy dot, not at all crisp like its neighboring stars," said Dr. Michele Bannister at New Zealand's University of Canterbury. Analysis of the LCO images showed a fuzzy coma around the object, indicating that it was active and was indeed a comet, even though it is still out at a remarkable distance of more than 1,800,000,000 miles, more than double Saturn's distance from the sun.

Comet C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein), as seen in a synthetic color composite image made with the Las Cumbres Observatory 1-meter telescope at Sutherland, South Africa, on 22 June 2021. The diffuse cloud is the comet’s coma. Credit: LOOK/LCO

The comet is estimated to be over 100km in diameter, which is more than three times the size of the next biggest comet nucleus we know, Comet Hale-Bopp, which was discovered in 1995. This comet is not expected to become naked-eye bright: it will remain a telescopic object because its closest distance to the sun will still be beyond Saturn. Since Comet C/2014 UN271 was discovered so far out, astronomers will have over a decade to study it. It will reach its closest approach to the sun in January of 2031. A recent article in the New York Times about the comet details its predicted travel.

Thus Tim Lister and the other astronomers of the LOOK Project will have plenty of time to use the telescopes of Las Cumbres Observatory to study C/2014 UN271. The LOOK Project is continuing to observe the behavior of a large number of comets and how their activity evolves as they come closer towards the sun. The scientists are also using the rapid response capability of LCO to get observations very quickly when a comet goes into an outburst.

"There are now a large number of surveys, such as the Zwicky Transient Facility and the upcoming Vera C. Rubin Observatory, that are monitoring parts of the sky every night. These surveys can provide alerts if one of the comets changes brightness suddenly and then we can trigger the robotic telescopes of LCO to get us more detailed data and a longer look at the changing comet while the survey moves onto other areas of the sky," explains Tim Lister. "The robotic telescopes and sophisticated software of LCO allow us to get images of a new event within 15 minutes of an alert. This lets us really study these outbursts as they evolve."

Space object with orbit stretching into the Oort cloud discovered

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Provided by Las Cumbres Observatory 

 

Aussie scientists see life-saving potential in spider venom

Funnel-web spiders are among the world's deadliest species.

A group of Australia-based scientists are looking to venom from a deadly native spider to actually save lives, by halting the harmful effects of heart attacks.

Researchers used venom from a type of funnel-web spider—among the world's deadliest species—in a drug they hope can soon be taken to human trials.

So far the experimental medicine has only been lab-tested.

University of Queensland scientist Nathan Palpant said Friday the venom helped stop the body sending a "death signal" after a heart attack, which causes cells to die.

"After a heart attack, blood flow to the heart is reduced, resulting in a lack of oxygen to heart muscle," Palpant said.

"The lack of oxygen causes the cell environment to become acidic, which combine to send a message for heart cells to die.

"Despite decades of research, no one has been able to develop a drug that stops this death signal in heart cells, which is one of the reasons why heart disease continues to be the leading cause of death in the world."

The team has successfully used a protein from spider venom on beating human heart cells that were exposed to heart-attack stresses.

"The Hi1a protein from spider venom blocks acid-sensing ion channels in the heart, so the death message is blocked, cell death is reduced, and we see improved heart cell survival," Palpant said.

It is hoped the drug could help not only prevent heart damage and save lives, but improve the quality of donated hearts during transplants.

Previous research has indicated funnel-web spider venom may also be useful in curbing damage from strokes.

The University of Queensland said the team was aiming for human clinical trials for both stroke and heart disease "within two to three years".

The most recent research was published in the latest edition of the journal Circulation.

Revealing the mysteries of stonefish venom

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More information: Meredith A. Redd et al, Therapeutic Inhibition of Acid Sensing Ion Channel 1a Recovers Heart Function After Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury, Circulation (2021). DOI: 10.1161/circulationaha.121.054360

Journal information: Circulation 

The Skilled Labor Shortage Threatens Manufacturing's Full Recovery, Says Study

Before the pandemic, 38% of manufacturers had trouble finding candidates with the right skills and today that number is 54%, said The Workforce Institute at UKG.

Workforce Institute at UKG

THE SKILLED WORKER IS A WHITE MALE

Adrienne Selko
JUL 14, 2021

While more than half, 54%, of manufacturers have achieved year-over-year growth, despite combatting the pandemic, workforce issues have escalated." The Resilience of Manufacturing: Strengthening people operations and bridging the talent gap amid crisis," a study from the Workforce Institute at UKG based on a survey of more than 300 hiring decision-makers representing a mix of U.S.-only manufacturers (65%) and multinational manufacturers with a strong U.S. presence (35%). found that finding talent with the right skills has been more difficult. Before the pandemic, 38% of manufacturers faced this issue and today that number has increased to 54%.

IndustryWeek talked to Kylene Zenk, director of the Manufacturing Practice at UKG to further explore the conclusions from the report.

IW: What are the reasons behind the problems finding skilled workers?

KZ: There are a number of reasons including:
Employees aren’t just calling out of scheduled shifts on short notice — many are actually “ghosting” their employer by skipping a scheduled shift with zero notice.
Between January and March 2021, more than two in three manufacturers (68%) let employees go due to poor attendance, and 13% said managers had to adjust labor schedules every day to account for unplanned absences.
Turnover is up 15% over the prior year: Nearly three in five manufacturers (59%) experienced “higher-than-average” turnover from March 2020 to March 2021, compared with 44% from March 2019 to March 2020. Among multinationals, 71% said turnover was up during the first year of the pandemic vs. 52% of U.S.-only manufacturers.

Although the study did not explicitly explore the reasons why employees are committing attendance infractions, the frequency at which last-minute call-outs occurred within the first 12 months of the pandemic is indeed troubling. Half of the respondents we surveyed said they had people call out of scheduled shifts with less than 24-hour’s notice at least several times a month and 1 in 10 said this happened daily, which puts pressure on managers as well as other team members to fill in the gaps and maintain production schedules.

Again, we can’t pinpoint exactly why these attendance issues happened, but it seems likely that pandemic-related obligations or concerns were a common cause given that frontline employees faced extraordinary personal challenges over the past year, such as enhanced childcare or remote schooling responsibilities, which would have likely impacted their ability to come to work on time or at all. Of course, some manufacturers with more people-centric cultures and policies offered their frontline team members more flexibility to address personal concerns, but this was not unilaterally the case.

We also have to keep in mind that attendance issues were commonplace in manufacturing even before the pandemic. When we surveyed manufacturers in March 2020, more than half said employee lateness (61%), short-staffed shifts (58%), and last-minute call-outs (55%) were all regular occurrences in the 12 months prior to COVID.

What this tells us is that attendance issues, which will presumably continue to impact manufacturing into the post-COVID era, demand a long-term solution — especially in light of the national labor shortage, wherein the decision to let a skilled employee go cannot be made lightly.

IW: What are the recruiting challenges?

KZ: The recruitment challenges noted in the survey seem to be consistent with data coming from other industry studies, and also what we are hearing anecdotally. Among the numerous recruitment challenges employers are facing, a third of our respondents said it’s difficult to compete with other manufacturers, and a quarter is having just as much trouble competing with employers outside the industry, which may have something to do with stagnant wages in manufacturing.

Kylene Zenk, director of the Manufacturing Practice at UKG 

 Across the board, competition for skilled talent is fierce right now. Following a staggering decline in frontline shift-work volume that began in March 2020, shift-work activity in the U.S. is hovering at 86.7% as of June 2021 — 13.3% below the 100% pre-pandemic baseline. And despite being a critical economic engine for growth in the U.S., manufacturing shift-work volume is still about 10% below pre-pandemic levels. This is according to the UKG Workforce Activity Report, which measures U.S. shift work for 3.3 million employees across 35,000 organizations.


Although the skills shortage in manufacturing has been a pervasive issue for the past several years, our research shows us that far more manufacturers today (54%) than a year ago (38%) are having a particularly hard timing finding candidates with the right skills to fill critical job openings. At the same time, 54% of manufacturers say that negative industry perceptions are impacting their ability to recruit Millennial and Gen Z talent, which is equally challenging.

To address the lack of skilled candidates, manufacturers must make a concerted effort to retain the people they have working for them today and cultivate desired skillsets internally, which many are doing by further developing their existing workforce. The survey found that 63% of manufacturers today are taking steps to reskill employees and another 60% are crossing training their people.

To address negative industry perceptions, manufacturers need to look closely at other industries that have been successful in attracting younger workers. This will likely involve adopting practices and policies that create a more employee-centric workplace where flexibility and empowerment are commonplace, which may be uncomfortable for those who hold the more traditional mindset of “command and control” often seen in manufacturing environments.


IW: Do you see the trend of using “alternative “ talent pools continuing?

KZ: The competition for talent will only continue to grow, so manufacturers absolutely need to do everything they can to widen their pool of potential candidates. This should include actively recruiting capable individuals from non-traditional or alternative sources, which is something the survey found many manufacturers are already doing today. For example, 62% have hired or considered hiring people with disabilities or special needs. Another 56% are targeting retirees, while 52% are considering previously incarcerated or “second-chance” workers as potential employees.

It’s important to understand that as employers expand their talent pools, additional training to adequately prepare new hires for their jobs may be needed, but with a severe shortage of labor, these investments will be worth it to streamline onboarding and optimize productivity.

IW: Are you hearing examples of companies who are unable to produce or increase output due to labor shortages?

KZ: Labor shortages are a pervasive problem. In fact, the survey uncovered that nearly two in three manufacturers (63%) are struggling to fill critical labor gaps, and almost a quarter (23%) are “really struggling.” Just recently, I heard about some organizations that have missed production deadlines due to frontline labor shortages, but most are doing everything they can to avoid that situation, like giving more hours to their current workforce. But taking on this extra workload — i.e. working longer shifts to help meet demand — is now starting to have negative impacts as employers run the risk of increased employee burnout, higher overtime expenses, and even more turnover. Already, three-quarters of respondents are concerned about employee burnout and two-in-five indicated that overtime costs are now affecting their bottom lines.

Unfortunately, with the massive competition for labor, it’s only a matter of time before frontline employees who feel overworked and underappreciated at their current job will look for opportunities elsewhere.

IW: Do you see any important trends manufacturers might be missing?

KZ: We are observing an interesting dynamic play out in the manufacturing industry. Some organizations have come to realize they essentially operate two distinct company cultures: one for office employees, and one for frontline, hourly team members. Corporate versus plant if you will. This has become especially apparent over the course of the past year, during the pandemic. One group was deemed “essential” and required to stay in the plants, while the other perhaps had the flexibility to work from their homes.


This dynamic highlights the fact that the quality of these two workplace cultures is not equal, and that there is significant work to be done to improve the workplace experience for frontline, hourly team members so that manufacturers can remain competitive employers now and into the future.

 

Erin Gilmer, Disability Rights Activist, Dies at 38

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Erin Gilmer, a lawyer and disability rights activist who fought for medical privacy, lower drug prices and a more compassionate health care system as she confronted a cascade of illnesses that left her unable to work or even get out of bed for long stretches, died on July 7 in Centennial, Colo. She was 38.

Anne Marie Mercurio, a friend whom Ms. Gilmer had given power of attorney, said the cause was suicide.

First in Texas and later in Colorado, where she had her own law practice, Ms. Gilmer pushed for legislation that would make health care more responsive to patients’ needs, including a state law, passed in 2019, that allows pharmacists in Colorado to provide certain medications without a current prescription if a patient’s doctor cannot be reached.

She was a frequent consultant to hospitals, universities and pharmaceutical companies, bringing an extensive knowledge of health care policy and even more extensive firsthand experience as a patient.

At conferences and on social media, she used her own life to illustrate the degradations and difficulties that she said were inherent in the modern medical system, in which she believed patients and doctors alike were treated as cogs in a machine.

Her conditions included rheumatoid arthritis, Type 1 diabetes, borderline personality disorder and occipital neuralgia, which produces intensely painful headaches. Her lengthy medical file presented a challenge to doctors used to addressing patients in 15-minute visits, and she said she often found herself dismissed as “difficult” simply because she tried to advocate for herself.

“Too often patients have to wonder: ‘Will they believe me?’” she wrote on in May. “‘Will they help me? Will they cause more trauma? Will they listen and understand?’”

She spoke often about her financial difficulties; despite her law degree, she said, she had to rely on food stamps. But she acknowledged that her race gave her the privilege to cut corners.

“In the months when I couldn’t figure out how to make ends meet, I would disguise myself in my nice white-girl clothes and go to the salad bar and ask for a new plate as if I had already paid,” she said in a 2014 speech to a medical conference at Stanford University.

“I’m not proud of it, but I’m desperate,” she added. “It’s survival of the fittest. Some patients die trying to get food, medicine, housing and medical care. If you don’t die along the way, you honestly wish you could, because it’s all so exhausting and frustrating and degrading.”

She could be fierce, especially when people presumed to explain her problems to her or offer a quick-fix solution. But she also developed a following among people with similarly complicated health conditions, who saw her as both an ally and an inspiration, showing them how to make the system work for them.

“Before, I thought I didn’t have a choice,” Tinu Abayomi-Paul, who became a disability rights activist after meeting Ms. Gilmer in 2018, said by phone. “She was the first to show me how to address the institution of medicine and not be written off as a difficult patient.”

Ms. Gilmer highlighted the need for trauma-informed care, calling on the medical system to recognize not only that many patients enter the intimate space of a doctor’s office already traumatized but also that the health care experience can itself be traumatizing. Last year she wrote a handbook, “A Preface to Advocacy: What You Should Know as an Advocate,” which she shared online, for free.

“She expected the system to fail her,” said Dr. Victor Montori, an endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic and a founder of the Patient Revolution, an organization that supports patient-centered care. “But she tried to make it so the system didn’t fail other people.”

Erin Michelle Gilmer was born on Sept. 27, 1982, in Wheat Ridge, Colo., a Denver suburb, and grew up in nearby Aurora. Her father, Thomas S. Gilmer, a physician, and her mother, Carol Yvonne Troyer, a pharmacist, divorced when she was 19, and she became estranged from them.

In addition to her parents, Ms. Gilmer is survived by her brother, Christopher.

Ms. Gilmer, a competitive swimmer as a child, began to develop health problems in high school. She had surgery on her jaw and a rotator cuff, her father said in an interview, and she also developed signs of depression.

A star student, she graduated with enough advanced placement credits to skip a year of college at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She studied psychology and economics, and she graduated summa cum laude in 2005.

She decided to continue her education, at the University of Colorado’s law school, to keep her student health insurance — “a cruel joke,” she said in a 2020 interview with Dr. Montori. She focused on health law and human rights, training herself to be both a policy expert and an activist; she later called her blog Health as a Human Right.

She received her degree in 2008 and moved to Texas, where she worked for the state government and a number of health care nonprofits. She returned to Denver in 2012 to open her own practice.

By then her health was beginning to decline. Her existing conditions worsened and new ones appeared, exacerbated by a 2010 accident in which she was hit by a car. She found it hard to work a full day, and eventually most of her advocacy was virtual, including via social media.

For all her mastery of the intricacies of health care policy, Ms. Gilmer said what the system needed most was more compassion.

“We can do that at the big grand levels of instituting trauma-informed care as the way to practice,” she said in the interview with Dr. Montori. “And we can do that at the small micro levels of just saying: ‘How are you today? I’m here to listen. I’m glad you’re here.’”

Game of Thrones’s Dire Wolves Existed—But a New Study Suggests They Weren’t Really Wolves

BY ELLEN GUTOSKEY

Not a dire wolf.
ADRIAAN GREYLING, PEXELS

Though most people may know dire wolves from their many scene-stealing appearances in Game of Thrones, they didn’t spring straight from the mind of George R.R. Martin. In fact, scientists have known about the long-extinct creature since the mid-19th century.

Until recently, it was widely believed that the dire wolf (Canis dirus) was essentially a more muscular relative of the gray wolf (Canis lupus), partially because their skeletons look so similar. But a new study published in Nature suggests that the two species share much less than their appearances imply.

It all started when archaeologist Angela Perri, of Durham University in the UK, set off on an expedition across North America to locate dire wolf fossils from museum collections and see if she could extract DNA from them. Her endeavor was successful: As National Geographic reports, Perri and her collaborators were able to sequence genomes from five dire wolf fossils from Idaho, Ohio, Tennessee, and Wyoming. The remains dated from 50,000 years ago to about 13,000 years ago (around the time dire wolves died out).

After comparing the dire wolf sequences to ones from gray wolves and several other canids, the researchers discovered that dire wolves and gray wolves diverged genetically from their common ancestor about 5.7 million years ago. As Scientific American explains, their morphological resemblance seems to be an example of convergent evolution; in other words, they developed similar traits because their lifestyles were similar, not because their DNA was similar.

A dire wolf skeleton on display at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History in Kansas.JAMES ST. JOHN, FLICKR // CC BY 2.0

Based on these findings, it’s possible that dire wolves spent millions of years evolving in the Americas—far separated from the gray wolves back in Eurasia. In that case, it could’ve been the eventual migration of other species—even humans—that steered dire wolves toward extinction.

“The question now becomes: Is their extinction related to climatic and environmental change, or did humans and potentially other wolves and dogs and [diseases] coming in assist in pushing them out?” Perri told National Geographic.

The study could also impact the dire wolf’s scientific classification. With a weaker genetic link to the Canis genus, it might need to be shifted to its own genus. But even if that happens, there’s a good chance we’ll still call them “dire wolves” in casual conversation—much like we do with koala bears, electric eels, and other animals with misleading monikers.

[h/t Scientific American]

The Right Chemistry: John Dee mixed science and the occult

The enigmatic polymath who had once been the toast of the court of Queen Elizabeth I died in poverty.

Author of the article:Joe Schwarcz • Special to the Montreal Gazette
Publishing date:Jul 16, 2021 • 

A detail from John Dee performing an experiment before Queen Elizabeth I, a painting by Henry Gillard Glindon. A recent X-ray analysis of the 19th-century work shows that originally Dee was surrounded by a circle of skulls, Joe Schwarcz writes. Wellcome Library via Wikimedia Commons

Amazing staging! Trygaeus climbs onto a giant mechanical beetle and flies up to the palace of the gods. That scene from Aristophanes’s play Peace would be spectacular on the Broadway stage today, but what is truly amazing, is that it was orchestrated in 1547 at Trinity College, Cambridge. The brains behind the spectacle was John Dee, a young faculty member who instantly developed a reputation as a sorcerer because the audience could not believe that such a spectacular effect could be produced by normal means

Dee would go on to forge a career as mathematician, astronomer, navigational expert, cartographer, book collector and alchemist. He would certainly qualify as a scientist if the description ended there. But it doesn’t. While the Cambridge beetle had nothing to do with sorcery, Dee later would go on to live up to the reputation it had fostered by dabbling in astrology, exploring contacts with the spirit world and engaging in fortune-telling, a curious melange of science and the occult.

In 1558, Dee cemented his status as a seer by advising young Princess Elizabeth not to despair, because “as the gods have indicated to me, you shall become queen in another four months.” Indeed, exactly four months later, Mary Tudor died, allowing Elizabeth to ascend to the throne. Out of gratitude, the queen appointed Dee as her personal astrologer and advisor.

Before long, John Dee proved to be so useful that he was then given the task of gathering intelligence about foreign rulers and reporting directly to the queen. A secret agent as it were! These reports were not signed with his name, but rather with a symbol of two circles flanked with a horizontal and a vertical line that can be interpreted as the number seven. Supposedly the circles represent eyes, meaning the report was only for Her Majesty’s eyes. The seven was there because it was the alchemists’ lucky number. And there we have the first secret agent, code name 007! Is this where Ian Fleming got the idea for 007? Was John Dee the inspiration for James Bond? We will never know because Fleming is no longer with us. An alternate theory is that Fleming’s research into spy activities revealed that one of the great British successes during the First World War was the cracking of a German code that the British referred to as 0070. The author just shortened this to 007. I prefer the association with Dee, because he was into chemistry.

This is documented in a famous 19th-century painting by Henry Gillard Glindoni depicting Queen Elizabeth and her courtiers watching Dee performing a chemical experiment. “The Queen’s conjurer” is clearly seen pouring some substance from a vial into a flaming brazier. Looks like a demonstration we commonly carry out in chemistry lectures, sprinkling a little lycopodium powder into a flame. Dee documents other chemical experiments in his writings, including the making of silver chloride. Although not completely clear, it seems he reacted silver with nitric acid to form silver nitrate, which then yields silver chloride on reaction with salt, sodium chloride.

Dee’s interest in chemical matters is further demonstrated by his association with the infamous occultist, self-declared spirit medium and alchemist Edward Kelley. Having once been convicted of forgery, Kelley had had his ears cropped as punishment, and we see him in Glindoni’s painting with a hat that covers the disfigurement. Upon hearing of Dee’s efforts to foretell the future by gazing into a mirror, Kelley had sought Dee out in 1582, offering his help as a medium. Indeed, Dee was into “scrying” with a mirror made of obsidian, a volcanic rock. Kelley claimed that he had the ability to contact angels who would help him interpret the visions Dee saw in the mirror.

The mirror that John Dee is supposed to have used is on display in the British Museum, along with his crystal ball. Such obsidian mirrors were introduced into Europe by Spanish explorers who had found Indigenous people in Mexico using such mirrors for divination. The required shine was imparted to the rock by rubbing with, get this, bat droppings! Since bats only digest insects they eat partially, residues of the bugs’ skeletons show up in the feces, making this a functional abrasive to polish the volcanic rock. Also on display in the British Museum is a clay tablet with all sorts of occult symbols that Kelley used in his communications with angels. He would interpret the messages for Dee, including the famous one about the need to share all earthly possessions, including wives. And yes, that meant Dee and Kelley came to engage in wife swapping! One of Dee’s children may actually have been fathered by Kelley.

Dee and Kelley travelled through Europe with Dee telling fortunes and demonstrating scientific phenomena, while Kelley attempted to mutate metals into gold with a magic powder he claimed to have discovered. In Bohemia, he was even imprisoned for a while after he failed to produce the metal as promised. Dee eventually fell out of favour when Elizabeth was succeeded by James I, who abhorred divination and anything to do with the occult. The enigmatic polymath who had once been the toast of the royal court died in poverty.

A recent X-ray analysis of the Glindoni painting shows that originally Dee was surrounded by a circle of skulls, which the painter may have intended to portray that while Dee pursued science, he also had a foot in the occult. Perhaps the patron who commissioned the painting did not like this association and asked the artist to modify the work. He painted over the skulls, and, perhaps piqued, retained the occult connection by replacing a globe in the original with Kelley. I just wish he would have sneaked the 007 in there somewhere.

joe.schwarcz@mcgill.ca

Joe Schwarcz is director of McGill University’s Office for Science & Society (mcgill.ca/oss). He hosts The Dr. Joe Show on CJAD Radio 800 AM every Sunday from 3 to 4 p.m.

The Problem Is the Other CRT (Conservative Race Theory)

Denying systemic racism means blaming black people for their status in America — and that’s far more offensive

July 16, 2021 by Tim Wise 


To hear conservatives tell it, Critical Race Theory — their newfound buzz phrase for virtually any anti-racist analysis or argument — is fundamentally un-American, and even racist itself. By suggesting that the country is systemically unjust, they argue, CRT is rooted in a rejection of the United States as a “good and great” nation. And by insisting upon the existence of white privilege as a social and economic reality, CRT is, they say, racist against white people.

But amid the uproar over anti-racist scholarship, equity trainings, and the movement for Black lives, one important thing has been overlooked. Namely, the alternative to the analysis offered by Critical Race Theory is far more troubling, offensive and racist than anything being forwarded by the Crits themselves.


After all, if disparities in labor markets, education, housing, and the justice system are not the result of deeply embedded systemic racism — meaning the sedimentation of unequal opportunities resulting from a history of white racial domination and ongoing discrimination today — what’s left to explain them?

Frankly, there is only one possible answer: if the problem isn’t America, then it must be Black people.

But to suggest that there is something wrong with Black people as a group, something dysfunctional and pathological, is to forward a racist proposition by definition. So how exactly can the critics of CRT say it’s racist to suggest whites have privilege but acceptable to say Blacks are defective? The former, after all, is a sociological assessment, while the latter is a characterological one. Situating white people within a sociological context of power and relative position is not a judgment upon them as human beings. But placing Black people in a basket marked “inferior” in some way — whether biologically, as in the arguments of The Bell Curve (a book rejected by few conservatives and written by a very prominent one), or culturally — casts precisely such a judgment.

So why is this not being screamed from the rooftops in response to the recent anti-anti-racist backlash? First, because we’ve been bogged down trying to demonstrate how the things being critiqued aren’t really Critical Race Theory or insisting that CRT isn’t really being taught in middle and high schools.

While true, this is a losing strategy of value to no one but scholars and academics. As Christopher Rufo — the researcher who initiated much of the anti-CRT push — said recently in a televised interview, he “doesn’t give a shit” about the specific minutiae of CRT. He knows, as does the entirety of the right, the label’s value as a memetic device. The word critical, to the masses, means being critical of them and the country they love (how dare we!). At the same time, theory triggers images of academics who get paid to ponder intellectual and philosophical issues while “real Americans” have to work for a living. It’s tailor-made for resentment and backlash.

So while we argue the finer points of Derrick Bell’s parables in the book And We Are Not Saved or Kimberle Crenshaw’s theories on intersectionality, the other side is looking to invalidate all anti-racist thought in the hopes that any challenge to the existing racial hierarchy can be resisted.

Meanwhile, no one is holding them accountable for what their rejection of the systemic racism thesis requires of them; namely, an alternate explanation for ongoing racial disparities in American society. And in practice, that explanation — what we can call conservative race theory, or the other CRT — is one that intrinsically necessitates a racist assessment of Black people.

Rather than arguing detailed academic theory, we must answer the right-wing assault on anti-racism by demonstrating the real motives of those who have launched the attack on it. And in this case, their motives are to cast aspersions upon the victims of racial injustice, to pathologize Blackness. For 400 years, it has been their chief project: the very project about which they would keep our children ignorant, even as they continue to further its aims.

Anti-Blackness was at the heart of the nation’s founding. First, it came in the guise of spiritual supremacy, as in, these heathens are cut off from the salvific balm of God, cursed by Ham, meant to be slaves, and instructed, as such, to serve their masters.

Then it morphed from the religious to the scientific, as Blackness came to be seen as a lesser form of human evolution. And so there was phrenology, and the measuring of the facial slope, and later the giving of IQ tests. Black folks were, on this account, inferior not because of God but because of nature. Lesser opportunity, segregation away from whites, and second-class citizenship were appropriate, to hear the nation’s leaders tell it, for Black people were incapable of higher development and accomplishment.

After the Second World War, which was fought in part to smash the notion of racial science, the idea of Blackness as a biological pollutant became a harder sell. Oh sure, there were still true believers and others who might not have gone full-tilt Hitler but nonetheless continued to endorse the idea of biological superiority for whites, alongside definitive inferiority for Blacks. But for most, a new school of analysis was needed.

Enter the idea of cultural pathology. Beginning in the 1970s, in an attempt to fashion a kinder, gentler anti-Blackness, conservatives turned to a critique of Black communities, family structure, and Black culture more broadly. Black folks, on this accounting, didn’t sufficiently value hard work, education, or marrying before childbirth, valorized and glamorized criminal behavior, and generally preferred reliance on the government and various welfare programs to steady employment. Far from proving systemic injustice or inequality of opportunity, racial gaps in educational outcomes, employment, poverty, and crime rates — according to cultural critics — reflected deep-seated pathologies within Black America as a whole.

Although some versions of this argument allow that these cultural tendencies were adaptations (or maladaptations) to past oppression — aversion to work stemmed from past exploitation, and devaluing schooling stemmed from having been denied access to it — others were less ecumenical. Dinesh D’Souza, for instance, argued in his book The End of Racism that Blacks under enslavement had been treated “pretty well,” and that only when they decided to close the “civilization gap” with whites and Asians would the problem of inequity disappear. To this way of thinking, Black people are a deviant sub-group of lazy, fecund brutes, criminals, and welfare parasites, fully deserving of scorn from the rest of us.

But remember, CRT is the racist worldview.

Never mind that the vast majority of Black people do not receive so-called welfare benefits, or that out-of-wedlock birthrates in the Black community have plummeted (contrary to popular misconception), or that Black crime rates are far lower today than 30 years ago, or that Black educational attainment is at an all-time high. Never mind, in short, facts. The proponents of the anti-Black cultural critique know what they know — and more importantly, they know that a white public fed a steady diet of this kind of racism for generations will believe it.

And now is the time for them to push it. In the past year, the defenders of white hegemony have been confronted with a mass movement, led by Black folks, but to which millions of previously unmobilized white persons attached themselves. Even though white enthusiasm for the uprising has waned from its high-water mark a year ago, ongoing support for racial equity (especially among the young) has left many of the old guard nervous. What better way to stem the tide than by launching an assault on anti-racism, not only with police in the streets but also against teachers in the schools?

The latest freakout is part and parcel of what Carol Anderson documents in her book White Rage. Every step forward on the road to Black liberation — and surely the uptick in support for racial justice in the past year would constitute that, at least symbolically, to the right — has been met with pushback by white America. Combined with a shifting popular culture and demographic changes that will soon render whites a plurality of the country rather than the majority, the ingredients for a white existential meltdown have been duly gathered.

Into that breach have stepped political Trumpism — itself a movement marinated in nostalgia for a fictive time of national glory and greatness — and anti-wokeness. While the latter is a reaction, in part, to the admittedly clumsy machinations of a racial justice movement finding its legs, it has been weaponized by those who disagree with more than just the specific narrative chosen by the left or with its particular tactics. Anti-wokeness is firmly attached to a political project that seeks to stifle police reform, derail policy changes to better equalize economic resources, and commit memoricide — the extermination of truth and memory — within the halls of academia.

We must do more than merely argue arcane theoretical points with those who attack the racial justice movement. Debating those who seek to reinforce systemic white supremacy by denying it exists is a fool’s errand. Better to expose them for what they are and what their politic portends. Better to make them explain their theory for racial inequities in America. Make them defend scientific or cultural racism. In short, better to out them as the racists they are and have always been.

Because the problem is either with America or with Black people.

And if you believe it’s the latter, the problem is also with you.


Anti-racism educator and author of 9 books, including White Like Me and, most recently, Dispatches from the Race War (City Lights, December 2020)

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This post was previously published on Medium.

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