Friday, August 20, 2021

Biden threatens governors opposing school mask mandates with legal action

Issued on: 20/08/2021 - 
US President Joe Biden said he stands in support of educators who seek to "do the right thing" by mandating the wearing of masks in schools, even as some Republican governors refuse to impose such rules © Jim Watson, AFP

Text by: Monique El-FaizyFollow

As cases of Covid-19 are once again on the rise in the United States, President Joe Biden is playing tough with Republican governors who oppose mandatory masks in schools, instructing his secretary of education to use all available means to protect children.

With his announcement Wednesday that he was directing the Department of Education to use “all available tools to ensure that governors and other officials are providing a safe return to in-person learning for the nation’s children", Biden threw the first punch in the fight with state Republicans who oppose mask mandates in schools.

“If you aren’t going to fight Covid-19, at least get out of the way of everyone else who’s trying,” he scolded Republican governors who were prohibiting school districts in their states from requiring that students wear masks in class. “We’re not going to sit by as governors try to block and intimidate educators protecting our children.”

Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona got more specific about the administration’s plan of attack, saying he may use the department’s civil rights arm to fight anti-mask mandate policies in Florida, Texas, Iowa and other Republican-led states that have forbidden public schools from requiring masks in classrooms. In total, seven states have banned school districts from requiring masks, though Texas announced late Thursday that it would stop enforcing its ban because of ongoing court challenges.

Going to battle


Using civil rights laws against states in such a public manner would be a muscular manoeuvre – and a somewhat unusual one.

“Biden has put on the gloves to do battle with governors,” said Stan Pottinger, a former director of the office that Cardona would use to take on the Republican governors. “I think it’s unusual and I think the last time that it happened on a grand scale was in the school desegregation cases of 1970 when Nixon required governors and school districts to desegregate with bussing.”

Pottinger was the assistant Attorney General in charge of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department at the time and oversaw those efforts. At the base of their legal argument was Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and is one of the laws Cardona has in his arsenal in the battle against the Republican governors who oppose mask mandates.

The other law Cardona may use is Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which holds that students are entitled to a free, appropriate public education. Title VI prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin. If states are found to be in violation of these laws, they risk losing federal funding.

The Biden administration could investigate districts to determine if state policies constitute civil rights violations, as well as look into complaints by parents and activists. Students with disabilities, low-income students and students of colour have suffered disproportionate setbacks since Covid-19 prompted districts to adopt remote learning. If found to be in violation of federal law, local authorities could lose their federal funding.

“Biden is now going to be fighting with governors over this issue using these two laws and the Department of Education as his boxing gloves,” Pottinger said. That will likely mean going to court, which will be a “long, long process", he said.

The problem is the remedy. “Under Title VI, the remedy is the termination of funding,” Pottinger said. “Does that really happen? That has always been a sledgehammer which, because it is so enormous, is very rarely imposed.”

Pulling money from school districts would both be politically unpalatable and harmful to children. “That has never been a very good remedy,” Pottinger said. “You have this bittersweet irony: in order to save the children you have to destroy the school system. Would they really do that?”

Jeannie Suk Gersen, a constitutional expert and professor at Harvard Law School said that the threat of losing money may well be enough to motivate states to change their policies. While the public nature of Biden’s announcement is notable, the federal government often uses the threat of withdrawal of federal funds to persuade states to comply with federal law, she said.

“The idea is, they’re saying, ‘We’re spending this money and, in exchange, you have to not do this thing that we’re prohibiting, such as discrimination,'” she said. “Title IX is an example that many people have heard of . Title VI works exactly the same way. Title VI is about race discrimination whereas Title IX is about sex.”

Gersen said that while it is more public in the current tussle over mask mandates, this dynamic is always at play when federal dollars are involved. “Essentially, this is the federal government saying, 'hey, here are the laws that you have to obey and the condition is that you obey the laws if you want the funding' … ultimately the threat [of losing funding] is behind everything that happens. This is just making it explicit.”

Pottinger pointed out that during the Nixon Administration, 96 percent of school districts desegregated before they lost their federal funds. “The threat itself sometimes works,” he said.

Politics, more than policy


At its core, the dispute over masks is a political fight masquerading as a legal fight, said Jocelyn Johnston, a professor in the department of Public Administration and Policy at American University,

“Banning the mask mandate, telling people that they shouldn’t have to wear masks, it’s all political. It’s certainly not public health,” Johnston said. “Banning that life-saving measure is so absurd.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends universal mask wearing in classrooms for both students and teachers.

Johnston noted that education is often the arena in which political battles between the right and the left are played out. But this one is unlikely to be resolved there. “This is going to end up in the courts, almost certainly,” she said.

By making his fight with the seven Republican governors public, Biden has marched squarely into local disputes over how to control Covid-19 in schools, a debate that has far more to do with political polarisation in the United States in the aftermath of the Trump presidency than it does with public health. Those who are against mask mandates cite their belief that individuals should be free to make their own choices as to whether or not they wear masks.

While the majority of the public generally backs requiring students, teachers and administrators to wear masks in schools – favored by 69 percent of Americans, according to a recent poll – that picture changes when broken down along party lines. Support for school mask requirements is nearly universal among Democrats, 92 percent of whom are in favour of such measures, as opposed to only 44 percent of Republicans.

Passions are high on both sides – and so are the stakes. “This a situation of life and death, and the very important topic of students being able to access education on an equal basis,” Gersen said.

Given the urgency and the importance of mask mandates, Pottinger thinks Biden was right to take such a creative and bellicose approach. “I think it’s appropriate, I think it’s imaginative, I think it should be done because I believe a mask mandate saves people,” he said.
Bolivia files 'genocide' charges against ex-president Anez

Issued on: 20/08/2021 
Former interim Bolivian president Jeanine Anez speaks with her lawyers in March 2021 from a prison cell after being arrested in La Paz 
LUIS GANDARILLAS AFP/File

La Paz (AFP)

The Bolivian prosecutor's office said on Friday it had filed charges of "genocide" and other crimes against former acting president Jeanine Anez, over the death of 20 opposition protesters in 2019.

Attorney General Juan Lanchipa said he had presented documents "against citizen Jeanine Anez" before the country's Supreme Court of Justice, including charges for "genocide," which carries a sentence of 10 to 20 years in prison, according to the Bolivian penal code.

The conservative Anez came to power in November 2019 after her predecessor and rival, former president Evo Morales, resigned following weeks of protests over his controversial re-election to an unconstitutional fourth term.

He fled the country after an election audit by the Organization of American States (OAS) found evidence of fraud.

After the election, at least 37 people died in violence that flared between supporters and opponents of Morales, as well as between protesters and the security forces.

Most of the deaths came in clashes between Morales supporters and security forces after the socialist leader's flight.

The specific accusation against Anez relates to two incidents in November 2019 in which a total 22 people died. A report released by the OAS on Tuesday described those incidents as "massacres."

Lanchipa said they had been "provisionally classified as genocide, serious and minor injury and injury followed by death."

Bolivia's opposition has decried the lack of separation of powers in the country, saying the courts, electoral body and pubic prosecutor's office are all loyal to leftist President Luis Arce, who is also a member of Morales's Movement for Socialism (MAS).

"First of all, we need to reform the judiciary because it is not independent or autonomous," said centrist lawmaker Alejandro Reyes.

"As long as there is no judicial reform, we cannot do anything."

However, the case is unlikely to go to court, as for that to happen, the supreme court must ask congress for authorization to hold Anez responsible for what happened.

Authorization could only be given by a two-thirds majority, and although MAS controls congress, it does not enjoy a sufficiently large majority.

While MAS lost the presidency for a year to Anez, it never gave up control of congress.

After Morales resigned, Anez was the most senior parliamentarian left and was sworn in by congress as interim president, despite the lack of a quorum, with MAS legislators boycotting the session.

MAS cried foul and accused the interim government of having pulled off a coup.

Under Anez's administration, Bolivia held peaceful, transparent elections in October 2020 in which Morales's protege Arce stormed to a landslide victory.

He subsequently vowed to go after those he accused of staging a coup.

Anez was arrested in March 2021 on accusations of leading a coup against Morales. She also faces other charges of terrorism, sedition and conspiracy. She has remained in pre-trial detention since then.

Her detention elicited widespread international condemnation.

© 2021 AFP
REASON TO FLEE FOR SAFETY TO BE A REFUGEE

A Colombian man's life shattered by two land mine explosions

Issued on: 21/08/2021 - 



Efrain Soto shows a picture of his late brother Carlos, who died after stepping on a landmine Raul ARBOLEDA AFP

Catatumbo (Colombia) (AFP)

Twice in 10 years, Efrain Soto's life was shattered in landmine explosions in violence-wracked Colombia. The first one robbed him of his eye, the second one killed his brother.

The number of landmine victims is rising in Colombia, as guerrilla violence continues despite a 2016 peace accord meant to end decades of armed conflict.

In the Catatumbo region in northern Colombia, on the border with Venezuela, the sight of people dying or suffering terrible wounds from mines is all too familiar.

Since the explosions, Soto has had a nervous breakdown and seizures.

For the past eight years, he has been taking medication to help with the psychological trauma, but he is still so distressed that even walking to a nearby village terrifies him.

"I want to cry, I want to run, I'm afraid," said Soto.

While the government has signed an historic peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to end a long-running civil war, it did not rid the country of guerrillas and violence.

Territories rife with illegal coca plantations, where the FARC once held sway, are now infested with leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and armed drug traffickers laying landmines indiscriminately.

The number of people killed or wounded by mines is increasing, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

In 2020, there were 389 blast victims, compared to 57 in 2017.

During the first six months of this year alone, 263 people, including 21 children, were killed or maimed.

- Lost hope -


In 2011, Soto was talking to his wife on his mobile phone just yards (meters) from his house when he was shaken by an explosion.

Blood started pouring from his eye.

Relatives made a makeshift stretcher and hammock to take Soto, who is over 6 feet 3 inches (1.94 meters) tall, on a five-hour trek along countryside trails to bring him to a hospital in the regional center of Cucuta, where he spent four months in treatment.

In April of last year, Soto's 41-year-old brother Carlos accidentally set off another landmine, and the ordeal was repeated.

"Running away, looking for the hammock, rushing to the village again, and he was bleeding," Soto recalled.

When Carlos arrived at the village of Tibu, still some ways away from Cucuta, "his lips were purple" and he died, Soto said.

Since the peace deal, Colombia has de-mined 448 out of its 1,122 municipalities, but there are 137 that "do not have the necessary conditions" to be rendered safe, said the office of Colombia's High Commissioner for Peace.

Catatumbo is in that group, with violence an ongoing scourge in the area.

No sooner had Soto overcome his grief from his brother's death, he was randomly shot in the stomach and spent another month in hospital in Cucuta.

Soto says he has lost hope of seeing peace in Colombia.

- 'Phantom limb' -

In April, Ivan Rodriguez was cutting down a tree when he heard a blast and was engulfed by "smoke and earth."

The 24-year-old managed to stay "conscious" and "calm" during the near three hours it took him to reach a hospital.

Rodriguez lost his right foot and came close to having his injured arm amputated.

With little medical supervision, he is now recovering at home with help from his wife and five-year-old son.

Rodriguez is suffering from a phantom limb, a condition in which a person vividly perceives and feels pain from a lost limb.

Authorities say the region of Catatumbo is too dangerous for them to attempt to clear it of landmines Raul ARBOLEDA AFP

He hopes to get a "prosthesis to be able to walk" and play football again.

His 23-year-old wife, Paola Acuna, marvels at his bravery.

"Rather than us giving him strength, he gives a lot to us," she said.

"You're not the same anymore," explained Rodriguez. "But I try to keep going because why make yourself feel even worse when you know the foot won't grow back."

With over 2,200 dead and more than 8,000 wounded between 1999 and 2017, according to watchdog Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, Colombia is one of the countries worst affected by landmines after Syria and Afghanistan.

© 2021 AFP


'More pain getting heaped on:' Edmonton infill developers challenging proposed permit fees tied to city's tree protection bylaw

Edmonton’s infill community is fighting back against proposed permit costs as part of the city’s plan to protect trees on public land during construction projects.

GENTRIFICATION VS THE ECOLOGY OF BIRDS; 

I LIVE IN A HUNDRED YEAR OLD 'HOOD LOOKS LIKE THIS 

NO NEED TO REWILD, IT IS ALREADY HOME TO BIRDS AND SMALL MAMMALS

THINK OF THIS AS APARTMENTS FOR ANIMALS
TO BE TORN DOWN FOR SKINNY HOUSES FOR
THE NEW MIDDLE CLASS

© Provided by Edmonton Journal A proposed City of Edmonton bylaw could require developers pay a fee for a tree protection permit.

A revised tree protection bylaw, to be presented to council’s urban planning committee Tuesday, recommends the need for a preservation or protection plan for all construction projects within five metres of a boulevard or open space tree and 10 metres within a natural stand.

This could come with an associated cost of up to $300 per permit in order for the city to recoup its investment in the program. If offered for free, the city would need to cover the projected annual operating costs of $621,300 and find funding through the tax levy.

Infill Development in Edmonton Association (IDEA) spokesman Mick Graham said the increased costs and red tape around applications are more unnecessary burdens being dumped on the industry. Graham said he welcomes a bylaw to protect trees but not one where the companies would need to foot the bill for a permit, calling on council to reconsider.

“I see trees as valuable and I want to preserve them, but it’s like being nibbled to death by ducks. Every time I turn around there’s another fee, another obligation, another cost and council doesn’t see it,” he said in an interview with Postmedia Friday. “This is just more pain getting heaped on the infill builders.”

Groups could face a fine of $1,000 if a permit isn’t obtained, which is double the fine previously recommended by the city when the plan was first brought forward in May. City officials said the new fine is more in line with other Canadian cities and equitable compensation for the value of the tree could also be required for any damage.

An expansion of permitting options is another change in the revised bylaw following concerns from the community when the rule was first presented. Companies such as Epcor, Atco and Shaw all fought for an easier way to apply for a permit that covers several worksites to minimize costs and timelines. Back in May, Epcor estimated it would require 8,000 permits a year under the proposed procedure, costing thousands of dollars.

In response, the city is offering a blanket permit for utility and telecom companies for all emergency work, vegetation clearance and above-ground infrastructure maintenance. But standalone permits will still be required for any ground excavation work within three metres of a boulevard or open space and five metres of a natural stand.

Edmonton River Valley Conservation Coalition chairwoman Kristine Kowalchuk said the blanket permit process could work, but hopes at least 10 per cent of these work sites are inspected thoroughly to ensure compliance.

“City trees are a major public asset and key to mitigating the climate crisis so it makes sense that everyone would have to comply with a bylaw meant to protect them,” she said in a statement to Postmedia. “We are happy that the fine amount for damaging trees has increased. Considering the value to our city, the fine could be even higher.”

If the bylaw is approved by council, city staff will return during the fall budget discussion with necessary funding requirements.

 

New fossils show what the ancestral brains of arthropods looked like

New fossils show what the ancestral brains of arthropods looked like
Side view of a Kaili Leanchoilia showing its distinctive head shield followed by 11 segments 
ending in a triangular "tail." Scale bar is 2 millimeters. Credit: Nicholas Strausfeld

Exquisitely preserved fossils left behind by creatures living more than half a billion years ago reveal in great detail identical structures that researchers have long hypothesized must have contributed to the archetypal brain that has been inherited by all arthropods. Arthropods are the most diverse and species-rich taxonomic group of animals and include insects, crustaceans, spiders and scorpions, as well as other, less familiar lineages such as millipedes and centipedes.

The fossils, belonging to an arthropod known as Leanchoilia, confirm the presence—predicted by earlier studies in genetics and developmental biology of insect and spider embryos—of an extreme frontal domain of the  that is not segmented and is invisible in modern adult arthropods. Despite being invisible, this frontal domain gives rise to several crucial neural centers in the adult arthropod brain, including stem cells that eventually provide centers involved in decision-making and memory. This frontal domain was hypothesized to be distinct from the forebrain, midbrain and hindbrain seen in living arthropods, and it was given the name prosocerebrum, with "proso" meaning "front."

Described in a paper published today in the journal Current Biology, the fossils provide the first evidence of the existence of this discrete prosocerebral brain region, which has a legacy that shows up during the embryonic development of modern arthropods, according to paper lead author Nicholas Strausfeld, a Regents Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Arizona.

"The extraordinary fossils we describe are unlike anything that has been seen before," Strausfeld said. "Two nervous systems, already unique because they are identically preserved, show that half a billion years ago this most anterior brain region was present and structurally distinct before the evolutionary appearance of the three segmental ganglia that denote the fore-, mid- and hindbrain."

The term ganglion refers to a system of networks forming a nerve center that occurs in each segment of the  of an arthropod. In living arthropods, the three ganglia that mark the three-part brain condensed together to form a solid mass, obscuring their evolutionary origin as segmented structures.

Fossils of brain tissue are extremely rare

Discovered in deposits of the Kaili formation—a geological formation in the Guizhou province of southwest China—the fossilized remains of Leanchoilia date back to the Cambrian period, about 508 million years ago. The Kaili fossils occur in sedimentary rock that has high concentrations of iron, the presence of which probably helped preserve soft tissue, which subsequently was replaced by carbon deposits.

New fossils show what the ancestral brains of arthropods looked like
View of the anterior part of the fossil photographed in direct light and showing the dark trace
s of sideward eyes, prosocerebrum (the palest traces) and segmental ganglia. The scale
 bar equals 2 millimeters. Credit: Nicholas Strausfeld

"The Kaili fossils open a window for us to glimpse the body plan evolution of animals that lived more than half a billion years ago," said the paper's first author, Tian Lan of the Guizhou Research Center for Palaeobiology at Guizhou University in China. "For the first time, we now know that arthropod fossils of the Kaili formation have the potential to preserve neural tissue that show us the primitive brain of the early stem arthropod existing at the dawn of the animal world."

"Nervous systems, as other soft tissues, are difficult to fossilize," added co-author Pedro Martinez of the Universitat de Barcelona and Institut Catalá in Barcelona, Spain. "This makes the study of the early evolution of neural systems a challenging task."

The fossils also shed new light on the evolutionary origin of two separate visual systems in arthropod evolution: pairs of front-facing eyes or sideward looking eyes, the descendants of which are still present in species living today.

Many arthropods, including insects and crustaceans, have a distinct bilateral pair of faceted compound eyes and another set of less obvious eyes—with more primitive architecture—known as nauplius eyes, or ocelli. These are structurally similar to the principal eyes of spiders and scorpions. These simpler eyes correspond to the prosocerebrum's forward eyes in Leanchoilia, in line with evidence obtained by previous studies analyzing gene expression patterns during embryonic development of living arthropods.

Leanchoilia's sideward eyes, on the other hand, relate to the protocerebrum, which is the segmental ganglion defining the arthropod forebrain, lying just behind the prosocerebrum. In living arthropods, the protocerebrum provides the compound eyes of insects and crustaceans, or the lateral single-lens eyes of arachnids, centipedes and millipedes. The visual centers serving those eyes also belong to the brain's protocerebral region.

Strausfeld explained that in living arthropods, the protocerebrum, or forebrain, has incorporated—in a way, swallowed up—the ancient centers provided by the prosocerebrum, so that it is no longer discernible as a distinct anatomical entity.

The fossils are so well-preserved that they demonstrate that in addition to frontward eyes, the prosocerebrum has also given rise to ganglia associated with the labrum, or "upper lip," of modern arthropods. The fossils also confirm an earlier hypothesis suggesting that the labrum must have originally evolved from the grasping appendages of Radiodonta, a group of stem-arthropods that were top predators during the Cambrian period.

"When compared with other, similar fossil material belonging to more advanced lineages, the organization of the Leanchoilia brain demonstrates that the ganglionic arrangement of the early brain underwent condensation and fusion of its components, which explains why in living species the prosocerebrum cannot be individually distinguished," Strausfeld said.

New fossils show what the ancestral brains of arthropods looked like
Reconstruction of the brain and segmental nervous system showing the forward eye pair
 extending from the prosocerebrum, the sideward eyes from the protocerebrum, and four
 segmental ganglia. Farther back, within the trunk, each segment is equipped with a pair 
of ganglia that together are linked by a nerve cord extending the length of the body. 
The blue shaded areas indicate preserved gut tissue. Scale bar represents 2 millimeters.
 Credit: Nicholas Strausfeld

Implications for brain evolution in vertebrates

In addition to closing a century-old gap in the understanding of arthropod brain evolution, the findings have important implications for the early evolution of vertebrate brains, Strausfeld said.

Although simple, fishlike animals existed at the same time as these now-fossilized arthropods, there are no convincing fossils of their brains and, thus, neither fossil evidence nor anatomical evidence for a prosocerebrum in vertebrates. Yet, modern studies show that genes defining the fore- mid- and hindbrains of, for example, mice correspond to genes defining the three ganglionic divisions of the arthropod brain. And in vertebrates, certain crucial centers involved in decision making and in learning and memory have some genetic correspondences with the higher centers in the arthropod brain, which originated in the ancient arthropod prosocerebrum.

Thus, it is plausible that even earlier than the Cambrian period, possibly even before the evolution of segmentally organized body plans, the  of both vertebrates and invertebrates possessed basic circuits for simple cognition and decision making. And while an ancient prosocerebral-like brain might have been present in the very early ancestors of vertebrates, no such  has even suggested evidence for a discrete, nonsegmental domain.

"Nevertheless, one can reasonably speculate that vertebrates have embedded in their 'modern' brains parts of an ancient, non-segmented brain that has so far only been demonstrable in an early , such as Leanchoilia," Strausfeld said.

Ancient brains: A look inside the extraordinary preservation of a 310-million-year-old nervous system

More information: Tian Lan et al, Leanchoiliidae reveals the ancestral organization of the stem euarthropod brain, Current Biology (2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2021.07.048

Journal information: Current Biology 

Provided by University of Arizona 

CRIMINAL CRYPTO CAPITALI$M

Hackers steal $97 mn from Japanese crypto exchange

Thieves trying to steal cryptocurrencies typically move the funds through many different accounts at dizzying speed—sometimes hu
Thieves trying to steal cryptocurrencies typically move the funds through
 many different accounts at dizzying speed—sometimes hundreds of 
thousands of transactions—in an attempt to cover their tracks. .

Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Liquid was scrambling Friday to recover stolen assets worth nearly $100 million, in the second such major heist by hackers in recent days.

The Tokyo-based company said in a statement Thursday that it had "detected unauthorized access of some of the crypto wallets managed at Liquid".

Elliptic, a London-based firm which helps track stolen cryptocurrencies, said its analysis found "just over $97 million in cryptoassets have been received by the accounts identified by Liquid as belonging to the thief".

"Our investigators are also aiding Liquid with tracking the stolen funds," Elliptic added in a blog post.

The heist comes after a hacker stole assets worth $600 million last week from cryptocurrency  company Poly Network, before gradually giving the money back, claiming they had pulled off the theft to highlight a security flaw.

Liquid said it had suspended  withdrawals while it assesses the impact of the attack, although trading was continuing.

Cryptocurrencies have soared in popularity as assets in recent years, despite their volatility and concerns over their  as trading them requires vast quantities of electricity.

Bitcoin, Ethereum and other digital currencies use a technology called blockchain, which ensures that every transaction is recorded.

Thieves trying to steal cryptocurrencies typically move the funds through many different accounts at dizzying speed—sometimes hundreds of thousands of transactions—in an attempt to cover their tracks.

However, industry players have grown better at identifying and blocking stolen coins.

Liquid said $16.3 million worth of stolen Ethereum had already been frozen "due to the assistance of the crypto community and other exchanges".The curious case of the $600 million crypto heist

© 2021 AFP

Humans ditched swiveling hips for shorter stride than chimps

chimps
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

Humans were thought to have the longest primate strides for their height, but now it turns out that chimpanzees take 25% longer strides than we do, thanks to their swiveling hips, which rotate by as much as 61deg every time they take a step to compensate for their crouched posture and shorter legs.

Compared with the strides of our closest primate relatives, even the tallest humans take relatively short steps. "Standardized by size, humans really don't have long strides," says Nathan Thompson from the New York Institute of Technology, U.S.. However, until recently, most scientists believed that the   was relatively long for efficiency; 'this is taught in almost every introductory class and textbook," Thompson says, explaining the misconception only became truly apparent when he began delving into the literature. And when Thompson began investigating how far chimpanzees rotate their pelvises as they walk, he began wondering whether swiveling their hips could hold the key to the chimpanzee's longer strides. Intrigued by the possibility, he decided to compare chimps and humans walking over a range of different speeds and now he publishes his discovery in Journal of Experimental Biology that chimp strides are 25% longer than ours (for their height), thanks to their swiveling hips, which extend their strides 5.4 times more than the mini wiggles we perform when walking.

"Working with people and animals always has its difficulties," says Thompson, who spent several years with Brigitte Demes, Susan Larson (both at Stony Brook University, U.S.) and Matthew O'Neill (Midwestern University, U.S.) familiarizing the chimpanzees with walking upright on two feet while they filmed the animals in 3D. Even working with the human walkers wasn't without its challenges. Thompson remembers one volunteer who kept getting fits of the giggles because walking in bare feet on the treadmill felt weird; 'they couldn't help but walk in a totally bizarre way," Thompson recalls.

Once Danielle Rubinstein, William Parrella-O'Donnell and Matt Brett reconstructed the human's stride pattern and hip motions in 3D, the team scaled the humans down to the size of the chimpanzees and found that the although the humans' legs were proportionally 112% longer, their strides were 26.7% shorter. Meanwhile, the chimpanzees swiveled their hips between 28 and 61deg in contrast to the humans, which barely twisted their pelvises at all, by only ~8deg. And when the team checked how much further the pelvic rotation got them in terms of stride length, the chimpanzees had a distinct advantage. Their swiveling hips extended their stride 5.4 times more, relative to their size, than the human's diminutive swivel.

"I think that  use pelvic rotations to try to squeeze every bit of stride length out, otherwise their strides would be—absolutely—very small," says Thompson, explaining that apes and monkeys tend to walk on crouched legs that naturally shorten their stride; "I don't think there are a lot of options other than rotating the pelvis, given their anatomical constraints," he adds.

But why have humans ditched swiveling their hips when it could extend their strides further? Thompson suggests one possibility, that extreme rotations of the hips could throw out the natural swing of our arms and legs—which counterbalance each other—forcing our muscles to work harder and making walking less efficient; a price that simply might not be worth paying for an increased stride length. Thompson also explains that scientists had thought for decades that humans had evolved the longest possible stride for efficiency, but now that it turns out that our stride is considerably shorter than that of our nearest cousins, he suspects that other factors have had a larger impact on the way we walk. "Humans have had about 7 million years of selective pressure for economical bipedalism; this means that there has been a lot of time to experiment with the costs and benefits, so it might be worth it to walk with slightly shorter strides, because whatever energy we lose, we might make up elsewhere," he suggests.

Chimpanzees shed light on origins of human walking
More information: Nathan E. Thompson et al, The loss of the 'pelvic step' in human evolution, Journal of Experimental Biology (2021). DOI: 10.1242/jeb.240440
Journal information: Journal of Experimental Biology 
Provided by The Company of Biologists 

Mindfulness may improve cognition in older adults

cognitive function
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Mindfulness may provide modest benefits to cognition, particularly among older adults, finds a new review of evidence led by UCL researchers.

The systematic review and meta-analysis, published in Neuropsychology Review, found that, while  is typically geared towards improving  and well-being, it may also provide additional benefits to  health.

The study's lead author, PhD student Tim Whitfield (UCL Psychiatry) said that "the positive effects of mindfulness-based programs on mental health are already relatively well-established. Here, our findings suggest that a small benefit is also conferred to cognition, at least among older adults."

The researchers reviewed previously published studies of mindfulness, and identified 45 studies that fit their criteria, which incorporated a total of 2,238 study participants. Each study tested the effects of a mindfulness-based intervention delivered by a facilitator in a group setting, over at least four sessions, while excluding mindfulness retreats in order to have a more homogenous set of studies.

The majority of studies involved a certified instructor teaching participants techniques such as sitting meditation, mindful movement and body scan, generally on a weekly basis across six to 12 weeks, while also asking participants to continue the practices in their own time.

The researchers found that overall, mindfulness conferred a small but significant benefit to cognition.

Subgroup analysis revealed that the effect was slightly stronger for people over 60, while there was not a significant effect for people under 60.

Tim Whitfield commented that "executive function is known to decline with age among ; the improvement in people over 60 suggests that mindfulness may help guard against , by helping to maintain or restore executive function in late adulthood. It might be easier to restore cognitive functions to previous levels, rather than to improve them beyond the developmental peak."

When they investigated which aspects of cognition were affected, the researchers found that mindfulness was beneficial only to executive function, and more specifically, there was strong evidence of a small positive effect on working memory (which is one facet of executive function).

The researchers also analyzed whether mindfulness outperformed other 'active interventions' (such as brain training, relaxation, or other health or educational programs) or only when compared to people who were not offered any alternative treatment. They found that cognitive benefits of mindfulness were only significant compared with an 'inactive' comparison, which means they cannot rule out that the benefits may have been at least partly derived from an expectation of treatment benefits, or social interactions.

The researchers say that more research is needed into which characteristics of mindfulness training may be more likely to confer cognitive benefits, or whether delivering interventions over longer periods, or in intensive retreat settings, might yield greater cognitive benefits.

Senior author Dr Natalie Marchant (UCL Psychiatry) said that they "know mindfulness-based programs benefit mental health, and our paper now suggests that mindfulness may also help to maintain cognitive faculties as people age. Mindfulness practices do not share much in common with cognitive test measures, so it is notable that mindfulness training's impact appears to transfer to other domains. While our review only identified a small benefit to executive function, it remains possible that some types of mindfulness training might deliver larger gains."

Families with a child with ADHD can benefit from mindfulness training
More information: Tim Whitfield et al, The Effect of Mindfulness-based Programs on Cognitive Function in Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis, Neuropsychology Review (2021). DOI: 10.1007/s11065-021-09519-y
Provided by University College London 

AUSTRALIA

The diverse group of plant-eating dinosaurs that roamed Victoria 110 million years ago

Meet the diverse group of plant-eating dinosaurs that roamed Victoria 110 million years ago
The original specimen of Diluvicursor pickeringi, comprising a tail, a partial shin and ankle, 
and a hind foot. Credit: Stephen Poropat/Museums Victoria

During the Early Cretaceous period, 110 million to 107 million years ago, Australia was much further south than it is today. Yet fossils from several sites on the Otway Coast in Victoria show dinosaurs were common in the region.

The most abundant were ornithopods—small plant-eaters with beaks and cheeks full of teeth. But until recently, it was unclear exactly how many species coexisted at the same time.

So far, five ornithopod species have been named from the Cretaceous of Victoria. There are three from the Otway Coast: Atlascopcosaurus loadsiDiluvicursor pickeringi and Leaellynasaura amicagraphica; and two from the Bass Coast: Qantassaurus intrepidus and Galleonosaurus dorisae.

The rocks exposed on the Bass Coast (and the fossils they contain) are around 15 million to 20 million years older than those on the Otway Coast. During this interval, Australia's climate warmed dramatically.

There's substantial evidence of glaciation in South Australia about 125 million years ago, but by 110 million years ago, warm weather-loving crocodile relatives were roaming happily in Victoria.

As such, it was presumed the Bass Coast's Qantassaurus and Galleonosaurus—which lived in older, colder conditions—probably never crossed paths with the Otway Coast's Leaellynasaura, Atlascopcosaurus and Diluvicursor. But is that true?

Eric The Red West

Thanks to research led by my former student Ruairidh Duncan, we're now in a better position to answer this question. For his Honors project, Ruairidh studied fossils from a site on Cape Otway called Eric the Red West (ETRW).

Meet the diverse group of plant-eating dinosaurs that roamed Victoria 110 million years ago
Digital reconstruction of an ornithopod jaw (cf. Galleonosaurus dorisae) from micro-CT data. Top: the two halves of the jaw, one with the cheek side exposed, the other with tongue side exposed. Top middle: the two halves connected, without rock removed. Bottom middle: free at last, the 3D reconstruction of the jaw. Bottom: A replacement tooth inside the jaw. Credit: Ruairidh Duncan

In 2005, a partial ornithopod skeleton was discovered at ETRW. This skeleton was named Diluvicursor pickeringi in 2018 and comprised only a tail, a partial shin, ankle, and a hind foot.

Several additional digs by a group of volunteers called Dinosaur Dreaming saw the site produce many more ornithopod bones, including some jawbones. Until Ruairidh studied these jawbones, we had no idea whether they belonged to existing species or new ones.

A little help from technology

Most of the ornithopod jawbones from ETRW were broken in half when they were discovered. This is not unusual, as the bones are softer than the rock in which they are encased.

However, depending on how they were broken, one half of a jawbone might have had rock removed only from the tongue side, and its matching half might have had rock removed only from the cheek side.

Although this allowed the two halves of the jaw to click together nicely, it meant Ruairidh couldn't observe most of his specimens as complete bones from either the tongue or cheek side. Well, not without some help from technology.

Monash University's Alistair Evans micro-CT scanned several ornithopod specimens retrieved from the ETRW site. Just like medical CT scanners, micro-CT scanners generate a series of 2D cross-sectional images through a 3D object (but on a smaller scale).

The scans allowed Ruairidh to digitally remove the rock from his specimens—which were all less than ten centimeters long—and reconstruct each one in 3D.

3D models of ornithopod dinosaur jawbones from ETRW. Left column shows upper jawbones, right column shows lower jawbones. Top left: Atlascopcosaurus loadsi. Middle left: cf. Galleonosaurus dorisae. Bottom left: Leaellynasaura amicagraphica. Top and bottom right: indeterminate dentaries. Credit: Ruairidh Duncan

An unexpected Galleonosaurus

Ruairidh analyzed the ornithopod jawbones from the ETRW site and compared them with the other Victorian ornithopod species. (Three of the five ornithopods known from Victoria were already named and described on the basis of upper jawbones, which enabled a direct comparison).

He found one upper jawbone was attributable to Atlascopcosaurus (the most complete specimen known of this species) and another to Leaellynasaura (the first adult specimen known of this species).

We had expected the final two bones might belong to a Diluvicursor. Instead, we were surprised to discover they were closely comparable with Galleonosaurus—the species previously only known from the Bass Coast, with rocks that were roughly 15-20 million years older than those exposed at ETRW.

In other words, we'd found evidence of an ornithopod species that had remained almost unchanged for at least 15 million years!

Possible explanations

The presence of an ornithopod so similar to Galleonosaurus at ETRW implies that very little change in tooth and jaw anatomy (and presumably diet) took place in these dinosaurs in almost 20 million years, despite marked climatic change.

This might mean their favorite plants changed little in abundance throughout this time, in which case they would have faced little pressure to change the shape or structure of their teeth and jaws.

Meet the diverse group of plant-eating dinosaurs that roamed Victoria 110 million years ago
Line drawings of ornithopod jaws from ETRW. Top: Atlascopcosaurus loadsi. Middle: cf. 
Galleonosaurus dorisae. Bottom: Leaellynasaura amicagraphica. Credit: Ruairidh Duncan

It remains impossible to compare the jawbones from ETRW with the only specimen of Diluvicursor pickeringi—as no jawbones were found with it.

But perhaps the absence of a unique  type for Diluvicursor might mean this species is actually the same as one of the other species which are represented by jawbones. If so, it's most likely Atlascopcosaurus or the Galleonosaurus-like species; a very different tail and foot have been tentatively assigned to Leaellynasaura.

Unfortunately, determining this will hinge on discovering an ornithopod skeleton matching that of Diluvicursor, associated with a skull matching the jaws of Atlascopcosaurus or Galleonosaurus.

And given that more than 40 years of digging for dinosaurs in Victoria has revealed only four partial ornithopod skeletons, we might be waiting a while.

Nonetheless, Ruairidh's research has demonstrated three different ornithopod  were happily living in southeast Australia, within the Antarctic Circle about 110 million to 107 million years ago—when the world was generally much warmer than it is today.

To date, the ETRW site has produced an abundance of fossil evidence, including plants (mostly conifers, ferns and early flowering plants), , lungfish, plesiosaurs, pterosaurs, huge-clawed megaraptorid theropods, Australia's only toothless and long-necked elaphrosaurine theropod, and even ancient mammals.

It has only produced one ornithopod skeleton: the aforementioned Diluvicursor. But who knows what we might find next?New wallaby-sized dinosaur from the ancient Australian-Antarctic rift valley

Provided by The Conversation 

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.The Conversation

 

We can expect more emissions from oil refineries in the near-term future, analysis finds

oil refinery
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

A global inventory has revealed that CO2 emissions from oil refineries were 1.3 Gigatonnes (Gt) in 2018 and could be as large as 16.5 Gt from 2020 to 2030. Based on the results, the researchers recommend distinct mitigation strategies for refineries in different regions and age groups. The findings appear August 20 in the journal One Earth.

"This study provides a detailed picture of oil refining capacity and CO2 emissions worldwide," says Dabo Guan of Tsinghua University. "Understanding the past and future development trends of the oil refining industry is crucial for guiding regional and global emissions reduction."

Climate change is one of the most fundamental challenges facing humanity today, and continuous expansion of fossil-fuel-based energy infrastructure may be one of the key obstacles in achieving the Paris Agreement goals. The oil refining industry plays a crucial role in both the energy supply chain and climate change. The petroleum oil refining industry is the third-largest stationary emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, contributing 6% of all industrial greenhouse gas emissions. In particular, CO2 accounts for approximately 98% of greenhouse gases emitted by petroleum refineries.

In the new study, Guan and his collaborators developed a publicly available global inventory of CO2 emissions from 1,056  from 2000 to 2018. CO2 emissions of the refinery industry were about 1.3 Gt in 2018. If all existing and proposed refineries operate as usual, without the adoption of any low-carbon measures, they could emit up to 16.5Gt of CO2 from 2020 to 2030. Based on the findings, the authors recommend mitigation strategies, such as improving refinery efficiency and upgrading heavy oil-processing technologies, which could potentially reduce global cumulative emissions by 10% from 2020 to 2030. The inventory will be updated and improved in the future as more and better data become available.

The study also showed that the average output of global oil refineries gradually increased from 2000 to 2018, in terms of barrels per day. But the results varied by  age group. Specifically, the average capacity of young refineries, which are mainly distributed in Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, increased significantly from 2000 to 2018, while the average capacity of refineries older than 19 years remained stable. "Given the greater committed emissions brought about by the long remaining operating time of young refineries, there is an urgent need for these refineries to adopt low-carbon technologies to reduce their CO2 emissions," Guan says. "As for middle-aged and old refineries, improving operational efficiency, eliminating the backward capacity, and speeding up the upgrading of refining configuration are the key means to balance growing demand and reducing CO2 emissions."


Refineries challenge EPA plan to cut emissions
More information: One Earth, Lei et al.: "Adaptive CO2-emission mitigation strategies of global oil refineries in all age groups" www.cell.com/one-earth/fulltex … 2590-3322(21)00410-3  , DOI: 10.1016/j.oneear.2021.07.009
Journal information: One Earth 
Provided by Cell Press