It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
What is the evidence for and against dark matter? Sabine argues for the superfluidity of dark matter that allows for a suitable combination of dark matter and a modification of general relativity. Watch the Q&A: https://youtu.be/ZVD3K4DbxgY Explore more of Sabine's ideas via her book: https://geni.us/HfbLg
For more than 80 years, astrophysicists have collected data that suggests 80% of matter in the universe is 'dark'. These observations have led them to believe that it is made up of an as yet unknown substance. Sabine Hossenfelder is a physicist and science writer. She is currently a research fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies. Sabine's research focuses on the foundations of physics. But her interests extend to the philosophy and sociology of science. Sabine partly works as science writer. Her writing has been published, among others, in Scientific American, New Scientist, Nautilus, Aeon, and the New York Times. Sabine has an active YouTube Channel dedicated to communicating current science news and scientific methods in general.
This talk was recorded on 10 June 2021.
Image credit: Illustris Collaboration
KGB archives show how Chrystia Freeland drew the ire (and respect) of Soviet intelligence services
OCTOBER 11, 2021
The Soviet secret police, the notorious KGB, praised his knowledge and scholarship, even as he thwarted their spying efforts in Cold War Ukraine. He tagged her with the code name Frida. But today we know Chrystia Freeland as the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of Canada.
Ms Freeland’s ties with Ukraine are no secret, but material uncovered from the KGB archives in Kiev highlights her role in the Ukrainian independence movement during an exchange with Harvard University.
In the former Soviet republic – now Moscow’s anti-communist – access to information from the communist period is guaranteed, both as part of reckoning with Ukraine’s past and apparently as a rebuke to Russia, which is once again the country. But seeking to impose itself.
Materials show that the attention of Soviet intelligence services was drawn to the then troubled young Canadian, who was the subject of condemnation in the Soviet press and even guaranteed a feature in top-secret KGB documents.
In articles titled “Abuse of hospitality”, Soviet newspapers publicly reprimanded the Canadian visitor for interfering with the affairs of the Soviet Union with malice.
What business, asked the Kiev newspaper Pravda Ukrainian, has someone from Edmonton led a civil organization for the preservation of the Ukrainian language in Ukraine? Why did someone in Ukraine spend so little time sponsoring his trip to university to study Ukrainian – and why studied, when he repeatedly spoke and clearly showed at television rallies, he uttered the language impeccably Spoken?
Even Pravda, the official broadsheet of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, denounced her, under her name and others like her, for her efforts to separate Ukraine from the USSR.
Ms. Freeland said in a written statement to: “I know that my work with pro-democracy and environmental activists provoked the anger of the Soviet KGB. I remember being the target of smear campaigns in the Soviet press.
“Although I was eventually forced to leave the country, I have no regrets about my time in Ukraine during Soviet times. What I found very powerful from this experience was how quickly a rotten street The political system can collapse, and how important can the work of brave dissidents be.”
Ms. Freeland was part of an influx of tourists, activists, missionaries, students and even historians to work in the archives (but with questionable motives by the authorities, including the KGB) during her final years in the Soviet Union. wanted. . But he is unique for the KGB in becoming a top-secret published case study of how much damage a determined foreigner could do to the USSR as they knew it.
The Soviet Union’s state media tended to adopt a breathless style, highlighting what they saw as the wicked moves of foreigners such as Ms. Freeland. However, the KGB’s Colonel A.I. based in Kiev. Stroi, in his report of so much suffering to the woman in the pages of the KGB’s top sborne KGB SSSR (Digest of the KGB of the USSR), shrugged off the pretentious indignation. Secret, in-house journal.
Ms. Freeland, and her like, was a threat to the Soviet Union – but one that had to be handled delicately: treating her too harshly could give credence to the “outrageous” stories told in Ukrainian expatriate communities that the KGB did nationally. How did you treat minorities? in the Soviet Union.
According to the KGB, Ms Freeland was more than just an agitator, as Colonel Stroi called it “the liberation of Ukraine”, which forced Soviet citizens to stage marches and rallies to attract Western support. He gave cash, video- and audio-recording equipment, and even a personal computer to his contacts in Ukraine.
All this happened under the watchful eye of the KGB, which surveyed Ms. Freeland. Its officers followed her wherever she went, tapped her phone calls to Ukrainians abroad, disturbed her residence, read her mail, and had an informant, codenamed Slav, herself Ms. Involved in the siege of Freeland and gained the trust of young Canadians.
Freeland warns Canadians to beware of Russian propaganda
But Ms. Freeland knew the rules of the road. He used a Canadian diplomat at the embassy in Moscow, known to the KGB as Bison and suspected of being a spy, to send material abroad in a diplomatic pouch that could not be intercepted or read.
She increasingly avoided large gatherings, lest her participation draw too much attention to her. And the Soviet secret police’s attempt to curtail his activities failed: his teacher at the Taras Shevchenko University in Kiev, on the orders of the KGB, increased his workload. But the student, apparently on a visa to study Ukrainian, was so fluent that he didn’t even need to appear first in class to make the grade – much to the KGB’s concern. Instead, she spent her time traveling to Ukraine, meeting far-flung family members, but actually working as a fixer for journalists from Canada, Britain and the United States, for example the BBC. Taking the film crew to Lviv to meet the leaders. Ukrainian Catholic Church. Among the countless “major” news stories about life in the Soviet Union, especially the lives of non-Russian citizens, were her fingerprints as Ms. Freeland, noting her future career prospects. She was ready to make a name for herself in the field of journalism.
Colonel Stroi certainly objected to what Ms Freeland was doing in Ukraine, but KGB officers could not help but be impressed. She was “a remarkable person” with “an analytical mindset”. Young Canadians were “scholarly, sociable, persistent, and inventive in achieving their goals”, as they were nefarious in the eyes of Soviet intelligence.
The student who caused so many headaches clearly hated the Soviet Union, but she knew its laws inside and out – and how to use them to her advantage. He skillfully concealed his actions, avoided surveillance (and shared that knowledge with his Ukrainian contacts), and expertly smuggled in “misinformation”. The conclusion is inevitable: Chrystia Freeland, this KGB officer was saying, would have made an excellent detective herself.
Ms Freeland’s time in the Soviet Union ended when customs agents at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, the KGB reported, searched her luggage while returning from a trip to London and found anti-Soviet material. Even more worryingly, he discovered a genuine guide to running elections destined for use by non-Communist Party candidates campaigning for Ukrainian independence in the Soviet Union’s first free elections. He was denied re-entry on March 31, 1989.
Nearly 30 years later, no love is lost between the deputy prime minister of Canada and the current leader of Russia, Vladimir Putin himself, a former KGB official. And she still can’t fly into Moscow – since 2014, Chrystia Freeland has once again been the target of Kremlin sanctions, barred from entering the country.
Simon Miles is an assistant professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University.
Canada's wireless costs 'continue to be the highest or among the highest in the world': Finnish report
In a previous analysis of the Canadian cellphone market, Helsinki-based Rewheel put the blame squarely on Canada’s lack of telecom competition
Author of the article: Tristin Hopper Publishing date: Oct 10, 2021
A 2013 OECD analysis of mobile rates found that Canada was one of the world’s most profitable countries in which to run a wireless telecommunications company. PHOTO BY KEVIN KING/POSTMEDIA
A new report by a Finnish telecom analyst has become the latest piece of evidence to show that Canadians pay more for cellphone service than anyone else.
“Prices in the Canadian wireless market … continue to be the highest or among the highest in the world,” reads the latest international comparison of mobile data rates by Rewheel, a Helsinki-based telecom research firm.
The report tracked more than 40 countries to find the minimum cost needed to acquire a 4G cellphone plan with at least 100 gigabytes of mobile data per month.
Canada was by far the most expensive at around $144. The next most-expensive country was South Africa, at around $127. (Prices have been adjusted to Canadian dollars.)
On the other side of the spectrum was Israel. There, a 4G cellphone plan with unlimited minutes and 100 gigabytes of monthly data costs only about C$10 per month. Rewheel also noted that owning a Canadian cellphone is roughly 13 times more expensive than owning a French one.
Canada cellphone bills have been topping Rewheel rankings for years. In a dedicated 2019 analysis of the Canadian cellphone market, the group put the blame squarely on the country’s lack of telecom competition.
“Significant structural … remedies are required,” it concluded, calling the Canadian system a “de-facto network duopoly.”
Rewheel is far from the first foreign analyst to be surprised at the disproportionately high mobile rates paid by Canadians.
Tefficient, a Swedish telecom market analyst, found in a July study that Canadian data rates were the highest of 45 countries surveyed. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the analysis also found that Canadians were the most miserly with their mobile data.
Last year, a study of international cellphone prices by The Markup, a New York data journalism nonprofit, also found Canada in the clear lead in terms of mobile rates. Loading an hour of Netflix using Canadian mobile data was found to cost an average of $12.55, as compared to 43 cents in Italy.
As early as 2013, an OECD analysis of mobile rates found that Canada ranked near the bottom for virtually every category of wireless plan, particularly when it came to mobile data. That same report also found that Canada was one of the world’s most profitable countries in which to run a wireless telecommunications company.
Among defenders of Canada’s high cellphone rates, one of the chief arguments is that the country’s size and decentralization inherently make cell service more expensive. Rewheel, however, has written that Canadian operators maintain far fewer cell towers per customer than those in the much cheaper Finnish market.
High Canadian cellphone rates briefly became an issue during the 2021 federal election campaign, with both the NDP and the Conservative releasing competing plans to bring down telecom prices.
The Tory plan aimed to open up the Canadian telecom market to increased international competition. The NDP, by contrast, rolled out a proposal to introduce hard caps on wireless fees. To stem overage charges, they also pledged to force telecom providers to provide “unlimited wireless data.”
Although the Liberals were generally quiet about cellphone rates in 2021, the party did make similar pledges during the 2019 campaign. At the time, the party issued a pledge to reduce cellphone rates “by 25 per cent” using a combination of carrot and stick measures directed at Canadian telecoms.
In the most recent election campaign, however, the Liberal platform had no mention of mobile data rates.
A rare feat: Material protects against both biological and chemical threats
Programmable crystalline sponge-textile composite for elimination of biological and chemical threats. Credit: Northwestern University
A Northwestern University research team has developed a versatile composite fabric that can deactivate both biological threats, such as the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, and chemical threats, such as those used in chemical warfare. A material that is effective against both classes of threats is rare.
The material also is reusable. It can be restored to its original state after the fabric has been exposed to threats by a simple bleach treatment.The promising fabric could be used inface masksand other protective clothing.
"Having a bifunctional material that has the ability to deactivate both chemical and biological toxic agents is crucial since the complexity to integrate multiple materials to do the job is high," said Northwestern's Omar Farha, an expert in metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs, which is the basis for the technology.
Farha, a professor of chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, is a co-corresponding author of the study. He is a member of Northwestern's International Institute for Nanotechnology.
The MOF/fiber composite builds on an earlier study in which Farha's team created a nanomaterial that deactivates toxic nerve agents. With some small manipulations, the researchers were able to also incorporate antiviral and antibacterial agents into the material.
MOFs are "sophisticated bath sponges," Farha said. The nano-sized materials are designed with a lot of holes that can capture gases, vapors and other agents the way a sponge captures water. In the new composite fabric, the cavities of the MOFs have catalysts that can deactivate toxic chemicals, viruses and bacteria. The porous nanomaterial can be easily coated on textile fibers.
The study was published recently in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS).
The researchers found that the MOF/fiber composite exhibited rapid activity against SARS-CoV-2 and both gram-negative bacteria (E. coli) and gram-positive bacteria (S. aureus). Also, the active chlorine-loaded MOF/fiber composite rapidly degraded sulfur mustard gas and its chemical simulant (2-chloroethyl ethyl sulfide, CEES). The nanopores of the MOF material coated on the textile are wide enough to allow sweat and water to escape.
The composite material is scalable, Farha added, as it only requires basic textile processing equipment currently used by industry. When incorporated into a facemask, the material should be able to work both ways: protecting the mask wearer from virus in his or her vicinity as well as protecting individuals who come into contact with an infected person wearing the mask.
The researchers also were able to develop an understanding of the material's active sites down to atomic level. This allows them and others to derive structure-property relationships that can lead to the creation of other MOF-based composites.
The title of the paper is "Immobilized Regenerable Active Chlorine within a Zirconium-Based MOF Textile Composite to Eliminate Biological and Chemical Threats." Yuk Ha Cheung of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Kaikai Ma of Northwestern University are first authors of the paper. Ma also is a co-corresponding author.Hydrogel composite developed to help protective gear rapidly degrade toxic nerve agents
More information:Yuk Ha Cheung et al, Immobilized Regenerable Active Chlorine within a Zirconium-Based MOF Textile Composite to Eliminate Biological and Chemical Threats,Journal of the American Chemical Society(2021).DOI: 10.1021/jacs.1c08576
Wageningen University & Research and its partners have developed a new type of aviation fuel that is produced using bio-based waste streams from the agriculture industry.
One of the targets of the Renewable Energy Directive II (RED II) is to increase the use of advanced biofuels in the transport sector, to a minimum of 3.5% of the total biofuel consumption in the EU. Advanced biofuels are fuels that are produced from sustainable biomass and have significantly lower GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions than fossil fuels. The new type of fuel is based on a mixture of acetone and alcohol. While it does not yet meet all requirements, it is getting close. The expectation is that, after some processing steps have been optimized, it will meet all the applicable conditions.
New value chains
Locally produced waste streams from the agriculture or food sector can be used as raw materials in the production of advanced biofuels if they meet stringent sustainability conditions. The BioJet Fuel project is evaluating the complete value and production chains of biofuels from wet organic waste streams for the aviation sector (sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF). The results of this project could represent the first step in the creation of new value chains in the Netherlands, in which biomass and waste streams with a high moisture content from the primary agriculture and food industry are used as raw materials for bioproceses for advanced liquid biofuels.
Cheap waste streams
The raw materials used as model in this project are residual streams from the processing of potatoes. These streams were used as a raw material for the fermentative production of acetone, butanol and ethanol (ABE fermentation). While the composition of the waste streams makes them suitable for fermentation, they are currently used for low-value applications.
Technically feasible
In the approach taken in this project, the mixture of ABE that is produced from the substrate is catalytically converted into hydrocarbons and, after hydrogenation and fractionation, into aviation fuel. Through experimental research, the complete production and value chains for the conversion of wet agricultural waste streams into fuel have been shown to be technically feasible. A techno-economic assessment and a life cycle analysis (LCA) of the value chain have also been carried out.
The feedstock in this project is potato waste streams, which are currently sold as low-value cattle feed, or are converted through anaerobic digestion into methane. However, a commercial process will also require additional feedstocks, to achieve sufficient volume. Possible feedstocks that meet the criteria of Annex IX of the RED are lignocellulosic biomass and waste streams from the paper industry.
Hydropower decline adds strain to power grids in drought
by Michael Phillis
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain
After water levels at a California dam fell to historic lows this summer, the main hydropower plant it feeds was shut down. At the Hoover Dam in Nevada—one of the country's biggest hydropower generators—production is down by 25%. If extreme drought persists, federal officials say a dam in Arizona could stop producing electricity in coming years.
Severe drought across the West drained reservoirs this year, slashing hydropower production and further stressing the region's power grids. And as extreme weather becomes more common with climate change, grid operators are adapting to swings in hydropower generation.
"The challenge is finding the right resource, or mix of resources, that can provide the same energy and power outputs as hydro," said Lindsay Buckley, a spokesperson for the California Energy Commission.
U.S. hydropower generation is expected to decline 14% this year compared with 2020, according to a recent federal forecast. The projected drops are concentrated in Western states that rely more heavily on hydropower, with California's production expected to fall by nearly half.
The reductions complicate grid operations since hydropower is a relatively flexible renewable energy source that can be easily turned up or down, experts say, such as in the evenings when the sun goes down and solar energy generation drops.
"Hydro is a big part of the plan for making the whole system work together," said Severin Borenstein, a renewable energy expert at the University of California, Berkeley and board member of the California Independent System Operator, which manages the state's electric grid.
Borenstein noted that hydropower is important as the state works to build out its electricity storage options, including by installing batteries that can dispatch energy when it is needed.
Ben Kujala of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, which handles power planning for the Columbia River basin, also noted that grid operators have adapted how they deploy hydropower in recent years to ensure that it complements solar and wind energy.
Power grids linking Western regions also offer some relief. While California can face multi-year stretches of dry weather, the Pacific Northwest usually gets enough precipitation in the winter to recover and produce hydropower to export.
But this year, the Northwest was also hit by extreme heat and less precipitation, according to Crystal Raymond, a climate change researcher at the University of Washington. While energy planners account for drought years, Raymond said climate change over the long term may further reduce the amounts of melting snow in mountains that fill reservoirs in the spring.
In August, California officials shut down the Edward Hyatt hydropower plant for the first time in its 60-year history after water levels at Lake Oroville sank to historic lows. The plant can produce enough power for up to 750,000 homes, but typically operates at lower levels.
At Lake Powell on the Arizona-Utah border, federal officials recently said there is a 34% chance that the Glen Canyon Dam won't be able to produce power at some point in 2023, up from a 3% chance for next year, if extreme drought persists.
Declines in hydropower production in California this summer coincided with heat waves, forcing the state to buy extra power. To prevent outages in late September, state officials said they were deploying temporary emergency generators.
"The drought did compound the difficulty of meeting demand," said Jordan Kern, an energy and water systems expert at North Carolina State University.
In some Northwestern states, hydropower production has reverted closer to normal levels after dipping just below their 10-year ranges earlier this year. California's hydropower levels remained at the bottom of the state's 10-year range through June. Federal forecasts says much of the West is likely to continue to see drought conditions through the end of the year.
Declines in hydropower production mean production bumps for other energy sources. Natural gas power is expected to rise 7% in California and 6% in the Northwest this year over last, according to federal forecasts. Coal generation is forecast to rise 12% in the Northwest.
The California Air Resources Board says the state has been able to continue reducing the electricity sector's greenhouse gas emissions despite swings in hydropower generation in recent years.
The transition towards cleaner energy has made progress but not quick enough to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, as agreed in the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
The transition towards cleaner energy has made progress but not quick enough to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, as agreed in the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
While the COVID-19 pandemic initially caused a drop in greenhouse gas emissions as economic activity dropped, the pandemic may not have accelerated the shift to renewables:
Renewables boom
Renewables are now the number two source of electricity in the world with a 26 percent share in 2019—behind coal, but ahead of natural gas and nuclear.
Wind and solar power have grown at annual rates of 22 and 36 percent, respectively as their prices have plunged since 1990.
Even during the pandemic, 26 gigawatts (GW) of capacity was added last year, setting a new record, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).
But the use of fossil fuels in final consumption (electricity, transportation fuel, heating and factory production) has held steady.
At 80.3 percent in 2009, it was still 80.2 percent in 2019, as overall energy consumption increases thanks to population growth as well as rising incomes in Asia.
Sharp turn by automakers
Pushed by tighter pollution regulations, leading automakers are aiming to scrap internal combustion engines within the next decade or sharply cut their production as they shift towards all-electric futures.
Roads are still crowded with polluting cars: Electric vehicles only make up five percent of new units sold.
The International Energy Agency says consumers continue to prefer big SUVs—they accounted for 42 percent of sales in 2020—that pollute more than smaller models.
Hydrogen
From Australia to China to the EU, more and more nations are setting their sites on green hydrogen for lorries and factories.
While burning hydrogen as a fuel emits just water, most of the gas is made in a process that produces harmful emissions.
Finding cost effective ways to produce hydrogen cleanly and developing the infrastructure for its use will require more effort, with the IEA urging a quadrupling of investments in the sector.
The solar tower of Israel's Ashalim power station, is surrounded by solar panels, in the Negev desert near the kibbutz of the same name, on September 27, 2021. The 240-meter tower is part of a 121-megawatt solar thermal power plant which concentrates the sun's heat from thousands of small mirrors onto a boiler mounted on the tower, the latter producing high-temperature steam used to generate electricity.
Carbon pricing
In mid-2020 some 44 countries and 31 cities accounting for 60 percent of global economic output had carbon pricing (taxes or quotas) schemes in place, according to the I4CE think tank.
Carbon prices aim to make polluters pay for some of the social costs of emissions such as health care costs due to poor air quality and crop damage due to climate change.
Experts say the price needs to be between $40 and $80 per tonne of CO2 to push polluters to increase efficiency or shift to renewable energy sources.
However, the price is under $10 for 75 percent of covered emissions.
Pandemic investment
The Ren 21 think tank said the coronavirus pandemic provided an opportunity to shift public policy, but countries provided six times as much investment money to fossil fuel than renewable energy projects in their economic recovery plans.
After dropping by seven percent thanks to the pandemic, CO2 emissions are expected to hit new records by 2023 if those investments are not shifted.
Emerging difficulties
Investment in renewable energy has been sliding for several years in emerging and developing nations except for China, and the coronavirus pandemic has done nothing to change the situation.
These countries hold two-thirds of the world's population and are responsible for 90 percent of the growth in emissions, but they are receiving only 20 percent of investments into clean energy, according to the IEA.
King coal still reigns
Long ago baptised "king coal" for its outsize role in powering the world economy, the fuel remains in wide use in Asia to meet the growing needs for electricity in the region.
The global economic recovery means that coal demand is likely to surpass its 2019 level and thus also retain its crown of being the leading source of greenhouse gas emissions.
China, which has been a major financer of coal projects in other nations, announced in September it is halting the practice.
Photo illustration of Kwak'wala text written by Northeastern clinical instructor Michael Running Wolf. Credit: Alyssa Stone/Northeastern University
Michael Running Wolf still has that old TI-89 graphing calculator he used in high school that helped propel his interest in technology.
"Back then, my teachers saw I was really interested in it," says Running Wolf, clinical instructor of computer science at Northeastern University. "Actually a couple of them printed out hundreds of pages of instructions for me on how to code" the device so that it could play games.
What Running Wolf, who grew up in a remote Cheyenne village in Birney, Montana, didn't realize at the time, poring over the stack of printouts at home by the light of kerosene lamps, was that he was actually teaching himself basic programming.
"I thought I was just learning how to put computer games on my calculator," Running Wolf says with a laugh.
But it hadn't been his first encounter with technology. Growing up in the windy plains near the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, Running Wolf says that although his family—which is part Cheyenne, part Lakota—didn't have daily access to running water or electricity, sometimes, when the winds died down, the power would flicker on, and he'd plug in his Atari console and play games with his sisters.
These early experiences would spur forward a lifelong interest in computers, artificial intelligence, and software engineering that Running Wolf is now harnessing to help reawaken endangered indigenous languages in North and South America, some of which are so critically at risk of extinction that their tallies of living native speakers have dwindled into the single digits.
Running Wolf's goal is to develop methods for documenting and maintaining these early languages through automatic speech recognition software, helping to keep them "alive" and well-documented. It would be a process, he says, that tribal and indigenous communities could use to supplement their own language reclamation efforts, which have intensified in recent years amid the threats facing languages.
"The grandiose plan, the far-off dream, is we can create technology to not only preserve, but reclaim languages," says Running Wolf, who teaches computer science at Northeastern's Vancouver campus. "Preservation isn't what we want. That's like taking something and embalming it and putting it in a museum. Languages are living things."
The better thing to say is that they've "gone to sleep," Running Wolf s
And the threats to indigenous languages are real. Of the roughly 6,700 languages spoken in the world, about 40 percent are in danger of atrophying out of existence forever, according to UNESCO Atlas of Languages in Danger. The loss of these languages also represents the loss of whole systems of knowledge unique to a culture, and the ability to transmit that knowledge across generations.
While the situation appears dire—and is, in many cases—Running Wolf says nearly every Native American tribe is engaged in language reclamation efforts. In New England, one notable tribe doing so is the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, whose native tongue is now being taught in public schools on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
But the problem, he says, is that in the ever-evolving field of computational linguistics, little research has been devoted to Native American languages. This is partially due to a lack of linguistic data, but it is also because many native languages are "polysynthetic," meaning they contain words that comprise many morphemes, which are the smallest units of meaning in language, Running Wolf says.
Polysynthetic languages often have very long words—words that can mean an entire sentence, or denote a sentence's worth of meaning.
Further complicating the effort is the fact that many Native American languages don't have an orthography, or an alphabet, he says. In terms of what languages need to keep them afloat, Running Wolf maintains that orthographies are not vital. Many indigenous languages have survived through a strong oral tradition in lieu of a robust written one.
But for scholars looking to build databases and transcription methods, like Running Wolf, written texts are important to filling in the gaps. What's holding researchers back from building automatic speech recognition for indigenous languages is precisely that there is a lack of audio and textual data available to them.
Using hundreds of hours of audio from various tribes, Running Wolf has managed to produce some rudimentary results. So far, the automatic speech recognition software he and his team have developed can recognize single, simple words from some of the indigenous languages they have data for.
"Right now, we're building a corpus of audio and texts to start showing early results," Running Wolf says.
Importantly, he says, "I think we have an approach that's scientifically sound."
Eventually, Running Wolf says he hopes to create a way for tribes to provide their youth with tools to learn these ancient languages by way of technological immersion—through things like augmented or virtual reality, he says.
Some of these technologies are already under development by Running Wolf and his team, made up of a linguist, a data scientist, a machine learning engineer, and his wife, who used to be a program manager, among others. All of the ongoing research and development is being done in consultation with numerous tribal communities, Running Wolf says.
"It's all coming from the people," he says. "They want to work with us, and we're doing the best to respect their knowledge systems."
Minority children are more likely than white children to die after surgery
by American Society of Anesthesiologists
Credit: CC0 Public Domain
Minority children die after surgery at higher rates than white children regardless of socioeconomic status (SES), according to a first-of-its-kind study being presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY 2021 annual meeting.
"Given thatminority children—especially Black and Hispanicchildren—are more likely to be born into poverty thanwhite children, the common narrative is that the difference in SES is a primary reason for the racial disparity in the rate of post-surgical death," said Brittany L. Willer, M.D., lead author and pediatric anesthesiologist at Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, Ohio. "Though white children belonging to families of higher SES benefit from improved health outcomes in comparison to their peers in lower SES families, this study demonstrates that a 'wealth advantage' does not exist forminoritychildren."
In the study, researchers compared the post-surgical death rate of minority children to white children based on their SES. They used the median household income of the specific ZIP code the child lived in to determine which quartile of SES the child should be assigned—high, high/middle, low/middle, low—and found that belonging to a higher SES did not significantly lower the postoperative mortality rates for minority children compared to poorer minority children.
The researchers analyzed post-surgical deaths (i.e., children who died while still in the hospital) from the national Kids' Inpatient Database for 2006, 2009 and 2012. They compared the same number of white children to a matched group of children for each of the minority groups. They analyzed the surgical outcomes of 79,280 Black children to 79,280 white children, and used the same 1:1 ratio to compare white children to Native American children (5,344), Asian children (17,508) and Hispanic children (116,125).
Overall, minority children were more likely to die after surgery than white children, even if they were from the same SES. For example, Black children in the lowest three income quartiles were 1.5 times more likely to die after surgery than white children in the lowest three income quartiles. While the risk of death appeared to be somewhat less for Black children in the top income quartile compared to Black children in the lowest quartiles, the difference was not statistically significant. The researchers found similar patterns in other minority children, which indicated there was no evidence that being in the wealthiest income group led to a reduction in excess death risk for any of the minority groups.
Dr. Willer notes that the absence of improved health outcomes among minority children of higher SES is also seen in adults and may provide evidence of the cost of upward mobility for minorities. Additionally, systemic inequities and chronic prejudice contribute to increased rates of depression, obesity and chronic stress among minorities of all SES levels. Further, poverty-related factors for those in the lower SES quartiles still need to be directly addressed, including reduced parental health literacy, hazardous environmental exposures and poor access to resources.
"Equitable and personalized surgical care should be the ultimate goal for children of all SES classes, races and ethnicities," said Dr. Willer. "Physician anesthesiologists and surgeons can do a number of things to achieve surgical equity, including following clinical guidelines to reduce disparities, using enhanced recovery after surgery protocols to standardize delivery of perioperative care, and employing race-specific surgical risk models to counsel families whose children are having surgery. Most importantly, we need to be aware of our implicit biases and practice strategies to address them."
WHITE JUNKIES More than one in five opioid-naïve patients still use opioids three months after surgery
by American Society of Anesthesiologists
Credit: CC0 Public Domain New research suggests more than one in five "opioid-naïve" patients continue to use the pain medication three months after having a procedure, underscoring the often-overlooked role surgery plays in the opioid epidemic.
Presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY 2021 annual meeting, the study found smokers and people with bipolar disorder, depression or pulmonary hypertension are at highest risk.
The researchers note the results reflect a much higher incidence of persistent opioid use than expected among opioid-naïve patients (those who did not have an opioid prescription filled in the previous year). For many patients, surgery is the first time they have used opioids, which are often prescribed for the management of post-surgical pain. While opioids are effective, they are highly addictive and patients may not realize that they are misusing them, which can lead to an accidental overdose.
"The more than 100 million surgeries in the U.S. every year create an unintended and alarming gateway to long-term opioid use," said Gia Pittet, Au.D., Ph.D., lead author of the study and visiting graduate researcher for anesthesiology and perioperative medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. "Clearly the management of opioid administration during the postoperative period needs to extend well beyond the hospital stay, with better transfer of care to the primary care physician. Additionally, our findings identify which patients would most benefit from effective preoperative consultation and should be followed especially carefully after surgery."
Researchers analyzed the records of 13,970 opioid-naïve adults who had surgery at UCLA hospitals from 2013-2019. In the study, opioid-naïve patients were those who had not filled an opioid prescription 31 days to one year before surgery (patients often are prescribed opioids in advance so they are available immediately after the surgery). Researchers found that 21.2% of patients refilled their opioid prescription three months to one year after the procedure. Unless they have cancer or had chronic pain before surgery, very few patients should still need opioids three months after surgery, the researchers note.
Analyzing 46 potential risk factors, researchers determined a wide variety of patients were still using opioids after three months. The top four risk-factors identified, which were modifiable (meaning there were opportunities to address them), were: smoking, bipolar disorder, depression and pulmonary hypertension (high blood pressure in the lungs). While patient-related factors are important, this study enabled researchers to look across the entire invasive surgery population. They found that procedures with cardiac and podiatry surgical providers and patients who had cataract surgery were at an increased risk of persistent opioid use.
"To reduce the likelihood of ongoing opioid use, physician anesthesiologists should use the preoperative assessment to identify patients at highest risk for persistent use," said Dr. Pittet. "Before they have surgery, patients who smoke should be encouraged to quit, those with pulmonary hypertension should see a doctor to help them get the condition under control and patients with bipolar disorder or depression may require a preoperative adjustment of their medications."
Additionally, patients should receive counseling about the safe use of opioids and be offered alternative pain management choices, such as limited or non-opioid multimodal treatment and be monitored frequently and closely while they are taking opioids.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported there were 94,000 drug overdose deaths in 2020, nearly 30% more than the previous year. While the CDC notes synthetic opioids (primarily illicitly manufactured fentanyl) appear to be the main reason for the increase, persistent opioid use after surgery can play a role.
