'Scrap cathedral' in Spain lives on after originator's death

Work contiues at Cathedral of Justo in Mejorada del Campo, 20 kilometres east of Madrid

 (AFP/Gabriel BOUYS)

Alfons LUNA
Mon, November 29, 2021, 11:39 PM·3 min read

For over 60 years, former monk Justo Gallego had been building a cathedral out of scrap materials on the outskirts of Madrid, a project he would never see completed.

The 96-year-old died over the weekend, but left the unfinished complex in Mejorada del Campo to a charity run by a priest that has vowed to complete his labour of love.

Gallego began the project in 1961 when he was in his mid-30s on land inherited from his family after a bout of tuberculosis forced him to leave an order of Trappist monks.


Today, the "Cathedral of Justo" features a crypt, two cloisters and 12 towers spread over 4,700 square metres (50,600 square feet), although the central dome still does not have a cover.

He used bricks, wood and other material scavenged from old building sites, as well as through donations that began to arrive once the project became better known.

The building's pillars are made from stacked oil drums while windows have been cobbled and glued together from shards of coloured glass.

"Recycling is fashionable now, but he used it 60 years ago when nobody talked about it," said Juan Carlos Arroyo, an engineer and architect with engineering firm Calter.

The charity that is taking over the project, "Messengers of Peace", hired the firm to assess the structural soundness of the building, which lacks a permit.

The 96-year-old former monk Justo Gallego died over the weekend, but left the unfinished complex in Mejorada del Campo to a charity (AFP/Gabriel BOUYS)

- No blueprint -

"The structure has withstood significant weather events throughout its construction," Arroyo told AFP, predicting it will only need some "small surgical interventions".

Renowned British architect Norman Foster visited the site in 2009 -- when he came to Spain to collect a prize -- telling Gallego that he should be the one getting the award, Arroyo added.

The sturdiness of the project is surprising given that Gallego had no formal training as a builder, and he worked without a blueprint.

In interviews, he repeatedly said that the details for the cathedral were "in his head" and "it all comes from above".

The complex stands in a street called Avenida Antoni Gaudi, named after the architect behind Barcelona's iconic Sagrada Familia basilica which has been under construction since 1883.

But unlike the Sagrada Familia, the Cathedral of Justo Gallego as it is known is not recognised by the Roman Catholic Church as a place of worship.

- 'Worth visiting' -

Father Angel Garcia Rodriguez, the maverick priest who heads Messengers of Peace, wants to turn Gallego's building into an inclusive space for all faiths and one that is used to help the poor.

"There are already too many cathedrals and too many churches, that sometimes lack people," he said.

"It will not be a typical cathedral, but a social centre where people can come to pray or if they are facing difficulties," he added.

Father Angel is famous in Spain for running a restaurant offering meals to the homeless and for running a church in central Madrid where pets are welcome and the faithful can confess via iPad.

Inside the Cathedral of Justo, volunteers continued working on the structure while a steady stream of visitors walked around the grounds admiring the building in the nondescript suburb.

"If the means are put in, especially materials and money, to finish it, then it will be a very beautiful place of worship," said Ramon Calvo, 74, who was visiting the grounds with friends.

al/ds/mg/pbr/spm

Extinct swordfish-shaped marine reptile discovered

A new 130-million-year-old marine reptile fossil sheds light on the evolution of hypercarnivory of these last-surviving ichthyosaurs

PUBLISHED: 29NOV2021

Image by Dirley Cortés.


A team of international researchers from Canada, Colombia, and Germany has discovered a new marine reptile. The specimen, a stunningly preserved metre-long skull, is one of the last surviving ichthyosaurs – ancient animals that look eerily like living swordfish.

“This animal evolved a unique dentition that allowed it to eat large prey,” says Hans Larsson, Director of the Redpath Museum at McGill University. “Whereas other ichthyosaurs had small, equally sized teeth for feeding on small prey, this new species modified its tooth sizes and spacing to build an arsenal of teeth for dispatching large prey, like big fishes and other marine reptiles.”

“We decided to name it Kyhytysuka which translates to ‘the one that cuts with something sharp’ in an indigenous language from the region in central Colombia where the fossil was found, to honour the ancient Muisca culture that existed there for millennia,” says Dirley Cortés, a graduate student under the supervision of Hans Larsson and Carlos Jaramillo of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

Life reconstructions of Kyhytysuka sachicarum from the Early Cretaceous of Colombia. Credit: Dirley Cortés

The big picture of ichthyosaur evolution is clarified with this new species, the researchers say. “We compared this animal to other Jurassic and Cretaceous ichthyosaurs and were able to define a new type of ichthyosaurs”, says Erin Maxwell of the State Natural History Museum of Stuttgart (a former graduate student of Hans Larsson’s lab at McGill). “This shakes up the evolutionary tree of ichthyosaurs and lets us test new ideas of how they evolved.”

Dirley Cortés working with the skull of Kyhytysuka. Credit: Dirley Cortés

According to the researchers, this species comes from an important transitional time during the Early Cretaceous period. At this time, the Earth was coming out of a relatively cool period, had rising sea levels, and the supercontinent Pangea was splitting into northern and southern landmasses. There was also a global extinction event at the end of the Jurassic that changed marine and terrestrial ecosystems. “Many classic Jurassic marine ecosystems of deep-water feeding ichthyosaurs, short-necked plesiosaurs, and marine-adapted crocodiles were succeeded by new lineages of long-necked plesiosaurs, sea turtles, large marine lizards called mosasaurs, and now this monster ichthyosaur” says Dirley Cortés.

Skeleton of Kyhytysuka compared to a human for scale. Known bones are in white. Credit: Dirley Cortés

“We are discovering many new species in the rocks this new ichthyosaur comes from. We are testing the idea that this region and time in Colombia was an ancient biodiversity hotspot and are using the fossils to better understand the evolution of marine ecosystems during this transitional time,” she adds. As next steps the researchers are continuing to explore the wealth of new fossils housed in the Centro de Investigaciones Paleontológicas of Villa de Leyva in Colombia. “This is where I grew up,” says Cortés “and it is so rewarding to get to do research here too.”

3D animation of Kyhytysuka. Credit: Dirley Cortés


About this study

“Reappearance of hypercarnivore ichthyosaurs in the Cretaceous with differentiated dentition: revision of ‘Platypterygius’ sachicarum (Reptilia: Ichthyosauria, Ophthalmosauridae) of Colombia” by Dirley Cortés, Erin E. Maxwell, and Hans C. E. Larsson is published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14772019.2021.1989507

Here’s what’s causing inflation in Canada

In Pierre Poilievre’s universe, Justin Trudeau is Schrodinger’s prime minister, writes columnist Max Fawcett. 

File photo by Alex Tétreault
By Max Fawcett | Opinion, Politics | November 30th 2021

It wasn’t that long ago that the Conservative Party of Canada prided itself on being literate on the important economic and financial issues of the day. But if the party’s ever-deepening obsession with inflation (and insistence on pinning it to the prime minister) is any indication, those days are.

Instead, they seem content to trade in the sort of threadbare fiction and populist fear-mongering that defined — and still animates — Trumpist economics.

Case in point: Their decision to appoint conspiracy theory enthusiast Pierre Poilievre as shadow minister of finance. After demoting him from the role back in the spring, leader Erin O’Toole handed him back his old job. That signalled the CPC’s intent to keep beating the same drum Poilievre played all summer long: accusing the Liberal government of creating inflation through its excessive spending. “Our goal is to push them to stop doing the things that cause inflation,” Poilievre told the National Post.

Those things, not surprisingly, are the same things Poilievre objected to back in March 2020 when the pandemic was just getting started: Spending money to support Canadian households and businesses. “You might want to address it through big, fat government programs,” he said in response to a question about his belief tax cuts were the right way to respond to COVID-19. “We’re conservatives, so we don’t believe in that.”

Never mind that prominent conservative pundits like Ken Boessenkool and John Ivison have admitted the current bout of inflation Canadians are dealing with has precisely nothing to do with the federal government’s policies, or that similar levels of inflation in countries like Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States would seem to suggest it can’t possibly be Justin Trudeau’s doing.

In Poilievre’s universe, Trudeau is Schrodinger’s prime minister: simultaneously too weak to achieve anything of substance and so powerful that he determines global markets and inflation trends.

But if Trudeau isn’t responsible for inflation, what is? In the near term, it’s being driven by COVID-19 and its impact on everything from oil and gas prices to supply chains (or, as Ivison called them, “supply kinks”). Indeed, there’s a certain irony in conservatives crying bloody murder about inflation when as much as one-third of it is due to soaring oil and natural gas prices, which disproportionately benefit their western Canadian supporters and will help turn Alberta and Saskatchewan’s finances from raging dumpster fires into mere smouldering trash cans.

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As the floodwaters rose, this simple solution kept a B.C. farmer’s fields intact
By Marc Fawcett-Atkinson | News, Food Insider | November 30th 2021Food Insider

In the longer term, though, the real driver of inflation is the one conservatives desperately want to avoid talking about: climate cange.

Take the recent tweet from O’Toole, in which he suggested the rising cost of breakfast foods like bacon, syrup and coffee was somehow attributable to Trudeau’s policies rather than things like supply chain disruptions and extreme weather events. But as the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie noted in a Sept. 29 survey, “Many staples including meat, dairy, and groceries have increased in recent months due to macroeconomic shocks, caused by both unfavourable weather patterns in the Northern Hemisphere and logistical challenges due to the global pandemic.”

Syrup prices aren’t surging because of Trudeau’s nefarious policies but instead because of a mismatch between demand and supply driven by weather (and climate). As NPR noted in a piece on the global syrup shortage, “This year's short and warm spring resulted in an uncharacteristically low yield for producers.”

Opinion: In Pierre Poilievre’s universe, Trudeau is Schrodinger’s prime minister: simultaneously too weak to achieve anything of substance and so powerful that he determines global markets and inflation trends, says columnist @maxfawcett. #CDNpoli

As for coffee? That’s even harder to pin on Trudeau, given unseasonable frosts in July damaged production in many key South American growing regions.

And while the supply chain disruptions caused by COVID-19 will get better, the potential impact of climate change will only get worse. That’s the working theory laid out by Umair Haque, a British writer and the director of the London-based Havas Media Lab. “Prices are going to rise, probably exponentially, over the course of the next few decades,” he writes. “The reason for that’s simple: everything, more or less, has been artificially cheap.” That’s because costs that we’ve long externalized, from carbon emissions to plastic pollution, are now going to have to be borne by companies and consumers over the next few decades.

Those supply chains, meanwhile? They might get re-kinked a lot faster than we’d like to think.

“Making, producing, distributing, buying, selling the basics of civilization the dirty way that we do causes climate change — and climate change is trying to teach us a lesson,” Haque writes. “Climate change is made of fire and flood and typhoon and plague. See the feedback effect? Good luck distributing that batch of steel when there’s a megaflood or megafire in the way.”

The catastrophic floods in British Columbia, and the effect they’ll have on everything from shipping to agriculture, will offer Canadians an unwelcome preview of this.

Poilievre and the Conservative Party of Canada will ignore this looming threat, just as they’ve studiously downplayed or dismissed the threat of climate change for as long as they’ve been a political party. But at some point, the reality of climate-driven inflation will become apparent to even the most stubborn observer. The only real questions are whether it will be too late to do anything about it by then, and how much it will cost the working Canadians who conservatives like Poilievre claim to be fighting for.

November 30th 2021


Max Fawcett
Staff Columnist
@maxfawcett

Banned Chinese drama by Nobel-winning author remounted on University of Calgary stage

Absurdist drama The Bus Stop premiered in Beijing in the 1980's, where it was a hit with audiences but banned by the Chinese government after 13 performances, for being considered 'spiritual pollution'


Stephen Hunt
CTVNewsCalgary.ca 

Digital Producer
Published Nov. 29, 2021

CALGARY -

A play by a Nobel Prize winning author that was banned in China in the 1980s after only 13 performances is back onstage, only in Calgary.

The Canadian premiere of The Bus Stop, by Gao Xingjian, is being presented at the University of Calgary. It's a student initiated project, being directed by MFA Directing candidate Fangzheng (Nick) Wang.

The play tells the story of a group of citizens waiting for the 'bus to the city' to arrive, with all the promise that entails of better lives.

Written in the 1980s, the play premiered at the Beijing People's Art Theatre, where it was said to be a hit with patrons, until it was shut down by the Community Party after 13 performances for being 'spiritual pollution'.

Now, more than 30 years later, The Bus Stop resonates as a cry for a return to normalcy after the stresses of the pandemic said Christine Brubaker, U of C's Drama Division lead.

“The Bus Stop becomes a metaphor for our collective longing of the last 21 months,” said Brubaker in a release. “And with crossing languages, histories, geography and cultures, this play celebrates the shared vulnerability and aspirations in a post-pandemic era.”

The play remains an influential text in Chinese absurdist drama. During the 1980s, Xingjian published a number of novels, plays and other writing considered critical of the Chinese government. He ultimately left the Communist Party after the Tiananmen Square massacre, and relocated to France, and has since become a French citizen. He won the 2000 Nobel Prize for literature.

It runs through Dec. 4 at the University Theatre at the U of C and features Mandarin subtitles.

Tickets are $22 (adults) / $17 (students/seniors) and are available online through scpa.ucalgary.ca/events or at the door.

Edmonton Public School trustees to vote on more inclusive stat holidays

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' I just see this as a great, wonderful opportunity to bring everyone together'

Emily Fitzpatrick · CBC News · Posted: Nov 30, 2021 

Mohammed Hussain's family celebrates Eid Ul Adha in Edmonton. (Submitted by Mohammed Hussain)

When families are gathered together eating Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner, most kids aren't thinking about homework due at school the next day.

But that wasn't the case for Timiro Mohamed's family when they celebrated Eid-ul-Fitr or Eid-ul-Adha.

"You can't celebrate in the same way around the dinner table, talking and laughing and experiencing a holiday that matters so much to you," said Mohamed, the youth initiatives manager at Islamic Family Services.

"You're thinking about an assignment that's due tomorrow or somebody is missing."

An announcement two years ago that the Edmonton Public School Board was looking at cutting five school days due to budget cuts sparked an idea.

"It's kind of a cool opportunity if they're already dropping five days from the school year to use this as a time for collective action in the community," Mohamed said.

Since 2020, a group of more than 30 students, leaders, parents and teachers has been working with the Edmonton Public School board to build a school calendar that includes days off for significant religious holidays.

After consulting with several communities in Edmonton, the group settled on Bandi Chhor Divas, Diwali, Eid-ul-Adha, Eid-ul-Fitr, Indigenous Peoples Day, Lunar New Year, Winter Solstice & Yom Kippur 

Adding the holidays to the school calendar would only require shifting four school days. 

'It's just part of my identity'

"I always wished that I could have that time with family because it's just part of my identity. It's part of how I grew up, and it's how we gather and celebrate," Mohamed said. "The same way that I was always used to having time off on Christmas."

Grace Martin School in Mill Woods observes Eid as a statutory holiday, as do school boards in New York, New Jersey and Austin.

Individual schools within EPSB already adapt calendars to fit larger absences on holidays.

Mohammed Hussain, father of three, pulls his kids out of school for Eid-ul-Adha and Eid-ul-Fitr.

They're not alone, he said, as usually about 10 children are away on those days.

"Sometimes there are double-digit absences on each day," Hussain said."So the teachers and the principals, they actually work with the community and they decide to cover less material on those specific days."

Hussain thinks making the change would be more reflective of the student body and society as a whole.

"What we've seen over the last few years is there's been so many efforts to divide the populations and demographic and people and so on," Hussain said. "And I just see this as a great, wonderful opportunity to bring everyone together."

Mohamed has already met with the Edmonton Public School Board three times and will present again on Tuesday. Trustees will vote on the proposal Tuesday afternoon.

"The perfect scenario is that after our conversation, the holidays that we've been advocating for are recognized not only as part of an interfaith calendar but that they're actually built in as statutory holidays as part of EPSB, and for generations to come and for years to come students have that day off."

Edmonton advocates ask public school board to give kids day off for holidays like Eid, Diwali, and Yom Kippur

Author of the article: Lauren Boothby
Publishing date: Nov 29, 2021 

Empty classroom at an Edmonton school. File photo. Postmedia, file

Youth advocates are asking the Edmonton Public School Board (EPSB) to give students the day off for significant religious and cultural holidays when the board votes on the 2022-23 academic calendar on Tuesday .

With five teaching days already removed from the 2020-21 school year to save money, advocates say this is the perfect opportunity to recognize the student body’s diversity by assigning them to significant holidays. This can all be done without changing the number of hours in the classroom or altering the budget, says Omar Yaqub, executive director of Islamic Family and Social Services (IFSS).

Allowing kids to take the day off for significant holidays would send the message to students of different faiths that they’re a valuable part of the community, Yaqub says.

“If you celebrate Christmas, your holiday is a default. If you celebrate these other days, you’re not recognized,” he says. “(Approving this) tells the students, tells the students’ parents, that they’re important, that their values, their culture, their identity, matters.”

Spreading the new non-instructional days out also takes pressure off families relying on school meal programs, according to Yaqub.

IFSS’s youth program the Green Room, and Sangat Youth, first brought the idea to the board last December and the group has been speaking with different communities since then to determine which days off make sense.

They identified eight holidays that, for the next two academic years, only require four days away from class because some, like the Lunar New Year, fall on weekends or outside the school year.

Four holidays proposed for the 2022-23 school year are: Yom Kippur, Bandi Chhor Divas and Diwali, Winter Solstice, and National Indigenous Peoples Day and Summer Solstice. For the following year, Yom Kippur, Eid-al Fitr, Eid-al-Adha, National Indigenous Peoples Day or Summer Solstice, are requested.

Daman Kaur Grewal, co-president of Sangat Youth, says some teachers already treat these holidays as non-instructional days because many students are absent.

“The way that our systems are set up should be reflective of our community and the diverse makeup,” she says. “We’re not asking for any other holidays to be taken away, it’s just to include other ones.”

As a Sikh who attended public school, Grewal says she missed many events significant to her faith as a child, and that can leave kids feeling detached from their cultures as they navigate dual identities.

“Students are having to pick between their education and their community and their faith,” she says. “It definitely impacts your self-esteem and the way you identify.”

Superintendent Darrel Robertson, in a memo part of Tuesday’s agenda , says there are operational challenges with approving the days off and the calendar can only accommodate one. He also noted the Education Act allows children to be excused for religious holidays

The division has also created a multi-faith calendar and is asking staff avoid scheduling some activities on those days, and to reference it when planning exams and project deadlines.

“The goal is that families who observe the religious holiday can do so without concern of missing important school assessments or activities,” said Robertson.

Of families polled about the 2020 changes , 56.2 per cent said they preferred the new days off be chunked together. About 85 per cent who chose this option did so citing desire to go on a family vacation or other activities.

Greenpeace: half a century on the frontline of environmental photo activism

On the organisation’s 50th anniversary, former head of photography at Greenpeace International talks about the motives behind the creation of its picture desk


Greenpeace ship MY Esperanza and activists try to hinder the shooting of a minke whale by the Yushin Maru No.2 catcher ship. Photograph: Kate Davison/Greenpeace

by John Novis
THE GUARDIAN
Mon 29 Nov 2021

Fifty years ago, on 15 September 1971, a ship named the Greenpeace set out to confront and stop US nuclear weapons testing at Amchitka, one of the Aleutian Islands in south-west Alaska.

Two years later a small boat called the Vega, crewed by David McTaggart, Ann-Marie Horne, Mary Horne and Nigel Ingram sailed into the French nuclear test site area at Moruroa, French Polynesia in the southern Pacific Ocean. Photographers had been using their images for years to publicise situations around the world. But Greenpeace was a young organisation pioneering a new kind of activism: this was the moment they began to realise that capturing images of what they were doing and seeing would play a vital role in their work.


Vega boarded by French commandos in Moruroa, 1973. Photograph: Ann-Marie Horne

French commandos boarded the Vega and assaulted McTaggart and Ingram. However, in the confusion Ann-Marie Horne managed to get a few secret shots and was able to smuggle out the film of the incident by concealing it in her vagina. Her pictures showed the commandos armed with knives and truncheons. The pictures and story consequently made groundbreaking news, stoking the nuclear testing controversy.

After the Vega incident, Greenpeace made a pledge to photograph everything it did. It quickly learned how to harness the power and strength of emotive images bringing the world shocking scenes of seal pups clubbed by hunters and the inspirational images of activists standing up to whaling ships.

Activists in protective suits painting ‘Amazon Crime!’ in white paint on the freighter MV Enif ship which was loaded with timber from Brazil in Hamburg , Germany, in 2000. Photograph: Fred Dott

In the mid-1980s, the fast-growing organisation started to get serious about photography and needed a communications division to professionally handle the growing archive of negatives and film rushes that were being stored on office floors, plus a space dedicated to housing state-of-the-art image technology.

A film production area, picture desk and darkroom were established in London; there was equipment ranging from the early AP Leefax transmitters to cutting edge teletext machines for news updates. Film processing, printing, editing, captioning and cataloging was all done in-house by a small, dedicated team.

Greenpeace activists disrupt coal loading at the world’s largest coal port in Newcastle, New South Wales , Australia 2005. Photograph: Richard Green

Greenpeace’s images would often feature on Reuters and AP, with the BBC and other influential news outlets using the images. A core team of Greenpeace photographers emerged; these individuals were professionals in the industry with empathy for Greenpeace ethics and equipped mentally to deal with the hardship of the organisation’s ambitious campaigns.




Photographs: Doerthe Hagenguth, Keith K Annis, Abbie Trayler-Smith and Victor Moriyama

As the organisation continued to grow, newly opened national offices around the world were making images for their own national media in different, culturally sensitive styles. Actions became more ambitious and grander, with two or three photographers sometimes commissioned for one event.

In the last 20 years digital communication has transformed and turned the photo industry around. Many small agencies have not survived the changing media landscape generated by the vast consumption and oversaturation of photos available on the internet. The viewer is privileged to know more about the issue, brought closer to the reality, can interact, and play their own part in the story. Climate change, extreme weather, human displacement, political struggle and even wars can be directly linked to environmental issues and are now subjects of intensive debate.

Adult brown pelicans wait in a holding pen to be cleaned by volunteers at the Fort Jackson International Bird Rescue Research Center in Buras following the Deepwater Horizon disaster, Louisiana 2010. Photograph: Daniel Beltrá

The Greenpeace picture desks globally embrace all distribution portals – from its relationships with global wire agencies, to the established social networks, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. Photographic technology has transitioned to digital during Greenpeace’s 50 years, yet the fundamental principle behind photo activism remains unchanged. The photographer skilfully captures a significant, controversial, and groundbreaking event and a strategic decision is made as to when and how to release the story to the world.

Through the dedication of critical ecological campaigning, the bravery of activists, the professionalism of photographers, discerning communicators and the careful preservation of the organisation’s images.

Greenpeace – the pioneer of photo activism – has remained committed to its core values of exposing environmental injustice though its imagery for the last 50 years.

A man attempts to rescue two oil firefighters, Zhang Liang and Han Xiaoxiong, struggling in thick oil slick in Dalian, China in 2010. Photograph: Lu Guang

Archaeologists uncover post-conquest Aztec altar in Mexico City


on November 30, 2021
By Sonia Ulebor


Sometime after Hernan Cortes conquered the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan in modern-day Mexico City in 1521, an indigenous household that survived the bloody Spanish invasion arranged an altar including incense and a pot with human ashes.

The remains of that elaborate display have been unearthed by archaeologists near what is today Garibaldi Plaza, famed for its revelry and mariachi music, Mexico’s culture ministry said on Tuesday.

In the wake of the fall of Tenochtitlan, likely within the years of 1521 and 1610, the offering from the family of the Mexica people was made “to bear witness to the ending of a cycle of their lives and of their civilization,” the culture ministry said in a statement.

The interior patio where rituals took place is about four meters (13 feet) below ground level, according to a team of archaeologists who spent three months analyzing the site.

They found various layers of what had been a home over the centuries, the statement said, along with 13 incense burners, five bowls, a cup, a plate and a pot with cremated skeletal remains.

The finding coincides with the 500-year anniversary of the Spanish conquest, which Mexico’s government commemorated by building a towering replica of the Templo Mayor, the Aztec civilization’s most sacred site, in downtown Mexico City.

A number of ancient discoveries in the Mexico City area in recent years, including some in the capital’s bustling downtown, have shone light on the Aztec civilization. They include the remains of a ceremonial ball court, a sacrificial wolf adorned with gold and a tower of human skulls.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador had previously sought an apology from Spain and the Vatican for human rights abuses committed during the conquest of what is modern-day Mexico.

(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by Karishma Singh)

WHEN GOOD IS BAD

Steam disinfection of baby bottle nipples exposes babies and the environment to micro- and nanoplastic particles

by University of Massachusetts Amherst

The research into the breakdown and pollution of silicone-rubber baby bottle nipples is 

highlighted in this illustration. Credit: UMass Amherst

Using a new microspectroscopic technique, collaborating scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Nanjing University in China have found that steam disinfection of silicone-rubber baby bottle nipples exposes babies and the environment to micro- and nanoplastic particles.

The health and environmental risks of these very fine particles are still unknown, but microplastic pollution is a growing global concern on land, in the seas and in human bodies. The research is the first to identify this new source of microplastic contamination.

"Babies are the most sensitive group for any contaminants, not only microplastics (less than 5 mm by definition)," says Baoshan Xing, professor of environmental and soil chemistry and director of the UMass Amherst Stockbridge School of Agriculture and co-corresponding author of the research, published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. "Conventional techniques are unable to detect these small particles, and the smaller the particles, the larger the physiological effect."

Xing collaborated with lead author Yu Su and co-corresponding author Rong Ji, both environmental scientists in Nanjing University's School of the Environment, as well as other colleagues in China.

"Silicone rubber was considered to be a thermally stable polymeric material in the past, but we noticed that it undergoes aging after repeated moist heat disinfections," Su says. "The aging and decomposition of plastics are a major source of microplastics in the environment. We proposed and confirmed that silicone rubber can be decomposed by moist heating to microplastics, even nanoplastics (less than 1 µm)."

Previous research by Xing, who has been named to an annual list of the world's most highly cited researchers every year since the analytics began in 2014, and colleagues in China showed that nanoplastics—known to widely pollute oceans, surface waters and lands—are internalized by plants and also reduce lipid digestion in a simulated human gastrointestinal system.

Traditional techniques are unable to detect particles smaller than about 20 micrometers, which is roughly half the size of a human hair's thickness. At Nanjing University, researchers examined the rubber nipples using optical photothermal infrared (O-PTIR) microspectroscopy, the new and emerging technique that is able to analyze a material's composition and morphology.

The microspectroscope revealed numerous flake- or oil-film-shaped micro- and nanoplastics as small as 0.6 micrometers, or 600 nanometers, in the wash waters of the steam-disinfected rubber nipples. The technique also showed submicrometer-resolved steam etching on and chemical modification of the nipple surface.

"The results indicated that by the age of one year, a baby could ingest >0.66 million elastomer-derived micro-sized plastics (MPs)… Global MP emission from teat disinfection may be as high as 5.2 × 1013 particles per year," the research paper states.

Xing and colleagues point out that similar silicone-rubbed-based consumer products, including bakeware and sealing rings in cups and cooking appliances, are also likely to produce micro- and nanoplastic particles when heated at or above 100 degrees C. They will continue their research into the release of particles into the environment from various plastic objects.

"We've identified this significant new source of microplastics to the environment," Xing says. "Some plastics go into the sewer systems. They get into the water and landfills. They have such a long lifetime in the environment because they don't decompose readily."

Rong Ji, of Nanjing University, adds, "The behaviors of these silicon rubber-derived micro- and nanoplastics in the environment are unclear. Further research is needed to clarify their potential risks to both humans and the environment."Research in land plants shows nanoplastics accumulating in tissues

More information: Yu Su et al, Steam disinfection releases micro(nano)plastics from silicone-rubber baby teats as examined by optical photothermal infrared microspectroscopy, Nature Nanotechnology (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41565-021-00998-x

Journal information: Nature Nanotechnology 

Provided by University of Massachusetts Amherst 

Nobel-winning stock market theory used to help save coral reefs

Portfolio selection rules on evaluating risk used to pick 50 reefs as ‘arks’ best able to survive climate crisis and revive coral elsewhere

A coral reef in Mafia Island marine park in Tanzania. The study has helped conservationists target resources on the reefs most likely to survive the climate crisis. Photograph: Simon Pierce

Seascape: the state of our oceans is supported by


Karen McVeigh
THE GUARDIAN
Sun 28 Nov 2021

A Nobel prize-winning economic theory used by investors is showing early signs of helping save threatened coral reefs, scientists say.

Researchers at Australia’s University of Queensland used modern portfolio theory (MPT), a mathematical framework developed by the economist Harry Markowitz in the 1950s to help risk-averse investors maximise returns, to identify the 50 reefs or coral sanctuaries around the world that are most likely to survive the climate crisis and be able to repopulate other reefs, if other threats are absent.

The study recommends targeting investment in conservation projects that have the “strongest potential to succeed” in protecting priority reefs. The gains go beyond positive ecological outcomes and include crucial social, economic, health and nutritional benefits for communities, according to partners, organisations and funders interviewed by Blue Earth Consultants.

Prof Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, a climate scientist at the University of Queensland, who helped lead the “50 reefs” project, said: “It’s essentially a strategy to help us make decisions about what to protect, if we are to have corals at the end of the century.”

“It is our best shot at having a long-term future for coral reefs,” he said.

Coral reefs face a dire future. Even if drastic emission reductions ensured global heating was limited to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – which would require almost halving global CO2 emissions by 2030 from 2010 levels – 70% to 90% of today’s corals would vanish.

Bleached coral at Ko Losin, Thailand. About 14% of coral reefs have been lost in the past decade, mostly to bleaching. Photograph: Jorge Silva/Reuters

In October, a study of coral reef health found 14% has been lost globally in less than a decade, with bleaching events caused by raised sea-surface temperatures the biggest culprit.

“Modern portfolio theory is a framework that aims to reduce risk while maximising returns,” said Hoegh-Guldberg. “It’s treating conservation sort of as an investment opportunity.”

The strategy, which came out of a meeting of scientists at the Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology in 2017, tapped into the theory to help scientists choose a “balanced” portfolio of coral reefs.

“You’ve got hundreds of these reefs across the planet,” said Hoegh-Guldberg. “Which one do you pick, so that you concentrate your efforts on it?”

Researchers hope to breed Great Barrier Reef corals more resilient to extreme heat events – video

Dr Hawthorne Beyer, a fellow at the University of Queensland researching the use of quantitative modelling in managing environmental systems, said: “Talk to people in the business world and they get it immediately. It’s a very logical idea and makes a lot of sense. Ours was the first to apply it on a global scale.”

The scientists divided the world’s coral reefs into “bioclimatic units” (BCU) of 500 sq km (190 sq miles). They used 174 metrics, in five categories, including temperature history and projections, ocean acidification, invasive species, cyclone activity and connectivity to other reefs, for each one. Then, using a process called “scalarisation”, they produced estimates for each BCU. This captured the widest range of possibilities for the future. “We don’t know which metrics are the best metrics at predicting risk,” explained Beyer.

The team then used MPT to quantify threats and identify the reefs offering the best options for conservation, while allowing for the uncertainty over future risks from climate change.

“You don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket, or bet on one measure of risk, when we have massive uncertainty about what the risks will be,” he said.

Clownfish in an anemone on coral in the Great Barrier Reef, parts of which were identified as priority areas by the study. Photograph: William West/AFP/Getty

The project identified reefs across the Middle East, northern and eastern Africa, Australia, the Caribbean, Pacific islands, South America, south-east and south Asia. They include parts of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, the Egyptian and southern Red Sea, and parts of the “coral triangle” around Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and the Philippines. But, based on the criteria for climate and connectivity, the model excluded several ecologically significant areas, such as Hawaii and Central America’s Barrier Reef.
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Nearly $93m (£70m) has been invested in the project, funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Vibrant Oceans initiative and others. The report found the 50 reefs-inspired approach had helped at least 26 organisations, and eight funders have now prioritised 60 coral reef ecosystems across more than 40 countries.

Coral reefs cover just 0.2% of the ocean floor but are home to at least a quarter of all marine species and support hundreds of millions of people. Conservation efforts inspired by the study have focused on five threats to coral: fishing; “non-point source pollution”, such as from fertilisers, runoff from roads, or sediment; wastewater pollution; coastal development; and stress to reefs from climatic extremes.

Emily Darling, director of coral reef conservation at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), said part of the benefit was having a clear blueprint of where best to focus their efforts.

“One of the biggest benefits of the 50 reef approach has been this compelling message that climate change is the critical threat to coral reefs and this is an approach that can give reefs a fighting chance.”


'Happy corals': climate crisis sanctuary teeming with life found off east Africa

The WCS has $18m in funding for work in 11 countries, including Fiji, Indonesia, Kenya and Tanzania, on 21 of the 50 reefs, to help communities reduce pressure on the precious ecosystems.

“We are looking at non-climate threats such as overexploitation, destructive fishing, unsustainable tourism, coastal development, water pollution. We then ask ‘well, what are the top local pressures?’,” said Darling. “And that’s how we identify which intervention to tailor to those different situations.”

A no-take marine protected area between Kenya and Tanzania – in which no fishing, mining, drilling or similar activities are allowed – has been supported by WSC to protect the corals from these other pressures running alongside global heating.

“By doing that, we will not only safeguard coral reef biodiversity, but also the whales, spinner dolphins, the dugong, coelacanth fish, that whole ecosystem,” she said.

One of the 50 reefs identified is the “happy coral” sanctuary discovered in Tanzania, reported by the Guardian last year, where coral species have thrived despite warming events that have killed neighbouring reefs.

‘It is not biology’: Women’s chess hindered by low numbers and sexism

The governing body is pushing to make the game more welcoming for women – but is change happening fast enough?

The 2021 Palestinian chess championship for women, which took place in Hebron last month. 

Photograph: APAImages/Shutterstock

Sean Ingle in Dubai
Mon 29 Nov 2021 

Towards the end of the Queen’s Gambit, the Netflix show that helped to supercharge the new chess boom, Beth Harmon crushes a series of top male grandmasters before beating Vasily Borgov, the Russian world champion. Fiction, though, remains sharply separated from fact. As Magnus Carlsen was reminded before starting his world title defence in Dubai last week, there is not a single active woman’s player in the top 100 now that Hou Yifan of China, who is ranked 83rd, is focusing on academia. The lingering question: why?


Chess: Carlsen plans fast start in Dubai while Firouzja captures his records

For Carlsen, the subject was “way too complicated” to answer in a few sentences, but suggested a number of reasons, particularly cultural, were to blame. Some, though, still believe it is down to biology. As recently as 2015 Nigel Short, vice-president of the world chess federation Fide, claimed “men are hardwired to be better chess players than women, adding: “You have to gracefully accept that.”

That claim raises the eyebrows of the greatest female chess player, Judit Polgar, who was ranked as high as No 8 in the world and, amusingly, has a winning record against Short. “It is not down to biology,” she tells the Guardian. “It’s just as possible for a woman to become the best as any guy. But there are so many difficulties and social boundaries for women generally in society. That is what blocks it.”

Polgar, who defeated 11 current or former world champions in either rapid or classical chess, including Garry Kasparov and Magnus Carlsen, before retiring in 2014, believes that an early start, encouraging girls to think big, and better teaching are crucial factors. “All champions and big players start to play chess and get familiar with the game at a pretty early age,” says the Hungarian grandmaster, who is now a commentator on the website Chess24.

The Hungarian Judit Polgar, the most successful female player in chess, pictured in 2017. Photograph: Peter Kohalmi/AFP/Getty Images

The development biologist Emma Hilton also dismisses the idea that the gap between men and women can be put down to genetics. A crucial point, she says, is that chess has an “extremely skewed starting pool” – with far more boys learning to play the game than girls. That, she says, “makes it extremely unlikely that we will see a female world champion”.

The English international master Jovanka Houska believes this smaller pool has knock-on effects in other areas, particularly when it comes to being the only one or two girls in a group. “We have situations where the girls don’t feel very comfortable playing, whilst the boys can hang around, make friends and play amongst themselves and get better that way,” she says.

Is sexism also a factor? “It is, sadly,” says Houska. “It’s mainly because there are so few women playing. And it’s reinforced by national federations who don’t publicise your achievements to help you with funding. When I look at the situation across Europe, I see a lot of top women players fighting their federations for basic things.”

There is also a far darker side in all this. Last year the women’s Fide master Alexandra Botez, who is also the most popular female chess streamer, spoke of her shocking experiences in the sport and warned: “In chess so much predatory behaviour has been normalised.”

In Botez’s view, it is far too common for men to use their age and position to go on the “hunt” for women and girls. “It has been going on for so long and no one blinks an eye,” she said. “The extent to which people never say anything and find things OK is pretty spooky.” Other women have echoed similar concerns to the Guardian but none of them wanted to go public.

The chessboard on which Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi are playing for the world championship title in Dubai. Photograph: Giuseppe Cacace/AFP/Getty Images

Yet there are encouraging signs, too. As Houska points out, it is far more common to see women chess players and commentators than only a few years ago. “It’s very important to have that visibility,” she says. “Because if girls have role models, they can start to adjust their expectations and aims.”

The Fide president, Arkady Dvorkovich, also promises he is pushing hard to make the game more welcoming for women. He rattles off a list of changes he has made during his tenure, including more tournaments and increased prize money for women.

The organisation has also designated 2022 as the “Year of Woman in Chess”, however Dvorkovich accepts more can be done to help women progress to the very top. “Around 13-14 years old we find that girls leave while boys continue to play in large numbers. We need to change that. Personally I would also like to see more women in the top 10. But chess is not just about professional play. We have more women across the game now, including Dana Reizniece-Ozola, the former finance minister of Latvia, who is our managing director.”

Women’s chess also recently attracted its biggest sponsor – although the decision of Fide to partner with the breast enlargement company Motiva was described as “gross” and “misogynistic” by some.


Magnus Carlsen embraces chaos in gripping draw with Ian Nepomniachtchi

“We consulted with many chess players, 95% of them supported it,” says Dvorkovich. “We appreciate there are some components of this business that do not look that attractive. But what they’re doing also for health and wellbeing for women is very important. I know it’s a bit controversial, but there are more pluses.”

Polgar also errs on the side of optimism, pointing out that attitudes among most men have shifted from an era when the legendary world champion Bobby Fischer used to dismiss women players as “terrible”, telling them to “keep strictly to the home”.

“Nowadays most of the top players would not dare even to say – or even to think that way,” she says. “Fischer was the most ridiculous. And another world champion, Garry Kasparov, also said some things because he grew up in that kind of environment.

“But when I came in the picture, and I was torturing Garry at the board, little by little he transformed his vision. So this is what I’m saying: many people think that people – or the community – cannot change. But it is possible.”

A question for chess remains, however: is change happening fast enough?

Topics
World Chess Championship 2021