Fracking linked to higher heart attack risk, especially among men

(Photo by David Thielen on Unsplash)

DECEMBER 15, 2021

by John Anderer

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Fracking is a controversial practice, mostly because of its environmental implications, but a recent study also finds that drilling for oil and gas may also increase the risk of suffering a heart attack.

Researchers from the University of Rochester note their findings are unique because they are based on research performed at the Marcellus Foundation, which straddles the New York and Pennsylvania state border. New York has banned fracking, but it represents a multi-billion-dollar industry in Pennsylvania.

“Fracking is associated with increased acute myocardial infarction hospitalization rates among middle-aged men, older men and older women as well as with increased heart attack-related mortality among middle-aged men,” says senior study author Elaine Hill, Ph.D., an associate professor in the University of Rochester Medical Center Department of Public Health Sciences, in a university release.

“Our findings lend support for increased awareness about cardiovascular risks of unconventional natural gas development and scaled-up heart attack prevention, as well as suggest that bans on hydraulic fracturing can be protective for public health.”

What makes fracking so controversial?

The extraction of natural gas via hydraulic fracking is a major air pollution contributor, according to researchers. These fracking wells usually run 24 hours a day, constantly releasing organic compounds, nitrogen oxide, and other chemicals or particulate matter into the surrounding air. Additionally, workers have to regularly supple each well with steady shipments of water, equipment, and chemicals, while removing wastewater produced by the fracking process.

These factors worsen air pollution levels. Each of these wells usually stay operational for at least a few years, which means employees and even nearby communities experience prolonged exposure to air pollutants.

In 2014, there were around 8,000 fracking sites in Pennsylvania. Some regions of the state have more fracking than others, though. For example, three counties in particular house over 1,000 sites. Conversely, New York essentially banned all fracking processes in 2010.

Air pollution exposure, especially prolonged and consistent exposure, has a long-standing link to heart and cardiovascular issues. Recent studies even find that the intensity of both local oil and gas production have a positive association with various heart problems. These include reduced vascular functioning, blood pressure, and inflammatory markers linked with stress and short-term air pollution exposure.

There’s also the matter of all the light and noise pollution coming from fracking facilities. Such developments can lead to greater stress among locals, another risk factor for cardiovascular disease.

Middle-aged men in fracking towns at highest risk

To study this topic, study authors analyzed heart attack hospitalization and death rates across 47 counties along the New York-Pennsylvania border. Some were located in New York, while others were in Pennsylvania. According to data spanning 2005 to 2014, heart attack rates were 1.4 to 2.8 percent higher in Pennsylvania. Exact percentages fluctuated according to both age and the level of fracking activity in a given county.

Results show the connections between fracking and heart attack hospitalization or death was most prevalent among men between 45 and 54 years-old. Importantly, men within that age range are also more likely to work in this gas industry.

Study authors note these individuals probably received the heaviest exposure to fracking-related air pollutants and stressors. Death by heart attack increased among this age group as well, jumping by 5.4 percent or more in counties with more fracking sites. It’s also worth noting that both hospitalization and mortality rates increased significantly among women 65 and older.

Fracking towns face greater risks due to less healthcare

Fracking is generally more common in rural communities and study authors say people residing in such areas are already at a medical disadvantage due to limited healthcare access in comparison to more urban areas. The team believes there needs to be more awareness about the dangers of fracking and they hope these findings will help inform policymakers while making future fracking decisions.

“These findings contribute to the growing body of evidence on the adverse health impact of fracking,” concludes first study author Alina Denham, a Ph.D. candidate in Health Policy at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. “Several states, including New York, have taken the precaution of prohibiting hydraulic fracturing until more is known about the health and environmental consequences. If causal mechanisms behind our findings are ascertained, our findings would suggest that bans on hydraulic fracturing can be protective for human health.”

The findings appear in the journal Environmental Research.

More Than 10,000 Studies Debunk Outdated Biological 'Explanation' For Male Success

(Patrick Sheandell O'Carroll/PhotoAlto Agency RF Collections/Getty Images)

MIKE MCRAE
22 DECEMBER 2021

From world politics to top-ranking businesses, to the upper rungs of academia and even Nobel laureates, men outnumber women by a significant margin.

One claim to such disparity has been attributed to biology. The idea there's some kind of 'superdiversity' among male brains has been repeatedly cited in the scientific literature in recent decades; but according to a newly published meta-analysis, this argument for male success is entirely unsupported by evidence.


"Based on our data, if we assume that humans are like other animals, there is equal chance of having a similar number of high-achieving women as there are high-achieving men in this world," says biologist and lead author Lauren Harrison from the Australian National University (ANU).

"Based on this logic, there is also just as great a chance of having a similar number of men and women that are low achievers."

Most research on diversity within various species tends to focus on differences between the sexes. It's not hard to find numerous and extreme examples of dimorphism; even within our own species, contrasts in sex chromosomes are responsible for exaggerating a litany of anatomical characteristics, such as beards or boobs.

Since the late 19th century, with the writings of the famous English sexologist Havelock Ellis, the assumption that larger male brains equal greater potential for cognitive prowess has been used to explain why men 'deserve' positions of influence and command.

Much has since been written on whether statistical differences across the sex divide translate into anything truly significant (short answer - they don't), but few studies have looked into whether anatomical diversity within one sex provides for a greater spectrum of behavior.

Generalizing the assertion towards non-human animals, in this new meta-analysis the team investigated whether equivalents of our own personality traits across 220 species varied to any great extent within either of the sexes.

In spite of a thorough search of some 10,000 studies, the team couldn't find any compelling evidence demonstrating greater richness of variability within the personality traits of males or females of any of the species included.

That's not to say there were no differences across species as a whole. Some select characteristics, such as immunity or certain morphological traits, were also found to vary considerably within sexes in particular species.

But if we're to use nature as a proxy for our own expanse of variation within male brains as suggested in the past, we can only conclude the rich landscape of female brains provides just as much opportunity for genius (and nonsense) as the male's.

"If males are more variable than females, it would mean there are more men than women with either very low or very high IQs," says one of the authors, evolutionary biologist Michael Jennions from ANU.

"But our research in over 200 animal species shows variation in male and female behavior is very similar. Therefore, there is no reason to invoke this argument based on biology to explain why more men than women are Nobel laureates, for example, which we associate with high IQ."

A lack of evidence in favor of behavioral variation among men doesn't rule out other biological explanations for the shatter-proof glass ceiling that permeates so much of modern society.

It does, however, limit arguments for that ceiling being a result of our biological wiring, and thus being something that we can't – or shouldn't – do anything about.

Dismantling notions that male merit is cemented in biology might even help to break down the social structures that are actually responsible for gender biases.

"Instead of using biology to explain why there are more male CEOs or professors, we have to ask what role culture and upbringing play in pushing men and women down different pathways," says Harrison.

This research was published in Biological Reviews.

Brutal Viking Ritual Called 'Blood Eagle' Was Anatomically Possible, Study Shows

Man lying on his belly with another man using a weapon on his back. (Stora Hammar Stone)

LUKE JOHN MURPHY, HEIDI FULLER & MONTE GATES, THE CONVERSATION
20 DECEMBER 2021

Famed for their swift longboats and bloody incursions, Vikings have long been associated with brutal, over-the-top violence. Between the eighth and 11th centuries, these groups left their Nordic homelands to make their fortunes by trading and raiding across Europe.

Particularly infamous is the so-called "blood eagle", a gory ritual these warriors are said to have performed on their most hated enemies. The ritual allegedly involved carving the victim's back open and cutting their ribs away from their spine, before the lungs were pulled out through the resulting wounds.

The final fluttering of the lungs splayed out on the outspread ribs would supposedly resemble the movement of a bird's wings – hence the eagle in the name.

Depictions of the ritual have recently featured in the TV series Vikings and the video game Assassins Creed: Valhalla, as well as the 2019 Swedish horror film Midsommar.

For decades, researchers have dismissed the blood eagle as a legend.

No archaeological evidence of the ritual has ever been found, and the Vikings themselves kept no records, listing their achievements only in spoken poetry and sagas that were first written down centuries later. So the bloody rite has been rejected as improbable, resulting from repeated misunderstandings of complex poetry and a desire by Christian writers to paint their Nordic attackers as barbaric heathens.

However, our new study, takes an entirely new approach on the matter. Our team, made up of medical scientists and a historian, bypassed the long-standing question of "did the blood eagle ever really happen?", asking instead: "Could it have been done?" Our answer is a clear yes.

The anatomical practicalities

Previous scholarship on the blood eagle has only ever focused on the details of medieval textual accounts of the torture, with long-running debates concentrating on the exact terms used to describe the "cutting" or "carving" of the eagle into the victim's back. A widely-held position is that the whole phenomenon is a misunderstanding of some complicated poetry, not something that could actually have been attempted.

Using modern knowledge of anatomy and physiology, alongside painstaking reassessment of the nine medieval accounts of the ritual, we investigated what effect a blood eagle would have had on the human body. What we found was that the procedure itself would be difficult but far from impossible to perform, even with the technology of the time.

We suspect that a particular type of Viking spearhead could have been used as a makeshift tool to "unzip" the rib cage quickly from the back. Such a weapon might even be depicted on a stone monument found on the Swedish island of Gotland, where a scene carved into the stone depicts something that could have been a blood eagle or other execution.

However, we also realized that even if the ritual was carefully performed the victim would have died very quickly. Therefore any attempts to reshape the ribs into "wings" or remove the lungs would have been performed on a corpse. That last "fluttering" would not have happened.

While that might make the blood eagle sound even less likely to modern ears, we also demonstrate that while mutilating corpses and carrying out rituals on dead bodies was unusual, it was not totally out of character for the warrior elite of the Viking Age.
Retrieving lost honor

Drawing on archaeological and historical data, our research has shown that the blood eagle ritual fits with what we know about how the Viking-Age warrior elite behaved. They had no qualms about displaying the dead bodies of humans and animals in special rituals, including during spectacular executions.

Our study specifically examined so-called "deviant burials", like the skeleton of a well-dressed noblewoman who was beheaded in tenth-century Birka and subsequently buried with the remains of her head tucked between her arm and her torso, her missing jawbone (possibly destroyed during her decapitation) replaced by a pig's mandible. Warriors from this layer of society were also obsessed with their reputations, and were willing to go to extreme lengths to protect their image.

The blood eagle seems to have been a more extreme case of this sort of behavior conducted only in exceptional circumstances: on a captured prisoner of war who had earlier subjected the ritual-doer's father (or other male relative) to a shameful death.

In medieval sagas, some of these "trigger killings" include victims being thrown into a pit of snakes, being burned to death in a longhouse without the chance of a fair fight, and even having their guts torn out and nailed to a post. In the sagas, the blood eagle is depicted as a way for the victim's relatives to reclaim their lost honor.

Contrary to established wisdom, we therefore argue that the blood eagle could very well have taken place in the Viking Age. It was physically possible, in line with broader social habits regarding execution and the treatment of corpses, and reflected a cultural obsession with demonstrating your honor and prestige.

What's more, its spectacular brutality would have ensured that everybody who heard about it would be keen to tell the story in all its gory details - just as we're still telling them today.

Luke John Murphy, Postdoctoral Researcher in Archaeology, University of Iceland; Heidi Fuller, Senior Lecturer in Medical Science, Keele University, and Monte Gates, Senior Lecturer in Medicine and Neuroscience, Keele University.

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

THE PROLETARIAN PUBLIC

Peter Critchley
This book covers the period of working class socialism between the final years of the nineteenth century up to the 1930s. The book contains chapters on Industrial Unionism, Revolutionary Syndicalism and Council Communism. There are substantial chapters on Tom Mann, James Connolly, Antonio Gramsci and Rosa Luxemburg. The principal concern of the book is to analyse the history of socialism as the proletarian transformation of politics, with a view to conceiving a proletarian public life grounded in the associational space of society.

THE PROLETARIAN PUBLIC
The Practice of Proletarian Self-Emancipation
1996Dr Peter Critchley
Critchley, P. 1996.,
The Proletarian Public : The Practice of Proletarian Self-Emancipation
[e-book]Available through: Academia website http://mmu.academia.edu/PeterCritchley/Books

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr Peter Critchley
is a philosopher, writer and tutor with a first degree in the field of the Social Sciences (History, Economics, Politics and Sociology) and a PhD in the field of Philosophy, Ethics and Politics.

The Proletarian Public was written during the first year of Peter’s period of PhD research. 

Peter works in the tradition of Rational Freedom, a tradition which sees freedom as a common endeavour in which the freedom of each individual is conceived to be co-existent with the freedom of all. In elaborating this concept, Peter has written extensively on a number of the key thinkers in this ‘rational’ tradition (Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Dante, Spinoza, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Habermas). Peter is currently engaged in an ambitious interdisciplinary research project entitled Being and Place.

Thecentral theme of this research concerns the connection of place and identity through thecreation of forms of life which enable human and planetary flourishing in unison. Peter tutorsacross the humanities and social sciences, from A level to postgraduate research. Peterparticularly welcomes interest from those not engaged in formal education, but who wish topursue a course of studies out of intellectual curiosity.

 Peter is committed to bringing philosophy back to its Socratic roots in ethos, in the way of life of people. In this conception,philosophy as self-knowledge is something that human beings do as a condition of living the examined life. As we think, so shall we live. Living up to this philosophical commitment, Peter offers tutoring services both to those in and out of formal education. The subject range that Peter offers in his tutoring activities, as well as contact details, can be seen at http://petercritchley-e-akademeia.yolasite.com

The range of Peter’s research activity can be seen at http://mmu.academia.edu/PeterCritchley Peter sees his e-akademeia project as part of a global grassroots learning experience andencourages students and learners to get in touch, whatever their learning need and level.

THE PROLETARIAN PUBLIC 

INTRODUCTION

INDUSTRIAL UNIONISM AND SYNDICALISM 

The History of British Syndicalism 

TOM MANN.

 JAMES CONNOLLY 

 FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY SYNDICALISM 

Fernand Pelloutier

L’Organisation et l’anarchie

L’Art et la revolte

Georges Sorel 

Hubert Lagardelle 

Revolutionary Syndicalism  conclusions

ROSA LUXEMBURG 

Reform Or Revolution 

Consciousness And Activity 

Mass Strike 

Luxemburg And Lenin

The Split In The SPD 

 

COUNCIL COMMUNISM 

ANTON PANNEKOEK 

THE COUNCIL COMMUNISM OF ANTONIO GRAMSCI 

Gramsci Conclusion 

 CONCLUSIONS 

https://www.academia.edu/1234571/THE_PROLETARIAN_PUBLIC?auto=download&email_work_card=download-paper

Sanders Urges Biden to Demand DeJoy's Resignation Over Postal Service 'Sabotage'

"By any objective measure, Louis DeJoy, a top campaign contributor of Donald Trump, has been, by far and away, the worst postmaster general in the modern history of America."


U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy testifies before the House Oversight and Reform Committee in Washington, D.C. on August 24, 2020. (Photo: Tom Brenner/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

JAKE JOHNSON

COMMONDREAMS

December 23, 2021

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday urged President Joe Biden to immediately request the resignation of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, citing the Republican megadonor's ongoing "sabotage" of the U.S. Postal Service and potential conflicts of interest.

"We need a postmaster general who will strengthen and expand the Postal Service."

In a statement, Sanders (I-Vt.) argued that "by any objective measure, Louis DeJoy, a top campaign contributor of Donald Trump, has been, by far and away, the worst postmaster general in the modern history of America."

Since DeJoy took charge of the USPS in 2020, Sanders said, "the quality of the Postal Service has been severely undermined"—a criticism that other lawmakers and advocates have leveled over the past year and a half as the postmaster general has rushed ahead with sweeping changes to mail operations nationwide.

"Tragically, the situation has only gotten worse since Mr. DeJoy began implementing his disastrous 10-year plan to substantially slow down mail delivery, cut back on post office hours, shut down mail processing plants, and dismantle mail sorting machines," the Vermont senator said Thursday. "Senior citizens have experienced massive delays in receiving the lifesaving prescription drugs they desperately need and working families have been forced to pay late fees because it is taking much longer than normal for the Postal Service to mail their bills."

Sanders went on to warn that the Biden administration's newly announced plan to distribute 500 million free at-home coronavirus tests could be undercut by "the deterioration of the Postal Service under Mr. DeJoy."

"How can anyone have confidence that these life-saving tests will be delivered to the American people in a timely and efficient manner? I think the obvious answer to that question is they cannot," said Sanders. "The United States Postal Service is a vital part of our economy and our way of life. We need a postmaster general who will strengthen and expand the Postal Service, not someone who continues to undermine and sabotage it. It is long past time for Mr. DeJoy to go."

Sanders' demand came weeks after Biden moved to replace Ron Bloom and John Barger, two DeJoy loyalists on the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors—the body with the power to remove the postmaster general.

If the Senate confirms Biden's nominees to replace Bloom and Barger, the president's picks will have a majority on the nine-member postal board and enough votes to oust DeJoy, who is reportedly under FBI investigation in connection to his past fundraising activities.

Despite the firestorm of criticism he's received over his performance as postmaster general and alleged financial conflicts, DeJoy has previously said he has no intention of leaving his position any time soon.

Asked during a February congressional hearing how long he plans to remain postmaster general, DeJoy responded: "A long time. Get used to me."

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A $778 Billion Pentagon Budget Is Our Lump of Coal


U.S. tanks appear during a military training exercise in May of 2016

 in Vaziani, Georgia. (Photo: Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

As Congress passed a $778 billion war and military budget, about half of which will go to corporate contractors, they failed to pass the Build Back Better plan that costs less than a quarter of that annually, and would have delivered help to millions of people.

LINDSAY KOSHGARIAN

December 23, 2021 

by National Priorities Project


What if you wanted less child poverty, better health care, more help with child care and elder care, and at least a gesture toward a solution to the climate crisis? And what if instead you got a $778 billion check for war profiteering?

That’s the bait and switch we just got, as Congress passed a $778 billion war and military budget, about half of which will go to corporate contractors, and failed to pass the Build Back Better plan that costs less than a quarter of that annually, and would have delivered help to millions of people.

Despite the slash and burn approach taken by Congress to the plan, each and every major provision of Build Back Better is supported by a majority of voters.

This is, in fact, not what Americans want. A large majority of voters support the Build Back Better plan, which would continue to send checks to families with children, expand health care subsidies, make child care and home care more affordable, and invest in clean energy. Despite the slash and burn approach taken by Congress to the plan, each and every major provision of Build Back Better is supported by a majority of voters. And a majority would like to see the Pentagon budget cut by ten percent to fund domestic needs – the exact things that Build Back Better funds.

Much has been made of Senator Joe Manchin’s declared opposition to the Build Back Better plan. But after months of negotiations for help that people desperately need, progressives are not ready to give up that easily.

It’s not over. In case you need some motivation to get involved, here are the facts about what Congress is choosing when it funds a $778 billion Pentagon budget over Build Back Better:

More for Pentagon contracts to a single company (Lockheed Martin, $75 billion in FY 2021) than child care and preschool ($40 billion/year under BBBA)

More for equipment and programs the Pentagon didn’t even ask for ($25 billion) than child and earned income tax credits ($20 billion/year under BBBA)

More on guarding the world’s oil supply ($81 billion/year) than for climate and clean energy initiatives to protect the planet($55 billion/year under BBBA)

More for the Space Force ($17.5 billion) than for healthcare for Americans ($13 billion/year under BBBA)

More than twice as much for military bases in Germany ($7.5 billion) than for Medicare hearing benefits ($3.5 billion/year under BBBA)

More for the wasteful F-35 ($12 billion) than on a better immigration system ($10 billion/year under BBBA)

These are the wrong priorities. And it’s up to movements and grassroots pressure to turn this around.

Copyright © 2021 National Priorities Project / Institute for Policy Studies

Lindsay Koshgarian directs the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies.

21 Million+ Going Hungry in US as Manchin Tanks Expanded Child Tax Credit

"This program is Social Security for our children, and Democrats must keep it going over the long-term," said Sen. Ron Wyden.

Children draw on top of a "cancelled check" prop during a rally in front of the U.S. Capitol on December 13, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

JAKE JOHNSON

COMMONDREAMS

December 23, 2021

Data released Wednesday by the U.S. Census Bureau shows that more than 21 million people across the country live in households where there was "sometimes or often not enough to eat in the last seven days," a five-month high.

"We're going to keep pushing for an extension of the CTC until it happens. Child hunger is too high a price to pay."

The new figures come as the expanded child tax credit (CTC)—a program that has helped millions of families afford food and other necessities during the pandemic—is set to lapse due to the opposition of Republican lawmakers and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who reportedly wants to remove the benefit from Democrats' Build Back Better package.

While Manchin has publicly claimed to support the CTC, HuffPost reported earlier this week that the West Virginia Democrat told his Senate colleagues behind closed doors that "he thought parents would waste monthly child tax credit payments on drugs instead of providing for their children"—a narrative that critics decried as insidious and false.

According to the new Census Bureau figures, 9.7% of U.S. households were food insecure in the period between December 1 and 13—a percentage that progressive lawmakers and advocates fear will rise sharply if Congress lets the boosted CTC expire at the end of the year. More than 10% of West Virginia households went without adequate food in early December, the data shows.

"Here's the reality of the situation: If expanded child tax credit payments stop going out, roughly 10 million children could sink into poverty," Friends Committee on National Legislation warned earlier this week. "We're going to keep pushing for an extension of the CTC until it happens. Child hunger is too high a price to pay."

After the first tranche of monthly CTC payments went out in July, the percentage of U.S. families with kids that reported not having enough to eat fell substantially, Census Bureau data showed at the time.

"Families received their sixth child tax credit payment last week, and they have come to depend on these payments to cover the essentials like rent, groceries, heat, and clothing for their children," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement on Sunday. "Food insecurity among families dropped by about 25% since these payments began. Child poverty has been cut nearly in half."

"This program is Social Security for our children," he added, "and Democrats must keep it going over the long-term."

The Treasury Department said on December 15—when the final scheduled monthly CTC payment went out—that the families of 61 million U.S. children have benefited from the program, which was implemented as part of the American Rescue Plan.

Related Content

Voters Support Permanent Expansion of 'Critical' Child Tax Credit, New Poll Shows
Julia Conley

In its current form, Democrats' $1.75 trillion Build Back Better Act would extend for another year the monthly CTC payments of up to $300 per child under the age of six and $250 per child between the ages of six and 17.

But the path forward for the social spending and climate legislation remains unclear after Manchin announced his opposition to the bill in a Fox News appearance on Sunday. Last week, Manchin reportedly presented a $1.8 trillion counteroffer to the White House, which declined to accept because the proposal left out the expanded CTC entirely.

The White House has ruled out attempting to extend the boosted CTC with standalone legislation, which would require the support of every Senate Democrat and at least 10 Republicans. Not a single congressional Republican has endorsed Democrats' expanded CTC program.

If Congress allows the current version of the CTC to expire, the program will revert to its previous form, which provided yearly lump-sum payments but excluded the poorest families with its regressive income phase-in.

Eugenia Harper, a 38-year-old mother of two children, told the Washington Post on Wednesday that the monthly CTC payments have "given us that extra help that we're not able to get from friends or family."

"I get child support and the child tax credit, and I've been able to manage on that," said Harper, who reduced her hours working as a home health aide due to coronavirus concerns. "There's no thrills and frills. We need this money just to survive."
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Crows Are So Smart They Seem to Understand The Concept of Tool Value


(© James St Clair)
NATURE

TESSA KOUMOUNDOUROS
23 DECEMBER 2021

A new study has demonstrated crows can assign value to their tools just like we do.

"Many of us will fuss about a brand-new phone, making sure it does not get scratched, dropped or lost. But we may handle an old phone with a cracked screen quite carelessly," said behavioral ecologist Barbara Klump now at Max Planck Institute, Germany.

New Caledonian crows (Corvus moneduloides) are so renowned for their smarts that scientists have been using them as a model species to help puzzle out the evolution of tool use and associated behaviors like planning.

Not only can these clever crows use found objects as tools, they can shape or even build them from multiple parts that are individually useless – something previously only observed before in primates.

In the wild they use these twig tools, carefully held in their beaks, to annoy grubs safely tucked away in tree crevices. The grubs will bite the tool defensively, allowing the birds to withdraw and eat it. But crows have to put down their tools while eating, so they can fall to the ground or even get stolen.

The researchers used 27 wild caught crows for their experimental trials so their results weren't biased by previous training.

Offering the crows a choice between the two tool types, the team confirmed the birds strongly preferred to use hooked stick tools.

Non- (left) and hooked (right) tools and their use. (James St Clair et al, Nat. Ecol. Evol, 2018)

"Hooked tools are not only more costly to obtain, but they are also much more efficient," explained University of St Andrews behavioral ecologist Christian Rutz.

"Depending on the foraging task, crows can extract prey with these tools up to 10 times faster than with bog-standard non-hooked tools."

Seventeen of the birds were then observed during two trials each on separate days. In both, they were presented with logs containing different sized holes baited with meat or spiders. In one treatment they had access to branches appropriate for hooked tool construction and the other with only straight sticks.

"Subjects were significantly more likely to express safekeeping behavior (storing tools underfoot or in holes) when foraging with hooked stick tools they had manufactured… than when foraging with non-hooked stick tools they had sourced from leaf litter," the team wrote in their paper.

This remained true when the hooked tools were supplied by researchers, suggesting the tool itself was the subject of assigned value rather than the time they put into it.

What's more, they used the most secure safekeeping method – storing the tools in holes – far more for hooked tools.

"It was exciting to see that crows are just that bit more careful with tools that are more efficient and more costly to replace," said University of St Andrews ethologist James St Clair.

"This suggests that they have some conception of the relative 'value' of different tool types."

Given corvids, including ravens and New Caledonian crows have also displayed the ability to plan ahead it makes sense they can also assign value to the objects they use to help prioritize them.

The team notes that not all New Caledonian crows make the hooked stick tools, so their findings may only be generalizable across those populations that do. Their sample size was also too low to fully untangle some of the variables, like material choice, they concede.

But at least one other species of crow, the Hawaiian crow (Corvus hawaiiensis) has also demonstrated such safekeeping behavior.

We've long underestimated the abilities of birds given their relatively small brains. But physiological studies have shown the dense packing of their neurons makes up for what they lack in size.

Behavioral studies are continually revealing these modern dinosaurs are capable of behaviors that we once only thought humans were capable of – such as self control – proving, like everything else biological, intelligence is a complicated and messy spectrum that didn't just spontaneously arise with the arrival of our species.

This research was published in eLife.

Scientists Unearth a Ginormous Triassic Sea Monster That Once Roamed The 'Superocean'



(Stephanie Abramowicz/Natural History Museum)

LAURA GEGGEL, LIVE SCIENCE
24 DECEMBER 2021

A sea monster that lived during the early dinosaur age is so unexpectedly colossal, it reveals that its kind grew to gigantic sizes extremely quickly, evolutionarily speaking at least.

The discovery suggests that such ichthyosaurs – a group of fish-shaped marine reptiles that inhabited the dinosaur-era seas – grew to enormous sizes in a span of only 2.5 million years, the new study finds.

To put that in context, it took whales about 90 percent of their 55 million-year history to reach the huge sizes that ichthyosaurs evolved to in the first 1 percent of their 150 million-year history, the researchers said.

"We have discovered that ichthyosaurs evolved gigantism much faster than whales, in a time where the world was recovering from devastating extinction [at the end of the Permian period]," study senior researcher Lars Schmitz, an associate professor of biology at Scripps College in Claremont, California, told Live Science in an email.

"It is a nice glimmer of hope and a sign of the resilience of life – if environmental conditions are right, evolution can happen very fast, and life can bounce back."

(Lars Schmitz)

Above: Ichthyosaurs evolved their large body sizes much quicker than whales. The curves depict the trajectory of the largest body size, expressed in percentage of the largest size ever reached, for ichthyosaurs and whales. The ichthyosaur curve is initially much steeper than the corresponding curve for whales.

Related: Image gallery: Ancient monsters of the sea

Researchers first noticed the ancient ichthyosaur's fossils in 1998, embedded in the rocks of the Augusta Mountains of northwestern Nevada.

"Only a few vertebrae were sticking out of the rock, but it was clear the animal was large," Schmitz said.

But it wasn't until 2015, with the help of a helicopter, that they were able to fully excavate the individual – whose surviving fossils include a skull, shoulder, and flipper-like appendage – and airlift it to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, where it was prepared and analyzed.

The team named the new species Cymbospondylus youngorum, they reported online Thursday (Dec. 23) in the journal Science. This big-jawed marine reptile lived 247 million years ago during the Triassic period. Like other creatures from that time, it was weird.

The new ichthyosaurs skull with a human for scale. (Martin Sander)

"Imagine a sea-dragon-like animal: streamlined body, quite long, with limbs modified to fins, and a long tail," Schmitz said. With a nearly 6.5-foot-long (2 meters) skull, this full-grown C. youngorum would have measured over 55 feet (17 m), or longer than a semitrailer, the researchers found.

When the 45-ton (41 metric tons) C. youngorum was alive, C. youngorum would have lived in the Panthalassic Ocean, a so-called superocean, off the west coast of North America, Schmitz said.

Based on its size and tooth shape, C. youngorum likely ate smaller ichthyosaurs, fish, and possibly squid, he added.

(Georg Oleschinski, courtesy of the University of Bonn)

Above: The Fossil Hill fauna of Nevada not only includes the new giant species but also a number of other ichthyosaurs, such as this small (=30 cm skull length) Phalarodon. This specimen also includes examples of the very abundant ammonite fossils that are associated with the ichthyosaurs.

There are many huge beasts that lived during the dinosaur era, but C. youngorum stands out for several reasons. For instance, C. youngorum lived just 5 million years after "the Great Dying," a mass extinction event that occurred 252 million years ago at the end of the Permian period, which killed about 90 percent of the world's species.

That makes the ichthyosaur's huge size all the more impressive, as it took about 9 million years for life on Earth to recover from that extinction, a 2012 study in the journal Nature Geoscience found.

However, there was a diversification boom of marine mollusks known as ammonoids within 1 million to 3 million years of the mass extinction, the 2012 study found.

It appears that ichthyosaurs' venture into gigantism was, in part, due to chowing down on the early Triassic boom of ammonites, as well as jawless eel-like conodonts that filled the ecological void following the mass extinction, the researchers of the new study said.

In contrast, whales got big by eating highly productive primary producers, such as plankton; but these were absent in dinosaur-age food webs, study co-author Eva Maria Griebeler, an evolutionary ecologist at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz in Germany, said in a statement.

(Stephanie Abramowicz/Natural History Museum)

Above: Direct comparison of two ocean giants from different epochs side by side: The Triassic C. youngorum (the new species described in the paper) versus. today's sperm whale, with a human for scale.

Despite the whales' and ichthyosaurs' different paths and timetables toward achieving gigantism, the groups have a few similarities. For instance, there is a connection between large size and raptorial hunting, just like sperm whales dive to hunt giant squid, as well as a connection between large size and tooth loss, just like the giant filter-feeding whales that are toothless, the researchers said.


"This new fossil impressively documents the fast-track evolution of gigantism in ichthyosaurs," Schmitz said. In contrast, whales "took a different route to gigantism, much more prolonged and not nearly as fast.

"Ichthyosaur history tells us ocean giants are not guaranteed features of marine ecosystems, which is a valuable lesson for all of us in the Anthropocene," paleontologists Lene Delsett and Nicholas Pyenson, who weren't involved with the research wrote in a related Perspective published in the same issue of Science.

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This article was originally published by Live Science. Read the original article here.

Earth's first-known giant was as big as a sperm whale

by Tyler Hayden, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County

The skull of the first giant creature to ever inhabit the Earth, the ichthyosaur 

Cymbospondylus youngorum, currently on display at the Natural History Museum 

of Los Angeles County. Credit: Natalja Kent / Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County

The two-meter skull of a newly discovered species of giant ichthyosaur, the earliest known, is shedding new light on the marine reptiles' rapid growth into behemoths of the Dinosaurian oceans, and helping us better understand the journey of modern cetaceans (whales and dolphins) to becoming the largest animals to ever inhabit the Earth.

While dinosaurs ruled the land, ichthyosaurs and other aquatic reptiles (that were emphatically not dinosaurs) ruled the waves, reaching similarly gargantuan sizes and species diversity. Evolving fins and hydrodynamic body-shapes seen in both fish and whales, ichthyosaurs swam the ancient oceans for nearly the entirety of the Age of Dinosaurs.

"Ichthyosaurs derive from an as yet unknown group of land-living reptiles and were air-breathing themselves," says lead author Dr. Martin Sander, paleontologist at the University of Bonn and Research Associate with the Dinosaur Institute at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHM). "From the first skeleton discoveries in southern England and Germany over 250 years ago, these 'fish-saurians' were among the first large fossil reptiles known to science, long before the dinosaurs, and they have captured the popular imagination ever since."

A life recreation of C. youngorum stalking the Nevadan oceans of the Late Triassic 

246 million years ago. Credit: Stephanie Abramowicz / Natural History Museum of 

Los Angeles County

Excavated from a rock unit called the Fossil Hill Member in the Augusta Mountains of Nevada, the well-preserved skull, along with part of the backbone, shoulder, and forefin, date back to the Middle Triassic (247.2-237 million years ago), representing the earliest case of an ichthyosaur reaching epic proportions. As big as a large sperm whale at more than 17 meters (55.78 feet) long, the newly named Cymbospondylus youngorum is the largest animal yet discovered from that time period, on land or in the sea. In fact, it was the first giant creature to ever inhabit the Earth that we know of.

"The importance of the find was not immediately apparent," notes Dr. Sander, "because only a few vertebrae were exposed on the side of the canyon. However, the anatomy of the vertebrae suggested that the front end of the animal might still be hidden in the rocks. Then, one cold September day in 2011, the crew needed a warm-up and tested this suggestion by excavation, finding the skull, forelimbs, and chest region."

The new name for the species, C. youngorum, honors a happy coincidence, the sponsoring of the fieldwork by Great Basin Brewery of Reno, owned and operated by Tom and Bonda Young, the inventors of the locally famous Icky beer which features an ichthyosaur on its label.

In other mountain ranges of Nevada, paleontologists have been recovering fossils from the Fossil Hill Member's limestone, shale, and siltstone since 1902, opening a window into the Triassic. The mountains connect our present to ancient oceans and have produced many species of ammonites, shelled ancestors of modern cephalopods like cuttlefish and octopuses, as well as marine reptiles. All these animal specimens are collectively known as the Fossil Hill Fauna, representing many of C. youngorum's prey and competitors.

Owing to their remote location, fossils have only recently been discovered in the Augusta

 Mountains. An international team of scientists led by Dr. Sander began collecting on public

 lands there 30 years ago, with fossil finds being accessioned to the Natural History

 Museum of Los Angeles County since 2008. Credit: Lars Schmitz

C. youngorum stalked the oceans some 246 million years ago, or only about three million years after the first ichthyosaurs got their fins wet, an amazingly short time to get this big. The elongated snout and conical teeth suggest that C. youngorum preyed on squid and fish, but its size meant that it could have hunted smaller and juvenile marine reptiles as well.

The giant predator probably had some hefty competition. Through sophisticated computational modeling, the authors examined the likely energy running through the Fossil Hill Fauna's food web, recreating the ancient environment through data, finding that marine food webs were able to support a few more colossal meat-eating ichthyosaurs. Ichthyosaurs of different sizes and survival strategies proliferated, comparable to modern cetaceans'— from relatively small dolphins to massive filter-feeding baleen whales, and giant squid-hunting sperm whales.

Co-author and ecological modeler Dr. Eva Maria Griebeler from the University of Mainz in Germany, notes, "Due to their large size and resulting energy demands, the densities of the largest ichthyosaurs from the Fossil Hill Fauna including C. youngourum must have been substantially lower than suggested by our field census. The ecological functioning of this food web from ecological modeling was very exciting as modern highly productive primary producers were absent in Mesozoic food webs and were an important driver in the size evolution of whales."

Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County Dinosaur Institute volunteer Viji Shook

 lying next to the skull of Cymbospondylus youngorum for scale, during the preparation of

 the specimen. Credit: Martin Sander / Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County

Whales and ichthyosaurs share more than a size range. They have similar body plans, and both initially arose after mass extinctions. These similarities make them scientifically valuable for comparative study. The authors combined computer modeling and traditional paleontology to study how these marine animals reached record-setting sizes independently.

"One rather unique aspect of this project is the integrative nature of our approach. We first had to describe the anatomy of the giant skull in detail and determine how this animal is related to other ichthyosaurs," says senior author Dr. Lars Schmitz, Associate Professor of Biology at Scripps College and Dinosaur Institute Research Associate. "We did not stop there, as we wanted to understand the significance of the new discovery in the context of the large-scale evolutionary pattern of ichthyosaur and whale body sizes, and how the fossil ecosystem of the Fossil Hill Fauna may have functioned. Both the evolutionary and ecological analyses required a substantial amount of computation, ultimately leading to a confluence of modeling with traditional paleontology."

An ichthyosaur fossil surrounded by the shells of ammonites, the food source that possibly 

fueled their growth to huge. Credit: Georg Oleschinski / University of Bonn, Germany.

They found that while both cetaceans and ichthyosaurs evolved very large body sizes, their respective evolutionary trajectories toward gigantism were different. Ichthyosaurs had an initial boom in size, becoming giants early on in their evolutionary history, while whales took much longer to reach the outer limits of huge. They found a connection between large size and raptorial hunting—think of a sperm whale diving down to hunt giant squid—and a connection between large size and a loss of teeth—think of the giant filter-feeding whales that are the largest animals ever to live on Earth.

Ichthyosaurs' initial foray into gigantism was likely thanks to the boom in ammonites and jawless eel-like conodonts filling the ecological void following the end-Permian mass extinction. While their evolutionary routes were different, both whales and ichthyosaurs relied on exploiting niches in the food chain to make it really big.

A figure from the text comparing C. youngorum to a modern sperm whale as well as rates 

of body size evolution over time between ichthyosaurs and cetaceans. The lines trending 

towards the top indicate larger body sizes whereas those towards the bottom are smaller

 sizes. Time is displayed as starting from the point of origin of the group until their extinction 

(for ichthyosaurs) or present (for whales). Credit: Stephanie Abramowicz / Natural History 

Museum of Los Angeles County

"As researchers, we often talk about similarities between ichthyosaurs and cetaceans, but rarely dive into the details. That's one way this study stands out, as it allowed us to explore and gain some additional insight into body size evolution within these groups of marine tetrapods," says NHM's Associate Curator of Mammalogy (Marine Mammals), Dr. Jorge Velez-Juarbe. "Another interesting aspect is that Cymbospondylus youngorum and the rest of the Fossil Hill Fauna are a testament to the resilience of life in the oceans after the worst mass extinction in Earth's history. You can say this is the first big splash for tetrapods in the oceans."

C. youngorum will be permanently housed at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, where it is currently on view.Extinct swordfish-shaped marine reptile discovered

More information: P. Martin Sander et al, Early giant reveals faster evolution of large size in ichthyosaurs than in cetaceans, Science (2021). DOI: 10.1126/science.abf5787

Lene Liebe Delsett et al, Early and fast rise of Mesozoic ocean giants, Science (2021). DOI: 10.1126/science.abm3751 , www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm3751

Journal information: Science 

Provided by Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County 

Meditation may boost activity of genes that regulate immune response
By Alan Mozes, HealthDay News

A blood sample analysis suggested that meditation boosted the activity of hundreds of genes known to be directly involved in regulating immune response. Photo by Pexels/Pixabay

Meditation done at an intense level may bring a significant boost to the inner workings of your immune system.

The finding follows a blood sample analysis that took pre- and post-meditation snapshots of genetic activity among more than 100 men and women.

That analysis suggested that meditation boosted the activity of hundreds of genes known to be directly involved in regulating immune response.

But the researchers stressed that their study involved 10-hour daily marathon meditation sessions conducted for eight straight days in total silence. In the real world, most people would be hard-pressed to replicate those methods.

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Still, the findings "suggest that meditation could have an important role in treating various diseases associated with a weakened immune system," said study author Vijayendran Chandran.

"Yes, this is an intense retreat," acknowledged Chandran, an assistant professor of pediatrics and neuroscience at the University of Florida's College of Medicine. "But remember, it was just eight days. Long-term meditation for [a] short duration each day may also improve the immune system."

He said his team did not test the less-stringent possibility.

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Chandran has, however, walked that walk himself. Prior to launching his study he completed his own 48-day program that entailed roughly 20 minutes a day of at-home meditation.

That experiment left Chandran feeling clearer and more focused. So he decided to take a deeper dive to explore the precise underlying molecular mechanism by which meditation might benefit the body.

The study involved 106 men and women, average age 40. All had enrolled in a meditation retreat conducted at the Isha Institute of Inner Sciences in McMinnville, Tenn.

RELATED Study: Relaxation may prompt genes to lower blood pressure

Multiple blood samples were drawn from all the participants at several times: five to eight weeks prior to the retreat just before the retreat began, and three months after the retreat was completed.

The eight-day retreat provided all participants with vegan cuisine, and all followed a regular schedule. Meditation sessions lasted 10 hours a day and were conducted in silence.

The result: Three months after the retreat's conclusion, Chandran and his colleagues found an uptick in activity involving 220 immune-related genes, including 68 genes engaged in so-called "interferon signaling."

The study authors pointed out that such signaling can be key to mounting an effective defense against various health conditions -- including cancer, multiple sclerosis or even COVID-19 -- given that interferon proteins effectively act as immune system triggers.

Among seriously ill COVID-19 patients in particular, Chandran noted, insufficient interferon activity has been cited as a problem.

He explained that nearly all (97%) of interferon "response genes" were found to be activated following the meditation retreat. But relying on publicly available gene activity data derived from COVID-19 patients, Chandran and his colleagues reported that figure to be 76% among those with mild COVID illness, and just 31% among the most severe cases.

At the same time, the investigators found that while inflammation-signaling gene activity remained stable following in-depth meditation, such signaling shot up among severely ill COVID-19 patients.

The apparent impact on molecular activity seen among retreat participants held up even after accounting for both diet and patterns, the researchers noted, though the findings do not definitively prove that meditation actually caused gene changes to occur.

Even so, Chandran said the findings suggest meditation could someday be folded into newly developed "behavioral therapies [designed] to maintain brain health and modify currently irreversible neurological diseases."

The results were published Dec. 21 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

One expert not involved with the study said the findings -- while unsurprising -- are encouraging.

"Many previous studies have discussed the positive associations of meditative practices on psychological and physical health," said Alex Presciutti, a clinical psychology Ph.D. candidate at the University of Colorado Denver.

"This study greatly contributes to this literature by identifying potential mechanisms driving the protective role of meditative practices on psychological and physical well-being," he added.

"Based on this study, we cannot claim that the average person meditating at home would experience the same 'immune boost' seen in this study," Presciutti cautioned. "However, given the abundance of literature of the benefits of meditative practice on well-being, it is likely that the 'average person meditating at home' experiences some degree of benefit."

More information

There's more on the potential medical benefits of meditation at the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. SOURCES: Vijayendran Chandran, PhD, assistant professor, pediatrics and neuroscience, Department of Pediatrics, University of Florida, Gainesville Alex Presciutti, MA, clinical psychology PhD candidate, University of Colorado Denver Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Dec. 21, 2021

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