XAG Unveils an Upgraded Version of Its R150 Autonomous Agricultural Robot

28 Dec 2021, 

by Cristina Mircea 

While China-based manufacturer XAG is primarily renowned for its agricultural drones, the company is also good at making unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), and its R150 stands as proof. The vehicle is described as the first mass-produced agricultural robotic platform of its kind and the recently announced 2022 version of the vehicle brings some upgrades to the table.

 7 photos

The XAG R150 is a versatile autonomous solution that has a variety of applications. It comes with a modular, extensible design that allows users to switch between different wheelsets, depending on the terrain they plan to use it on. Thanks to the adjustable ground clearance of its chassis, the R150 can even find its way through dense orchards.

XAG’s 2022 version of the UGV comes as a scalable open payload platform, with the robot being suitable for a variety of tasks, from high-precision crop spraying, fertilization, to mowing, and on-farm transportation. The vehicle has a 150-kg (330-lb) load capacity.

A 15-minute charge of its dual batteries gives you four hours of endurance.

For the new R150, XAG also added a HydraulicSpray system that lets users quickly install a group of liquid pumps and pressure spray nozzles for crop protection, in various landscapes, as explained by the manufacturer. XAG claims the UGV can spray up to 5 hectares (12 acres) per hour, with a maximum spray width of 12 meters (almost 40 ft).

The R150 is equipped with a SuperX 4 Pro control system, featuring auto-location, visual tracking, and automatic obstacle detection. It comes with high-speed 4G and wireless capabilities, offering real-time transmission. A handheld control stick allows you to remotely control the robot and a mobile app allows you to pre-program routes.

XAG equipped the unmanned ground vehicle with a high-performance brushless motor with a maximum torque of 1,000 Nm. The robot has a standard operating speed of 2.6 mph (4.3 kph).

Right now, XAG doesn’t offer any information on the availability of the R150 other than it’s “coming soon” nor does it tell us how much it will cost. You can fill in a form on the company's website if you want to find out more about the UGV. 

Maine farmers concerned about solar developers using up 'prime' farming land

 Dec 27, 2021
Talia Clarke
Reporter

NEW GLOUCESTER, Maine —

There are growing concerns in Maine's farming community about the increased use of farmlands for large-scale solar development.

Carl Wilcox, who owns Intervale Farm in New Gloucester, says he has received more than a dozen offers from solar developers to build on his property but has declined them all. Wilcox isn't against solar power — he has solar panels on his barn — but says his land is more valuable without solar panels on it should he ever sell it.

Wilcox says he has a friend nearby who farms and leases land to grow corn but recently sold his prime land to a solar developer.

"Whatever land he was growing corn on... we'll apparently it's not as good as that land that's now under solar panels," Wilcox said.

Farmland only makes up 6% of the state of Maine, and 14% of that is classified as prime farmland, which means the soil is ideal for growing crops.

Ellen Griswold of Maine Farmland Trust says a 25-year contract for a solar farm on prime soil can significantly impact Maine agriculture and, in turn, the state's local food source. Griswold says developers should look to build on degraded land instead.

"We may find that there is land now that just can't be remediated because of the extent of the PFAS contamination. Maybe that is an area where we should be thinking about renewable energy development," Griswold said.

Maine Sen. Ned Claxton, a Democrat from Androscoggin County, agrees that solar developers should avoid looking to prime farmland. But he also notes that solar investment is a key part of Maine becoming independent of fossil fuels.

"Pictures of deer grazing underneath solar panels works for me," Claxton said. "If we're going to get away from fossil fuels we have to be doing this."

Griswold says renewable energy does have a positive impact on Maine farmers because it can reduce energy costs and provide a steady income to farmers when a developer pays for that land.

Toronto health-care worker denied residency, could be deported because she had a baby

By Brian Hill Global News

December 28, 2021 


Idayat Saka did exactly what her doctor told her to do to protect herself and her baby.

The 33-year-old mother of four who lives in Toronto stopped working at the beginning of her third trimester of pregnancy due to “high-risk” complications from prior cesarean births.

What Saka couldn’t have known at the time was that her decision to stop working when she did – on March 18, 2020 – would later be used by an immigration officer to deny her permanent residency in Canada.

This rejection means Saka, her husband and two of their children could soon be deported to Nigeria. Her youngest sons, ages three and one, can’t be deported because they’re Canadian.

“I was crying. I was done,” Saka said, explaining the heartbreak she felt when her application to remain in Canada was rejected.

READ MORE: Toronto senior being deported after more than 20 years in Canada — ‘I belong here’

Saka and her husband are failed asylum seekers. They came to Canada in October 2017 after they say their lives were threatened by gunmen in Nigeria. These claims were later dismissed.

After they arrived in Canada, Saka went back to school to become a personal support worker and has spent more than 2,000 hours caring for sick and elderly patients in Ontario since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of this work occurred during the deadly third and fourth waves of the virus.

She applied for permanent residency in Canada through a special program set up by former Liberal immigration minister Marco Mendicino. The program recognizes the “exceptional service” of failed and pending asylum seekers who’ve worked on the front lines of the pandemic by offering them an alternative pathway to residency.

Toronto health care worker Idayat Saka, who cared for sick and elderly patients during the COVID-19 pandemic, could be deported after her application to remain in Canada permanently was rejected by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). Idayat Saka

When the program was announced, Mendocino said these workers were heroes who displayed the uniquely Canadian quality of looking out for people in need. He also said they put themselves at risk to take care of their communities.

But Saka’s application was rejected by an officer at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada because she didn’t meet one of the program’s basic requirements: having worked at least 120 hours between March 13, 2020 (the day pandemic travel restrictions were first introduced in Canada) and Aug. 14, 2020 (the day Mendicino announced the program).

Because the program was announced months after Saka went on leave, there was no way for her to know this decision would later be used to deny her residency.

“Whenever I think about it I’m so depressed,” she said.

Saka is appealing the decision to the Federal Court.

Her lawyer, Kes Posgate, said the decision is unreasonable because it doesn’t recognize the unique circumstances she experienced while pregnant, nor does it recognize her contributions to the struggle against COVID-19.

Posgate also said the policy violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms because it discriminates against pregnant people by not offering them an accommodation to the 120-hour work requirement.

“This speaks to the spirit of the policy,” Posgate said. “How do you technically account for who is and who isn’t a hero?”

An ‘unintelligible’ decision

One of the most basic principles of Canadian law is that administrative decisions, including those made by immigration officers, must be “justified, intelligible and transparent.” This was confirmed by the Supreme Court in a 2019 landmark decision.

Failing to adhere to this principle can, and often does, result in decisions being overturned by the courts.

In Saka’s case, the immigration officer was asked to consider both the “humanitarian and compassionate” circumstances that meant she didn’t meet the 120-hour work requirement, plus the “best interest” of her children.

Saka openly acknowledged that she didn’t work the number of hours needed during the specified time period, but said she would have if her doctor hadn’t told her to stop working due to her high-risk pregnancy.

She also said her work history, before and after she went on leave, shows she is committed to working full-time as a health-care professional in Ontario. This is further demonstrated by the fact that she went back to work less than three months after giving birth in June 2020 by cesarean section and has been working full-time ever since.

But the immigration officer who rejected her application didn’t mention any of these factors in their written decision.

The only explanation the officer provided for rejecting her case was that Saka didn’t meet the 120-hour work requirement and that they didn’t believe it wasn’t an oversight that an exemption for maternity leave wasn’t built into the policy.

Posgate said this decision is no good because immigration officers are required by law to assess humanitarian circumstances whenever a foreign national who lives in Canada requests an exemption from “any applicable criteria or obligation” of the country’s immigration act.

He said the decision also fails to meet minimum standards of transparency because it offers almost no insight into the immigration officer’s rationale for why a humanitarian exemption wasn’t granted.

“If this decision stood, I think it would be unjust,” Posgate said.

Other exemptions offered

The program announced by Mendocino isn’t so stringent that no exemptions are offered.

Applicants must also show that they worked the equivalent of at least six months full-time as a health-care worker before Aug. 31, 2021 in order to qualify. But unlike the less onerous 120-hour requirement that must have been completed during the first five months of the pandemic, this requirement is eligible for exemptions due to maternity leave, disability or illness.

This means Saka – who worked 42.5 hours of the 120-hour requirement – is automatically rejected, even though she’s worked thousands of hours caring for people during the pandemic.

Meanwhile, a person who meets the 120-hour requirement, but who doesn’t meet the six-month requirement because they went on maternity leave, would still be eligible for the program even if they didn’t work a minute more than 120 hours.

Posgate said this is arbitrary and illogical. If exemptions for maternity leave are made for the more onerous requirement, exemptions should also be made for the less onerous one.

Global News asked the office of Immigration Minister Sean Fraser if he believes the policy announced by Mendicino discriminates against pregnant persons and why there isn’t an exemption to the 120-hour work requirement for maternity leave. Fraser’s office did not answer these questions. Instead, he referred the request to department officials.

“This temporary public policy was put in place (with) specific criteria recognizing the service of those who were actively working in the health-care sector, where there was an urgent need for help, and putting their own lives at risk to care for others during this very challenging time,” said Immigration Canada spokesperson Sonia Lesage.

“While applicants cannot request an exemption from individual criteria in a public policy, requests to be granted permanent residence on humanitarian and compassionate grounds may be considered outside the context of the public policy.”

If Saka wins her case at the Federal Court, her application will be sent back to another immigration officer for reconsideration. Fraser could also intervene and allow her and her family to stay.

Whatever the outcome, Saka feels like she’s earned the right to remain in Canada.

“I’ve worked for it and I’m still working,” she said.

Opinion: Bill 21 failed Fatemeh Anvari. But it also fails her students like my son, and Quebec secularists like me


DECEMBER 28, 2021

Aidan Seaton’s two children attend Chelsea Elementary School in Quebec. she works at The Low Down to Hull and Back News, Local newspaper serving Gatineau Hills.

My son was begging me to come to his Class 3 class, and so, thanks to his teacher’s enthusiastic arrangement of logistics, I came on December 3rd to give a brief presentation about Hanukkah. This is something that Chelsea Elementary School welcomes every year during the festival of lights. I was dismayed when, the day before, his teacher sent me an email asking him to miss our time together—but still, the next day, my son and I told our classmates the Hanukkah story.

According to legend, in the 2nd century BC, Jewish practices were forbidden in Jerusalem by Antiochus IV Epiphanes, king of the Seleucid Empire. Most of the people obeyed, hiding their religious activities out of fear. But a small group called the Maccabees resisted their oppressors and refused to renounce their religion. In 168 BC, the king’s army descended, massacred thousands of Jews, destroyed the temple, and defiled it by sacrificing pigs and building an altar to the Greek god Zeus. But the Maccabees stood for two years and pushed back Antiochus’ troops, gaining access to the temple and rekindling the menorah’s eternal flame with a day’s worth of oil, which instead miraculously burned for eight days. And so, voila: to this day, we celebrate those eight days of Hanukkah.
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When I shared that ancient story, I didn’t know that on the same day, my son’s teacher, Fatemeh Anwari, She is sent on duty outside the classroom because she wears a hijab. According to the Quebec government, that religious symbol made her ineligible for the teaching role she was already holding, even though Ms. Anvari They say That she sees the hijab more as a part of her identity and how she chooses to represent herself. As a result, a clever, kind, trained teacher was barred from doing his job because of his symbolic clothing. And now, Ms. Anvari has been reassigned to work on a literacy project focused on diversity in the school – a bitter irony.

I was born in Quebec and have lived happily in this province for most of my life. I myself am committed to secularism, which is known in this province secularism, And I think it has a lot to offer. I remember as a Jewish kid living in rural Ontario in the 1980s, religion was a regular part of life in public schools. In Class 5, I was given a Gideon Bible during class time—part of Gideon’s regular visit for all students at the time—and each morning in class, I recited the Lord’s Prayer. While I still appreciate the beauty of those words today, prayer should never have been part of my school’s early practice, a debate that was widespread across much of Canada after the Ontario Court of Appeals ruled in 1988 That the school’s prayer had violated Canadians. Charter.
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But there is a difference between forcing a child to read or sit through religious devotional prayer during class and giving individuals the freedom to dress according to their wishes and beliefs. Ms. Anwari taught my son the art of the English language, not Islamic doctrine; Her hijab never interfered with the education she taught, and it had no effect on the curriculum she was teaching the children in her class. In short, he teaching was secular, as a public school should be. The problem, the provincial government would assure us, was that She was insufficiently secular, at least in her appearance.

Some proponents of Bill 21 claim that allowing the presence of any religious symbol amounts to conversion. This caricature portrays religious people incredibly willing to participate in public life. It is precisely this intolerance that has led many to doubt John F. Kennedy’s ability to serve as the first Catholic President of the United States in the 1960s – concerns that are unimaginable today.

And as many have pointed out, there are crosses on many public buildings throughout the province. Personally, I do not want them to be removed: they are part of the development of Quebec, and are relics of a bygone era that remind us of the significant cultural change that this province has undergone. These symbols may still resonate with some people, but they no longer hold their former power.

Maybe we could all benefit from having a little more let it go On issues of personal expression, even if there is a hint of religion. What are the disadvantages of wearing a hijab in the open? In this case the children certainly did no harm – that is, until they lost their teacher. On the other hand, there have been huge losses to individuals who lose the opportunity to be hired, individuals who find themselves suddenly unfit for advancement, and entire groups of people who are explicitly told that they are not eligible for certain jobs. There is no need to apply when they are fully capable of performing those roles. How does excluding people who wish to participate and contribute to their communities serve the interests of Quebec society?

Part of the beauty and freedom of secularism is the belief that we can follow a religion – or not – without punishment. But I can see how this noble idea can be distorted. After all, coercion doesn’t promote anything positive, let alone a subtle concept like secularism. Bill 21 has eroded open old conflicts, created new conflicts, and led to layers of polarization within Quebec and across the rest of the country. Its interpretation of secularist principles will lead us to no good place.

Chelsea’s current situation has put many in unstable moral positions, caught between fulfilling their official duties and their sense of justice. My children’s school and school board are officially against Bill 21, yet they must abide by it. Could this be a moment of conscientious denial? Doing so would not simply follow a moral sense: it would be based on the Canadian Constitution, Quebec’s own charter, as well as the simple human understanding that all people should be free to practice their religion.

Secularism is the foundation for Quebec society, and a liberal reading of Bill 21 may claim that the law is trying to promote neutrality. And it has been disappointing to see that Quebecers who support Bill 21 are all dismissed as bigotry, when the complex reality is that Quebecers have many reasons to support this law. But with the enactment of the bill, we have seen how quickly any laudable goal is broken.

The Maccabees conquered their oppression and, as Dreidel of the Jewish diaspora reminds us, a great miracle happened there. But I don’t think that’s necessarily what we need here in Quebec. We just need to take a deep breath and decide to be together instead of apart.

2 injured workers file $10 million lawsuit against ExxonMobil after Baytown refinery explosion

Both men suffered head injuries, major orthopedic injury to their spines, and were burned all over their bodies, according to the lawsuit.

LUCIO VASQUEZ | POSTED ON DECEMBER 27, 2021

Dave Fehling / Houston Public Media  ExxonMobil's Baytown refinery.

Two contract workers who were severely injured in an explosion at ExxonMobil’s Baytown refinery last week have filed a $10 million lawsuit against the oil and gas company.

According to the lawsuit, plaintiffs Dylan Purcell and Nicholas Moore were tasked with sealing a leaking pipe that contained Naphthalene, a flammable gas, with two other individuals who worked for Team Industrial Services.

As the four contactors worked, a metal piece became stuck on a bolt, prompting one of the Team Industrial workers to using their wrench “as a hammer” to loosen the piece, the lawsuit read.

The other Team Industrial worker, who was tasked with ensuring that steam was sprayed on the area to prevent sparks, failed to do so, according to the lawsuit. The wrench created a spark, causing the flammable gas to ignite, which knocked all four workers down, and engulfed them in flames, according to court documents.

The lawsuit says Purcell and Moore were forced to jump down more than 20 feet to avoid further injury. Both men suffered head injuries, major orthopedic injury to their spines, and were burned all over their bodies, according to the lawsuit. Additionally, Moore suffered a broken leg due to the fall.

All four men were transported to the Texas Medical Center after the explosion. The resulting fire took emergency crews several hours to extinguish.

The Harris County Fire Marshall's office is currently investigating the incident.

The lawsuit names Team Industrial Services and Exxon Mobil as defendants, and alleges negligence and gross negligence. According to the lawsuit, the permit for the work had been issued by ExxonMobil without taking appropriate precautions while also failing to provide proper safety equipment.

Purcell and Moore are now being represented by Houston attorney Tony Buzbee, and are seeking $10 million in damages.

“Workers in this country are routinely exposed to extreme danger while management and shareholders reap the profits,” Buzbee said in an email. “Profits over the safety of the workers is a short-term strategy that ultimately costs companies like Exxon Mobil much more in the long run.”

Read the full lawsuit below:
View Fullscreen




Lucio Vasquez
DIGITAL REPORTER
Lucio Vasquez is a digital reporter at Houston Public Media, writing and editing stories for HoustonPublicMedia.org.

Current coal phaseout pledges ‘absolutely not enough’, warn experts


New figures show slow coal phaseout progress to date, with pledges not enough to limit warming to 1.5C

Niels de Hoog and Ashley Kirk
Thu 23 Dec 2021 07.00 GMT

The majority of coal-fired power is not being phased out quickly enough to meet climate goals and avoid catastrophic global heating, despite new pledges made at Cop26.

While coal is on its way out, some of the largest coal-dependent economies might be delaying for too long, according to a new report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

“Current pledges and targets absolutely are not enough to ensure that coal power is phased out fast enough to avoid the worst of global warming,” said lead author of the report, Lauri Myllyvirta.

Coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel and the International Energy Agency has made clear that if it is not rapidly retired the world has no hope of staying within 1.5C of global heating.

While major coal-dependent nations pledged for the first time at the UN climate summit in Glasgow to phase down coal-fired power generation, there is still a long way to go, says Flora Champenois, a research analyst at Global Energy Monitor.

“The price of renewables has dropped dramatically in the last decade, so the case is now clearer than ever that uneconomical, dirty energy needs to go. At the same time, we’ve seen that it’s slow and difficult to change the status quo, no matter how compelling the economics of coal power are.”


Global coal-fired power capacity

Currently, the world’s total capacity for coal-based power is 2,068 gigawatts (GW).

(Each represents 10 GW.)


After pledges made in the run-up to and at the Glasgow summit, 351 GW of capacity is expected to be retired in line with Paris agreement goals.


A further 1,628 GW, some 79% of total capacity, is expected to be retired, but not quickly enough to be consistent with a 1.5C pathway.

The coal giants

China, India and the US together account for the vast majority of coal-based power currently in operation — about 75% of global capacity.


Only a small proportion of their coal power fleet — about 6% — is expected to be retired in line with Paris goals.

In the rest of the world, 28 countries are set to retire their entire coal fleet in accordance with Paris goals, including Russia, Ukraine and Vietnam.


The other 94% will not be retired fast enough under current plans, despite being covered by phase-out pledges or net-zero commitments.

On top of this, experts are concerned about new coal capacity that’s set to come down the pipeline in the coming years.

No new coal?

While the world's appetite for coal has significantly decreased since the Paris agreement was adopted in 2015, there are still new coal-fired power plants being built.

About 185 GW of capacity is currently under construction.


There’s also another 309 GW in various of the planning stages.


About 88 GW of this planned capacity will likely not be realised thanks to recent ‘no new coal’ and ‘no new coal financing’ pledges.

Major public financiers like China, Japan, South Korea, and the G20 and OECD nations have all pledged to end overseas coal financing.


A further 165 GW is not directly affected by those pledges, but is called into question by carbon targets.

To meet their own emissions goals, governments would likely need to cancel these projects.


Under current commitments, that still leaves at least 241GW of new capacity to be added.


This leaves the world in a situation where, despite positive noises about the transition away from coal, the vast majority of coal power is yet to be assigned a firm phase-out date.

Most of this untouched coal is in upper-middle and high-income countries. The International Energy Agency has said that in high-income countries, coal needs to be phased out by 2030, with no new coal-fired power stations built from now on.

No planned phase-out

Phase-out not in line with Paris agreement goals

Phase-out in line with Paris agreement goals


Called into question by carbon targets

Likely not realised due to pledges


The data reveals how much responsibility higher income countries have when it comes to phasing out coal across the world.

Leo Roberts, research manager at E3G, said that in addition to shutting down their own coal fleets: “Rich countries need to make the finance available to support the transition away from coal in the global south.

He added that investors and taxpayers should be concerned about the profitability of new coal plants. If those projects went ahead, they could lose $150bn (£113bn) on stranded assets, according to a report by Carbon Tracker.

Despite falling behind on the schedule set out by the International Energy Agency, there are signs that key players are making headway in the transition. In India, “clean energy targets announced by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, mean that coal-fired power generation could peak well before 2030”, said Myllyvirta.

And while the United States is not on track for a 2030 phase out, according to Global Energy Monitor, a shifting tide of economic factors and political will might bring the country in line. Roberts pointed to how the increasing uncompetitiveness of coal is already driving coal power plants retirements nationwide.

Out of the three biggest coal-dependent economies, China’s status is surrounded by the most uncertainties. Though the country has pledged to stop building new coal plants abroad, it is still planning to increase domestic capacity. “Before China, with by far the world’s largest fleet of coal power plants, announces firm phase-out plans, we won’t be on track,” said Myllyvirta.

But despite uncertainty over China, experts say there is reason for optimism. The pace at which countries are abandoning coal has accelerated in recent years, and many new projects have already been cancelled.

“The pace at which the [global] outlook has changed”, according to Myllyvirta, “from only a handful of small countries having a phase-out commitment as recently as 2015, to having a quarter of the world’s coal fleet assigned a firm phase-out date. It’s extremely encouraging and shows this can be done.”

Methodology

Based on analysis of the impact of climate pledges published by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air on 12 November. The analysis includes data from the Global Coal Plant Tracker (GCPT) by Global Energy Monitor, which provides information on coal-fired power units generating 30 megawatts and above.

Operating capacity is used as an indicator for how the world is doing on phasing out coal. Utilisation rates play a role in realised emissions, but experts say that capacity needs to be reduced to meet climate goals.

Country income classification is based on data from the World Bank. Guadeloupe was not included in the World Bank dataset and therefore excluded from this part of the analysis.

New developments since the report was published are not reflected in this article. For example, Germany has since committed to phasing out by 2030 in a coalition deal.

FOR CHARTS AND GRAPHS SEE

 Current coal phaseout pledges ‘absolutely not enough’, warn experts | Coal | The Guardian

Bacteria may have played big role in the formation of massive silver, gold deposits
Valentina Ruiz Leotaud | December 27, 2021 

Silver in agate. (Reference image by James St. John, Flickr).

Bacteria may have played a major role in the formation of some of the world’s largest silver or gold deposits, according to new research.


The inference was drawn by scientists at Penn State University and the University of Saskatchewan after they found silver in coprolites, or fossilized feces, collected from the Ravens Throat River Lagerstätte in the Mackenzie Mountains located in Canada’s Northwest Territories.

In a paper published in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, the team explained that a lagerstätte is a deposit of exceptionally preserved fossils that sometimes includes fossilized soft tissues, or in this case fossilized worm dung.

The fossils that they found date back to the Cambrian geologic period, more than 500 million years ago. Today the site sits in a cold, mountainous area, but in the Cambrian period, it was located near the equator and submerged under the ocean.

The worm feces found there remained almost intact because they had been preserved in burrows the creatures dug up deep under the ocean.

After analyzing the coprolites under a scanning electron microscope the researchers found carbon, pyrite and aluminum silicates, which are commonly deposited in the type of rocks they were looking at. However, they were surprised when they also noticed the presence of elemental silver.

After the discovery, they examined the surrounding rock for elevated amounts of silver and found some, but not enough to account for the silver found in the coprolites.

“If you look at silver deposits, usually you find other elements associated with silver, like lead and zinc,” Julien Kimmig, lead author of the study, said in a media statement. “We didn’t see elevated amounts of these elements at our site, so there were different mechanisms at work behind the creation of this deposit compared to ore deposits.

The Mackenzie Mountains have some rich ore deposits, and there are several mines in the region, but none has a composition of elevated silver without elevated levels of another metallic element.”

The role of bacteria

To make sense of their findings, Kimmig and co-author Brian Pratt began looking at studies of how bacteria can extract gold and silver from mine drainage as well as from natural habitats. They found that silver formation has also been linked to bacteria, fungi and algae. Thus, the researchers soon realized that microbial activity likely played a large part in the accumulation of silver in the coprolites.

“We likely had the poop first, then we had some bacteria or algae growing on the poop, and some of those were likely leaching silver out of the water column,” Kimmig said. “To form the biggest piece of silver we found, which measures 300 micrometres, the microbial colony must have been a relatively decent size.”

For comparison, the width of a human hair is roughly 17 to 180 micrometres. This means that 300 micrometres of silver seen under a microscope stands out, especially given the low amounts of silver in the surrounding rock.

The researchers think the silver either came from the water column or, more likely, brine from the bottom of the ocean.

According to Kimmig, some modern organisms — like certain bacteria, fish and oysters — can live with a degree of elevated silver levels in the environment, but it’s still extremely toxic, and the metabolic systems dealing with this are poorly understood.

Some modern microorganisms are useful in extracting noble elements like silver and gold, and scientists have observed similar behaviour in the geologic past with bacteria and iron deposits, but they had yet to observe these processes through the geologic past in relation to silver.

“Seeing in the Cambrian period that microorganisms were somehow able to accumulate silver suggests that it’s a much older trait than what we might have thought beforehand when we just looked at modern microorganisms that do it,” the paleontologist said.

“It might also indicate that while fluid flow plays a big role in the formation of ore deposits, some ore deposits might have had bacterial help, and these microorganisms could have played a major part in creating some of our bigger silver or gold deposits in the geologic past.”

Alberta Opposition wants answers on how UCP government handled pandemic

Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley announces proposed new legislation to protect Alberta's mountains and watershed from coal mining at a news conference in Calgary, Alta., Monday, March 15, 2021.

 THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

Dean Bennett
The Canadian Press
Published Dec. 28, 2021

The Opposition in Alberta hopes to build on a buoyant 2021 during which the New Democrats outpaced Premier Jason Kenney's United Conservatives in popularity polls and fundraising.

NDP Leader Rachel Notley says the goal for 2022 is to provide ideas on how to build the economy while continuing to demand answers, data and accountability from the government on how it handled the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The hole Jason Kenney has dug is deep and we need to get out of it,” Notley said in a year-end interview with The Canadian Press.

“We need to get our province moving forward on economic diversification, energy transformation, ensuring we're keeping our young people here (and) restoring our post-secondary institutions.”

Notley's NDP spent much of 2021 demanding information and answers from Kenney's government about its delayed response to COVID-19's fourth wave that pushed ICU capacity and health care to the breaking point in September.

Kenney had removed all but a handful of health restrictions as of July 1, announced the pandemic was over and said no contingency plan was needed in case the Delta variant took hold.

“The single biggest mistake and the breach of trust and betrayal of Albertans happened behind closed doors and Albertans didn't even see it happen,” said Notley. She noted that case numbers were rising at an alarming rate in August while both Kenney and then-health minister Tyler Shandro were on vacation. They said they were in touch with staff daily.

“They did not act to make any kind of serious efforts to protect Albertans from the fourth wave until the middle of September, long after they should have,” said Notley. “In so doing, they brought about the worst fourth wave in the country ... damage to our health-care system as well as ... losses to Alberta families that were entirely preventable.

“It was a profound failure.”

The NDP was among critics who led and rode waves of outrage that prompted Kenney's government to reverse course on multiple files: coal mining on the eastern slopes of the Rockies, a proposed Grades K-6 education curriculum, and planned wage cuts for nurses.

Notley said the goal is to have all her party's candidates for the 2023 election in place by next fall as well as contingencies in case Kenney calls one earlier. The interest is encouraging, she said.

“It's fair to say that we will end up with more contested nominations in this election than probably the last 20 years combined - and not just contested between two people, but three and four people.”

Early in 2022, Ariana Mancini will carry the NDP standard in the Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche byelection. Kenney must call it by mid-February to replace former UCP legislature member Laila Goodridge, who successfully ran for the Conservatives in September's federal vote.

Brian Jean, who lost to Kenney for the UCP leadership, won the party's nomination on a promise to push Kenney out as party leader. Jean says the premier's top-down leadership and failure on key files have left the party ripe for a return to an NDP government.

Kenney had promised to sign Jean's nomination papers if he won the nomination, and Jean is stumping the province encouraging others to help him dump Kenney.

Notley said Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche is a microcosm of Alberta politics: the NDP focused on helping the constituency; the UCP focused on internal gamesmanship.


“The UCP is chronically drawn to their own internal drama. They are an organization that was built for politics, not for governance, and as a result they're failing at leading the province.”

Notley, who was premier from 2015 until 2019, aims to be ready if she returns to the premier's chair. The party has begun consultations and offered proposals on building the economy through diversification and job growth. There are already policy positions on hydrogen and geothermal development, infrastructure and high-tech.

Political scientist Duane Bratt said the NDP doesn't need to change its game plan. He said Notley's strength is positioning former cabinet ministers as effective critics and letting them share the spotlight while scoring hits on government climbdowns and controversies.

“One of the things that is quite striking is Notley is not the only spokesperson of this party. Their bench strength is stronger now than when they were in government,” said Bratt with Mount Royal University in Calgary.

“They (just) need to stay out of the way and look like a credible government in waiting.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 28, 2021.

Canada tops two million COVID-19 cases; concerns raised about lack of Alberta data over holidays

'It's a sad state of affairs when we have to get COVID data from the black market'


Michael Rodriguez
Publishing date:Dec 27, 2021 •

The drive-thru COVID testing clinic at the Richmond Road Diagnostic and Treatment Centre in Calgary was busy on Monday, Dec. 20, 2021.

 PHOTO BY DARREN MAKOWICHUK/POSTMEDIA

Canada has officially logged more than two million reported cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic as health-care workers brace for a possible post-holiday spike driven by the fast-spreading Omicron variant.

The government of Canada’s health website says the total case count was 2,000,976 as of Boxing Day. The website wasn’t updated over the holiday period.

As high as the official figures are, health-care analysts have said the real number of infections is likely far higher. Several provinces have asked people to get tested only if they have symptoms as hospitals and centres have reached their testing limits. Alberta has suggested most people should be using rapid antigen tests instead of booking an appointment for a PCR test to conserve supply for high-risk individuals.

While Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba each reported thousands of new cases on Monday, Alberta hasn’t released COVID-19 data since Dec. 23, which has some doctors and politicians crying foul.

“There are rumours floating of more than 6,000 COVID cases over the past four days,” Alberta Opposition Leader Rachel Notley tweeted on Monday.

“We need to know that these figures are right and then we need a plan to get through this. Time for real leadership today. We can’t afford to wait any longer.”

The talk is stemming from a Twitter account called BedHuntersAB , which has posted case numbers via data it received from what it only refers to as a “verified source” every day since Dec. 23. The account has reported 6,718 cases of the virus over the four days. On Monday, it stated 324 people are hospitalized with the virus, of whom 54 are in ICU.

“It’s a sad state of affairs when we have to get COVID data from the black market,” tweeted emergency physician Dr. Chuck Wurster on Sunday.

“It’s even worse that these figures are certainly a huge underestimation of actual cases, as our government has told Albertans to use unobtainable rapid tests instead of PCR swabs.”

Some are saying that those “whisper numbers” will likely be in line with the official ones set to be revealed on Tuesday by Alberta’s chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw.

“I trust the numbers that they’re getting,” said Calgary-based emergency physician Dr. Joe Vipond.

“Reality-wise, if you have symptoms of COVID, you probably have COVID now.”

Vipond said the numbers are a mixed bag. He said it’s good news that hospitalizations and ICU patients aren’t going up, but the case counts are “a disaster.”

The latest available official data from the province, released Dec. 23, showed 8,359 active cases of COVID-19 in Alberta. Of those, 318 were hospitalized, 64 of whom were in intensive care. Of almost 12,000 tests completed on Dec. 22, 1,625 were positive, for a positivity rate of 13.6 per cent.

The uptick in cases noted across the country has renewed concern over beleaguered health-care systems’ ability to handle an influx of sick patients.

Linda Silas, head of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions, said the “big bump” is usually seen two weeks after exposure to the virus, and expressed worries that holiday gatherings could lead to hospitals becoming overwhelmed with new cases.

“We are all bracing for that with fear, and with our fingers and toes crossed,” she said in an interview Monday.

Two live updates from Alberta health and government officials are scheduled for this week, on Tuesday and Thursday, but new case data won’t be posted online until Dec. 29. Regular reporting will resume on Jan. 4.

— With files from The Canadian Press

There's no place for a Palestinian consulate in Jerusalem, Bennett says

"Jerusalem is the capital of one state, the State of Israel – period," the prime minister stressed.

By TOVAH LAZAROFF
Published: DECEMBER 28, 2021

A man places a Palestinian flag on a fence surrounding the U.S. consulate during a rally in support of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' bid for statehood recognition in the United Nations, in Arab East Jerusalem September 21, 2011

(photo credit: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun)

Israel is opposed to the re-opening of the United States' consulate for Palestinians in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett told the Knesset on Monday night.

"The government under my leadership has repeatedly clarified its position that there is no place for a Palestinian consulate in Jerusalem," Bennett said.

"Jerusalem is the capital of one state, the State of Israel – period," he emphasized.

At issue is a Biden administration promise that it would reopen America's former Jerusalem Consulate-General that had serviced the Palestinian Authority and was considered to be a de-facto embassy for the Palestinians

.

PRIME MINISTER Naftali Bennett holds a press conference about the Omicron variant last week in Jerusalem. (credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)

Former US President Donald Trump closed the consulate in 2019. Close to a year into his presidency, however, President Joe Biden has yet to make good on the reopening pledge, which would require Israel's consent.

Israel has opposed the move, which it believes gives the PA a foothold in Jerusalem and authenticates its claim that east Jerusalem is the future capital of a Palestinian state.

On Monday, MK Nir Barkat, Jerusalem's previous mayor, issued a scathing speech against Bennett in the Knesset on the issue of a Palestinian consulate in the capital.

"I want to announce here, from the Knesset podium, that Jerusalem is still in danger," Barkat said.

He charged that Israel, under Bennett's leadership, had promised the Biden administration it could re-open the US Consulate-General in Jerusalem, but then reneged on that pledge.

"In a recent conversation with a number of Congressional members, I was explicitly told that Tom Nides, the incoming ambassador of the United States, had told them, and I quote: Israel gave its consent to the opening of the Palestinian consulate, and then retracted it," Barkat said.

Israel asked the Biden administration to wait to re-open the consulate until after the budget was approved in November so as not to destabilize the government, Barkat said.

On that basis the Biden administration publicly announced, including in the media, that it would open the consulate, he said, adding that it "instructed Ambassador Nides to prepare for it" and that funding for it was included in a congressional budget.

Barkat then claimed that he personally worked with Congress and non-governmental groups to thwart the opening of the Consulate-General.

There were "36 senators who submitted a bill" against it and 200 congressional members who sent a special letter to Biden to ask that he shelve plans for the consulate, the former mayor said.

"How did you dare to make the Americans think they could divide Jerusalem?" he challenged Bennett, charging that it was a mistake that created "a serious diplomatic crisis with the US."

Now that the Biden administration believes the government could approve a Palestinian consulate in Jerusalem, it will continue to pressure Israel to make that concession, Barkat said.

The Biden administration "will continue to test the strength of our commitment here in Jerusalem and make tempting suggestions," he said.

Bennett dismissed the allegations with respect to Jerusalem as a campaign ploy, to strengthen Barkat's credentials for Likud leadership and replace former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Bennett said he wished both men luck and that normally, "I would have no special opinion on the internal struggles within the Likud."

Barkat, he said, had clearly been advised by a political consultant to go to Washington and generate attention on a large issue such as the consulate.

The prime minister said that the aspiring Likud leader had chosen to turn the Jerusalem consulate into a campaign that is "simply not good for Israel" to do so.

"We do not want to harm Israel," Bennett said, but that otherwise he was determined "to take the issue off the table," a move that was best done quietly.