It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Wednesday, December 29, 2021
SoloHi catches stunning views of 'Christmas comet' Leonard fly by
Scientists at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory evaluate early data the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft sent back to Earth as it observes comet Leonard, a mass of space dust, rock and ice just over half a mile across (1 kilometer) as it heads inbound to the sun.
Imagery captured between Dec. 17 and 19 by the NRL's Solar Orbiter Heliospheric Imager (SoloHI) aboard the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft, shows comet Leonard streaking diagonally across the field of view. Planets Venus and Mercury are also visible in the top right, Venus appearing brighter and moving from left to right.
"When SoloHI recorded these images, the comet was approximately between the Sun and the spacecraft, with its gas (ion) and dust tails pointing towards the spacecraft," Karl Battams, Ph.D., a computational scientist in NRL's Heliospheric Physics section said. "Toward the end of the image sequence, our view of both of the tails improves as the viewing angle at which we see the comet increases, and SoloHI gets a side-on view of the comet."
Two other observation platforms, the Parker Solar Probe and the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, are looking at the comet from very different locations in space, which could give us a lot of valuable information about the 3D structure of the tail and of the solar outflows.
"We hope to use the two views from Solar Orbiter and STEREO to get a 3D structure and velocity," said Robin Colaninno, Ph.D., an astrophysicist and SoloHI PI at NRL. "The changes in the comet's tail give us great insight into the solar winds."
Comet Leonard as captured by NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory-A (STEREO) spacecraft, HI-2 telescope, which has watched the comet since early November. This animated “difference image” was created by subtracting the current frame from the previous frame to highlight differences between them. Difference images are useful for seeing subtle changes in Leonard's ion tail (the trail of ionized gases streaming from the comet's body, or nucleus), which becomes longer and brighter toward the end of the clip. Credit: NASA/NRL/Karl Battams
Comets are remnants of the swarm of planetesimals that formed the solar system and retain records from before and during planet formation.
Comet Leonard, formally known as C/2021 A1, was discovered Jan. 3, 2021 by Gregory Leonard, a senior research specialist at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in Arizona. Leonard spotted the comet in images taken from the Mt. Lemmon Skycenter in Arizona.
Battams said there has been much discussion among astronomers in the past week about this comet.
"Many folks reported a significant brightening around the 14th (before the SoloHI images), and then a subsequent so-called "outburst" in the past 24 hours, with indeterminate behavior in the meantime," Battams said. "My suspicion is that the comet is increasingly unhappy, and these outbursts could be the beginning of a slow and fatal disruption. But it's too early to say for sure—it could just be letting off steam, so to speak."
SoloHI will continue observing the comet until it leaves its field of view until Dec. 22. Comet Leonard's closest pass on Jan. 3, 2021 will take it within 56 million miles (90 million kilometers) of the Sun, slightly more than half Earth's distance. If it does not disintegrate, current orbit calculations show that its path will send it out into interstellar space, never to return to our solar system.
The three-body problem is one of the oldest problems in physics: It concerns the motions of systems of three bodies—like the sun, Earth, and the moon—and how their orbits change and evolve due to their mutual gravity. The three-body problem has been a focus of scientific inquiry ever since Newton.
When one massive object comes close to another, their relative motion follows a trajectory dictated by their mutual gravitational attraction, but as they move along and change their positions along their trajectories, the forces between them, which depend on their mutual positions, also change, which, in turn, affects their trajectory. For two bodies (e.g., the Earth moving around the sun without the influence of other bodies), the orbit of the Earth would continue to follow a specific curve (an ellipse), which can be accurately described mathematically. However, under the influence of a third object, the complex interactions lead to the three-body problem—the system becomes chaotic and unpredictable, and the system's evolution over long time scales cannot be predicted. Indeed, while this phenomenon has been known for over 400 years, ever since Newton and Kepler, a neat mathematical description for the three-body problem is still lacking.
In the past, physicists—including Newton himself—have tried to solve the three-body problem; in 1889, King Oscar II of Sweden even offered a prize, in commemoration of his 60th birthday, to anybody who could provide a general solution. In the end, it was the French mathematician Henri Poincaré who won the competition. He ruined any hope for a full solution by proving that such interactions are chaotic, in the sense that the final outcome is essentially random; in fact, his finding opened a new scientific field of research, termed chaos theory.
The absence of a solution to the three-body problem means that scientists cannot predict what happens during a close interaction between a binary system (formed of two stars that orbit each other like Earth and the sun) and a third star, except by simulating it on a computer and following the evolution step-by-step. These simulations show that when such an interaction occurs, it proceeds in two phases: First, a chaotic phase during which all three bodies pull on each other violently until one star is ejected far from the other two, which then settle down to an ellipse. If the third star is on a bound orbit, it eventually comes back down toward the binary, whereupon the first phase ensues once again. This triple dance ends when, in the second phase, one of the stars escapes on an un-bound orbit, never to return.
In a paper accepted for publication in Physical Review X this month, Ph.D. student Yonadav Barry Ginat and Professor Hagai Perets of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology used this randomness to provide a statistical solution to the entire two-phase process. Instead of predicting the actual outcome, they calculated the probability of any given outcome of each phase-1 interaction. While chaos implies that a complete solution is impossible, its random nature allows calculation of the probability that a triple interaction ends in one particular way rather than another. Then, the entire series of close approaches could be modeled by using a the theory of random walks, sometimes called "drunkard's walk." The term got its name from mathematicians thinking about how a drunk would walk, regarding it as a random process—with each step, the drunk doesn't realize where they are and takes the next step in some random direction.
The triple system behaves, essentially, in the same way. After each close encounter, one of the stars is ejected randomly (but with the three stars collectively still conserving the overall energy and momentum of the system). This series of close encounters could be regarded as a drunkard's walk. Like a drunk's step, a star is ejected randomly, comes back, and another (or the same star) is ejected to a likely different random direction (similar to another step taken by the drunk) and comes back, and so forth, until a star is completely ejected and never returns (akin to a drunk falling into a ditch).
Another way of thinking about this is to notice the similarities with describing the weather, which also exhibits the same phenomenon of chaos that Poincaré discovered; this is why the weather is so hard to predict. Meteorologists therefore have to recourse to probabilistic predictions (think about that time when a 70 percent chance of rain ended up as glorious sunshine in reality). Moreover, to predict the weather a week from now, meteorologists have to account for the probabilities of all possible types of weather in the intervening days, and only by composing them together can they get a proper long-term forecast.
What Ginat and Perets showed in their research was how this could be done for the three-body problem: They computed the probability of each phase-2 binary-single configuration (the probability of finding different energies, for example), and then composed all of the individual phases using the theory of random walks to find the final probability of any possible outcome, much like calculating long-term weather forecasts.
"We came up with the random walk model in 2017, when I was an undergraduate student," said Mr. Ginat, "I took a course that Prof. Perets taught, and there I had to write an essay on the three-body problem. We didn't publish it at the time, but when I started a Ph.D., we decided to expand the essay and publish it."
The three-body problem was studied independently by research groups in recent years, including Nicholas Stone of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, collaborating with Nathan Leigh, then at the American Museum of Natural History, and Barak Kol, also of the Hebrew University. Now, with the current study by Ginat and Perets, the entire, multi-stage, three-body interaction is fully solved statistically.
"This has important implications for our understanding of gravitational systems, and in particular, cases where many encounters between three stars occur, like in dense clusters of stars," said Prof. Perets. "In such regions, many exotic systems form through three-body encounters, leading to collisions between stars and compact objects like black holes, neutron stars and white dwarves, which also produce gravitational waves that have been directly detected only in the last few years. The statistical solution could serve as an important step in modeling and predicting the formation of such systems."
The random walk model can also do more: So far, studies of the three-body problem treat the individual stars as idealized point particles. In reality, of course, they are not, and their internal structure might affect their motion, for example, in tides. Tides on Earth are caused by the moon and change the planet's shape slightly. Friction between the water and the rest of the planet dissipates some of the tidal energy as heat. Energy is conserved, however, so this heat must come from the moon's energy in its motion about the Earth. Similarly for the three-body problem, tides can draw orbital energy out of the three-bodies' motion.
"The random walk model accounts for such phenomena naturally," said Mr. Ginat. "All you have to do is to remove the tidal heat from the total energy in each step, and then compose all the steps. We found that we were able to compute the outcome probabilities in this case, too." As it turns out, a drunkard's walk can sometime shed light on some of the most fundamental questions in physics.
More information:Yonadav Barry Ginat et al, Analytical, Statistical Approximate Solution of Dissipative and Nondissipative Binary-Single Stellar Encounters,Physical Review X(2021).DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevX.11.031020
Like a sprinkle of powdered sugar on a rich red velvet cake, this scene from the ESA/Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter captures the contrasting colors of bright white water-ice against the rusty red martian soil.
This delightful image was taken 5 July 2021 and soaks in the view of a 4 km-wide crater in Mars' north polar region of Vastitas Borealis, centered at 70.6 °N/230.3°E.
The crater is partially filled with water ice, which is also particularly predominant on its north-facing slopes that receive fewer hours of sunlight on average throughout the year.
The dark material clearly visible on the crater rim—giving it a somewhat scorched appearance—likely consists of volcanic materials such as basalt.
Most of the surrounding terrain is ice free, but has been shaped by ongoing aeolian processes. The streaks at the bottom right of the image are formed by winds that have removed the brighter iron oxide dust from the surface, exposing a slightly darker underlying substrate.
TGO arrived at Mars in 2016 and began its full science mission in 2018. The spacecraft is not only returning spectacular images, but also providing the best ever inventory of the planet's atmospheric gasses, and mapping the planet's surface for water-rich locations. It will also provide data relay services for the second ExoMars mission comprising the Rosalind Franklin rover and Kazachok platform, when it arrives on Mars in 2023.
Two galaxies hidden by cosmic dust discovered, more to be found with Canada's help
Canada is one of NASA's partners in the just-launched James Webb Space Telescope
Author of the article: Spiro Papuckoski Publishing date: Dec 26, 2021
Two distant galaxies previously hidden by cosmic dust were recently discovered.
PHOTO BY MIK38 /iStock / Getty Images
The size of the universe may be unknown, but astronomers keep discovering galaxies farther and farther away.
Two previously invisible galaxies 29 billion light-years away were located by researchers at the University of Copenhagen’s Niels Bohr Institute, according to a recent study published in Nature
That’s far away — to put it mildly — as one light-year is the equivalent to 9.46 trillion kilometres. Multiply that by 29 billion and see if you can bust your calculator.
The researchers explain that the two galaxies hidden behind a thick layer of cosmic dust that surrounds them were invisible to the optical lens of the Hubble Space Telescope.
But by using the Atacama Large Millimeter Array telescopes in Chile’s Atacama Desert, astronomers were able to capture radio waves from the distant galaxies.
“We were looking at a sample of very distant galaxies, which we already knew existed from the Hubble Space Telescope,” Pascal Oesch, the Cosmic Dawn Center associate professor at the Niels Bohr Institute, told the university’s website .
“And then we noticed that two of them had a neighbour that we didn’t expect to be there at all. As both galaxies are surrounded by dust, some of their light is blocked, making them invisible to Hubble.”
What this new discovery suggests is that more galaxies formed in the early universe than what was previously estimated.
“Our discovery demonstrates that up to one in five of the earliest galaxies may have been missing from our map of the heavens. Before we can start to understand when and how galaxies formed in the universe, we first need a proper accounting,” said Oesch.
To help locate the missing galaxies, the Canadian Space Agency, NASA and European Space Agency launched a newly-built super telescope — the James Webb Space Telescope — i nto orbit on Christmas Day.
Once in place, the new telescope will help astronomers further map out the universe’s origins.
“The next step is to identify the galaxies we overlooked, because there are far more than we thought,” said Oesch.
“That’s where the James Webb Telescope will be a huge step forward. It will be much more sensitive than Hubble and able to investigate longer wavelengths, which ought to allow us to see these hidden galaxies with ease.”
Scientists Discover Fossil of Extinct Early Bird That Could Stick Out Its Tongue
ByCHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCESDECEMBER 27, 2021
Reconstruction of Brevirostruavis macrohyoideus with its mouth open to show its long tongue that was used to catch insects or obtain nectar from cone-bearing plants. Credit: IVPP
A new fossil skeleton of an extinct species of bird from northeastern China that lived alongside dinosaurs 120 million years ago unexpectedly preserves a bony tongue that is nearly as long as its head.
The skull is very well preserved, showing that it had a relatively short snout and small teeth, with extremely long and curved bones for the tongue (called the hyoid apparatus).
Scientists from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the University of Texas at Austin have named this bird Brevirostruavismacrohyoideus, which means “bird with a short snout and big tongue.”
Their discovery was published in Journal of Anatomy on December 1, 2021.
We learn quickly as children to stick out our tongues, but most reptiles and birds do not have large muscular tongues like humans. Birds instead have a set of rod-shaped elements made of bone and cartilage comprising the hyoid apparatus that sits in the floor of their mouth.
In birds with larger tongues like ducks and parrots, they use their tongue to move food around in their mouth, get food into their mouth, and help to swallow food. Some birds today like hummingbirds and woodpeckers have a bony tongue as long or longer than their skulls.
Photograph and drawing of the skull of the extinct Cretaceous enantiornithine bird Brevirostruavis macrohyoideus, with the curved bones of the long tongue highlighted in orange. Credit: IVPP
This extinct short-snouted, big-tongued bird is the earliest example of a bird being able to stick its tongue out. Of course, this feature makes one wonder why this bird would be sticking its tongue out. The scientists hypothesized that the bird might have used this feature for catching insects in the same way that living woodpeckers use their tongues to get insects out of holes in bark, wood, and tree branches. Alternatively, the bird might have been feeding on pollen or nectar-like liquids from plants in the forest where it lived. No stomach contents were found with this skeleton.
This short-snouted, big-tongued bird is part of an extinct group of birds called enantiornithines or “opposite” birds. They were the most successful group of birds during the Cretaceous Period (between 66 and 145 million years ago), with fossils found around the world.
“We see a lot of variation in the size and shape of the skulls of enantiornithine birds and that probably reflects the great diversity of the foods they ate and how they caught their food. Now with this fossil, we see that it’s not just their skulls, but their tongues that also vary,” said Dr. WANG Min, co-author of the study.
The researchers previously showed that these early birds had fairly rigid skulls like their dinosaur relatives. This feature set some evolutionary and functional restrictions on early birds. “Perhaps the only way for them to fundamentally change through evolution how they caught their food and what food they ate was to shorten their skull in this case and to make the tongue bones much longer,” said lead author Dr. LI Zhiheng.
The long, curved hyoid apparatus in the fossil bird is made of bones called ceratobranchials. Living birds also have such bones in their hyoid, but it is the epibranchial bones, absent in early birds, that are very long in birds like woodpeckers.
“Animals experiment evolutionarily with what they have available. This bird evolved a long tongue using the bones it inherited from its dinosaur ancestors, and living birds evolved longer tongues with the bones that they have. This situation demonstrates the power of evolution, with birds using two different evolutionary pathways to solve the same problem of making a long tongue to stick out of their mouths,” said co-author Dr. Thomas Stidham.
Reference: “Novel evolution of a hyper-elongated tongue in a Cretaceous enantiornithine from China and the evolution of the hyolingual apparatus and feeding in birds” by Zhiheng Li, Min Wang, Thomas A. Stidham, Zhonghe Zhou and Julia Clarke, 1 December 2021, Journal of Anatomy. DOI: 10.1111/joa.13588
Scientists Succeed in Culturing the Pygmy Zebra Octopus – The Size of a Grain of Rice When They Hatch
A pygmy zebra octopus hatchling in the Cephalopod Mariculture Lab at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole. These octopuses are about the size of a grain of rice when they hatch. They reach full size (about the size of a table grape) within six months. Credit: Tim Briggs
For generations, scientists have relied on a handful of organisms to study the fundamentals of biology. The usual suspects—fruit flies, zebrafish, and mice, among others—all have short lifespans, small body size, can be bred through multiple generations in the laboratory, and have been developed for genetic investigations. These research organisms leave out a whole swath of biological diversity and scientists have lacked access to a cultured octopus laboratory organism—until now. Introducing the pygmy zebra octopus (O. chierchiae).
In a new paper published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, researchers from the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) introduce scientists to successful culturing methods for O. chierchiae that were developed at the MBL.
“The pygmy zebra octopus has certain biological features that make them attractive and more appropriate for laboratory research, compared to other octopuses,” says Bret Grasse, MBL’s manager of Cephalopod Operations and co-author on the paper.
Adult pygmy zebra octopus (Octopus chierchiae). Credit: Tim Briggs
Also known as the “lesser Pacific striped octopus,” the pygmy zebra octopus shares many useful similarities with other research organisms—such as small adult body size—but it also has unique features that distinguish it from other cephalopods (the group of animals that include octopus, squid, and cuttlefish).
O. chierchiae adult in a shell looking at a snail. Credit: Tim Briggs
“The majority of octopuses are ‘live fast, die young.’ They breed once and then immediately start to senesce and age and then die relatively quickly,” says Anik Grearson, former MBL intern and co-lead author on the paper. Unlike other octopus species, a female O. chierchiae lays several clutches of 30-90 eggs over her reproductive period.
Anik Grearson, co-lead author on the paper, leans over a tank in the Cephalopod Mariculture Lab at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole. Credit: Marine Biological Laboratory
“We can mate them and know exactly when they’ll lay their eggs. We know exactly how long they’ll incubate and we can raise offspring at a relatively high survivorship rate compared to other octopuses,” says Grasse. Add that to its small size, sexual dimorphism, and predictable breeding schedule and it’s easy to see why O. chierchiae is an ideal candidate for further exploration and research.
Reference: “The Lesser Pacific Striped Octopus, Octopus chierchiae: An Emerging Laboratory Model” by Anik G. Grearson, Alison Dugan, Taylor Sakmar, Dominic M. Sivitilli, David H. Gire, Roy L. Caldwell, Cristopher M. Niell, Gül Dölen, Z. Yan Wang and Bret Grasse, 13 December 2021, Frontiers in Marine Science. DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2021.753483
Science Made Simple: What Are High Energy Density Laboratory Plasmas?
ByU.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGYDECEMBER 27, 2021
High energy density (HED) laboratory plasmas are perhaps the most extreme states of matter ever produced on Earth. Normal plasmas are one of the four basic states of matter, along with solid, gases, and liquids. But HED plasmas have properties not found in normal plasmas under ordinary conditions. For example, matter in this state may simultaneously behave as a solid and a gas. In this state, materials that normally act as insulators for electrical charges instead become conductive metals. To create and study HED plasmas, scientists compress materials in solid or liquid form or bombard them with high energy particles or photons.
Invisible infrared light from the 200-trillion-watt Trident Laser enters from the bottom to interact with a one-micrometer thick foil target in the center of the photo, generating a high energy density plasma. Credit: Image courtesy of Joseph Cowan and Kirk Flippo, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Scientists’ ability to create and control extreme conditions in laboratories on Earth helps us understand black holes and other events in the universe. This research also supports efforts to make fusion power a reality on Earth, harnessing the processes that happen within the Sun to produce energy here. Scientists working with HED plasmas address the basic laws of nature. But they also work on practical applications; research on HED plasmas can help us understand how to make radioactiveisotopes. These radioisotopes have many practical applications. For example, they can be used to create images of the inside of our bodies for understanding medical issues, or in industry for understanding how materials wear out with use.
High Energy Density Plasma Facts
High energy density plasmas are an exotic state of matter found in astrophysical events such as the birth of stars and brown dwarfs, in laboratory fusion experiments, and in nuclear weapons explosions.
Scientists generate HED plasmas using high-power petawatt-class lasers, which generate instantaneous power levels equivalent to the output of the entire U.S. electrical grid.
HED plasmas are created in the National Ignition Facility (NIF), which is the most energetic laser in the world with 2 megajoules (the energy consumed by 20,000 100-watt light bulbs in one second) of light energy delivered in 16 nanoseconds.
Applications enabled by HED plasmas in the form of compact, inexpensive sources of radiation have applications in science, industry, and medicine.
Using NIF’s 192 lasers at a target of hydrogen isotopes has been compared to throwing a baseball from the pitcher’s mound at San Francisco’s Oracle Park into the strike zone at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, some 400 miles away.
DOE Office of Science: Contributions to High Energy Density Laboratory Plasmas
The Department of Energy supports HED research and development because the associated applications address several DOE missions. Support for HED plasma research originated with the U.S. nuclear weapons program. Following the invention of the laser, HED research expanded beyond nuclear weapons. The United States manages HED activities under DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Fusion Energy Sciences program in the DOE Office of Science. The Office of Science focuses on developing the scientific basis for understanding and producing HED plasmas.
Contorted oceanic plate caused complex quake off New Zealand's East Cape
Subduction zones, where a slab of oceanic plate is pushed beneath another tectonic plate down into the mantle, cause the world's largest and most destructive earthquakes. Reconstructing the geometry and stress conditions of the subducted slabs at subduction zones is crucial to understanding and preparing for major earthquakes. However, the tremendous depths of these slabs make this challenging—seismologists rely mainly on the rare windows into these deeply buried slabs provided by the infrequent but strong earthquakes, termed intraslab earthquakes, that occur within them.
In a new study published in Geophysical Research Letters, a research team led by the University of Tsukuba used seismic data generated by a magnitude 7.3 earthquake that occurred off the northeasternmost tip of New Zealand's North Island on March 4, 2021, detected by seismometers around the world, to investigate the particularly unusual geometry and stress states of the subducted slab deep below the surface in this region.
"The 2021 East Cape earthquake showed a complex rupture process, likely because of its location at the boundary between the Kermadec Trench to the north and the Hikurangi Margin to the south," lead author of the study Assistant Professor Ryo Okuwaki explains. "To investigate the geometry of the stress field and earthquake rupture process, we used a novel finite-fault inversion technique that required no pre-existing knowledge of the area's faults."
This investigation revealed multiple episodes of rupture, generated by both compression and extension in the subsurface at different depths. These episodes included shallow (~30 km) rupture due to extension perpendicular to the trench as would typically be expected in a subduction zone. Unexpectedly, however, the deep (~70 km) rupture occurred with compression parallel to the subduction trench.
"Two alternative or inter-related factors may explain the unique rupture geometry of the 2021 East Cape earthquake," senior author Professor Yuji Yagi explains. "First, subduction of a seamount or multiple seamounts along with the subducted slab could contort the slab and create local changes in the stress field. Second, the transition from the Kermadec Trench to the Hikurangi Margin, where the subducted oceanic crust is considerably thicker, could create the local conditions responsible for the unusual faulting pattern."
Because of the rarity of deep intraslab earthquakes in this region, distinguishing between these two possibilities is currently challenging, and indeed both factors might play significant roles in creating the complex stress field revealed by the East Cape earthquake. Additional earthquakes off the northeast coast of New Zealand in the future may shed further light on this deep tectonic mystery.Investigating links between three earthquakes in New Zealand
More information:Ryo Okuwaki et al, Illuminating a Contorted Slab With a Complex Intraslab Rupture Evolution During the 2021 Mw 7.3 East Cape, New Zealand Earthquake,Geophysical Research Letters(2021).DOI: 10.1029/2021GL095117
An earthquake of magnitude 4.5 struck near Stanton in West Texas on Monday, the US Geological Survey reported. The quake struck at a depth of 7.8 km (4.8 miles), USGS said.
The earthquake happened in the Permian Basin, home of the largest shale oil and gas field. This is the second strongest earthquake in West Texas in the last 10 years, MRT news reported https://www.mrt.com/news/local/article/4-3-magnitude-earthquake-shakes-north-Stanton-16732909.php After a series of smaller earthquakes in recent months, the state’s energy regulator, Texas Railroad Commission in September set limits on the volume of waste water that oil and gas producers could inject underground.
(Reporting by Shivani Tanna in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)
Public safety minister calls on Twitter Canada to address 'abusive' tweet directed at CMA president
Social Sharing
Facebook
Twitter
Email
Reddit
LinkedIn
Marco Mendicino writes letter saying tweet poses risks to
Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino, shown in the House of Commons on Dec. 9, has written to Twitter Canada saying he disagrees with the company's decision not to remove a tweet sent to Canadian Medical Association president Dr. Katharine Smart that he calls threatening. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)
Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino is calling on Twitter Canada to address a tweet sent to Canadian Medical Association president Dr. Katharine Smart, saying the tweet "poses risks to the health and safety of health-care workers."
His letter, addressed to Twitter Canada's managing director, Paul Burns, concerns a tweet sent to Smart on Dec. 22 by an account under the handle "@AsktheBrownDoc1."
"Are you scared you are next @KatharineSmart?" the tweet reads. "A group of us who can't stand you have been seeing you and your family for weeks ... and already have some great footage ... just biding our time for the perfect time!"
In his letter, Mendicino said the tweet is threatening.
"I am writing to express serious concerns regarding an abusive tweet that was recently posted to Canadian Medical Association President Dr. Katharine Smart's Twitter timeline and which poses risks to the health and safety of healthcare workers in the discharge of their professional responsibilities," the letter reads.
The letter says Smart reported the tweet to Twitter but that the social media company ruled it did not violate its policies. The company did not remove the tweet.
However, the Twitter account behind it appears to have been deleted.
Mendicino said he disagrees with Twitter's decision not to remove the tweet.
"I am asking you to reconsider your decision to leave the tweet on your platform, given that it appears to directly contravene your rules, and because allowing such comments to be published also puts healthcare workers at risk of further abuse and intimidation," Mendicino said in the letter.
"If left published and unchecked, the content in question could negatively impact the ability of healthcare workers to inform and provide advice to the public regarding the pandemic," he continued.
The letter mentions that Smart reported the tweet to the police.
Mendicino mentioned that Bill C-3, legislation that recently received royal assent, will soon make it a criminal offence for someone to impede a health professional from performing their duties.
"Parliament's speedy passage of Bill C-3 reflects the urgency of this issue," Mendicino said. "However, we cannot rely alone on the criminal law to solve the problem."
"Social media platforms equally have a role to play in rooting out harmful online content. The December 22, 2021 tweet directed at Dr. Smart, as well as many others within the healthcare sector, highlights the significance of that role," he continued.
In a statement to CBC News, a Twitter Canada spokesperson said, "Abuse, harassment and hateful conduct have no place on our service and are against the Twitter Rules.
"As a company, promoting healthy participation on Twitter is our top priority," the statement continues. "We recognize the concerns health practitioners have regarding social media, and we are committed to creating healthy experiences on Twitter."
