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)
Monday, January 17, 2022
It wasn't just Trump: Four years later, politics still make people sick
2020 surveys show huge numbers of Americans perceive that politics exact a chronic negative toll on their health
Scrolling social media, reading websites, listening to podcasts, watching news. With so many options, it’s never been easier to follow American politics, but at what cost?
According to research from University of Nebraska–Lincoln political scientist Kevin Smith, all the political jockeying is harmful to our health, has been for some time, and even a change in party power didn’t help.
In a follow-up to the groundbreaking 2017 survey study where he first measured the effects of the political climate on Americans’ physical, social, mental and emotional health, Smith has published a new article in PLOS ONE. Smith repeated the same 32-question survey twice in 2020 — two weeks prior to the election, and two weeks after. The 2020 findings mirrored the 2017 results, and again found that a large proportion of American adults blame politics for causing them stress, loss of sleep, fractured relationships and more.
Similar to the 2017 findings, the 2020 surveys found that an estimated 40% of Americans identified politics as a significant source of stress. Additionally, between a fifth and a third of adults (50 to 85 million people) blamed politics for causing fatigue, feelings of anger, loss of temper and triggering compulsive behaviors. About a quarter of adults reported they’d given serious consideration to moving because of politics.
That the results remained mostly stable after nearly four years is cause for alarm, Smith said.
“This second round of surveys pretty conclusively demonstrates that the first survey was not out of left field — that what we found in that first survey really is indicative of what many Americans are experiencing,” Smith, chair and professor of political science, said. “It’s also unpleasant to think that in that span of time, nothing changed. A huge chunk of American adults genuinely perceive politics is exacting a serious toll on their social, their psychological and even their physical health.”
Smith repeated the survey with the same group of people both before and after the election to see if the election’s outcome — whatever it ended up being — would recast people’s perceptions.
“We wondered if a change in presidency, which indeed was the case, would shift attitudes, and the short answer is no,” Smith said. “If anything, the costs that people perceive politics is exacting on their health increased a little bit after the election.”
Most stunning to Smith was the repeated finding that 5% of Americans blame politics for having suicidal thoughts.
“One in 20 adults has contemplated suicide because of politics,” Smith said. “That showed up in the first survey in 2017, and we wondered if it was a statistical artifact. But in the two surveys since, we found exactly the same thing, so millions of American adults have contemplated suicide because of politics. That’s a serious health problem.”
Adults who were most likely to be negatively affected by politics were younger, more often Democratic-leaning, more interested in politics and more politically engaged.
“If there’s a profile of a person who is more likely to experience these effects from politics, it’s people with those traits,” Smith said.
Besides pointing to a possible health crisis, Smith warned the findings could be a bad recipe for democracy.
“There’s potential for a demobilization effect here,” Smith said. “If people view politics as so conflictual, and potentially a threat to their own well-being, they’ll say ‘heck with it, I don’t want to get involved.’ And democracies depend on participation. We need civically-engaged citizens.”
So, how can these effects be mitigated? Smith said that’s a question he plans to explore further in future research, though his team has identified one possible tool: becoming more politically knowledgeable.
“People who were more politically knowledgeable were less likely to report these negative outcomes,” Smith said. “Something I’d really like to look at would be if you took somebody who’s politically interested, but not particularly politically knowledgeable, and they were given information about the political system, would that reduce these negative costs of politics? That could be a positive outcome of civic education that’s never been considered before.”
JOURNAL
PLoS ONE
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Survey
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
People
ARTICLE TITLE
Politics is making us sick: The negative impact of political engagement on public health during the Trump administration
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
14-Jan-2022
Study finds national and international frameworks are imperative for implementing nature-based solutions in Asia
Cohesive, cross-sectoral strategies can promote nature-based solutions for climate security, socioeconomic development, and eco-sustainability
Recognized by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), nature-based solutions (NbS) refer to solutions that bring together human well-being, environmental sustainability, and biodiversity benefits. NbS are also key elements to post-COVID-19 pandemic recovery strategies. NbS include a variety of elements, starting from ecosystem-based climate change mitigation to ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction measures. While the techniques behind NbS may not be new, incorporating them into national and international governance frameworks for their effective implementation is.
Most studies on NbS focus on Europe. The European Union was an early adopter of NbS and has ensured its promotion by linking NbS with the European Green Deal and COVID-19 pandemic recovery. The region has firmly established links between NbS and various actors (governments, institutions, businesses, etc.). But the same cannot be said of Asia. There remains a lack of cohesive regional strategy for implementing NbS in Asia, as well as limited cross-sectoral local and national governance to promote NbS and green recovery strategies. The large number of developing countries in Asia also presents a problem for the promotion and realization of NbS.
In a new study, published in Politics and Governance, researchers Dr. Kanako Morita from the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute and Associate Professor Ken’ichi Matsumoto of Toyo University, Japan, have elaborated the governance challenges to implementing NbS in East, Southeast, and South Asian regions. “Implementing NbS governance in countries at different stages of economic development is tricky, as is developing measures for NbS with different institutions and actors,” explains Dr. Morita.
The findings of their study indicated that climate change mitigation, disaster risk reduction (DRR), and infrastructure are three areas where NbS have been widely implemented in Asian countries. These areas are also linked to climate security issues, including ecological security. However, there is scope for further work, particularly to ensure uniformity in implementing NbS across diverse regions. “Current discussions on NbS governance focus on urban areas, but NbS are essential across a wide range of landscapes and seascapes and across jurisdictional boundaries. In developing countries particularly, there is a need for international cooperation in NbS governance,” observes Dr. Morita, in this context.
The researchers found that NbS have links to international frameworks related to the UNFCCC and CBD in the area of climate change (climate change mitigation), with clear national strategies, policies, and international financial mechanisms. The Paris Agreement is one of the main drivers behind this development. Unfortunately, however, discussion on cross-sectoral strategies, such as application of NbS to post-pandemic green recovery, has not been extensive in Asian countries so far.
In the field of DRR, NbS are linked to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR). Japan in particular is heavily invested in the promotion of ecosystem-based DRR (Eco-DRR). But the same cannot be said about other Asian countries. While some countries have incorporated Eco-DRR in their national strategies, the domestic governance and measures for implementation remain poor. The financial mechanisms for incorporating NbS in Eco-DRR need to be elaborated and clarified. Moreover, developing countries in particular need both financial and technical support to properly implement NbS for Eco-DRR.
Finally, the researchers found no official links between NbS and international frameworks in the infrastructure field. “There is no consensus on what NbS for infrastructure entails. This makes it very difficult to establish national policies or frameworks, and, more importantly, financial mechanisms for the implementation of NbS,” says Dr. Morita.
Taken together, the study highlights the fragmentation of institutions and actors in Asia, and the unique challenges this poses for the different types of NbS. The study also emphasizes the need for cooperation among local, national, and international actors including governments, and institutions. “Our analysis recognizes the need for a cross-sectoral framework to match the need for NbS with relevant actors and institutions at various scales. We also recommend creating guidelines to incorporate and promote NbS into local and national policy, as well as international cooperation,” concludes Dr. Morita.
Implementing these suggestions will surely help address the tragedy of the commons staring us all in the face¬—that is climate change—as well as achieve benefits for biodiversity and humans, both in the short-term, post pandemic, and with regards to long-term sustainable development.
About Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, Japan Inaugurated as a unit for forest experiments in Tokyo in 1905, the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute (FFPRI) was largely reorganized in 1988, when it received its current name. During its history of over 110 years, the FFPRI has been conducting interdisciplinary research on forests, forestry, the timber industry, and tree breeding with an agenda based around sustainable development goals. The FFPRI is currently looking to collaborate with more diverse stakeholders, such as international organizations, government agencies, and industry and academic leaders, to conduct much needed forest-related research and make sure we preserve these renewable resources.
About Dr. Kanako Morita from Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, Japan Dr. Kanako Morita obtained her Ph.D. from the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 2010. She is currently a senior researcher at the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, Japan. Her research areas are interdisciplinary approaches to improve climate change, biodiversity, forest, and renewable energy-related institutions. Her work focuses on governance and financial mechanisms to meet the needs of sustainable development and climate change mitigation and adaptation in the Asia-Pacific. Dr. Morita is also an Assistant Professor at Keio University, Japan, visiting research fellow at the United Nations University, and visiting researcher at the National Institute for Environmental Studies, Japan.
Funding information This research is supported by JSPS KAKENHI grant numbers 19K12467, 18H03428, 18K11800, 19H04340, the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (JPMEERF20181001) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature: Feasibility Project 14200158, the Diversity Promotion Office Fund of Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, and the Integrated Research Program for Advancing Climate Models (TOUGOU program) grant number JPMXD0717935715 of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan.
Despite the society-changing improvements that plastic materials have brought to humanity, there’s no question that they also present us with new challenges regarding what to do with the large amounts of plastic waste we generate, from the oil-based chemicals used to create products to the microplastics found everywhere after plastics breakdown in the environment.
Finding a solution to plastics pollution that will work in the lab and in the real world will take a diverse team of innovative individuals with expertise that transcends the incredible talent found at the University of Delaware. That’s why researchers from UD’s College of Engineering and Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration are joining forces with experts at the University of Kansas and Pittsburg State University.
“The practices by which society works now are really not sustainable,” said Raul Lobo, Claire D. LeClaire Professor of Chemical Engineering and associate department chair in UD’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, who is leading the research effort for UD. “We need materials that minimize our dependency on fossil fuels and that allow consumers to recycle plastic products efficiently and with ease.To this end, the UD-KU team will develop new molecules that can be used to make a new generation of environmentally friendly plastics.”
The National Science Foundation’s Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research has awarded the group $4 million in funding to do just that. About $1.4 million of that funding will go to UD to support this vast research effort to develop processes to transform “biomass,” such as agricultural byproducts, into commercially viable plastics materials and to chemically deconstruct such plastics effectively and efficiently so that they can be recycled and reused.
UD faculty members on the team include Professor Hui Fang with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Professor Kalim Shah with the Biden School and Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Professors Marianthi Ierapetritou, Lobo, Marat Orazov and Dionisios Vlachos.
Lobo, who also holds a joint professorship in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, said the project will focus on developing polymers that behave like polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, a very common type of plastic found in consumer products such as water bottles, fleece and food-wrapping film. A polymer is a very long molecule, such as proteins, starch or DNA, that is built of repeated building units, like the adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C) and thymine (T) in DNA molecules. Different polymers form by knitting together different building units. Once they are sufficiently long, they can be easily melted, shaped or molded, and solidify upon cooling
“We have ideas of polymers we think will make materials that are better than PET in a number of ways,” Lobo hinted. “Now, we have to prove it.”
From Biomass to Building Blocks
The goal is not only to find new materials with good and useful properties, but to do so using molecules with building blocks that come from biomass (and not fossil fuels like oil) and that are designed to be recyclable.
“We’re trying to make this society more sustainable by developing technology that has the potential to be practical,” Lobo said. “The material we’re trying to make … looks like the plastics we use today, but comes from biomass.”
For example, plants also produce sugars with fewer carbons than the sugar that we eat, and those sugars and their derivatives could be used as building blocks for plastics. The material has to be stable just enough, and strong enough, to hold up in another life as, say, a plastic bag. By focusing on biomass that’s not edible and not toxic — think of stalks from corn or leftover parts from harvested sugar cane — researchers will try to prepare new building blocks for plastics such that they don't compete with food sources, do not depend on fossil fuels and can be easily assembled and reassembled.
Then these engineers must figure out how to translate the science into actual societal benefit. That means also exploring the policy and economic elements associated with shifting the foundational building blocks of a product used in almost everything in our daily lives.
The practical implications of this work will certainly relate to cost. Six decades of experience making PET and using it in multiple products means six decades of being able to find cost efficiencies along the way. It will still take some time for any new building blocks that could replace PET, even if they are superior in performance and for the environment, to find all possible efficiencies and cost savings.
Over the next four years, up to five UD graduate students will play a role in this interdisciplinary research, from the machine learning that will be used to explore existing research literature and gaps in knowledge, to the chemistry of the components, to the economics of their application and recycling.
“There’s a vast amount of information there,” said Hui Fang, an associate professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “We’re trying to develop a machine learning-based technique that can first extract information automatically from the literature and then allow the researchers to see what’s missing.”
From Wastefulness to Sustainability
With so much waste in the world — up to one-third of the food resources produced are actually wasted — it would be incredibly beneficial to find ways to reuse those tossed corn husks or the leftover fibers from sugar cane, particularly as we try to avoid 1.5 degrees Celsius of atmospheric warming due to greenhouse gas emissions. At the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, experts emphasized that exceeding that level of warming will not only be catastrophic, but will be impossible if world nations cannot curb their reliance on fossil fuels.
The idea of a “circular economy,” in which products are produced, consumed and reused — as opposed to the “linear” way the world currently produces, consumes and trashes most products — could literally be that change the world needs. From the molecular beginnings of plastic products, energy is used and waste created. But is it possible to reduce this amount of energy and could the waste be reused in another production process?
“We’re thinking about how we can take the waste stream and make new building blocks,” said Dionisios Vlachos, Unidel Dan Rich Chair in Energy Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, director of the Catalysis Center for Energy Innovation and director of the Delaware Energy Institute. “This is a global issue.”
Today, most plastics (and many of the other products we consume daily) are created from petrochemicals. Most plastics are not easily recycled because once they’re broken down into their original pieces, they are difficult to put back together again and so they ultimately end up as waste. UD’s investigators are in pursuit of novel chemicals that can be easily manufactured from biomass and that not only make outstanding plastics, but also could, with little effort, be transformed into raw materials for new plastic products.
“If we don’t take action today, things will be really bad in the future,” Vlachos said. “There are many waste streams with multiple societal health problems. They have to be addressed at a global scale. If we’re making renewable plastics, it would be great, but it’s just part of the story.”
A Holistic View
While some on the team will focus on the chemical engineering of the molecules themselves, Ierapetritou and her team will be analyzing those new materials for their potential environmental impacts, economic costs and whether the new product would be practically scalable from a small lab to a commercialized solution.
In this project, Bob and Jane Gore Centennial Chair of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Marianthi Ierapetritou and her team will be analyze proposed new materials for biorenewable plastics for potential environmental impacts, economic costs and feasibility.
“Of course, this goes back to changing the culture of people or introducing different policies, which is one of the things we’re hoping to investigate,” said Ierapetritou, who is the Bob and Jane Gore Centennial Chair of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UD. “But you need policies, you need incentives to make the change that needs to be made.”
What they’re aiming to create may be expensive — possibly too expensive to compete without incentives. But even if some of the new material was used in plastics production, it could still help reduce the pollution associated with creating a product made with 5% or 10% biomass-sourced plastic, said Lobo.
“Our scientific and engineering folks say they can do this in the lab, and they can scale it up. But where is the acceptance or adoption of it?” said Shah, who will be exploring the economic and environmental implications of a substitute for plastics and its potential in real-world markets.
“I think there’s a real awareness now of linking the disciplines that we’re very well known for at UD — chemistry and chemical engineering — to the policy and macroeconomic business aspects of the problem,” he said. “I’m really happy to have colleagues that are willing to include my perspective and take a multidisciplinary approach to us to move forward together.”
If they find the solutions they believe exist, it would still take years before a plant capable of making thousands of tons of polymers goes online. The biomass-sourced building blocks could also be a boon for farmers and companies that work with the agricultural products that could become future plastics.
There’s also the potential they could create something even better: a biosourced plastic that can last longer or require less material.
Their work will also closely examine how to deconstruct these new polymers so that it can be a truly recyclable product. Lobo said he had no doubt they could succeed on that front. But whatever they uncover, they will publicize their findings and make them available to other researchers.
“If we succeed, we might be able to reduce, to some degree, the quantity of plastics or the amount of oil we consume,” Lobo said. “There are chemical reasons why some polymers have these good properties but others don’t. Based on that information, we’re going to eventually be able to provide better products for society. That’s what engineers do.”
Shock waves, landslides may have caused 'rare' volcano tsunami: experts
A rare volcano-triggered tsunami sparked by the eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai in Tonga could have been caused by shock waves or shifting underwater land, experts said Monday.
"A volcanic-source tsunami event is rare but not unprecedented," a post on the website for New Zealand's geological hazard monitoring system GNS said Monday.
GNS Tsunami Duty Officer Jonathan Hanson said it probably occurred in part thanks to a previous eruption of the same volcano one day earlier.
"It is likely that the earlier 14 January eruption blew away part of the volcano above water, so water flowed into the extremely hot vent," wrote Hanson.
"This meant that the Saturday evening eruption initially occurred underwater and exploded through the ocean, causing a widespread tsunami," he said.
Two days after Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai's massive explosion, the nation's 100,000 population remained virtually cut off from the rest of the world with crippled communications and stalled emergency relief efforts.
The volcano cloaked Tonga in a film of ash, sent a column of ash and gas 20 kilometres into the air and shock waves that could be seen from space rippling across the planet.
It also triggered a Pacific-wide tsunami whose waves were strong enough to drown two women in Peru more than 10,000 kilometres (6,000 miles) away.
Ring of Fire
Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai is located in the so-called Ring of Fire, where a rift between shifting tectonic plates results in increased seismic activity.
In a volcanic eruption, magma rising to the surface of the Earth's crust causes volcanic gases to be released that then push their way out from underground, creating pressure.
When the gases reach water it expands into water vapour, creating even more pressure.
Volcano expert Ray Cas of Monash University in Australia said he suspected the intensity of the explosion suggested a large amount of gas had risen into the vent.
"The tsunamis could have been triggered by shock waves propagating through water," he commented on the Australian Science Media Centre.
"But more likely largely by a landslide on the submarine part of the volcanic edifice triggered by the explosive eruption."
Yet another possibility is that the volcano's special location just beneath the surface of the ocean could have made its effects worse.
The volcano's 1,800 metres of height is almost entirely submerged beneath the surface of the ocean, the edge of its crater forming an uninhabited island.
"When eruptions happen deep in the ocean, the water tends to muffle the activity. When it happens in the air, the risks are concentrated to the immediate area," Paris-based geologist Raphael Grandin told AFP.
"But when it's just under the surface, that's when the tsunami risk is greatest," he said.
Exceptionally loud eruption
People are reported to have heard Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai's eruption as far away as Alaska, 9,000 kilometres from the source, which Grandin said is "exceptional".
"As far as I know the last explosion that was audible at that distance was caused by the Krakatoa volcano in Indonesia in 1883—it killed 36,000 people," he said.
Experts also said that while the volcano could experience further activity, past research shows an eruption of Saturday's scale probably only occurs every 1,000 years.
Scientists who commented on the phenomenon said they would know more about how it took place once communication with the Pacific nation of some 170 islands could be restored.Tongans warned of acid rain after volcanic eruption
Insecticides play a central role in efforts to counter global impacts of mosquito-spread malaria and other diseases, which cause an estimated 750,000 deaths each year. These insect-specific chemicals, which cost more than $100 million to develop and bring to market, also are critical to controlling insect-driven crop damage that poses a challenge to food security.
But in recent decades many insects have genetically adapted to become less sensitive to the potency of insecticides. In Africa, where long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets and indoor spraying are major weapons in the fight against malaria, many species of mosquitoes across the continent have developed insecticide resistance that reduces the efficacy of these key interventions. In certain areas climate change is expected to exacerbate these problems.
University of California San Diego biologists have now developed a method that reverses insecticide resistance using CRISPR/Cas9 technology. As described in Nature Communications, researchers Bhagyashree Kaduskar, Raja Kushwah and Professor Ethan Bier with the Tata Institute for Genetics and Society (TIGS) and their colleagues used the genetic editing tool to replace an insecticide-resistant gene in fruit flies with the normal insecticide-susceptible form, an achievement that could significantly reduce the amount of insecticides used.
“This technology also could be used to increase the proportion of a naturally occurring genetic variant in mosquitoes that renders them refractory to transmission or malarial parasites,” said Bier, a professor of Cell and Developmental Biology in UC San Diego’s Division of Biological Sciences and senior author of the paper.
The researchers used a modified type of gene-drive, a technology that uses CRISPR/Cas9 to cut genomes at targeted sites, to spread specific genes throughout a population. As one parent transmits genetic elements to their offspring, the Cas9 protein cuts the chromosome from the other parent at the corresponding site and the genetic information is copied into that location so that all offspring inherit the genetic trait. The new gene-drive includes an add-on that Bier and his colleagues previously engineered to bias the inheritance of simple genetic variants (also known as alleles) by also at the same time cutting an undesired genetic variant (e.g., insecticide resistant) and replacing it with the preferred variant (e.g., insecticide susceptible).
In the new study, the researchers employed this “allelic drive” strategy to restore genetic susceptibility to insecticides, similar to insects in the wild prior to their having developed resistance. They focused on an insect protein known as the voltage-gated sodium channel (VGSC) which is a target for a widely used class of insecticides. Resistance to these insecticides, often called the knockdown resistance, or “kdr,” results from mutations in the vgsc gene that no longer permit the insecticide to bind to its VGSC protein target. The authors replaced a resistant kdr mutation with its normal natural counterpart that is susceptible to insecticides.
Starting with a population consisting of 83% kdr (resistant) alleles and 17% normal alleles (insecticide susceptible), the allelic drive system inverted that proportion to 13% resistant and 87% wild-type in 10 generations. Bier also notes that adaptions conferring insecticide resistance come with an evolutionary cost, making those insects less fit in a Darwinian sense. Thus pairing the gene drive with the selective advantage of the more fit wild-type genetic variant results in a highly efficient and cooperative system, he says.
Similar allelic drive systems could be developed in other insects, including mosquitoes. This proof-of-principle adds a new method to pest- and vector-control toolboxes since it could be used in combination with other strategies to improve insecticide-based or parasite-reducing measures to drive down the spread of malaria.
“Through these allelic replacement strategies, it should be possible to achieve the same degree of pest control with far less application of insecticides,” said Bier. “It also should be possible to design self-eliminating versions of allelic drives that are programmed to act only transiently in a population to increase the relative frequency of a desired allele and then disappear. Such locally acting allelic drives could be reapplied as necessary to increase the abundance of a naturally occurring preferred trait with the ultimate endpoint being no GMO left in the environment.”
“An exciting possibility is to use allelic drives to introduce novel versions of the VGSC that are even more sensitive to insecticides than wild-type VGSCs,” suggested Craig Montell (UC Santa Barbara), a co-author on this study. “This could potentially allow even lower levels of insecticides to be introduced into the environment to control pests and disease vectors.”
The study’s authors are: Bhagyashree Kaduskar (UC San Diego and Tata Institute for Genetics and Society), Raja Babu Singh Kushwah (UC San Diego and Tata Institute for Genetics and Society), Ankush Auradkar (UC San Diego), Annabel Guichard (UC San Diego and Tata Institute for Genetics and Society), Menglin Li (UC Santa Barbara), Jared Bennett (UC Berkeley), Alison Henrique Ferreira Julio, John Marshall (UC Berkeley), Craig Montell (UC Santa Barbara) and Ethan Bier (UC San Diego and Tata Institute for Genetics and Society).
Reversing insecticide resistance with allelic-drive in Drosophila melanogaster
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
12-Jan-2022
COI STATEMENT
Bier has equity interest in two companies he co-founded: Synbal Inc. and Agragene, Inc., which may potentially benefit from the research results. He also serves on Synbal’s board of directors and the scientific advisory board for both companies.
Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the
National Award Honors research leading to habitat restoration for people, birds
Collaborations in Baltimore and Missouri exemplify forest service research mission
In Missouri, USDA Forest Service science was instrumental in habitat restoration, culminating in the reintroduction of a songbird that had disappeared from the state a century ago. In Baltimore, research is helping parishioners and community volunteers restore a forest that is important to public and ecological health, community bonds, and climate resilience in an under-served neighborhood. Both projects were among a handful of recipients of the Forest Service’s 2021 National “Chief’s Awards.”
“These awards reflect the difference the Northern Research Station is making in our forests and communities through our unique science role in the most forested and the most populated region of the nation,” said Cynthia West, Director of the Northern Research Station and the Forest Products Laboratory. “These two projects exemplify what we try to achieve -- improve the sustainability of forests and the species that depend on them, and improve the lives of people who live in urban areas through nature.”
The Forest Service’s 2021 Chief’s Awards were announced on January, 13 and included 19 projects that advance the agency’s four goals: Sustain our Nation’s Forests and Grasslands, Deliver Benefits to the Public, Apply Knowledge Globally, and Excel as a High Performing Agency. Northern Research Station scientists are part of two of the project honored this year.
Situated in the heart of the Beechfield and Irvington neighborhoods in southwest Baltimore City, Maryland, Stillmeadow Community Fellowship Church owns a parcel of forest land with a stream, known as the Stillmeadow Community PeacePark & Forest. The forest has lost ash trees to the invasive emerald ash borer and has been further degraded by invasive vegetation. Multiple branches of the Forest Service, including scientists at the Northern Research Station’s Urban Field Stations, collaborated to assist the community in restoring the forest as a green space.
“People and nature are inextricably linked,” said Morgan Grove, who leads the team of scientists working with Stillmeadow Community Church. “What we learn in the restoration of Stillmeadow PeacePark and Forest will help us devise strategies that can be used nationwide to develop partnerships like this one, leading to healthier communities and natural areas.”
CAPTION
Two brown-headed nuthatches perch in a shortleaf pine tree.
CREDIT
Photo courtesy of Noppadol Paohtong/Missouri Department of Conservation.
In Missouri, a collaboration among the Northern Research Station and the Eastern and Southern Regions of the USDA Forest Service, along with other partners, was recognized for decades of work that culminated in the restoration of critical habitat and the reintroduction of a native bird that had been extinct in the state for a century. Scientists based in the Northern Research Station’s Columbia, Mo., research unit collaborated with the Ouachita National Forest in Arkansas and the Mark Twain National Forest and other partners to restore shortleaf pine-oak woodlands, the primary habitat of the Brown-headed Nuthatch. Restoration of woodlands was a major goal of the Mark Twain National Forest Plan, and progress in the restoration was advanced by the Missouri Pine-Oak Woodlands Restoration Project, part of the national Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program developed by the Forest Service.
The reintroduction of Brown-headed Nuthatch began in 2020 when a team that included the Missouri Department of Conservation and the University of Missouri translocated birds from the Ouachita National Forest in Arkansas to the Mark Twain National Forest. The team moved 46 nuthatches to the Mark Twain National Forest in the summer of 2020 and documented their survival and nesting the following spring. In August 2021, they successfully translocated an additional 56 birds and will monitor them under a proposed extension of the Missouri Pine-Oak Woodlands Restoration Project.
“This project demonstrates the value of collaboration and the value of working incrementally to achieve restoration goals,” said Frank Thompson, a research wildlife biologist based in the Northern Research Station’s lab in Columbia, Mo. “I am very proud of the outcome, and I am even more proud of the science and management collaboration behind habitat restoration and the Brown-headed Nuthatch reintroduction.”
A complete list of Chief’s Award projects and recording of the presentation will be released in the coming days.
Powerful volcanic blast not the cause for 2018 Indonesian island collapse – new research
The dramatic collapse of Indonesia’s Anak Krakatau volcano in December 2018 resulted from long-term destabilising processes, and was not triggered by any distinct changes in the magmatic system that could have been detected by current monitoring techniques, new research has found.
The volcano had been erupting for around six months prior to the collapse, which saw more than two-thirds of its height slide into the sea as the island halved in area. The event triggered a devastating tsunami, which inundated the coastlines of Java and Sumatra and led to the deaths of more than 400 people.
A team led by the University of Birmingham examined volcanic material from nearby islands for clues to determine whether the powerful, explosive eruption observed after the collapse had itself triggered the landslide and tsunami. Their results are published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
Working with researchers at the Bandung Institute of Technology, the University of Oxford and the British Geological Survey, the team looked at the physical, chemical and microtextural characteristics of the erupted material. They concluded that the large explosive eruption associated with the collapse was probably caused by the underlying magmatic system becoming destabilised as the landslide got underway.
This means the disaster was less likely to have been caused by magma forcing its way to the surface and triggering the landslide. Current volcano monitoring methods record seismic activity and other signals caused by magma rising through the volcano, but since this event was not triggered from within, it would not have been detected using these techniques.
Dr Sebastian Watt, in the University of Birmingham’s School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, is senior author on the paper. He said: 'This type of volcanic hazard is rare, extremely hard to predict and often devastating. Our findings show that, although there was a dramatic, explosive eruption after the collapse of Anak Krakatau, this was triggered by the landslide releasing pressure on the magma system – like a champagne cork popping.'
The results present a challenge for predicting future hazards at volcanic islands. Dr Mirzam Abdurrachman, from the Bandung Institute of Technology, explains: 'If large volcanic landslides occur as a result of long-term instability, and can take place without any distinctive change in the magmatic activity at the volcano, this means they can happen suddenly and without any clear warning.
'This finding is important for people who live in regions surrounded by active volcanoes and volcanic islands in places such as Indonesia, Philippines and Japan.'
Lead author, Kyra Cutler, at the University of Oxford said: 'Evaluating longer-term growth and deformation patterns of volcanoes will help to provide a better understanding of the likelihood of failure – this is will be particularly relevant for Anak Krakatau as it rebuilds. Identifying susceptible areas, along with efforts to develop non-seismic tsunami detection, will improve overall hazard management strategies for communities who are at risk.'
Professor David Tappin, (British Geological Survey, University College, London) led the marine surveys that mapped the deposits resulting from the 2018 Anak Krakatau eruption collapse (Hunt et al. 2021). He said: ‘It is rare that we have the opportunity to study such an eruption and tsunami, with the last event, Ritter island, over 100 years ago. The results in the paper reveal that the driving mechanism was from long term destabilisation, rather than an instantaneous explosive event. This is a major surprise discovery and will lead to a re-evaluation of how to mitigate the hazard from volcanic failures and their associated tsunamis.’
Using artificial intelligence (AI) researchers have found that between 2007 and 2016 online sentiments around climate change were uniform, but this was not the case with vaccination.
Climate change and vaccinations might share many of the same social and environmental elements, but that doesn’t mean the debates are divided along the same demographics.
A research team from the University of Waterloo and the University of Guelph trained a machine-learning algorithm to analyze a massive number of tweets about climate change and vaccination.
The researchers found that climate change sentiment was overwhelmingly on the pro side of those that believe climate change is because of human activity and requires action. There was also a significant amount of interaction between users with opposite sentiments about climate change.
However, in the snapshot of the timeframe of the dataset, vaccine sentiment was nowhere near so uniform. In fact, only some 15 or 20 per cent of users expressed a clearly pro-vaccine sentiment, while around 70 per cent expressed no strong sentiment. Perhaps more importantly, individuals and entire online communities with differing sentiments toward vaccination interacted much less than the climate change debate.
“It is an open question whether these differences in user sentiment and social media echo chambers concerning vaccines created the conditions for highly polarized vaccine sentiment when the COVID-19 vaccines began to roll out,” said Chris Bauch, professor of applied mathematics at the University of Waterloo. “If we were to do the same study today with data from the past two years, the results might be wildly different. Vaccination is a much hotter topic right now and appears to be much more polarized given the ongoing pandemic.”
The research goal was to learn how sentiments on climate change and vaccination may be related, how users form networks and share information, the relationship between online sentiments, and how people act and make decisions in daily life.
“There’s been some work done on the polarization of opinions in Twitter and other social media,” said Madhur Anand, professor of environmental sciences at the University of Guelph. “Most other research looks at these as isolated issues, but we wanted to look at these two issues of climate change and vaccination side-by-side. Both issues have social and environmental components, and there are lots to learn in this research pairing.”
The dataset for the project was drawn from a few sources, including some that were purchased from Twitter. In total, the analysis takes into consideration roughly 87 million tweets. The time range for the tweets is between 2007 and 2016.
This means that the data precedes COVID-19 and offers a snapshot of vaccine sentiment in the years leading up to the pandemic.
The AI ranked the millions of tweets as either pro, anti or neutral sentiment on the issues and then classified users in pro, anti or neutral categories. It also analyzed the structure of online communities and the degree to which users with opposing sentiments interacted.
“We expected to find that user sentiment and how users formed networks and communities to be more or less the same for both issues,” said Bauch. “But actually, we found that the way climate change discourse and vaccine discourse worked on Twitter were quite different.”