Elon Musk says 36-storey Starship could see 1st launch in March

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Musk provided his first major Starship update in more than

2 years

The Associated Press · Posted: Feb 11, 2022

Starship and the Super Heavy booster is seen stacked for the first time in Boca Chica, Tex. on August 6, 2021. (SpaceX)

SpaceX's Elon Musk said Thursday that the first orbital flight of his towering Starship — the world's most powerful rocket ever built — could come in another month or two.

While he anticipates failures, he's confident Starship will reach orbit by the end of this year.

Musk provided his first major Starship update in more than two years while standing alongside the 119-metre rocket at SpaceX's Texas spaceport. He urged the nighttime crowd, "Let's make this real!"

"This is really some wild stuff here," he said. "In fact, hard to believe it's real."

NASA plans to use the fully reusable Starship to land astronauts on the moon as early as 2025. Musk, meanwhile, hopes to deploy a fleet of Starships to create a city on Mars, hauling equipment and people there.

For now, the initial flights would carry Musk's internet satellites, called Starlinks, into orbit.

"There will probably be a few bumps in the road, but we want to iron those out with satellite missions and test missions" before putting people on board, he said.

SpaceX's Super Heavy first-stage booster has yet to blast off. But the futuristic, bullet-shaped, steel Starship — perched on top and serving as the upper stage — successfully launched and landed on its own last May, following a series of spectacular explosions. The rocketship soared more than 10 kilometres.

SpaceX is awaiting approval from the Federal Aviation Administration before proceeding with Starship's next phase: going into orbit. Musk said he expects the go-ahead in March and that the rocket should be ready to fly by then as well. That would put the launch in the next couple of months, he added.

If the FAA demands more information about potential environmental impacts or lawsuits emerge, Musk said Starship launches could move to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. But that would delay the first orbital launch by more than half a year, he noted.

The full-size Starships are massive — taller than NASA's past and present moon rockets, with approximately double the liftoff thrust.

SpaceX's Elon Musk provides an update on Starship, Thursday, Feb. 10, 2022, near Brownsville, Texas. Musk said that the first orbital flight of Starship — the world's most powerful rocket ever built — could come in another month or two. While he anticipates failures, he's confident Starship will reach orbit by the end of this year. (Miguel Roberts/The Brownsville Herald via The Associated Press)

Besides Florida's Cape Canaveral and the southern tip of Texas near Boca Chica, Starships could ultimately launch from floating ocean platforms anywhere in the world, Musk said. He envisions Starships launching three times a day — "rapid reusability" — with refilling stations in space for the longer destinations like Mars. The first refilling test could happen by the end of next year, he said.

• SpaceX wins $2.9B contract for NASA moon lander

• Rocket launches could be affecting our ozone layer, say experts

Musk estimates a Starship launch could wind up costing less than $10 million — maybe even just a few million dollars with a high flight rate, which would bring down prices. He called it "crazy low" and "ridiculously good" by current space standards.

Starship already has one private customer: a Japanese entrepreneur who has bought a flight around the moon and plans to take a dozen artists with him. Musk hinted there are others interested in buying trips, saying future announcements would be forthcoming.

Until now, SpaceX has relied on its much smaller Falcon rockets to launch satellites, as well as astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station for NASA. Its first private flight, purchased by a billionaire, was last September. Another is coming up at the end of March, this one to the space station with three businessmen who are paying $55 million US apiece.

Are mosquito-killing natural pesticides unintentionally harming frogs?

The Conversation
February 10, 2022

Mosquito eggs float on the surface of a pond. The insecticide Bti is used to kill mosquito larvae, but it could also harm frogs. (Shutterstock)

The question of how pesticides affect public health and the environment has generated a lot of attention in Québec. Pesticides are widely used and often end up in our natural environment.

Pesticides are useful for killing weeds (herbicides), fungi (fungicides), insect pests in agriculture and fleas in pets (insecticides). They are also used to reduce the numbers of biting insects in urban and rural environments.

We have recently studied the indirect health effects on frogs of a biopesticide that has been in use for several decades, mainly to reduce the number of bothersome mosquitoes.

Bacterial proteins are naturally occurring insecticides

Bti is one of a number of pesticides used worldwide to reduce the populations of biting insects that breed in wetlands. This biological insecticide is composed of natural toxins from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis.

These toxins, synthesized in the form of crystals, belong to the Cry family of proteins, and target the larvae of biting insects such as mosquitos and blackflies. After the larvae ingests the crystals, they dissolve in the digestive tract and are transformed into toxic proteins that destroy the walls of the intestine, killing the larvae.

In principle, Cry toxins should not affect the intestinal walls of vertebrate species (mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish) because the digestive conditions of these species do not favour the transformation of the crystals into destructive proteins. According to Health Canada Bti is not a high risk to other animals and humans.

However, the use of Bti remains controversial.

Toxic effects or no effects of Bti formulations?

Bti is often applied directly to small bodies of water, such as marshes, to specifically target aquatic mosquito and blackfly larvae. It could potentially impact other aquatic animal species, such as frog tadpoles, which are known to be sensitive to pollutants.

Some studies have shown that Bti formulations can be directly toxic to frogs, while others have revealed no effects.

For example, two Argentinian studies reported that a commercial formulation of Bti, called Introban, was toxic to tadpoles of the Creole frog. However, our work showed that a Bti formulation called VectoBac did not cause mortality in wood frog and American toad tadpoles.


Valerie Langlois and her team are studying the effects of some commercial Bti formulations on frogs.
(Valerie Langlois), Author provided

These contrasting results could be attributed to the different Bti formulations used in one country or another, the product’s potency, the species used or the environmental conditions during the experiments. Each commercial Bti product also contains additives that are known only to their manufacturers and whose effects on tadpoles are not known.

Our team has written about these differences in an article published in the scientific journal Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology.

Metamorphosis and intestinal microbiota

The results of our study, published recently in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, revealed that VectoBac may affect frog metamorphosis — the transition from tadpole to young frog.

In wood frogs and American toads, two types of VectoBac altered the time it took a tadpole to metamorphose, either delaying metamorphosis by nearly five days or advancing it by one day, depending on the treatment. Studies on frog ecology have established that early metamorphosis reduces a frog’s chance of survival, which could ultimately reduce population sizes.

In addition to metamorphosis, both types of VectoBac we studied altered the composition of the gut bacterial community of exposed young toads. Indeed, with the application rates recommended by the manufacturer, there was an increase in the relative abundance of certain families of gut bacteria. The impact of these changes remains unknown.

A 2017 study by Jason Rohr of the University of Pittsburgh showed that disruption of the microbiota of amphibians decreases resistance to parasites later in life. Our team will focus on determining whether Bti-induced changes in microbiota impact the physiology of frogs in the long-term.
The precautionary principle

Should the precautionary principle, which states that “a substance should be considered potentially harmful to human health and the environment until proven otherwise,” be applied to amphibian habitats?

Our results indicate that the impact of commercial Bti products on amphibian health is variable among the species we studied, but our understanding remains limited. Bti formulations contain ingredients other than just natural toxins and we do not yet know if these have any effects on tadpoles.

As a result, we recommend that the application of Bti products in amphibian-rich ecosystems be targeted and minimized, taking into account sensitive periods during a frog’s life cycle, including reproduction and development of eggs into young frogs.

These precautions should be applied until research is conducted to assess whether the observed changes in metamorphosis and gut microbiota have adverse effects on amphibian populations.

Valérie S. Langlois, Professor/Professeure titulaire, Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS);

Juan Manuel Gutierrez-Villagomez, Postdoctoral research fellow, Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS);

Madelaine Empey, PhD Student, Biology, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa, 

 Vance L Trudeau, Professor, Department of Biology, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa

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

QUACK

Luc Montagnier, French Nobel laureate who co-discovered HIV, dies at 89

Agence France-Presse
February 10, 2022

Luc Montagnier died on Tuesday in the American Hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine, northwest of Paris, its mayor told reporters. © Stephane de Sakutin, AFP

French researcher Luc Montagnier, who has died at 89, shared the Nobel medicine prize for his vital early discoveries on AIDS, but was later dismissed by the scientific community for his increasingly outlandish theories, notably on Covid-19.

Montagnier and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi shared the Nobel in 2008 for their work at the Pasteur Institute in Paris in isolating the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

Their achievement sped the way to HIV tests and antiretroviral drugs that keep the deadly pathogen at bay.

Bitter rivalry

AIDS – acquired immune deficiency syndrome – first came to public notice in 1981, when US doctors noted an unusual cluster of deaths among young gay men in California and New York.

Montagnier had a bitter rivalry with US scientist Robert Gallo in his ground-breaking work in identifying HIV at the virology department he created in Paris in 1972.

Both are co-credited with discovering that HIV causes AIDS, and their rival claims led for several years to a legal and even diplomatic dispute between France and the United States.

Montagnier’s work started in January 1983, when tissue samples arrived at the Pasteur Institute from a patient with a disease that mysteriously wrecked the immune system.

He later recalled the “sense of isolation” as the team battled to make this vital connection.

“The results we had were very good but they were not accepted by the rest of the scientific community for at least another year, until Robert Gallo confirmed our results in the US,” he said.

The Nobel jury made no mention of Gallo in its citation.

In 1986 Montagnier shared the Lasker Award – the US equivalent of the Nobel – with Gallo and Myron Essex.

In 2011, to mark 30 years since the appearance of AIDS, Montagnier warned of the spiraling costs of treating the 33 million then stricken with HIV.

“Treatment cuts transmission, that’s clear, but it doesn’t eradicate it, and we can’t treat all the millions of people,” he told AFP.

Controversial ideas

Montagnier was born on August 8, 1932 at Chabris in the Indre region of central France.

After heading Pasteur’s AIDS department from 1991 to 1997, and then teaching at Queens College in New York, Montagnier gradually drifted to the scientific fringes, stirring controversy after controversy.

He repeatedly suggested that autism is caused by infection and set up much-criticized experiments to prove it, claiming antibiotics could cure the condition.

He stunned many of his peers when he talked of the purported ability of water to retain a memory of substances.

And he believed that anyone with a good immune system could fight off HIV with the right diet.

Montagnier supported theories that DNA left an electromagnetic trace in water that could be used to diagnose AIDS and Lyme’s Disease, and championed the therapeutic qualities of fermented papaya for Parkinson’s Disease.

‘Slow scientific shipwreck’

He repeatedly took up positions against vaccines, earning a stinging reprimand in 2017 from 106 members of the Academies of Sciences and Medicines.

The French daily Le Figaro described his journey from leading researcher to crank as a “slow scientific shipwreck”.

During the Covid pandemic he stood out again, stating that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was laboratory-made and that vaccines were responsible for the appearance of variants.

These theories, rejected by virologists and epidemiologists, made him even more into a pariah among his peers, but a hero to French anti-vaxxers.

LIKE ITS ENTHUSIAST'S ITS A TEENAGER

Bitcoin Is 13 Years Old, and Still Looking for Its Creator

By Rob Lenihan
2022/2/11 
© The Street

It's been 13 years since Satoshi Nakamoto asked the world to give his e-cash system bitcoin a try.

On February 11, 2009, someone going by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto announced that he had developed an e-cash system called bitcoin and asked the world to "give it a try."

And the world did.

Crypto Proof Instead of Trust

Barack Obama was president back then. Friday the 13th was the number one movie at the box office and Kelly Clarkson's "My Life Would Suck Without You" was at the top of the Billboard Hot 100.

And a social media site called Facebook was rapidly gaining in popularity, while pushing out the likes of MySpace.

Nakamoto said in his announcement that bitcoin was "completely decentralized, with no central server or trusted parties because everything is based on crypto proof instead of trust."

"With e-currency based on cryptographic proof, without the need to trust a third party middleman, money can be secure and transactions effortless," Nakamoto said.

Bitcoin took a little while to catch on, but, on May 17, 2010 a programmer named Laszlo Hanyecz made the first documented purchase of a good with bitcoin when he bought two Domino's pizzas for 10,000 BTC.

Things have changed a great deal since that time. Bitcoin has worked its way into society's consciousness as prices have soared, plummeted and climbed back up again, with January being a particularly rocky month.

More than 15,000 business worldwide accept bitcoin as payment and several U.S. mayors, including New York's Eric Adams, have gotten their paychecks in bitcoin.

El Salvador became the first country in the world to make bitcoin legal tender. However, at least 9 countries have banned cryptocurrencies.

And now 10,000 BTC is worth about $442 million.

But through it all, the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto remains a mystery.
Boom-and-Bust Cycles

There has been no shortage of suspects, with some even suggesting that Tesla (TSLA) - Get Tesla Inc Report CEO Elon Musk is crypto mystery man. Sahil Gupta, a former intern at Musk's SpaceX, named him in a blog post.

The electric vehicle maker has a significant investment in bitcoin, but Musk denied the allegation.

Musk has agreed with the common theory that cryptocurrency expert Nick Szabo, saying in an interview that Szabo "is probably, more than anyone else, responsible for the evolution of those ideas." Szabo has denied being Nakamoto.

What does the future hold for bitcoin?

It's certainly not the only cryptocurrency around. Last year, Bitcoin’s use at merchants that use BitPay dropped to about 65% of processed payments, down from 92% in 2020, Bloomberg reported.

This week JPMorgan analysts put fair value for the world’s biggest digital currency at $38,000, below the recent level of $43,628.

The year 2022 "is likely to be a more challenging and more mean-reverting year for digital assets,” the analysts wrote in a commentary.

“The biggest challenge for bitcoin going forward is its volatility and the boom-and-bust cycles that hinder further institutional adoption.”

But stock research and market forecasts company FSInsight, operated by Fundstrat Global Advisors, predicted bitcoin would touch $200,000 in the second half, despite its turbulent start to 2022

"Bitcoin became increasingly correlated with equities toward the end of the fourth quarter of last year and fell when faced with the prospect of central bank tightening," FSInsight's Head of Digital Asset Strategy Sean Farrell wrote.

WAIT, WHAT?
Artificial fish grown from human cardiac cells swims just like a heart beats

The first fully autonomous biohybrid fish from human stem-cell derived cardiac muscle cells. (Photo credit to Michael Rosnach, Keel Yong Lee, Sung-Jin Park, Kevin Kit Parker)

by Chris Melore

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Scientists from Harvard University have created a fish that’s all heart — literally. Using stem cells, researchers have grown their own artificial fish which can actually swim around their tank by mimicking the beating of a human heart!

A team from Emory University and Harvard collaborated on the development of these autonomous biohybrid fish in order to learn more about creating artificial heart pumps. Their hope is this is the first step in building replacement organs for children (and possibly adults) with heart disease.

“Our ultimate goal is to build an artificial heart to replace a malformed heart in a child,” says Kit Parker, the Tarr Family Professor of Bioengineering and Applied Physics at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), in a university release.

“Most of the work in building heart tissue or hearts, including some work we have done, is focused on replicating the anatomical features or replicating the simple beating of the heart in the engineered tissues. But here, we are drawing design inspiration from the biophysics of the heart, which is harder to do,” Parker continues.

“Now, rather than using heart imaging as a blueprint, we are identifying the key biophysical principles that make the heart work, using them as design criteria, and replicating them in a system, a living, swimming fish, where it is much easier to see if we are successful.”

This isn’t the first time Parker’s team has built their own animals out of cardiac muscle cells. In 2012, the lab team created a jellyfish-like biohybrid using rat cells. Four years later, they developed an artificial stingray which could also swim using the same process.

An artificial stingray also from rat heart muscle cells.

 (Credit: Disease Biophysics Group/Harvard SEAS)

A fish that acts just like a human heart

In the new study, the team used human stem-cell derived cardiomyocytes for the first time to create an autonomous biohybrid device. These cells are responsible for generating contractions within a healthy heart — creating your heartbeat.

Unlike their previous artificial animals, the new fish has two layers of heart muscle cells on each side of its fin. Just like the muscles in a human heart, when one side contracts, the other side stretches out. In the mechanical zebrafish, this back-and-forth process actually propels the fish through the water for more than 100 days.

“By leveraging cardiac mechano-electrical signaling between two layers of muscle, we recreated the cycle where each contraction results automatically as a response to the stretching on the opposite side,” explains Keel Yong Lee, a postdoctoral fellow at SEAS. “The results highlight the role of feedback mechanisms in muscular pumps such as the heart.”

Along with the layers of muscle cells, the team also created an autonomous pacing node which basically acts like a pacemaker for the artificial fish. It controls the frequency and rhythm of the contractions taking place in the heart muscles. Together, the pacemaker and two layers of cells generate a continuous, spontaneous, and orderly set of movements in the animal’s tail — much like what goes on in an actual heart.

“Because of the two internal pacing mechanisms, our fish can live longer, move faster and swim more efficiently than previous work,” says co-first study author Sung-Jin Park, a former postdoctoral fellow in the Disease Biophysics Group at SEAS. “This new research provides a model to investigate mechano-electrical signaling as a therapeutic target of heart rhythm management and for understanding pathophysiology in sinoatrial node dysfunctions and cardiac arrhythmia.”

Schematics of autonomously swimming biohybrid fish.
(Photo credit to Michael Rosnach, Keel Yong Lee, Sung-Jin Park, Kevin Kit Parker)

Artificial fish get better with age

Unlike a normal fish aging in the sea, the biohybrid fish actually gets stronger as it grows older. As the cardiomyocyte cells continued to mature, the study found that muscle contraction amplitude, maximum swimming speed, and muscle coordination all improved over the course of a month of swimming.

Later on, the artificial fish actually matched the swimming speed of a real-life zebrafish from the wild. The team is already looking to create even more complex creatures using this method.

“I could build a model heart out of Play-Doh, it doesn’t mean I can build a heart,” Parker says.

“You can grow some random tumor cells in a dish until they curdle into a throbbing lump and call it a cardiac organoid. Neither of those efforts is going to, by design, recapitulate the physics of a system that beats over a billion times during your lifetime while simultaneously rebuilding its cells on the fly. That is the challenge. That is where we go to work.”

The study is published in the journal Science.

Grieg Seafood installs semi-closed containment fish farms in Esperanza Inlet, BC


Esperanza Inlet, BC - Grieg Seafood BC Ltd. is introducing a new semi-closed containment system to all three of its fish farms in Esperanza Inlet, off the west coast of Vancouver Island.

The new CO2L Flow system allows fish farmers to raise and lower farm enclosures, allowing farmed fish to benefit from the natural ecosystem, while protecting wild salmon, Grieg Seafood said in a release.

As ocean-based farmers, Rocky Boschman, Grieg Seafood BC Ltd. managing director, said one of the most commonly raised concerns is the transfer of sea lice between wild and farmed populations.

The semi-closed system has “drastically” reduced the number of sea lice in farmed populations, he said.

Indeed, open-pen fish farms are criticized by some scientists who claim they transfer dangerous amounts of sea lice to wild populations, contributing to the collapse of B.C.’s wild stocks. As wild juvenile salmon migrate past fish farms, many fear they’re especially vulnerable to the parasites that wreak havoc on their immune systems, increasing their risk of disease.

During the periods of wild salmon migration, or when there are harmful algae in the region, Dean Trethewey, Grieg Seafood’s director of saltwater production, regulatory and fish health, said barriers within the closed-containment systems can be lowered to prevent lateral interaction between wild and farmed salmon populations.

This “significantly reduces the transmission of sea lice between the populations,” he said.

Three cycles of fish have been raised in the new system since Grieg launched the first trial in 2019 at its farms off the Sunshine Coast.

“During the trial while the barriers were deployed, we did not have to treat for sea lice within the semi-closed system, while our other farms in the area were treated twice for sea lice during this same period,” said Trethewey.

Fish raised in the trial system also saw an increase of growth by around 40 per cent, a 19 per cent survival increase.

Grieg Seafood BC is part of the Norwegian multinational Grieg Group and operates 22 fish farms within the province. As one of the largest salmon farming companies in B.C., Grieg is aiming to harvest 22,000 metric tonnes of fish in 2022.

Salmon farming companies are required to report lice counts higher than three motile lice per fish during the wild juvenile salmon outmigration, which runs annually from March 1 to June 30, Trethewey said.

“As a company, our goal is to keep lice well below this threshold, and once we start to see counts rise [above] 1.5 motile lice per fish, our treatment planning process is triggered,” he added.

While these semi-closed systems prevent sea lice from travelling into the farms, Grieg Seafood said it doesn’t stop the movement of pathogens.

Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation Councillor Terry Dorward said the new system doesn’t go far enough.

“The technology is there to go closed,” said Dorward. “Industry just needs to smarten up and move in that direction. For too long, there has been an increase in pathogens and a decline in wild salmon.”

In recent years, B.C. salmon numbers have hit record lows. Only two wild Chinook salmon returned to the upper Kennedy watershed in 2021, meaning the population has seen a 98 per cent decrease, reported Jessica Hutchinson, Central Westcoast Forest Society executive director and ecologist.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently called for new Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray to continue to work with B.C. and Indigenous communities on a plan to transition from open net-pen salmon farming by 2025.

For Dorward, 2025 isn’t soon enough.

“We're [seeing] such decline in wild salmon stocks … we need to act now if we're ever going to have healthy fisheries on the west coast,” he said. “I don’t have a lot of faith in the federal government.”

Numerous studies suggest the global demand for blue foods will nearly double by 2050, which will be primarily met through increased aquaculture.

“As a company, we will continue to look for ways in which we can innovate and continue to improve our operations,” said Boschman, adding the company is looking for solutions that will recover solid waste produced by the farms.

“There is no denying that this new system represents a transition towards what in-ocean farms can one day become,” he said.

-30-

Melissa Renwick, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Ha-Shilth-Sa

Largest US public power company launches new nuclear program


The largest public power company in the U.S. is launching a program to develop and fund new small modular nuclear reactors as part of its strategy to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The board for the Tennessee Valley Authority on Thursday authorized the program to assess moving forward with new nuclear technology, with up to $200 million to be spent for the first phase. The TVA wants the technology to be available to help power the grid in the 2030s if it proves cost-effective and necessary, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approves. The board met at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

The federally owned utility provides electricity to seven states. It has the first U.S. permit for a suitable site for small modular reactors in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, at the Clinch River Nuclear Site. By 2050, it hopes to hit its goal of net-zero emissions, which means the amount of greenhouse gases produced is no more than the amount removed from the atmosphere.

“Our objective isn’t to build one nuclear plant,” TVA President and CEO Jeff Lyash said in an interview. “Our objective is to reach net zero carbon, to support economy-wide decarbonization, and to do it at a price and a level of reliability that people can count on. And this is a part of doing that.”

A recent Associated Press survey of the energy policies in all 50 states and the District of Columbia found that a strong majority — about two-thirds — say nuclear, in one fashion or another, will help take the place of fossil fuels. Roughly one-third of the states and the District of Columbia have no plans to incorporate nuclear power in their green energy goals, instead leaning heavily on renewables to try to stave off the worst effects of a warming planet.

The split over nuclear power in U.S. states mirrors a similar debate unfolding in Europe, where countries including Germany are phasing out their reactors while others, such as France, are sticking with the technology or planning to build more plants. The head of the U.N. nuclear agency said in November that he sees atomic power playing a key role in balancing climate concerns and the world’s energy needs.

Lyash said the TVA can reduce carbon emissions by about 80% using solar and wind power, existing nuclear plants and hydroelectric dams, and by reducing demand through energy efficiency efforts, without sacrificing reliable, resilient, low-cost power.

But the smaller nuclear reactors that companies are developing now are crucial to getting the rest of the way and increasing electricity production, along with other new technologies, he added. The utility now operates three nuclear plants — the nation’s third largest nuclear fleet — to supply more than 40% of the region's energy.

Lyash told the board Thursday that for the Clinch River site, the TVA is focused on GE Hitachi's design for a small modular reactor that uses light water like all U.S. commercial reactors. The TVA is also collaborating with Kairos Power to build a test reactor, a demonstration project that wouldn't be for commercial use, in Oak Ridge.

The Union of Concerned Scientists has cautioned that nuclear technology still comes with significant risks that other low-carbon energy sources don’t, including the danger of accidents or targeted attacks for both the radioactive waste and the reactors, and the unresolved question of how to store hazardous nuclear waste.

Grant Smith, a senior energy policy adviser at the Environmental Working Group, said small reactors are going to be a “total financial debacle” because the cost of nuclear power never comes down, with costs and risks shifted to ratepayers.

“You really don’t need them," he said in an interview. "Why keep dumping money into a technology that has been a financial disaster from the beginning?”

The TVA had plans decades ago to build 17 large reactors at seven sites. The utility sank more than $8 billion in the 1970s and 1980s into 10 nuclear reactors that were canceled before they were finished — scrapping most of what then was the nation’s most costly and ambitious nuclear program.

Lyash said they're now taking a far more conservative approach: They're not launching into a program to build multiple reactors on multiple sites because they've learned many lessons over 50 years. If one reactor can't be planned and built on schedule and on budget, they won't scale up, he added.

The initial funding will be used for the design, licensing and project development to potentially build GE Hitachi's reactor.

State-regulated utilities could face skepticism over the potential cost to customers of nuclear reactors, though. Two more-traditional large nuclear reactors being built in Georgia have more than doubled in overall cost, to more than $28 billion. Similar reactors that were under construction in South Carolina were scrapped, driving a utility to be sold in distress and resulting in a criminal conviction of the former CEO for fraud.

The NRC has approved just one of the new, small modular reactor designs: from an Oregon company called NuScale Power, in August 2020. Several other companies are planning to apply for their designs. That includes a project by Bill Gates’ company, TerraPower, in Wyoming, the nation’s largest coal-producing state.

____

Associated Press writer Jeff Amy in Atlanta contributed to this report.

Jennifer Mcdermott, The Associated Press

Catholic Bishops Indigenous Reconciliation Fund names its Board Of Directors


(ANNews) – On January 28, 2022 it was announced by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) that the organization would be creating a new registered charity to advance healing and reconciliation initiatives.

The Indigenous Reconciliation Fund will be operated by a six-member board of directors, which includes Wilton Littlechild, a former commissioner on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC).

Other Indigenous people part of the board include: Giselle Marion, born and raised in Behchokǫ̀, NT; and Rosella Kinoshameg, an Odawa/Ojibway woman from the Wikwemikong unceded First Nation Territory.

Natale Gallo, Claude Bédard and Barbara Dowding are also members of the corporation.

“The Bishops of Canada are fully committed to addressing the historical and ongoing trauma caused by the residential school system,” said Bishop Raymond Poisson, President of the CCCB. “In moving forward with our collective financial commitment, we will continue to be guided by the experience and wisdom of Indigenous peoples across the country”.

The CCCB has said that they will accept contributions granted to this end by the 73 dioceses across the country in order to fulfill the $30 million commitment made by the Canadian Bishops in September.

Furthermore, the organization has said that the fund will publish annual reports and will be subject to an audit by an independent accounting firm each year. Any administrative costs will be on top of the $30 million being raised and will not be deducted from the principal amount.

On top of that, the CCCB said that they will also establish Regional and/or Diocesan Granting Committees in order to identify projects that further the fund’s priorities, review applications and request funds to support such projects.

While specific disbursement guidelines will be informed by additional input from Indigenous partners, the CCCB intends to contribute to the following priorities:

Healing and reconciliation for communities and families;

Culture and language revitalization;

Education and community building; and

Dialogues for promoting Indigenous spirituality and culture.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, Indigenous children in Canada were forced to attend residential schools: boarding schools funded by the Canadian government and run by Catholic Church institutions that aimed to assimilate indigenous youth into Euro-Canadian culture.

Overall, some 150,000 First Nation, Inuit, and Métis children were forced to attend these schools between the 1870s and 1997.

The resulting trauma caused by the schools led to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement in 2007 and a formal public apology by (then) Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2008.

Additionally, a seven-year inquiry by the TRC that concluded in 2015 determined that over 4,000 children died while attending these schools, many due to abuse, negligence, or disease.

Littlechild, former Grand Chief of the Confederacy of Treaty Six First Nations, and a residential school survivor said that in addition to physical and sexual abuse, as a form of denigration they called him #65. In an interview that aired on “Sixty Minutes” he told Anderson Cooper, “They didn’t kill my spirit. So, I’m still Cree. I’m still who I am. I’m not 65. My name is Mahigan Pimoteyw. So, they didn’t kill my spirit.”

Jacob Cardinal, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Alberta Native News

Schizophrenia's origins in the brain may have been found - study

By AARON REICH - 
by The Jerusalem Post  



Schizophrenia is one of the most infamous mental illnesses around, affecting around 20 million people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO,) and with a wide range of symptoms such as hallucinations, memory loss, paranoia and more. But exactly how it forms has never been exactly understood by experts

But a new study may have changed that, pinpointing where in the brain it likely originates.

Published in the peer-reviewed academic journal Nature Communications, the study identified these locations by focusing on a specific protein that was associated with schizophrenia. Based on its location, it shows where in the brain the mental illness comes from, which can pave the way to a greater understanding of the psychiatric disorder and could lead to improved treatment in the future.
What is schizophrenia? What are its symptoms?

Schizophrenia is a mental illness, a psychiatric disorder that can cause a wide range of different symptoms.


Mental health [illustrative] (credit: PIXABAY)

It is chiefly characterized by psychotic episodes when someone loses touch with reality in a variety of ways. The condition also can cause altered perceptions such as hallucinations, hearing voices that aren't there and other sensory distortions. It can also cause delusions, which can mean severe and irrational paranoia or other beliefs unsupported by any facts and can also cause disorganized speaking and thinking.

The effects on the brain can also lead to memory and information processing issues, trouble making decisions and paying attention. It can also manifest in severe social withdrawal and functionality, less ability to feel pleasure and a flat effect, which is defined as not using facial expressions or tone of voice to convey expressions.
How do you get schizophrenia?

There are a number of things experts have deduced about this, which have been documented by the National Institute for Mental Health (NIMH).

For one thing, though it is possible for symptoms to manifest at a young age, typically schizophrenia only begins to show in adolescence.

Theories exist that environmental influence can play a role, like stressful surroundings, viruses, nutritional problems before birth and living in poverty.

What we do know is that the condition seems to be, to an extent, hereditary and genetic. However, being in the same family as someone who has schizophrenia does not mean you for sure will. Exactly how this genetic process works is not fully understood, and it is not yet possible to test it with genetic information.
So where does it come from in the brain?

That's where the new study comes in.

Researchers from the University of Southern California (USC) Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences focused on a specific protein known as synapse-associated protein 97, also known as SAP97.

This protein itself is rather mysterious, and scientists know it exists but don't really understand what it does or where it does it. In fact, prior studies on SAP97 have brought back conflicting data.

What was determined over the course of many different studies over the years was that SAP97 plays some kind of role in schizophrenia. More specifically, an association between schizophrenia and when SAP97 isn't able to properly function and do whatever it is supposed to do.

This exact link has been highlighted in different ways. One study noted a gene encoded in SAP97, DLG1, was identified as a possible hub of schizophrenia-related activity. Mutations in SAP97 were also spotted in schizophrenia patients, and mutations resulting in losing a DLG1 allele were noted to cause one to be 40 times more likely to develop schizophrenia.
Why does this happen?

Scientists could never quite determine that. While it seemed certain that SAP97 and its gene DLG1 played a role in schizophrenia when they were not able to function properly, the fact that no one understood what SAP97 does in the first place has made it frustratingly difficult to actually understand this process at all.

Making this even more confusing is that SAP97 is at the very least known to be what is known as a Membrane-Associated Guanylate Kinase (MAGUK) protein. This would mean that it should be regulating glutamatergic signaling between neurons in the brain and influence the creation and storage of memories. However, it has never been shown doing this at all.
The study

So if SAP97 isn't present where it should be, where is it?

To find this out, the researchers in the new study decided to look elsewhere.

SAP97 was not in any of the parts of the brain it would traditionally be present in. So with that in mind, the researchers looked at a place that was instead linked, in theory, to schizophrenia.

That location is the dentate gyrus, a part of the hippocampus that controls contextual episodic memory, which is the conscious recollection of life experiences. Essentially, this is where you would remember what happened when it happened and where it happened.

And as mentioned earlier, this type of memory is often distorted and altered in schizophrenia, which could mean that the dentate gyrus, which controls this type of memory, would be altered in someone with schizophrenia.

And if SAP97 is linked to this, then maybe, the mysterious protein could be found there as well.

So the scientists got to work. They examined the brains of rats with damaged SAP97 and looked at the dentate gyrus for changes.

And they found them.

When SAP97 function is reduced, the neurons in the dentate gyrus had extreme spikes in glutamatergic signaling. This type of spike produces severe alterations in contextual episodic memory, a classic symptom of schizophrenia.

Since SAP97 was inhibited, the implication is that the mysterious protein's job is to regulate glutamatergic signaling in the dentate gyrus.

This is a major breakthrough in identifying the role and location of this protein in the brain and indicating where schizophrenia symptoms may emerge.

And the researchers hope to build on this, launching further studies to look for other areas of the brain where SAP97 may be active, and try to find if other mutations linked to schizophrenia may cause similar glutamatergic signaling increases as it does in the dentate gyrus.

Consequently, knowing more about this condition can lead to better treatment options.

Currently, the most common treatment for schizophrenia is antipsychotic medication alongside therapy and social support. However, these medications can have a host of side effects that can be very disruptive to daily life, which has led people to stop taking them. However, that can be extremely dangerous and may make symptoms worsen. Further, medications don't always work for everyone, or fully treat all symptoms. Some even need to use other drugs like clozapine, though that can have serious side effects and regular blood testing is needed, which can be difficult – though a recent innovation by Israel's Ben-Gurion University of the Negev hopes to change that.

More effective treatment can make life better for millions of people with schizophrenia around the world.

University researcher Vanessa Gray defends the land and her actions

Vanessa Gray — University of Toronto researcher, member of Aamjiwnaang First Nation and Indigenous land protector — sees herself as an educator. But in the eyes of the Canadian justice system, she is a criminal.

She has been arrested twice in her work as a land protector, and she says she interacts with law enforcement and security guards often. Still, the threat of police and criminalization is worth it for Gray — and for a reason. She grew up adjacent to Ontario’s Chemical Valley, which houses over 40 per cent of Canada’s petrochemical industry (that’s over 60 plants in a 25-kilometre radius).

“I know first-hand what environmental racism feels like, smells like, and how it emotionally sits on my shoulders every day,” Gray told Canada’s National Observer.

Gray says these days she is often in court, sometimes in class-action lawsuits, other times as a defendant in a criminal case.

In 2015, she was arrested for locking herself to a valve in a demonstration against the Line 9 pipeline that carries crude oil from Sarnia, Ont., to Quebec. All charges against her were dropped two years later.

In 2019, Gray was assaulted at a Liberal climate rally after disrupting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s speech. She was detained by police after the incident; the man who threw her to the ground wasn’t.

In December 2021, police arrived at her apartment lobby and Gray discovered there was a warrant out for her arrest over her alleged involvement in a solidarity action supporting land protectors on unceded Wet’suwet’en territory, who were the subject of a high-profile RCMP raid the month before.

Gray has been charged with three counts of mischief under $5,000, interference with property, causing disturbance, loitering, unlawful assembly, trespassing and failure to give the right of way. The case is currently before the court.

When Gray turned herself in, she was with friends and family. She defiantly wore a ribbon skirt to declare her connection to the land and her role in protecting it, which has made her a target.

Gray’s lawyer told her what was going to happen once she turned herself in, but the reality, she says, was different. She alleges Canadian Pacific Railway police handcuffed her behind her back while they brought her from Division 11 in downtown Toronto to CP police headquarters in Scarborough.

You've spoken before about a pattern of law enforcement seeking to silence Indigenous land defenders and suppress Indigenous organizing. Can you talk about the tactic of persistent criminalization when it comes to Indigenous land defenders?

It’s hard for me to understand how this criminalization persists when we all know what colonization did and continues to do to our communities. I’ve done a lot of research on police violence, I have seen it, and my recent arrest was not the first time I experienced it. Even now, I overestimate the police’s quickness to resort to violence. Like other Indigenous women, I am afraid of the police. But the moment we start second-guessing our actions is when the fear of police stops us from protecting our communities. But we just have to remember who we are as Indigenous peoples. We are going to get a lot of pushback from that, but that’s when we know we’re doing something right: when Canada sees us as a threat. So I will not see myself as a criminal, just as my grandpa didn’t see himself as a criminal when he was taken to residential school.

There is a documented history of police surveillance of Indigenous land defenders. Vancouver Observer investigated this type of police scrutiny as far back as 2013; the book Policing Indigenous Movements does the same. Is police surveillance ever on your mind?

Of course. I think about how much funding gets sunk into police budgets and how much the RCMP continues to surveil Indigenous land protectors across Canada. For many years, the OPP (Ontario Police Service) called me, texted me, and reached out to me asking me to go for coffee or lunch because they just want to know what’s going on, and I didn’t even realize it was illegal or unjust for them to behave that way. The hardest part about the surveillance — besides the police harassing me or showing up unannounced with no paperwork to explain their presence — is that being surveilled and criminalized impacts the people I care about most in the world, like my nephews. But then I remember that I’m doing this for them; I want them to be able to live on their territories unafraid and unsurveilled.

How do you find balance despite everything? What keeps you going? I know that I’m supported by ancestors and by my community. I also find relief in researching colonial and police violence in Canada. I work as a researcher at an Indigenous-led lab at the University of Toronto where I work on issues that directly affect the health of the lands in my home community, Aamjiwnaang First Nation. Through my work, I hope that the communities impacted by the harms of the oil industry and police can find the strength, solidarity and tools to help the next generation resist policing and industrial violence.

Matteo Cimellaro / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada's National Observer, Canada's National Observer