It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Wednesday, March 30, 2022
MEDICARE FOR ALL
Endocrine Society applauds House for taking action to address insulin affordability
Underlying problem of rising insulin prices still needs to be addressed
WASHINGTON—The Endocrine Society applauds the House of Representatives for hearing our call to improve insulin affordability for people with diabetes as it prepares to vote on the Affordable Insulin Now Act this week.
The bill would cap patients’ out-of-pocket insulin costs to $35 per month for people on Medicare and private insurance who rely on insulin to manage their diabetes. The Society supports an insulin co-pay cap and recommended this step in its position statement on insulin access and affordability.
While the Affordable Insulin Now Act is a promising step toward improving insulin affordability for some individuals, Congress must still address the underlying problem of soaring insulin prices, which tripled over a 15-year period, and continue to rise. Policies must be implemented to address the drivers of rising insulin prices, not just out-of-pocket costs.
An insulin co-pay cap is an important component to solving this problem. However, we caution against passing this as a standalone measure without including additional protections that address rising price, prevent premium increases, or result in a rising rate of uninsured Americans.
We look forward to continuing to work with Congress in a bipartisan manner to pass legislation that will lower health care costs and help the millions of Americans living with diabetes who rely on this lifesaving drug. The millions of people living with diabetes for whom insulin is a lifesaving medication cannot wait.
# # #
Endocrinologists are at the core of solving the most pressing health problems of our time, from diabetes and obesity to infertility, bone health, and hormone-related cancers. The Endocrine Society is the world’s oldest and largest organization of scientists devoted to hormone research and physicians who care for people with hormone-related conditions.
The Society has more than 18,000 members, including scientists, physicians, educators, nurses and students in 122 countries. To learn more about the Society and the field of endocrinology, visit our site at www.endocrine.org. Follow us on Twitter at @TheEndoSociety and @EndoMedia.
'Healthcare Is a Human Right': Sanders Announces Medicare for All Senate Hearing
Rep. Cori Bush, who co-chaired this week's House event on the topic, thanked the Senate Budget Committee chair and celebrated "momentum" in Congress to pass related legislation. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speaks during a rally in front of PhRMA's Washington, D.C. office to protest high prescription drug prices on September 21, 2021.
(Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)
Just a day after a panel in the U.S. House of Representatives met to discuss universal healthcare legislation, Senate Budget Committee Chair Bernie Sanders announced that he plans to hold a Medicare for All hearing this May.
"The momentum to guarantee healthcare as a human right is real here in Congress."
"I'm happy to inform members of this committee that in early May we will be having a hearing—right here, in this committee—on the need to pass a Medicare for All single-payer program," Sanders (I-Vt.) said during a meeting on President Joe Biden's latest budget proposal.
Sanders, a longtime single-payer advocate, declared that "as a nation, we should understand what every other major country does: Healthcare is a human right, not a privilege."
"The function of a rational healthcare system is to provide healthcare to all in a cost-effective way—not to allow private insurance companies and private drug companies to make obscene levels of profit," he added.
The committee chair also highlighted that according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), "Medicare for All would save the American people and our entire healthcare system $650 billion each and every year."
Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), who co-chaired the House Oversight Committee's Tuesday hearing about Medicare for All, welcomed Sanders' remarks.
As Common Dreams reported, during the House event, Bush asserted that "Congress must implement a system that prioritizes people over profits, humanity over greed, and compassion over exploitation."
"This policy will save lives, I want to make that clear," she added. "I hope this hearing will be one more step forward in our commitment to ensuring everyone in this country, and particularly our Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities, have the medical care they need to thrive."
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
'Green New Deal Champions Pledge'
Pushes Candidates to Embrace Bold Climate Agenda
"We need to act now, and that means making sure politicians understand the urgency of this crisis."
Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) (L) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) rally with hundreds of young climate activists in Lafayette Square on June 28, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Dozens of progressive advocacy organizations launched a new campaign on Monday with the goal of pushing congressional candidates and incumbent lawmakers to embrace the Green New Deal and eschew funding from the powerful fossil fuel industry.
Known as the Green New Deal Champions Pledge, the new initiative aims to set "a new bar of what it means to fight for climate justice in Congress" by pressuring candidates and current representatives to back a specific slate of legislation that includes: The Green New Deal Resolution led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.); The Green New Deal for Cities led by Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.); The Green New Deal for Public Schools led by Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.); and The End Polluter Welfare Act led by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
The pledge also requires signatories to reject campaign contributions larger than $200 from oil, gas, and coal industry executives, lobbyists, or political action committees.
"We need to act now, and that means making sure politicians understand the urgency of this crisis."
"The Green New Deal Champions effort provides an exciting opportunity to advance a transformative agenda to end the fossil era, help working people, and catalyze a just energy transition," said Collin Rees of Oil Change U.S., one of nearly 50 groups involved in the new campaign.
"Rejecting fossil fuel money and committing to these key bills to phase out fossil fuels and build an equitable clean energy future are now clear requirements for politicians claiming the mantle of 'climate leadership,'" Rees added. "With dozens of critical primary and general elections this year, we'll see which candidates and elected officials are truly willing to stand up to Big Oil and Gas' lies and fight for our communities."
Dozens of Democratic candidates for U.S. Congress have already signed the pledge, including Greg Casar and Jessica Cisneros in Texas, Nina Turner in Ohio, and Summer Lee in Pennsylvania. The candidates joined Ocasio-Cortez, Bush, Sanders, Omar, Markey, Bowman, Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.), and more than a dozen other current members of Congress in backing the initiative.
"The Green New Deal is about jobs, justice, and dismantling systemic racism that's poisoning the lungs and futures of Black and Brown people in St. Louis and all across the country," Bush said in a statement Monday. "We need to act now, and that means making sure politicians understand the urgency of this crisis. I'm proud to be part of an effort to hold people in positions of power accountable to the solutions we know are needed to address environmental racism, confront the fossil fuel industry, and realize true climate justice."
The pledge was released as President Joe Biden's Build Back Better proposal, which includes around $550 billion in renewable energy investments over the next decade, remains stalled in the Senate due to the opposition of Republicans and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), a close ally of the fossil fuel industry.
Manchin, an outspoken opponent of the Green New Deal despite its popularity among U.S. voters, is reportedly pushing fellow Democrats to pursue an "all-of-the-above" approach to climate policy that includes "some concessions related to oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and natural gas exports."
The New Republic's Kate Aronoff argued in a column Monday that "the irony of this moment is that while the Green New Deal's legislative prospects look about as bleak as they ever have, the case for them has never looked better."
"More than 65 percent of likely voters support Green New Deal measures for cities, public housing, and schools despite their still minuscule support in the House and Senate, recent polling from Data for Progress found," Aronoff noted. "And in addition to the steady drumbeat of climate disasters and sobering studies released since the Green New Deal was first unveiled, the invasion of Ukraine has made a new case for massive investments in renewables and energy efficiency."
"For now, Green New Deal advocates aren't even close to calling the shots in Congress," she added. "Meanwhile, world events continue to make the case for the policies they support."
In the 2022 midterm elections and beyond, proponents of the new pressure campaign are hoping to translate strong public support for Green New Deal policies into a larger coalition of climate champions in Congress, which is currently awash in oil and gas money and filled with lawmakers who are financially invested in fossil fuel companies.
"As fossil fuel corporations destroy our communities and profit off of working families at the gas pump, our government has yet to pass climate legislation that meets the moment of crisis," Varshini Prakash, executive director of the youth-led Sunrise Movement, said in a statement Monday. "And yet, support for the Green New Deal has never been greater."
"That's why we're launching Green New Deal Champions, because we need members of Congress and elected officials to fight as hard as they can for the Green New Deal," said Prakash. "We must pass the climate bills that make the GND a reality—the GND Resolution is our North Star and the GND bills help us get there." Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Thousands of Canadians Call on Government to Scrap Carbon Capture Tax Credit
The scheme, said one campaigner, "is being used as a Trojan horse by oil and gas executives to continue, and even expand, fossil fuel production." Canadian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland speaks during a press conference in Ottawa on October 26, 2021.
"Magical thinking isn't going to solve the climate crisis."
"There is no fixing fossil fuels, we need to ditch them to protect our climate."
That's what Dylan Penner, a climate and social justice campaigner with the Council of Canadians, said in a statement Monday as advocacy organizations revealed that 31,512 people across Canada are calling on the federal government to scrap a proposed carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) tax credit expected in the upcoming budget.
Referencing The Lord of the Rings, Penner warned that "doubling down on CCUS instead of cutting downstream emissions from fossil fuels extracted in Canada is like trying to wield the One Ring instead of destroying it in Mount Doom. Spoiler warning: that approach doesn't end well."
The signatures were collected by the Council of Canadians as well as Environmental Defense, Leadnow, and Stand.earth. Their demands are directed at Canadian Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who is also minister of finance.
A December 2021 briefing from Environmental Defense points out that "to date, CCUS has a track record of over-promising and under-delivering. The vast majority of projects never get off the ground. The technology remains riddled with problems, unproven at scale, and prohibitively expensive."
As the document details:
Despite five decades of research and tens of billions of dollars in subsidies globally, the current scale of CCUS is minute compared to the scale that would be required. Current global carbon capture capacity is 39 [megatonnes] Mt, or about 0.1% of annual emissions from fossil fuels. For CCS to play a significant role in achieving the global Paris climate agreement goal, gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2 would need to be captured and permanently stored.
A 2021 study found that more than 80% of the CCS projects attempted in the U.S. have ended in failure. One of Canada's flagship CCS projects, Boundary Dam 3, initially promised a capture rate of 90%. It never reached that rate, so SaskPower eventually lowered its expectations to 65%—a target the facility still regularly fails to meet.
"Carbon capture is being used as a Trojan horse by oil and gas executives to continue, and even expand, fossil fuel production," Julia Levin, the group's senior Climate and Energy Program manager, said Monday. "It's a dangerous distraction driven by the same polluters who created the climate emergency."
"We no longer have time for incremental emission reductions that aren't aligned with a pathway to zero emissions," she added. "There is no fixing fossil fuels, we need to ditch them to protect our climate."
Advocacy organizations and other experts around the world have recently issued similar warnings about "false solutions" such as CCUS.
In January, more than 400 academics, energy system modelers, and scientists sent a letter to Freeland, Wilkinson, and Steven Guilbeault—Canada's minister of environment and climate change—to express their concerns about the anticipated "new fossil fuel subsidy," highlighting that "as well as undermining government efforts to reach net-zero by 2050, the introduction of this tax credit would contradict the promise made by your government to Canadians during the election period to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies by 2023 as well as our international commitments under the Paris agreement."
During the COP26 summit in Scotland late last year for parties to the Paris agreement, over 700 groups told governments and global institutions that to effectively combat the climate emergency, "we need real plans, real solutions, real finance, and real zero for an urgent, just transition."
That open letter came a few months after more than 500 organizations urged U.S. President Joe Biden, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and other key figures in both countries to reject carbon capture schemes that endanger frontline communities and are used by polluters "to justify business-as-usual operations."
Noting that later this month, the Trudeau government will unveil "its plan for how Canada will cut emissions to achieve their net-zero targets by 2050," Canada's National Post reported last week that "it is expected that details on the tax credit will follow in the federal budget, presumably in early April."
"Here's a real climate solution: Stop giving public money to the richest polluters on the planet."
According to the newspaper, "The Business Council of Canada, comprised of chief executives of major oil and gas players, such as Imperial Oil, Suncor, Shell, and Enbridge, told the National Post that a 50% tax credit is the 'the minimum that would be needed' but 75% 'would certainly increase the incentive.'"
Leadnow campaigner Jesse Whattam declared Monday that "pumping billions of public money into CCUS basically amounts to a blank check to oil and gas companies to continue fossil fuel production and expansion."
"In a climate emergency, it's irresponsible—especially when we know what the answer to solving the climate crisis actually is: funding a rapid transition off of fossil fuels and creating good sustainable jobs for all," Whattam added.
Sven Biggs, Canadian Oil and Gas Program director for Stand.earth, also called for investing in a clean energy future rather than prolonging reliance on oil and gas.
"Here's a real climate solution: Stop giving public money to the richest polluters on the planet," said Biggs. "Instead of bankrolling oil and gas companies to develop CCUS, the government should finance proven solutions which will replace fossil fuels with renewables and create sustainable jobs."
IMAGE: PLATE TECTONIC PICTURE THAT SHOWS CONTINENT-OCEAN TRANSITION, MID-OCEAN RIDGE SPREADING SYSTEM, PLUME-HEAD WITH OVERLYING OCEANIC PLATEAU, BACKARC SPREADING SYSTEM, FOREARC, AND VOLCANIC ARC SYSTEM. THE VARIOUS OPHIOLITE TYPES AND THEIR ARCHITECTURAL CONSTRUCTIONS HAVE BEEN PLACED IN THE POSITION WHERE THEY ORIGINALLY WERE FORMED.view more
CREDIT: GEOGEO
Archean versus Phanerozoic oceanic crust formation and tectonics: Ophiolites through time
Announcing a new publication for Geosystems and Geoenvironment journal. Geosystems and Geoenvironment is a quarterly international interdisciplinary journal in English that publishes high quality original research articles and timely reviews in interdisciplinary fields of Earth and Environment Sciences. Geosystems and Geoenvironment provides an integrated platform to publish breakthrough data and findings, as well as innovative concepts and models, related to the emergence and all related aspects of surface or deep Earth Systems and their planetary equivalents.
In this article researchers from the University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway and Miami University, Oxford, OH, USA present a global compilation of structural, lithological, and geochemical data on a selection of Archean, Proterozoic and Phanerozoic magmatic complexes, interpreted as ophiolites. Ophiolites, based on Phanerozoic examples, can be classified into subduction-related and subduction unrelated categories. These categories can be further subdivided into several subtypes depending on the proximity to subduction zones, and on sequential development from rifting – drifting to seafloor spreading for the subduction-unrelated category.
From bottom to top ophiolites exhibit a magmatic sequence of ultramafic rocks (upper mantle units), gabbros (layered and isotropic), basaltic dikes and lavas, as well as boninites and felsic dikes and lavas in the subduction-related types. Archean greenstone belts show large variations in their construction, but Eoarchean examples display identical structure and lithology to the Phanerozoic ophiolites, attesting to the operation of seafloor spreading and subduction zone processes in the early Earth's history.
Lithological differences between the Archean and Proterozoic/Phanerozoic ophiolites are demonstrated in the common occurrence of komatiites and felsic rocks, and scarcity of sheeted dike complexes in the former, compared to the opposite situation in those ophiolites that are younger than ca. 2 Ga. Geochemically there is a concomitant decrease in the content of incompatible elements (e.g., Sr, Zr, Y, Nb) and an increase in the content of compatible elements (e.g., Mg, Cr, Ni). In terms of tectonic environment analyzes, the Archean ophiolites are more abundantly subduction-related than those of Proterozoic and Phanerozoic ages. The subduction-dominant Archean oceanic crust (ophiolites) was characterized by accretionary cycle plate tectonics, whereas for those of Proterozoic and Phanerozoic ages, a combination of both accretionary cycle and Wilson cycles plate tectonic processes was operative.
Article reference: Harald Furnes, Yildirim Dilek, Archean versus Phanerozoic oceanic crust formation and tectonics: Ophiolites through time, Geosystems and Geoenvironment, Volume 1, Issue 1, 2022, 100004, ISSN 2772-8838, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geogeo.2021.09.004.
Geosystems and Geoenvironment publishes four volumes every year [February, May, August, and November]. The article categories include high profile Review papers published together with author vitae and photographs, Research Papers, Letters, and Discussions. Additionally, selected colour figures of accepted papers will be printed free of cost in colour in the Journal, and the Journal provides gratis reprints and a complimentary journal copy. All articles in Geosystems and Geoenvironment will be free open access through Elsevier's ScienceDirect platform.
Selected stratigraphic columnar sections from ten Archean and seven Proterozoic greenstone belts, seven Phanerozoic ophiolite complexes, and the oceanic in-situ Izu-Bonin-Mariana sequence.
CREDIT
GeoGeo
CAPTION
Columnar section showing the upper mantle and crustal components of a typical suprasubduction zone ophiolite, illustrated by field photographs. (a) and (b): Banded and folded harzburgite (olivine + orthopyroxene); (c): Layered cumulates of dunite (bright yellow) and dark wehrlite (olivine + clinopyroxene); (d): Layered and folded gabbro; (e): Varitextured gabbro; (f): Gabbro cut by basaltic and felsic intrusions; (g): Sheeted dike complex; (h): Volcanic breccia set in a hyaloclasite matrix; (i): pillow lava; (j): Massive andesitic lava flow; (k): Folded chert layers. Pictures a-c, i (Leka ophiolite, Norway), d (Karmøy ophiolite, Norway), e-h (Solund-Stavfjord ophiolite, Norway, j, k (Mirdita ophiolite, Albania). Key to lettering: Chpyr- chalcopyrite, H/D- Harzburgite/dunite, H- Harzburgite, L- Lherzolite, Opx–veins- orthopyroxenite veins, Pyr- pyrite.
CREDIT
GeoGeo
Mineral systems: Their advantages in terms of developing holistic genetic models and for target generation in global mineral exploration
IMAGE: CONVERGENT MARGIN-OROGENIC GOLD MODEL SHOWING RANGE OF TECTONIC SETTINGS FOR OROGENIC GOLD SYSTEMS WITHIN A CONSISTENT GEODYNAMIC ENVIRONMENT.view more
CREDIT: GEOGEO
Mineral systems: Their advantages in terms of developing holistic genetic models and for target generation in global mineral exploration
Announcing a new publication for Geosystems and Geoenvironment journal. Geosystems and Geoenvironment is a quarterly international interdisciplinary journal in English that publishes high quality original research articles and timely reviews in interdisciplinary fields of Earth and Environment Sciences. Geosystems and Geoenvironment provides an integrated platform to publish breakthrough data and findings, as well as innovative concepts and models, related to the emergence and all related aspects of surface or deep Earth Systems and their planetary equivalents.
In this article researchers from the University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia; the China University of Geosciences, Beijing, China; University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia and Kochi University, Kochi, Japan discuss how mineral systems provide a logical and hierarchical mechanism to integrate information over a range of time and terrane scales using the broad critical components of Geodynamics (tectonic setting), Fertility (source of ore and hydrothermal fluid components), Architecture (fluid plumbing systems) and Preservation (degree of post-ore uplift and erosion).
The article demonstrates, that although their adoption in published economic geology literature appears limited, there is value in such mineral systems for single deposit classes, using orogenic gold as an example, and closely related deposit groups, using porphyry-high-sulfidation-skarn Cu-Au-Mo systems as an example. The value of grouping disparate deposit classes based on similarities of their Geodynamics and Preservation parameters is demonstrated by the siting of numerous, not normally grouped, deposit classes on the margins of cratons and blocks with thick mantle lithosphere. Consideration as mineral systems provides a useful way of “seeing the wood for the trees” and defining universally applicable genetic models for deposit classes. It also allows focus on the critical measurable parameters that aid exploration to the exclusion of small-scale information that may only be uniquely applicable to the specific deposit from which it was derived.
Article reference: David I. Groves, M. Santosh, Daniel Müller, Liang Zhang, Jun Deng, Li-Qiang Yang, Qing-Fei Wang, Mineral systems: Their advantages in terms of developing holistic genetic models and for target generation in global mineral exploration, Geosystems and Geoenvironment,
Geosystems and Geoenvironment publishes four volumes every year [February, May, August, and November]. The article categories include high profile Review papers published together with author vitae and photographs, Research Papers, Letters, and Discussions. Additionally, selected colour figures of accepted papers will be printed free of cost in colour in the Journal, and the Journal provides gratis reprints and a complimentary journal copy. All articles in Geosystems and Geoenvironment will be free open access through Elsevier's ScienceDirect platform.
Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) image of part of the Atacama Desert, Chile, acquired in 2000, showing the giant Escondida-Zaldivar porphyry Cu-Au cluster.
CREDIT
GeoGeo
CAPTION
Global map showing giant to world-class mineral deposits with indirect Geodynamics relationship to subduction sited on craton margins.
CREDIT
GeoGeo
Kudzu Roots and Soy Molasses may help treat three types of cancer especially kids'
Scientists have found anticancer substances in them
IMAGE: SAIED ABUSHANAB NOTES THAT ISOFLAVONES INHIBIT TUMOR METASTASIS WITHOUT AFFECTING HEALTHY CELLS.view more
CREDIT: ILYA SAFAROV / URFU
Soy molasses and kudzu roots contain isoflavonoids with high antioxidant and cytotoxic activity, scientists have discovered. Substances can help fight cancer, especially when chemotherapy or surgery to remove metastases can be dangerous. A description of the study was published in the journal Plants.
The isoflavonoids in soy molasses and kudzu roots are phytoestrogens that mimic the action of the human hormone estrogen. They help to bind and remove free radicals from the body, which cause cell damage and disrupt immune system functions. This, in turn, leads to various diseases, including the formation of cancerous tumors.
Isoflavones found in plants are effective against dense tumor structures affecting human internal organs. For example, soy extract is most effective against metastases and malignant tumor cells developing in the muscles (rhabdomyosarcoma), while isoflavones from kudzu roots showed good anticarcinogenic effect against brain cancer (glioblastoma multiforme) and bone and connective tissue cancer (osteosarcoma). Studies were performed in vitro on cell lines of these diseases.
“The cancers studied have a high degree of metastasis and are resistant to therapeutic regimens. They are especially dangerous for children: about 40% of cancers in children are from these types of cancer. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy help in only 50% of cases, in the other 50% the cancer cells continue to metastasize, and in children's bodies the cells grow faster than in adults. In addition, radiation therapy is very toxic, especially for children. Thus, there is a need to develop innovative strategies that can potentially inhibit the growth of tumor cells without side effects, so plant extracts are an alternative to traditional drug therapy,” said Saied Abushanab, a research engineer at the Laboratory of Organic Synthesis at UrFU.
Scientists determined that the most active isoflavones in both plant extracts were daidzein and genistein, which protect bone tissue. Puerarin, formononetin, and biochanin A were also found. Scientists used "green solvents" called natural deep eutectic solvents to extract isoflavones. The study used solutions of choline chloride and citric acid. It is organic compounds that are non-toxic to the body.
“This technology has shown to be more effective for isoflavonoid extraction than the synthetic method of obtaining them. It should be noted that choline chloride and citric acid also have their own therapeutic properties and thus can enhance the effect of isoflavones on cancer cells,” explains Saied Abushanab.
Phytoestrogens extracted from both plant preparations were identified using high-performance liquid chromatography with mass spectrometric detection, and their quantification was performed using an ultraviolet detector. The scientists note that the combination of these methods makes it possible to carry out both qualitative determination of the compounds in the extract and to determine the amount of these substances in the sample under study.
Note
Kudzu root or pueraria is an ivy-like liana-like plant in the legume family. It is native to Asia and grows from the tropical regions of Indochina to the temperate foothills of the Sikhote-Alin. Fresh root crops of the plant can be used in the form of medicinal drinks.
Soybean molasses is a waste product of the industrial production of soy protein concentrate as a source of sugar, fiber and protein. Currently, soy molasses is used as an ingredient in compound feeds, as a pelletizer added to soybean meal, and as a substrate for biotechnical production.
Antioxidant and Cytotoxic Activities of Kudzu Roots and Soy Molasses against Pediatric Tumors and Phytochemical Analysis of Isoflavones Using HPLC-DAD-ESI-HRMS
CAPTION
Soy molasses and kudzu roots contain isoflavonoids with high antioxidant and cytotoxic activity
CREDIT
Ilya Safarov / UrFU.
Integrated effort needed to mitigate fracking while protecting both humans and the environment
Efforts to mitigate the potentially harmful effects of fracking have traditionally been divided along two fronts – those that primarily focus on protecting the environment and wildlife, and those that focus on protecting humans and domestic animals.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. In a March 30 commentary in Bioscience, a trio of public health experts, ecologists and environmental scientists urge adoption of a more holistic approach when evaluating the impact of unconventional gas and oil production operations such as fracking. They also lay out a framework for future transdisciplinary collaboration and integrated decision-making, which they say will lead to more just and comprehensive solutions that protect people, animals and the environment.
“Researchers and policymakers tend to focus on only one domain, when they really are interconnected,” said Nicole Deziel, Ph.D., the paper’s lead author and an associate professor of epidemiology (environmental health sciences), environment and chemical and environmental engineering at Yale University. “This paper provides strategies to promote approaching oil and gas extraction industries and their impacts in a more holistic, interdisciplinary way.”
Joining Deziel on the paper are Liba Pejchar, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Conservation Biology at Colorado State University and the study’s senior author; and Bhavna Shamasunder, Ph.D., associate professor, chair of the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and co-chair of the Department of Public Health at Occidental College.
The interdisciplinary collaboration on the paper, entitled “Synergies and trade-offs in reducing impacts of unconventional oil and gas development on wildlife and human health,” came about during a workshop on the community impacts of oil and gas development that Deziel attended several years ago. She was fascinated by Pejchar’s and Shamasunder’s presentations and discussed the crossovers in their perspectives during a long bus ride to a fracking well pad. That impromptu interaction, Deziel said, highlights the value of conferences that include representatives of different disciplines, one of the paper’s recommendations.
Hydraulic fracturing, more commonly known as fracking, is a method for extracting gas and oil from shale rock. The process involves injecting water, sand and chemicals into bedrock at high pressure, which allows gas and oil to flow into a well and then be collected for market.
Used extensively in the U.S., fracking has led to heightened concerns about its impact on the environment and human health. The process creates vast amounts of wastewater, emits greenhouse gases such as methane, releases toxic air pollutants and generates noise. Studies have shown these gas and oil operations can lead to loss of animal and plant habitats, species decline, migratory disruptions and land degradation. They have also been associated with human health risks. Studies have reported associations between residential proximity to these operations and increased adverse pregnancy outcomes, cancer incidence, hospitalizations and asthma. Some fracking-related operations have been located near lower-resourced communities, worsening their cumulative burden of environmental and social injustices.
In their paper, the authors describe how past protection measures, however well-intended, have sometimes favored one interest (the environment and wildlife for instance) at the expense of another (humans and domestic animals) and vice versa. Deziel used setbacks and buffers as an example. Setbacks aim to protect human health by prohibiting gas and oil drilling within a certain distance of homes, schools and other community domains. However, this approach may encroach on animal habitats, shifting the threat from humans to animals and the natural world. Buffers are similarly implemented, but with a goal of protecting wildlife and sensitive environmental areas. In contrast, limiting drilling altogether would be protective of both people and animals.
“The solutions are not being addressed in an integrative way,” said Deziel, whose primary appointment is with the Yale School of Public Health. “It’s important to protect vulnerable human populations as we’re making solutions, and we should also be mindful of the impacts to the ecosystem and the ecological world for their own intrinsic value.”
The authors recommend scientists and practitioners take a more integrated approach that spans both public health and conservation interests and focuses more on regions and populations that are underrepresented, historically marginalized or poorly understood. They cite One Health initiatives as an example of how a wide range of collaborations can work. One Health is a collaborative, multisectoral and transdisciplinary concept that has been primarily applied to address infectious diseases and optimize human health outcomes while recognizing the interconnection among people, animals, plants and their shared environment.
Deziel said she hopes the paper – and its recommendations – will inspire future collaborations across the fields of ecology, social science and public health, and encourage more inclusive decision-making that includes input from people and organizations directly affected.
IMAGE: SUPERVISED MACHINE LEARNING FOUND THAT NEGATIVE TURNING (BLACK POINTS) AND POSITIVE TURNING (WHITE POINTS) AMPLITUDE MEASUREMENTS ACROSS A NEUTRAL ZERO LINE (GREY POINTS) HAPPENED IN CONCERT WITH ROCK FRACTURE MOMENTS.view more
CREDIT: RUI LIU, TEXAS A&M ENGINEERING
Finding the specific sound a rock makes when it cracks and breaks seems impossible when surrounded by other subsurface noises. But Texas A&M University researcher Dr. Siddharth Misra, the Ted H. Smith, Jr. ’75 and Max R. Vordenbaum ‘73 DVG Associate Professor in the Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering, discovered a way to hear and validate that sound in a project funded by the Basic Energy Sciences program of the Department of Energy (DOE).
“The DOE calls sounds of specific events the ‘signs of signature,’” said Misra. “In this case, the signature identified the break or mechanical discontinuity of a rock in the earth’s subsurface, especially as the breaks continued to grow or propagate into fractures.”
Why does Basic Energy Sciences want this signature identified? Sounds are often important clues to environmental and security changes. Threatening noises, such as underground explosions, are hard to mistake. But the small sounds of a high-rise building foundation cracking and failing are just as threatening. So, the fundamental sound of rock undergoing mechanical failure is a basic and critical clue worth finding.
“This research goes to the heart of identifying something specific within a massive data set,” said Misra. “An example is credit card transactions. You cannot monitor the whole data set for fraud because the transactions are so varied. You must find some indicative sign, such as a credit card charge in one city to book an airline flight immediately after that same card pays for an Uber in another city. That discrepancy is a signature.”
Previous attempts to pinpoint underground mechanical failures never brought reliable success, but Misra found that an unusual combination of three research methods — supervised machine learning, causal discovery and rapid simulations — could tackle the problem.
The supervised machine learning began with lab experiments in which a multipoint sensor system was placed on the surface of a rock and recorded sound wave-transmission measurements through the material as it cracked and finally failed. Computers monitored the information and were taught which data signatures meant initial, intermediate and end-stage damage. One tell-tale signature that repeatedly traveled up and down across the zero point between positive and negative measurements caught the computer’s attention, once it knew what to look for.
“I can only see the color or shape of something with my eyes,” said Liu. “But machine learning can pick out so many more characteristics from the data. It picked out those positive and negative turnings, and we used that sign to get further results.”
Misra and Liu searched for the causation of each of these turnings to confirm their source. They couldn’t rely on the computer to complete this step because machine learning is not the best interpreter.
“During the heat of the summer, ice cream sales increase and drowning deaths increase,” said Misra. “If you use machine learning or simple statistical methods, they might say people are drowning because people eat ice cream. That's a correlation. Though they are both related to the summer heat, they are not connected to each other. They each have a different cause. We are looking for causation for these turnings because that's when they become meaningful.”
Misra and Liu created a workflow that could generate scenarios of various fracture propagations and measured waveforms. Then, they increased the workflow’s speed to rapidly run up to 20,000 different simulations of possibilities for each event. This allowed the researchers to discover the best cause-and-effect explanations.
“We didn’t control how the discontinuity propagated, so there's a lot of randomness,” said Misra. “Yet, as the fractures grew, despite the differences in direction or length, results showed a similar increase in amplifications or positive and negative turnings across the zero point in the waveforms. So, this is a definite signature of rock failure, which, to the best of my knowledge, was not known prior to this research.”
While the signature discovery is exciting, the project still has several months to go. Misra intends to explore the limits of the data-driven simulations and causal discovery approach. He will also test other methods to see if similar or different results occur.
“What we need to do as scientists, as engineers, is to find causality, find causation,” said Misra. “We tried a lot of different techniques to discover this signature and its causal relationships. A lot of approaches didn't work, but one did. Now we need to find the limits of what it can do.”
