Tuesday, June 14, 2022

WHEN THE LAW WORKS

Gun, drug charges stayed against Yukon man after RCMP's 'profound failure' to respect Charter rights

Jonathan Baglee was arrested in 2019 when police entered

his home without a warrant

Jackie Hong · CBC News · 
Crown attorney Noel Sinclair entered a stay of proceedings — essentially, where the Crown opts to end a prosecution — against Jonathan Baglee on Thursday. Baglee had been arrested and charged in 2019. (Jackie Hong/CBC)

Prosecutors have stayed 19 drug-and-gun-related charges against a Yukon man after a judge ruled a large portion of evidence inadmissible in court, citing the "profound failure" of RCMP officers to respect Charter rights.

The failures included searching the man's house without a warrant, keeping him detained in handcuffs for an unreasonable amount of time, and not informing him of his right to a lawyer in a timely fashion.

Crown attorney Noel Sinclair entered the stay of proceedings — essentially, where the Crown opts to end a prosecution — against Jonathan Baglee on Thursday. 

The move came about three months after territorial court Judge Karen Ruddy, following an application from Baglee, ruled that RCMP officers had over-reacted to the situation and any evidence collected during the warrantless search, including firearms, cocaine and verbal statements, could not be used in court. 

Baglee was arrested on July 30, 2019 after RCMP officers assisting with the nation-wide search for two teens wanted for a murder spree in northern B.C. heard the sound of gunshots in the distance. 

According to Ruddy's decision, B.C. RCMP had received a tip that the teens had been seen at a highway rest stop near Jake's Corner, approximately 80 kilometres southeast of Whitehorse. 

Yukon RCMP Const. Joseph Miller and Cpl. Cameron Long were checking the area when they heard three gunshots, followed by another five to six, and decided to investigate. 

The officers followed the sound to Baglee's home, about three kilometres down the Alaska Highway, where they noticed bullet casings on the ground. Baglee's partner came out of the house, followed by Baglee, and said she'd been firing a .22 calibre rifle. The officers said that based on the casings, they didn't believe her even after she showed them the gun.

During the interaction, Baglee said his partner may have also fired a .308 rifle.

Miller followed her into the house when she went to retrieve it, and confiscated a shotgun that she identified in a bedroom closet. Baglee also admitted to the officers that he was under a court order at the time, which prohibited him from possessing firearms.

Police arrested and handcuffed Baglee. Long then decided to "clear the house," entering Baglee's home without a warrant and doing a "tactical walk-through," according to Ruddy's decision. 

Baglee further admitted to having cocaine in his garage, which the officers again searched without a warrant. 

Police later obtained a search warrant for Baglee's property, but not before locating three firearms. They found six additional firearms, along with firearm accessories and drug paraphernalia, during the warranted search. 

Unrelated manhunt influenced police response

Ruddy, in her decision, found that Long and Miller were unduly influenced by the nation-wide manhunt. She said that the pair allowed the unrelated search for the teens to influence their approach to what would otherwise be a mundane situation — the sound of gunshots in rural Yukon near hunting season.

While there are situations during which police officers may be justified in entering a home without a warrant — responding to a 911 call, or where there's evidence of someone in immediate distress, for example — Baglee's case was not one of them, Ruddy said. 

As well, Ruddy ruled that there was no reason to keep Baglee detained for more than a few minutes, noting he was cooperative, posed no imminent threat and, other than the initial deceit about the .22 rifle, was "honest to a fault." However, he was detained for more than an hour, during which police asked him questions, and wasn't informed of his right to seek legal advice until he was brought into Whitehorse. 

Ruddy also noted that Long and Miller, when taking the witness stand during the hearing of Baglee's Charter application, were "defensive" or "non-responsive" when pushed on why they decided to investigate the sound of gunshots and their approach to the investigation. Long, for example, insisted that the second round of gunshots he heard must have come from an illegal firearm despite not being sure about the actual number of shots fired, while Miller said he'd feared being first in the line of fire as he drove up to Baglee's house despite no evidence the he was going to be shot at. 

Their testimony also differed from each other's — Long has testified that he and Miller had put on body armour while still at the rest stop, for example, while Miller said he didn't have armour that day.   

Ruddy ruled that Miller and Long's actions violated Baglee's section 8, 9 and 10(b) Charter rights — the right against unreasonable search, the right to be free from arbitrary detention and the right to have the opportunity to get legal advice.

The violations were "neither transient or trifling," Ruddy continued, but a "profound failure" to respect Charter norms; the unwarranted search saw police go through every room in Baglee's house, and the drugs and guns found were crucial to the Crown's case.

'Very long and painful process'

Baglee's lawyer, Vincent Larochelle, said in an interview after the Crown stayed the charges against Baglee that his client was "certainly very happy… that the whole ordeal has come to an end." 

"It's obviously been a very long and painful process for him," Larochelle said. 

He added that Ruddy's ruling, and the Crown's staying of charges, vindicated not just Baglee's rights, but the rights "of Yukoners in general."

"It seems to be a fairly common thing in the Yukon for police officers to make warrantless searches of either residences, individuals or their vehicles," Larochelle said. 

"What we need to understand is that it's only when the police violate the Charter and find something illegal that it makes its way to court... (Judges) don't get to see the times when police violate people's Charter rights and nothing happens and no charges are laid."

About 90 items seized by police from Baglee's house, include various firearms, ammunition, cash and dummy grenades will be returned to him, while 18 items, including a Beretta 92 pistol, .9mm handgun and cocaine, will be forfeited.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jackie Hong
Reporter
Jackie Hong is a reporter for CBC North in Whitehorse. She was previously the courts and crime reporter at the Yukon News and, before moving North in 2017, was a reporter at the Toronto Star where she covered everything from murder trials to escaped capybaras. You can reach her at jackie.hong@cbc.ca
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What do rural Quebec voters think of Bill 96?

Residents of the Mauricie region discuss protecting French while welcoming more newcomers to the area

Verity Stevenson, Simon Nakonechny · CBC News · 
Jules Bastien, 81, returned to his home region of the Mauricie after he retired from working as a machinist in Montreal for more than 40 years. (Simon Nakonechny/CBC)

Jules Bastien's eyes light up as he speaks about his son, a trilingual English teacher in Montreal. 

Bastien, 81, returned to his home region of the Mauricie in 2003 after a 43-year career as a machine operator in the city.

Over the years, he says he's noticed a decline in how much people seem to use French in public spaces in Montreal since he first moved there in 1961.

But he's also noticed how people in the Mauricie region, where 97 per cent of the population has French as their mother tongue, are increasingly speaking more than just French — something he is impressed by.

"My son came here two weeks ago and he was speaking Spanish here in Louiseville with someone at the Tim Hortons," Bastien said, looking amazed.

"He was so happy because he loves speaking other languages."

The Quebec government's overhaul of the Charter of the French language, Bill 96, received royal assent on June 1 and several of its clauses now officially apply across the province.

The updated law is large in scope and several parts of it have sowed controversy and division, such as a clause calling for immigrants to learn French within six months and the lack of exemptions made for Indigenous communities.

When the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government presented the bill, most opposition parties in the National Assembly agreed the province could benefit from additional measures to protect French within a globalizing North America.

But its sweeping use of the notwithstanding clause, which overrides basic freedoms guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, is causing concern among legal experts and professionals in municipalities, courts and civil services expected to apply the law.

The details of omnibus laws like Bill 96 often get lost on the general public. In Louiseville and Maskinongé, two neighbouring municipalities in the Mauricie region, many of the people CBC spoke to didn't know about the law, but those who did said they supported it and the cause to protect French in Quebec.

Their region is in desperate need of workers because of a serious labour shortage.

Micheline Rabouin, who has lived in Louiseville for about 30 years, said that while she supports the law, she believes six months is too short to learn the language. 

Micheline Rabouin said she believes the government should give immigrants a year to learn French, instead of the six months outlined in Bill 96. (CBC)

"When I lived [in the Maritimes], it took me a while to learn English," she said. "I'd say at least a year."

CAQ popularity in Mauricie

All four MNAs representing the electoral districts in the Mauricie are part of the CAQ, the ruling party that tabled the bill. Before the party grew to prominence under the current premier, François Legault, voters in the region mostly voted for the Parti Québécois and at times, the Quebec Liberal Party. 

Bastien, the former machine operator, says he's more "nationalist than federalist," but that he's voted for "all the parties." He said that though French was important to him, it wasn't necessarily an issue at the ballot box.

François Rousseau, 70, plans to vote for the CAQ again in the upcoming election. Throughout his life, Rousseau said he's voted for a variety of parties in federal and provincial elections, including the NDP, Bloc Québécois and the now defunct Social Credit Party — but never Liberal. 

Why not? "Multiculturalism," Rousseau said.

The Canadian policy dating back to former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau in the 1970s was heavily opposed in Quebec due to concerns it would lead to an increase in bilingualism and a decline in the use of French. 

The province has since then favoured policies that seek to integrate newcomers into Quebec society, a distinction that may be due to the idea of collective identity versus individual identity, according to Daniel Béland, the director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. 

Louiseville, a town on the banks of Lac Saint-Pierre south of Trois-Rivières, has a population of about 5,400. (Simon Nakonechny/CBC)

"There is a sense that there is a majority culture and that is important in the way minorities are treated," Béland said in a recent interview.

The Charter of the French language, known as Bill 101, was voted into law in 1977, six years after Trudeau's multicultural policy. It made French the common language in Quebec and stipulated that the children of newcomers were to be educated in French. 

Protecting French

Rousseau, a Maskinongé resident, says Bill 96 is necessary given the increase in immigration to his region. 

Rousseau said he believes the CAQ is so popular there because it has managed to tap into nationalist sentiments while leaving separatism aside.

"People can't say, 'Oh, I won't vote for them because they're separatist,'" Rousseau said. 

Daniel St-Yves is also 70 and also voted for the CAQ, despite voting PQ in the past. A trucker most of his life, St-Yves said he is happily retired after "eating pavement" for 40 years. 

He travelled throughout Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick throughout his career, covering 100,000 kilometres per year.

Daniel St-Yves spent his life travelling across several Canadian provinces as a trucker. 'When I go elsewhere, I have to speak English,' he said. 'When you come here, speak to me in French.' (Simon Nakonechny/CBC)

"When I go elsewhere, I have to speak English. When you come here, speak to me in French," St-Yves said, noting he's in favour of additional "pressures" on people to learn French in the province.

"I'm not against immigration, but when you come here you have to adapt to Quebec."

The latest census data suggests newcomers are learning French more than ever.

Between 1976 and 2015, the percentage of students going to school in French whose first language isn't French went from 20 per cent to 90 per cent.

Labour shortage a path to modernization?

While a shortage of more than 200,000 workers is affecting businesses across the province, the Mauricie's agriculture and manufacturing sectors are looking at ways to modernize, according to Renée Cloutier of the local chamber of commerce.

Some are pairing up with organizations that provide psychological support to workers, as well as with the Service d'accueil des nouveaux arrivants de Trois-Rivières, which helps immigrants settle in the region and works to "promote harmonious intercultural relations between Quebecers of all origins," according to its website.

"There is a scarcity of labour and several companies on our territory are using creativity to attract workers," said Pier-Olivier Gagnon, who works for the municipality of Maskinongé.

Gagnon and Cloutier say the companies hope their methods help revitalize the region's industries, which are vital to the province's economy. 

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Millions of Canadians believe in white replacement theory: poll

New nationwide polling by Abacus Data finds millions of Canadians believe in conspiracy theories, and think there is a plot to replace native-born Canadians with immigrants.


© Provided by National Post
Mourners gather at a memorial to the 10 fatalities at the May 14, 2022 shooting at a Tops supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y. Authorities said the gunman was motivated by a white-nationalist racist ideology known as “replacement” theory.

The data found 44 per cent of Canadians believe “big events like wars, recessions and the outcomes of elections, are controlled by small groups of people working in secret against us.” The survey sample represents the equivalent of 13 million Canadians, Abacus said.

Nearly as many, or 41 per cent, agree “much of our lives are being controlled by plots hatched in secret places.”



More than one-third of Canadians believe in the so-called white replacement theory. Thirty-seven per cent of respondents, representing 11 million Canadians, agreed with the statement: “There is a group of people in this country who are trying to replace native-born Canadians with immigrants who agree with their political views.”

Abacus surveyed 1,500 randomly selected, nationally representative Canadian adults from May 20 to 24, as part of a series called “ Trust & Facts: What Canadians Believe.” Respondents were also asked about specific conspiracy theories.

One in five Canadians, or 20 per cent of those surveyed, believe it is definitely or probably true that the World Economic Forum (WEF) is “a group of global elites with a secretive strategy to impose their ideas on the world.”

Federal ethics commissioner flooded with emails calling for investigation into WEF conspiracy


A further 13 per cent believe it is definitely or probably true that Microsoft founder Bill Gates is using microchips to track people and affect human behaviour.

The survey also looked at demographic and political leanings.

It found that of the 44 per cent of the population who believe in conspiracy theories, the views depended on party affiliations. Seventy-two per cent of supporters of the People’s Party of Canada believed in conspiracy theories compared with 28 per cent of PPC supporters who did not. Among Conservative Party of Canada supporters, belief was split 50 per cent for and 50 per cent against conspiracy theories. Among Liberal supporters, 31 per cent believed in conspiracy theories versus 69 per cent against. And 30 per cent of NDP voters believed the theories versus 70 per cent who did not.

Of those who believe in the white replacement theory, 49 per cent identified as having views on the “right”; 41 per cent said their views were “centre”; and 21 per cent had “left” views.

Among those who believed the WEF conspiracy theory was definitely or probably true, 32 per cent have views on the “right”; 20 per cent have centrist views; and 15 per cent have “left” views.

The survey also found a strong correlation among those who believe in conspiracy theories and a distrust of the media and government.

Among those who believed in the WEF conspiracy theory, 42 per cent said they don’t trust media; 36 per cent said they don’t trust government; and 51 per cent said they did not have COVID shots.

The margin of error for a comparable probability-based random sample of the same size is +/- 2.53%, 19 times out of 20.

The data were weighted according to census data to ensure that the sample matched Canada’s population according to age, gender, educational attainment and region.



SEE




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GREENWASHING
Conservatives Do Want A Clean Energy Transition

Traditionally, conservatives have endorsed fossil fuels as the only viable energy source. Recently, however, momentum has shifted so that more conservatives than ever are publicly embracing the potential for renewables.

"Renewable energy - Nonrenewable energy" by kevin dooley is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

ByCarolyn Fortuna
Published11 hours ago

As of Sunday, the national average cost of a gallon of gasoline in the US stood at $5.01, according to the AAA. It seems like in no time the US will exceed the July, 2008 price of $5.37 (adjusted for inflation from $4.14 per gallon). It’s clear that the clean energy transition is overdue. The US ranks fourth, behind Japan, China, and the European Union, on research and development for energy technologies as a share of GDP. A lack of consensus about the power and place of renewables across the political aisle has limited its potential.

There’s no question about it: for the US to play catch-up, the clean energy transition will need the support of conservatives.

The future of clean energy can pivot with the nod of conservative political elites who have — up until recently — promoted policies friendly to fossil fuels and resisted efforts to mitigate the climate crisis. Not everyone is convinced that fossil fuels are the end game. In fact, a new breed of conservatives is slowly taking hold, and a clean energy transition is patiently waiting in the wings.


Evolving Conservative Viewpoints about a Clean Energy Transition

Decarbonization is the process of transitioning from the production and use of fossil fuels to more renewable and sustainable sources of energy. Underlying values, beliefs, and political orientations generally point to attitudes about decarbonization. Decades-long disinformation campaigns from fossil fuel companies linger in the minds of many conservatives. Change in attitudes comes slowly.

What was once climate denial has morphed into climate action delays. We’re seeing more and more conservatives whose perspectives have become somewhat, shall we say, malleable.

That’s partially because new ways of framing have emerged that position the energy transition through positive economic lenses. New questions have arisen. To what degree can conservative leaders continue to promote short-term gains from fossil fuel deep pockets? How long can conservatives avoid the inevitable long-term losses from failure to invest in renewables?

Climate activists have long argued that clean energy innovation needs rapid transitions that push faster than do market forces. Rewiring America, an organization that promotes electrifying everything, argues that the policy mandate is the only way to reach decarbonization climate goals. “The invisible hand of markets is definitely not fast enough; it typically takes decades for a new technology to become dominant by market forces alone as it slowly increases its market share each year,” the Rewiring America handbook states.

Behind the scenes, conservative leaders recognize the cognitive dissonance of speaking positively about two disparate energy solutions — fossil fuels and renewable energy. They’re also more wary than ever of suffering electoral losses due to perceived lack of climate leadership from voters.

How can conservative leaders garner support for a clean energy transition? In what ways can they adjust the cost-risk-reward strategy from the yesterday’s familiar fossil fuel sources to tomorrow’s healthy planet renewables? When will it become the norm to embrace the vision to replace oil and gas jobs with clean technology career training?

Framing an Energy Middle Ground that’s Consistent with Values

Economic conservatism and self-identified conservative/right ideology are strongly associated with opposition to energy transition. Economic conservatism captures support for free enterprise, government intervention in the economy, and wealth redistribution. Economic conservatism structures individuals’ political preferences across many countries.

However, when elite conservative leaders cue their rhetoric toward adopting more climate-friendly stances for the good of the nation, their supporters tend to follow the lead. Additionally, being able to see local forms of renewable energy, such as wind turbines, makes people more likely to support that form of energy, especially in rural areas. Recognizing these patterns, an incremental change is taking place in conservative camps. Conservative leaders are slowly adding rhetorical transparency to their communications about a clean energy future. While they continue to be reluctant to suggest government intervention in the economy, conservatives now discuss “everything possible” energy solutions.

The points where conservatives and progressives coalesce is a collective pride in US innovation — a commonality in celebrating US values of individualism, self-reliance, and wherewithal. Language from conservative clean energy advocates now refers to “market-based” transitions for encouraging energy alternatives that protect national security and protect independence.

A study in Energy Policy identifies factors associated with the most enthusiasm for an energy transition:rejections of the future of oil and gas
support for market conservative values

The Christian Coalition Network says, “Taking responsibility to care for God’s creation and protecting the future of our children and grandchildren is a core family value. Further delays in action will impact our national security, our economic security, and our family security.”

Young Conservatives for Energy Reform want to “create meaningful energy reform focusing on the key concerns of national security and economic growth through home grown energy and clean technology jobs to ensure a prosperous economy now and for future generations of Americans.”

The Conservative Energy Network argues that “put simply, energy independence is energy security—and energy security is national security. When America is energy independent, our economy is more secure and our hand in foreign policy matters is strengthened.” CEN calls subscribers “energy patriots.”

The Military Advisory Board, a group of retired high-level officers from the US Armed Forces, sees getting off foreign oil and getting onto clean energy as a top national security concern — both in terms of the threats that emerge from climate change and the resources the US expends to secure foreign oil interests. “Projected climate change is a complex multi-decade challenge,” the group says, that “makes clear that actions to build resilience against the projected impacts of climate change are required today. We no longer have the option to wait and see.”

Final Thoughts

Like the GOP, the Tories in the UK have moved somewhat away from their traditional constituencies to embrace working class voters on an anti-internationalist platform. The UK is more committed to climate action among conservatives, however. The Climate Change Act of 2008 was amended in 2019 under a coalition government of the Conservatives and their North Irish allies. Rather than weakening the 2008 law, the amendment set a target of net-zero GHG emissions by 2050.

The lesson that US conservatives are absorbing from the Tories is the need to define climate action on their own terms, as a matter of economics. Studies that outline how affordable it can be to replace a fossil fuel like coal with renewable energy are getting notice.

Conservative resistance to climate-friendly initiatives is starting to soften alongside a strong economic case for them. “Done right, we don’t need to lose US jobs over this,” said Senator John Curtis, a Republican from Utah, during a recent panel discussion on climate change and bipartisanship. “I think we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and, actually, fuel our economy at the same time.”
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Why haven’t plastic-eating bacteria fixed the ocean plastic pollution problem?

Scientists have discovered enzymes from several plastic-eating bacteria. So, why are our oceans still full of plastic pollution?

Credit: Naja Bertolt Jensen / Unsplash

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Many enzymes only work for one specific kind of plastic, but much of our trash combines several kinds of plastic.
 
Enzymes work (and bacteria live) only under certain environmental conditions, such as those found in a controlled laboratory. We won't be able to sprinkle plastic-eating bacteria into the ocean.
 
Even if we could, the enzymes or bacteria could produce toxic byproducts.

Scientists from the University of Texas announced they’ve created a plastic-eating enzyme that could keep billions of pounds of plastic out of landfills.

Now, if that sentence gives you déjà vu, you’re not alone.

Followers of science news may have seen similar exciting headlines over the years, from 2008’s Science Fair Project Isolates Plastic-Eating Microbes–about a 17-year-old science fair winner who got bacteria to degrade plastic bags by 43%–to last month’s New Enzyme Discovery is a New Step Towards Beating Plastic Waste, wherein British scientists developed an enzyme that could break down PTA, an ingredient in plastic bottles.

You’ve seen lots of similar titles in between: “New super-enzyme eats plastic bottles six times faster,” “Plastic-eating bacteria could help aid global recycling efforts,” etc., which give the impression of a silver bullet (itself undoubtedly recyclable) that will slay our monstrous plastic problem.

Why are these plastic-eating bacteria just twiddling their thumbs? We’ve got a crisis to deal with!

So what is taking so long? Why are these bacteria just twiddling their thumbs while we have a crisis to deal with?

It turns out there are a few reasons things aren’t so simple:

Plastic isn’t all the same. Many enzymes or bacteria only work for one specific kind of plastic, and much of our trash combines several kinds of plastic.

Most plastic-recycling efforts focus on PET, the plastic used in plastic bottles. PET represents about 20% of global plastic waste. It’s chemically easier to break down than polyethylene or polypropylene, types used in plastic film and food packaging.

That’s an important caveat: most of these solutions would only put a dent in our plastic problem, rather than solve it entirely.

Many solutions only work under special conditions. Often, the reactions or bacteria only work at certain temperatures, in special environments, or after extended periods of time. The harder it is to create the conditions, the less practical it is to do it at scale. This also means that it’s unlikely bacteria will solve the issue of plastic pollution already in nature — more on that soon.


They cost too much. These processes can be expensive. Further, most solutions simply break down plastic to its original monomers, which are really only useful for creating more plastic.

This has two problems: one, it doesn’t reduce the amount of plastic in the world, and two, making new plastic is already really cheap. Creating a costly factory, shipping tons of waste to it, and having bacteria slowly churn out ingredients that are worth virtually nothing — and still aren’t biodegradable — isn’t a great business model or arguably even an efficient use of taxpayer funds.

It’s not necessarily safe or effective to release in nature. Often there’s an assumption that this bacteria could be released to chew through the mountains of plastic we currently have buried in landfills, swirling in the oceans, or scattered as litter.

But even if bacteria or enzymes could work under totally unregulated conditions, it could have toxic byproducts, destroy plastic that is still in use (like, say, the device you’re using to read this right now, cutting you off from finishing this valuable article), or require releasing tremendous quantities into an area to make a difference.

So, for now, these technologies could really only be used within our existing recycling systems, rather than being a fundamentally new alternative. We will still have to sort, collect, and process all the plastic we want the bacteria to eat.

Fortunately, there’s also some good news: scientists from Japan to Saudi Arabia to the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory are working on these problems, and things are improving.

For example, the recent discovery at UT-Austin identified an enzyme that cuts the time to break down plastic to a matter of hours, and it can work at the relatively attainable temperature of 50° C (122° F). And it was found using an AI algorithm that could continue to iterate and improve its performance.

Fortunately, there’s also some good news: scientists from the US to Saudi Arabia to Japan are working on these problems, and things are improving.

And the first demonstration plant dedicated to enzyme-based plastic recycling recently opened. French firm Carbios, which runs it, announced they have successfully produced new plastic bottles from PET with a process that makes them infinitely recyclable.

That is a breakthrough worth celebrating. Today, even if plastic is recycled (over 80% is not, including over 90% in the US), it can generally only be turned into lower-quality plastic, for niche uses like carpeting.

Traditional mechanical recycling processes are expensive and inefficient, requiring waste to be sorted, shredded, cleaned, melted and pelletized — and discarding any batches contaminated with food or incompatible materials. Chemical recycling processes can often create their own toxic byproducts.

Carbios is planning to create a commercial-scale facility by 2024, and while it doesn’t expect their plastic to be as cheap as freshly made varieties, they hope environmentally-minded companies and consumers will pay a little extra for it. Plus, its approach will allow plastic to be recycled from mixed garbage more efficiently and with less waste.

We don’t have to rely on miracle bacteria to do our dirty work.

Time will tell if new processes will help chip away at our plastic problem. In the meantime, other scientists and companies are creating biodegradable materials that can replace plastics altogether, from MIT’s cellulose-based solution to companies using bacteria to grow sustainable materials. Governments in Europe are taking another approach and banning harder-to-recycle plastics.

And of course you don’t have to wait for any of them — individuals around the world are finding creative ways to reduce their own plastic use. Exciting as they may be, we don’t have to rely on miracle bacteria to do our dirty work.

This article was originally published by our sister site, Freethink.
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Plastic Pollution in the Ocean May Harbor Novel Antibiotics

By AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR MICROBIOLOGY JUNE 12, 2022

Ocean Microplastic Pollution

According to new research, plastic pollution in the ocean may serve as a source for new antibiotics

Many environmentalists point to plastic pollution in the ocean as a large and growing problem, pointing to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and how even the High North can’t escape the global threat of plastic pollution. Another serious, though seemingly unrelated problem is the global health threat from antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

These disparate issues come together in new research, where scientists have found that ocean plastic pollution could be a source for new antibiotics that may be effective against effective antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains.

Plastic pollution in the ocean may serve as a source for novel antibiotics, according to a new student-led study conducted in collaboration with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The research will be presented at the American Society for Microbiology’s conference in Washington, D.C. on June 9-13, 2022.

Scientists estimate between 5 and 13 million metric tons of plastic pollution enter the oceans each year, ranging from large floating debris to microplastics onto which microbes can form entire ecosystems. Plastic debris is rich in biomass, and therefore could be a good candidate for antibiotic production, which tends to occur in highly competitive natural environments.

To explore the potential of the plastisphere to be a source of novel antibiotics, the researchers modified the Tiny Earth citizen science approach (developed by Dr. Jo Handelsman) to marine conditions. The researchers incubated high- and low-density polyethylene plastic (the type commonly seen in grocery bags) in water near Scripps Pier in La Jolla, California for 90 days

The researchers isolated 5 antibiotic-producing bacteria from ocean plastic, including strains of Bacillus, Phaeobacter, and Vibrio. They tested the bacterial isolates against a variety of Gram-positive and negative targets, finding the isolates to be effective against commonly used bacteria as well as 2 antibiotic-resistant strains.

“Considering the current antibiotic crisis and the rise of superbugs, it is essential to look for alternative sources of novel antibiotics,” said study lead author Andrea Price of National University. “We hope to expand this project and further characterize the microbes and the antibiotics they produce.”

This project was part of a STEM education project funded by the National Science Foundation.

Meeting: Microbe 2022

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A City-Sized 'Eye' Has Been Discovered on Mars

The Martian crater is 18 miles wide and looks eerily like an eye, according to the European Space Agency.

By Becky Ferreira
June 13, 2022, 






















MARS CRATER. IMAGE: ESA/DLR/FU BERLIN, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

ABSTRACT breaks down mind-bending scientific research, future tech, new discoveries, and major breakthroughs.

If you stare long enough at Mars, Mars might start to stare back.

That’s the eerie effect of a huge Martian crater that resembles an eye in a new image captured from outer space by the European Space Agency (ESA) orbiter Mars Express. It follows a slew of other intriguing snapshots taken by rovers on the surface of Mars this year, including a rock formation that looks like a doorway, as well as spikes shaped like plant stems.

Snapped by the orbiter on April 25, the image reveals some of the mysterious features of the unexplored and unnamed crater, which stretches across a city-sized 18 miles of a region called Aonia Terra, located in the southern highlands of Mars, according to ESA. The formation is surrounded by ancient evidence of water flowing across the Martian surface in channels, when the red planet was warmer, wetter, and potentially habitable.

“Conjuring images of veins running through a human eyeball, these channels are likely to have carried liquid water across the surface of Mars around 3.5–4 billion years ago,” ESA said in the statement. “The channels appear to be partly filled with a dark material, and in some places, seem to actually be raised above the surrounding land.”
















Tech
Mars Formation That Looks Like Alien Doorway Spotted by NASA Rover
BECKY FERREIRA05.12.22


The agency said that these strange features, which are still not understood, could be the result of either hardy sediments or lava flows filling the channels.

The crater is just one of many fascinating formations in Aonia Terra, a region that may have been doused with periodic flows of liquid meltwater within the last million years, a finding that “points to more habitable recent environments than previously predicted” on the red planet, according to a 2015 paper in Nature Communications.

Eerie crater that looks like a watching eye has been discovered on the surface of Mars

It is said to be the size of a city, with the dark matter in the middle giving the appearance of a gigantic eye watching spacecrafts as they fly past

The crater is said to be the size of a city 
Image: ESA/DLR/FU/Triangle News


By Lucy Skoulding
Freelance writer
13 Jun 2022

An eerie crater that looks like a watching eye has been discovered on the surface of Mars.

It is said to be the size of a city, with the dark matter in the middle giving the appearance of a gigantic eye watching spacecrafts as they fly past.

The gaping hole was snapped by The European Space Agency’s Mars Express.

It measures 30 kilometres - or 18.6 miles - from one end to the other.

Astronomers have said it sits in a region of Mars’ southern hemisphere called the Aonia Terra.

Aonia Terra is known for its impressive craters, but astronomers' latest discovery in the region is yet to be named.


It gives the appearance of a gigantic eye watching spacecrafts as they fly past 
(Image: ESA/DLR/FU/Triangle News)

ESA said the chilling crater conjures up “images of veins running through a human eyeball” due to winding channels around it.

It added: “The 30 km-wide unnamed crater at the centre of the image is nestled within a landscape of winding channels.

“These channels are likely to have carried liquid water across the surface of Mars around three and a half to four billion years ago.”


In the centre of the crater, darker materials have created a shadowy dune that looks just like a pupil (
Image: NASA/Triangle News)

In the centre of the crater, darker materials have created a shadowy dune that looks just like a pupil.

Mounds of red earth in the crater could be the reason for the ‘pupil’ as they act as a catchment for materials to accumulate.

The Mars Express has been orbiting the Red Planet since 2003.

The gaping hole was snapped by The European Space Agency’s Mars Express 
(Image: ESA/DLR/FU/Triangle News)

It images the planet’s surface, maps its minerals, identifies the composition and circulation of its tenuous atmosphere and probes beneath its crust.

It is the first planetary mission attempted by ESA.

It comes as data collected by the Hubble Space Telescope over three decades has led Nasa scientists to the startling conclusion there is “something weird” going on with the universe.

It measures 30 kilometres from one end to the other
 (Image: NASA/Triangle News)

Astronomers have used the device in a bid to understand how quickly the universe is expanding.

Data from Hubble, which was launched in 1990, has helped identify 40 "milepost markers” for space and time to measure the rate.

But Nasa scientists are baffled as there seems to be a discrepancy between its current rate when compared to observations from after the Big Bang, said to have been around 14 billion years ago.


ESA said the chilling crater conjures up “images of veins running through a human eyeball” due to winding channels around it
 (Image: NASA/Triangle News)

The organisation said in a statement: “Pursuit of the universe's expansion rate began in the 1920s with measurements by astronomers Edwin P. Hubble and Georges Lemaître.

“In 1998, this led to the discovery of "dark energy," a mysterious repulsive force accelerating the universe's expansion.

“In recent years, thanks to data from Hubble and other telescopes, astronomers found another twist: a discrepancy between the expansion rate as measured in the local universe compared to independent observations from right after the big bang, which predict a different expansion value.



Data from Hubble, which was launched in 1990, has helped identify 40 "milepost markers” for space and time to measure the rate (
Image: NASA/Triangle News)
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Starquakes! Gaia Spacecraft Sees Strange Stars in Most Detailed Milky Way Survey to Date

By EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY (ESA) 
JUNE 13, 2022



One of the surprising discoveries coming out of Gaia data release 3, is that Gaia is able to detect starquakes – tiny motions on the surface of a star – that change the shapes of stars, something the observatory was not originally built for. Credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC, CC BY-SA 3.0

Gaia is a mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) to create an precise three-dimensional map of more than a billion stars throughout our Milky Way galaxy and beyond. Although it launched all the way back in 2013, it is still working to accurately map the the motions, luminosity, temperature and composition of the stars in our galaxy.


Along the way it has made numerous discoveries, such as detecting a shake in the Milky Way, the observation of almost 500 explosions in galaxy cores, crystallization in white dwarfs, and discovering a billion-year-old river of stars. It also revealed the total weight of the Milky Way, a direct measurement of the galactic bar in the Milky Way, mysterious fossil spiral arms in the Milky Way, and a new member of the Milky Way family

Today marks the data of the third data release from Gaia. The first data release was on September 14, 2016, followed by the second data release on April 25, 2018. On December 3, 2020, they did an early third data release with detailed data on more than 1.8 billion stars. All this data is helping to reveal the origin, structure, and evolutionary history of our galaxy.


This image shows four sky maps made with the new ESA Gaia data released on June 13, 2022. Credit: © ESA/Gaia/DPAC; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

Today (June 13, 2022), ESA’s Gaia mission releases its new treasure trove of data about our home galaxy. Astronomers describe strange ‘starquakes’, stellar DNA, asymmetric motions, and other fascinating insights in this most detailed Milky Way survey to date

Gaia is ESA’s mission to create the most accurate and complete multi-dimensional map of the Milky Way. This allows astronomers to reconstruct our home galaxy’s structure and past evolution over billions of years, and to better understand the lifecycle of stars and our place in the Universe



What’s new in data release 3?

Gaia’s data release 3 contains new and improved details for almost two billion stars in our galaxy. The catalog includes new information including chemical compositions, stellar temperatures, colors, masses, ages, and the speed at which stars move towards or away from us (radial velocity). Much of this information was revealed by the newly released spectroscopy data, a technique in which the starlight is split into its constituent colors (like a rainbow). The data also includes special subsets of stars, like those that change brightness over time.

Also new in this data set is the largest catalog yet of binary stars, thousands of Solar System objects such as asteroids and moons of planets, and millions of galaxies and quasars outside the Milky Way


GAIA-- ARTIST CONCEPTION






















Starquakes

One of the most surprising discoveries coming out of the new data is that Gaia is able to detect starquakes – tiny motions on the surface of a star – that change the shapes of stars, something the observatory was not originally built for.

Previously, Gaia already found radial oscillations that cause stars to swell and shrink periodically, while keeping their spherical shape. But Gaia has now also spotted other vibrations that are more like large-scale tsunamis. These nonradial oscillations change the global shape of a star and are therefore harder to detect.

Gaia found strong nonradial starquakes in thousands of stars. Gaia also revealed such vibrations in stars that have seldomly been seen before. These stars should not have any quakes according to the current theory, while Gaia did detect them at their surface.


“Starquakes teach us a lot about stars, notably their internal workings. Gaia is opening a goldmine for ‘asteroseismology’ of massive stars,” says Conny Aerts of KU Leuven in Belgium, who is a member of the Gaia collaboration.




The DNA of stars

What stars are made of can tell us about their birthplace and their journey afterward, and therefore about the history of the Milky Way. With today’s data release, Gaia is revealing the largest chemical map of the galaxy coupled to 3D motions, from our solar neighborhood to smaller galaxies surrounding ours.

Some stars contain more ‘heavy metals’ than others. During the Big Bang, only light elements were formed (hydrogen and helium). All other heavier elements – called metals by astronomers – are built inside stars. When stars die, they release these metals into the gas and dust between the stars called the interstellar medium, out of which new stars form. Active star formation and death will lead to an environment that is richer in metals. Therefore, a star’s chemical composition is a bit like its DNA, giving us crucial information about its origin.


This image shows an artistic impression of the Milky Way, and on top of that an overlay showing the location and densities of a young star sample from Gaia’s data release 3 (in yellow-green). The “you are here” sign points towards the Sun. 
Credit: © ESA/Gaia/DPAC; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

With Gaia, we see that some stars in our galaxy are made of primordial material, while others like our Sun are made of matter enriched by previous generations of stars. Stars that are closer to the center and plane of our galaxy are richer in metals than stars at larger distances. Gaia also identified stars that originally came from different galaxies than our own, based on their chemical composition.

“Our galaxy is a beautiful melting pot of stars,” says Alejandra Recio-Blanco of the Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur in France, who is a member of the Gaia collaboration.

“This diversity is extremely important, because it tells us the story of our galaxy’s formation. It reveals the processes of migration within our galaxy and accretion from external galaxies. It also clearly shows that our Sun, and we, all belong to an ever-changing system, formed thanks to the assembly of stars and gas of different origins.”



This image shows the orbits of the more than 150,000 asteroids in Gaia’s data release 3, from the inner parts of the Solar System to the Trojan asteroids at the distance of Jupiter, with different color codes. The yellow circle at the center represents the Sun. Blue represents the inner part of the Solar System, where the Near Earth Asteroids, Mars crossers, and terrestrial planets are. The Main Belt, between Mars and Jupiter, is green. Jupiter trojans are red. Credit: © ESA/Gaia/DPAC; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO, Acknowledgements: P. Tanga (Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur)
Binary stars, asteroids, quasars, and more

Other papers that are published today reflect the breadth and depth of Gaia’s discovery potential. A new binary star catalog presents the mass and evolution of more than 800 thousand binary systems, while a new asteroid survey comprising 156 thousand rocky bodies is digging deeper into the origin of our Solar System. Gaia is also revealing information about 10 million variable stars, mysterious macro-molecules between stars, as well as quasars and galaxies beyond our own cosmic neighborhood.



The position of each asteroid at 12:00 CEST on June 13, 2022, is plotted. Each asteroid is a segment representing its motion over 10 days. Inner bodies move faster around the Sun (yellow circle at the center). Blue represents the inner part of the Solar System, where the Near Earth Asteroids, Mars crossers, and terrestrial planets are. The Main Belt, between Mars and Jupiter, is green. The two orange ‘clouds’ correspond to the Trojan asteroids of Jupiter. Credit: © ESA/Gaia/DPAC; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO, Acknowledgements: P. Tanga (Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur)

“Unlike other missions that target specific objects, Gaia is a survey mission. This means that while surveying the entire sky with billions of stars multiple times, Gaia is bound to make discoveries that other more dedicated missions would miss. This is one of its strengths, and we can’t wait for the astronomy community to dive into our new data to find out even more about our galaxy and its surroundings than we could’ve imagined,” says Timo Prusti, Project Scientist for Gaia at ESA.
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