How the Igbo culture is gaining acceptance in the US state of Minnesota

Diaspora News
Oghenekevwe Uchechukwu
August 26, 2022

Fidelis Akonu and his family. Source: Instagram@Umunnemn

FOR nearly three decades, the Igbo ethnic majority group from South-East Nigeria has colourfully celebrated its rich cultural heritage in faraway Minnesota, the United States, which is home to more than 13, 000 Nigerians.

The event, usually organised in August by the Umunne Cultural Association, reveals a deep sense of identity and seeks to unite and educate Igbo families and Minnesotans about the Igbo culture, art, music and values.

The event this year featured the Ada Igbo Beauty Pageant during a gala night on August 12 at the Banquets of Minnesota and the Igbo Festival (IgboFest) celebration on August 13 at the North Hennepin Community College in Brooklyn Park, themed: “Creating Cultural Awareness for the next Generation”

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The Bende war dance group of Umunne in Minnesota.
Source: Instagram@Umunnemn

In recognising the event, Governor of Minnesota Tim Walz, enumerated the contributions of the Igbo ethnic group in education, arts, volunteering and good culture sharing with Minnesotans.

“Igbos in Minnesota are working to ensure the sustainability of Igbo culture by creating cultural awareness for the next generation.

“Now, therefore, I, Tim Walz, Governor of Minnesota, do hereby proclaim Saturday, August 13, 2022 as IGBO DAY,” the governor declared.

In her remarks as a special guest of the event, former Nigerian Ambassador to the Kingdom of Spain Bianca Ojukwu paid a glowing tribute to the giant strides of Igbos living in Minnesota and enjoined them to continue to promote the cultural values of the group and transmit the same to their offspring.

Ojukwu noted that the ancestral Igbo language, norms and traditions had shaped their sense of identity as a people and created a sense of belonging and collective pride.

The annual event brings together thousands of attendees looking to try African delicacies, enjoy a variety of dance performances and processions, shop for beautiful African arts, jewelry, and apparel, as well as network.

In another development, the House of Representatives member for Minnesota Esther Agbaje, who is Nigerian, will be seeking re-election through the ballots on November 8.

Author profile
Oghenekevwe Uchechukwu

The Pros and Cons of Adding Wifi to Mount Kilimanjaro
Installing high-speed internet on the mountain is a divisive topic among alpinists and locals alike

By the end of the year, Tanzania hopes to have wifi access all the way to the summit.
Getty

BY LINDSAY ROGERS @LNDSRGRS

At an elevation of 19,341 feet, Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania is the highest free-standing mountain rise in the world, one that nearly 30,000 alpinists attempt to climb every year. Not one of those climbers has, for obvious reasons, ever had access to wifi on the mountain. But the year is 2022, and because “off-the-grid” very rarely means complete disconnection anymore, that’s about to change.

Climbers now have access to high-speed internet on the mountain, which means they will be able connect to wifi “up to an altitude of 12,205 feet,” per NBC News. By the end of the year, the country hopes to offer it all the way to the summit.

“I am hoisting high-speed INTERNET COMMUNICATIONS (BROADBAND) on the ROOF OF AFRICA,” Nape Nnauye, Tanzania’s minister of information, communication and information technology, tweeted on August 16. “Tourists can now communicate worldwide from the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. WE ARE GOING TO UHURU PEAK 5880 Meters Above Sea Level!”

That’s right, by end of year you’ll be able to post your selfies right to the ‘gram from Mount Kilimanjaro’s peak — the news of which has, unsurprisingly, solicited a mixed bag of reviews. At the Matador Network, Suzie Dundas goes through the pros and cons.

There are many benefits to having wifi on a mountain where there are roughly 10 fatalities a year, safety chief among them. Now, should a hiker need immediate assistance, it will be exponentially easier for rescuers to pinpoint their location, thus expediting the speed at which they’re able to reach said hiker.

It’s also pretty cool, Dundas posits, that hikers will be able to share their climb in real time by way of photos, texts, emails and even live streams. However, that’s also where things start to get a little dicey. Hiking Kilimanjaro is obviously no small feat, even for the most experienced of alpinists. Not only does it require a certain level of experience and physical fitness, it also warrants your undivided attention, which a vibrating phone doesn’t necessarily lend itself well to.

Lastly, as Dundas points out, installing wifi on Kilimanjaro sends a less than stellar message: the mountain, which largely serves tourists, takes precedent over the surrounding villages; 17% of the population reportedly does not have access to cell service. Although, it does bear mentioning that Kilimanjaro climbing tourism brings in about $50 million, or roughly 18% of the country’s GDP, annually.

 

Drought forces earliest harvest ever in French wine country

26 August 2022, 

Climate France Vineyards. Picture: PA

The harvest is now happening earlier than ever as a result of severe drought and the wine industry’s adaptation to the effects of climate change.

The landscape in the prestigious vineyards of Bordeaux looks the same as ever, with healthy, ripe grapes hanging heavy off rows of green vines.

But this year something is starkly different in one of France’s most celebrated wine regions and other parts of Europe.

The harvest that once started in mid-September is now happening earlier than ever – in mid-August – as a result of severe drought and the wine industry’s adaptation to the unpredictable effects of climate change.

Paradoxically, the season of heatwaves and wildfires produced excellent grapes, despite lower yields.

Workers collect white grapes of sauvignon in the Grand Cru Classe de Graves of the Chateau Carbonnieux in Pessac-Leognan, south of Bordeaux (Francois Mori/AP)

But achieving such a harvest required creative changes in growing techniques, including pruning vines in a different way and sometimes watering them in places where irrigation is usually banned.

And producers across Europe who have seen first-hand the effects of global warming are worried about what more is to come.

So far, “global warming is very positive. We have better ripeness, better balance… but if you turn to the future, and if you increase the temperature by one degree more, plus, you will lose the freshness part in the balance of the wine”, said Fabien Teitgen, technical director of Chateau Smith-Haut-Lafitte, an estate that grows organic wine grapes in Martillac, south of Bordeaux.

Grape growers adjusted their practices amid a series of heatwaves, combined with lack of rain, that hit most of Europe.

In the Bordeaux region, in south-western France, giant wildfires destroyed large areas of pine forests.

It did not rain from the end of June until mid-August.

As the harvest unfolds, dozens of workers kneel in the vineyards to hand-pick grapes and put them into baskets.

The fruit is immediately crushed to make juice, which is put into tanks, then barrels to start the wine production process.

Chateau Carbonnieux at Pessac-Leognan, south of Bordeaux (Francois Mori/AP)

The harvest aims to produce the white wine from the famous Pessac-Leognan appellation.

Red wine will soon follow.

Eric Perrin, one of the owners of the Chateau Carbonnieux estate, recalled that during his childhood, in the 1970s, harvests started around mid-September.

This year, they began on August 16.

But the 2022 vintage may be better than ever, Mr Perrin said, because the grapes are healthy and well balanced.

The hot, dry weather also prevented vines from getting diseases such as mildew.

Producing wine is a centuries-old tradition at Chateau Carbonnieux, where Thomas Jefferson visited the vineyards in 1787, before becoming president of the United States, and planted a pecan tree that still stands in a park.

Nowadays, Chateau Carbonnieux wine is sometimes offered by French President Emmanuel Macron to esteemed hosts.

The drought changed the way wine producers work.

Fabien Teitgen, technical director of the Chateau Smith-Haut-Lafitte estate (Francois Mori/AP)

Before, vintners used to give vines a shape that allowed grapes to get the maximum amount of sun so they produced more sugar, which converts into alcohol.

This year, growers tended to let leaves protect the grapes so the shadows would preserve the fruit’s acidity and freshness, Mr Teitgen explained.

Yields may be 15% to 20% lower in the broader region, mostly due to smaller grapes and the fact that some were burned by the sun in specific areas, Mr Teitgen said, but it will not affect the wine’s quality.

In front of the 14th-century tower of the Chateau Smith-Haut-Lafitte vineyard, Manon Lecouffe this week carefully watered newly planted vines, an indispensable job.

Vines that are several years old have deep roots that allow them to draw water from far underground and endure drought without suffering too much.

But this year, estates had authorisation to water adult vines, a practice usually banned in Bordeaux.

“Some plots were heavily suffering with leaves falling,” Lecouffe said.

Another step vintners may take is to reduce the density of their plots to require less water or to work the soil to better conserve moisture deep down.

Laurent Lebrun, director of the Chateau Olivier estate, goes through the vineyards to taste grapes from various areas and decide when harvesting is needed (Francois Mori/AP)

Experts are also considering whether planting new grape varieties could be helpful.

At Chateau Olivier, which also produces Pessac-Leognan wines, director Laurent Lebrun showed how he and his team go through the vineyards to taste grapes plot by plot to decide where and when to harvest.

The consequences of global warming are now part of daily life for vintners, Mr Lebrun said, noting the speed of the changes.

“We need to reprogramme our own way of thinking,” he said.

“There are many tools that are still within our reach, which are already used in warmer regions.”

Further south in Europe, harvests also started weeks earlier than normal to save shrivelling and scorched grapes.

Production is expected to be 10% to 20% lower in some regions of Italy, Spain and Portugal, though producers are hopeful of increased quality.

Italy’s Coldiretti agricultural lobby stressed that the higher cost of energy and raw materials is expected to increase costs by 35%.

Eric Perrin, one of the owners of the Chateau Carbonnieux Grand Cru Classe de Graves, walks in the castle courtyard (Francois Mori/AP)

Scientists have long believed that human-caused climate change makes extreme weather more frequent.

They say hotter air, warmer oceans and melting sea ice alter the jet stream, which makes storms, floods, heatwaves, droughts and wildfires more destructive.

As warmer winters cause grape vines to produce early buds, French vintners worry that frost will disrupt the growing season more often.

Violent hailstorms can destroy a year of work in a few minutes.

At Chateau Carbonnieux, Mr Perrin fears some smaller producers may not withstand the changes.

“Climatic events since 2017 have led to smaller harvests. Not everyone will be able to survive it, for sure,” he said.

By Press Association

US journalist Angad Singh allegedly denied entry into India, deported to NY

India News
Published on Aug 26, 2022 

His mother Gurmeet Kaur, who is also a writer, narrated the entire incident on social media saying the authorities didn’t give a reason before deporting him

Angad was planning to come to India on a personal visit to meet his family members. 

(Facebook (Gurmeet Kaur FolktalesofPunjab))

By HT Correspondent

A US citizen of Indian origin and journalist Angad Singh was allegedly denied entry to India and deported from the New Delhi airport to New York on Wednesday night, his family members said.

In a Facebook post, his mother Gurmeet Kaur, who is also a writer, said, “When I flew to America for the first time - PanAm flight from Bombay to New York - I saw a Sikh boy about my age (I was 22) handcuffed and being taken away to be deported back to India. My heart tore. I spoke to him from a distance - to comfort him. He said he didn’t know the reason. He was tired of sitting down in plane rides and all he wanted to do was to lay down - his back hurt so bad. I wished him Chardikala (high spirit). “

“Today, a generation later, My son an American citizen who travelled 18 hours to Delhi to visit us in Punjab was deported. Put in the next flight back to New York. They didn’t give a reason. But we know it is his award-winning journalism that scares them. It is the stories he did and the stories he is capable of”, she said.

She added, “It is the love for his Motherland that they can’t stand. It is the cutting edge reporting of #ViceNews that gets to them. He is 6’5” tall. His back hurts from riding long rides in such small spaces. He must be wanting to lay down. I wish you Chardi Kala my boy. It’s not easy to be a Sikh, a Gursikh on top, a journalist, a warrior of truth and justice. Speaking truth has a price. We must pay it. I am comforting your back. See you in the land of free. Ps: So which story do you think pissed them off?”

According to sources, Gurmeet, who is also settled in US, is in India at present. Angad was planning to come to India on a personal visit to meet his family members, the sources said.

Gurmeet was not available for comment over the phone.

 

Finland's Prime Minister Is Embroiled in Footlooseghazi-Makeoutgate

Like the Brits, the Finns should get some real scandals. Whatever happened to trying to overthrow the government?

By Jack HolmesPUBLISHED: AUG 26, 2022

JUSSI NUKARI//Getty Images

War on the European continent. A cost-of-living crisis in Britain and beyond. The worst drought ever recorded in human history in China. All pale in comparison to the unfolding catastrophe in Finland, where Prime Minister Sanna Marin has been caught dancing and singing and allowing beautiful people to smooch in the prime ministerial manse, all in the space of a week. The 36-year-old was also accused of using drugs and promptly proved that she had not. All of this has poured into a sprawling scandal that we might call Footlooseghazi-Makeoutgate. It's enough to shake your faith in all that we hold dear.

It began with a disturbing video of Marin, the youngest ever Finnish leader when she was elected at 34, singing and dancing at a party with her friends. This was immediately decried as conduct unbecoming of a prime minister. "Critics have said the PM should be focused on leading Finland during a cost-of-living crisis," Britain's Telegraph reported. Then another video was leaked, this time of Marin dancing at a club with a man who was not her husband. Is that still a thing we're pretending to care about from our politicians? No matter, moving on. Pretty soon, some Finnish media had latched onto the idea that a voice in the first video could be heard saying "flour gang," which was immediately taken to be a drug reference. Marin denied taking drugs and took a drug test. It came back negative.

But then, the following week, another video was leaked of Marin dancing up on someone at a club. And then there was the coup de grâce: the photo of two women making out in a bathroom of the Finnish PM's residence. OK, confession time: when we said there was smooching in the manse earlier, we didn't mention that the smoochers were, in one report's styling, "TOPLESS!" They even held up a sign that said "Finland" to obscure the toplessness. The photo was pulled from the TikTok of a Finnish model named Sabina Särkkä, and where exactly is the problem here? Sorry, got distracted again. It's just that, if you live in a country dominated by geriatric political leaders, you might find all of this kind of refreshing. Marin is a reasonably competent administrator by day, and someone who goes out and parties with her friends by night. Jesus! Maybe she should take up golf.

Parliament did not sign off on this tomfoolery!

screenshot

In fairness to the haters and losers, the past couple weeks have not contained the sum total of Marin's party fouls: she landed in hot water back in December 2021 for hitting the club—and leaving her phone at home!—following a possible COVID exposure. "She was initially told she did not need to isolate because she had been fully vaccinated," the BBC reports, "but later missed a text that advised her to do so." Speaking of the Beeb, the Brits' own party scandals point to why there was at least, maybe, possibly, some point to getting mad about this earlier incident. Boris Johnson's #Partygate indiscretions seem almost quaint from our vantage point over here in America, but when you factor in that the Brits actually locked down for long periods of the godforsaken pandemic, you can see why they got a bit riled up that the guy making the rules wasn't exactly abiding by them. California Governor Gavin Newsom caught flak for the same.

Still, one can't help but encourage these countries to get some real scandals. A garden party, Boris? Try overthrowing the government. Have a mob of your enthusiasts storm Parliament to keep you in power. Step it up!

OK, we're getting sidetracked. This was about the Finnish prime minister having fun with friends in her free time in unapproved ways. And while Finland is in the process of joining NATO, no less! Hold up—there's a relentless online campaign to discredit the leader of a country that's currently pursuing protection against Russian aggression? There's a steady stream of leaks of damaging information about a politician who favors a policy—NATO expansion—that the next-door neighbors consider contrary to their interests? What a coincidence! It does seem that Marin is taking on some water in the polls, and that she could be turfed out in the next election. But there's no indication that will stop Finland joining NATO, and from the outside, this could just as easily be a guerrilla advertising campaign from Finland's tourism board. Work hard play hard!

In the end, though, the best argument against Marin's behavior is that it could be used against her just as it has been. That's bad logic and bad for human freedom, but who ever said politics was concerned with any of that? Just because the Finns elected a young adult doesn't mean they can't act outraged when she behaves like a young adult, and they're really only outraged because she was pictured behaving like a young adult. Maybe that speaks to the company she keeps, though when you hit the club, it's harder to know that, too. OK, maybe she should play golf. And pick up porn stars at the turn. And use questionable schemes to pay them off. Jesus! Nobody does scandals like the world hegemon. Just follow our lead, folks.

JACK HOLMESSENIOR STAFF WRITER

Jack Holmes is a senior staff writer at Esquire, where he covers politics and sports. He also hosts Useful Context, a video series.

 

IAEA mission seeks to visit Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant amid concerns

26 August 2022, 11:24

Russia Ukraine Explainer. Picture: PA

Fire damage to a transmission line at Europe’s largest nuclear plant caused a blackout across the region and heightened fears of a catastrophe.

A mission from the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is expected to visit the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant next week after it was temporarily knocked offline and more shelling was reported in the area overnight, Ukrainian officials said.

Fire damage to a transmission line at Europe’s largest nuclear plant caused a blackout across the region on Thursday and heightened fears of a catastrophe in a country still haunted by the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.

Lana Zerkal, an adviser to Ukraine’s energy minister, told Ukrainian media on Thursday evening that logistical issues are being worked out for the IAEA team to come to the Zaporizhzhia plant, which has been occupied by Russian forces and run by Ukrainian workers since the early days of the six-month-old war.

Ms Zerkal accused Russia of trying to sabotage the visit.

Destroyed houses after a Russian attack in the village of Chaplyne, Ukraine (Inna Varenytsia/AP)

Ukraine has alleged that Russia is essentially holding the plant hostage, storing weapons there and launching attacks from around it, while Moscow accuses Ukraine of recklessly firing on the facility.

“Despite the fact that the Russians agreed for the mission to travel through the territory of Ukraine, they are now artificially creating all the conditions for the mission not to reach the facility, given the situation around it,” she said, offering no details.

There was no immediate comment from Moscow to the claims.

The atomic agency’s head, Rafael Mariano Grossi, also said on Thursday he hopes to send a team to the plant within days.

Negotiations over how the team would access the plant are complicated but advancing, he said on France-24 television.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials said an area close to the plant came under a barrage of shelling overnight, amid mounting concerns that an armed conflict near a working atomic plant could cause more serious damage, even as Zaporizhzhia’s reactors are protected by reinforced concrete containment domes.

Dnipropetrovsk governor Valentyn Reznichenko said shelling in the city of Nikopol, which is across the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhia plant, damaged 10 houses, a school and a sanitorium, causing no casualties.

A power line has also been cut, leaving up to 1,000 local residents without electricity, he added.

People walk around destroyed Russian military vehicles installed in central Kyiv, Ukraine, on Wednesday (Evgeniy Maloletka/AP)

Nikopol has been under nearly constant Russian shelling since July 12, with eight people killed, 850 buildings damaged and more than half the population of 100,000 fleeing the city.

On Thursday, the Zaporizhzhia plant was cut off from the electrical grid after fires damaged the last operating regular transmission line, according to Ukraine’s nuclear power agency Energoatom.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky blamed Russian shelling and said the plant’s emergency back-up diesel generators had to be activated to supply power needed to run the plant.

Zaporizhzhia’s Russian-installed regional governor, Yevgeny Balitsky, blamed the transmission-line damage on a Ukrainian attack.

It was not immediately clear whether the damaged line carried outgoing electricity or incoming power, needed for the reactors’ vital cooling systems.

A loss of cooling could cause a nuclear meltdown.

As a result of the transmission-line damage, the two reactors still in use out of the plant’s six went offline, Mr Balitsky said, but one was quickly restored, as was electricity to the region.

Many nuclear plants are designed to automatically shut down or at least reduce reactor output in the event of a loss of outgoing transmission lines.

(PA Graphics)

The IAEA said Ukraine informed it that the reactors’ emergency protection systems were triggered, and all safety systems remained operational.

The three regular transmission lines at the plant are out of service because of previous war damage.

Ukraine cannot simply shut down its nuclear plants during the war because it is heavily reliant on them.

Its 15 reactors at four stations provide about half of its electricity.

Elsewhere, two people were killed and six more injured over the past 24 hours in the eastern Donetsk region, governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Friday.

In the north-eastern Sumy region, on the border with Russia, more than 100 munitions were fired over the past 24 hours, burning down a house, governor Dmytro Zhyvytsky said.

By Press Association

Best-selling organic chemistry textbook becomes open access

BY DALMEET SINGH CHAWLA

23 AUGUST 2022

The author of a popular organic chemistry textbook is making it freely available to students after learning about a loophole in his copyright agreement with the publisher.

John McMurry’s Organic Chemistry has been one of the best selling chemistry textbooks since it was first printed in 1984. Under his agreement with Cengage Learning, the book’s publisher, McMurry realised he could ask for the book’s copyright to be returned to him 30 years after it was first printed. Without copyright of the first edition, the publisher is unable to produce any more new editions, McMurry notes.

McMurry, an emeritus professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Cornell University, US, says the move was a tribute to his son who passed away from cystic fibrosis three years ago.




Source: © Cengage

The book’s ninth edition, released in 2015, is available for around £70 in the UK and $80 in the US

Now McMurry is writing the book’s tenth edition, releasing it for free next summer on OpenStax, an educational technology nonprofit run out of Rice University, US. The book’s ninth, 2015, edition is currently sold for around £70 in the UK and $80 in the US. The upcoming edition - and likely any future editions - will be freely available worldwide as digital download.

But the aim isn’t to make publishers go out of business, McMurry says. Cengage will still make money from McMurry’s book through the supporting online material. ‘We like to have them continue selling that because a lot of students want that,’ McMurry says. He explains publishers still do add value. ‘I would not want to see them disappear, but they’re not going to make anywhere near as much money in the future.’

‘Good for him,’ says Peter Atkins, a UK-based chemist who has written several chemistry textbooks, including the popular Atkins’ Physical Chemistry. ‘It’s a very brave move.’ Atkins acknowledges that textbook prices are extraordinarily high, particularly in the US, where there is a strong market for second-hand textbooks, so authors have to recoup their costs within the first year of publication. However, major textbook publisher Pearson has suggested publishers could start making money from book resales using blockchain technology.

Atkins says that one should not downplay the role of publishers who help authors develop their ideas, survey the market, undertake advertising, market the products, and carry out copyediting and typesetting.

David Harris, editor-in-chief of OpenStax, says under his firm’s business model authors are paid to write textbooks that are made freely available online. This is different to the royalties paid out by publishers under the traditional model. OpenStax gets its money from a variety of philanthropic individuals and organisations. ‘Our real role is to remove friction that exists in the way textbooks are published and used,’ adds OpenStax founder Richard Baraniuk, an electrical and computer engineer at Rice University.

McMurry decided to donate his OpenStax payments to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

Perseverance rover reveals rocks on Mars were repeatedly exposed to liquid water


SOURCE: © NASA/JPL-CALTECH

BY JAMIE DURRANI

26 AUGUST 2022

Nasa’s Perseverance rover has uncovered new details of the geochemistry of the Jezero crater on Mars. A series of articles published in Science and Science Advances explain how data collected by the rover’s on-board instruments offer insights into the volcanic history of the red planet.

Perseverance landed on Mars in February last year and has spent the last year and a half exploring the Jezero crater – a feature about 28 miles across, which is believed to have once been flooded with liquid water. A suite of on-board instruments including an x-ray spectrometer, a visual–infrared spectrometer, a Raman and fluorescence spectrometer and an x-ray fluorescence spectrometer, have been used to analyse rock samples collected during the first 3km stretch of Perseverance’s journey.


Source: © Science/AAAS
Orbital images of the Jezero crater where Perseverance drilled 15 metres below the surface of the red planet

The new research provides information on the chemical make-up of rocks reaching down to a depth of 15 metres below the surface of the crater floor. The material is mainly made of an igneous mineral called olivine, and is layered by density and composition. The igneous composition of the rock reveals its volcanic origins, while the layering suggests that the material was repeatedly exposed to liquid water.

The lowest exposed geologic feature in the crater, known as the Séítah formation, was found to be predominantly composed of coarse crystalline olivine, while iron and magnesium carbonates detected in the material indicate reactions with carbon dioxide-rich water. The rocks also contain sulfates and perchlorates, which researchers believe were introduced later by evaporation of salt-rich water.

Samples of the rock have been stored on the rover in the hope that they may be brought back to Earth for closer inspection by a future Mars mission in the 2030s.

References

KA Farley et al, Science, 2022, DOI: 10.1126/science.abo2196

New stem cell research has far-reaching potential for understanding early embryonic development and the future of human organ transplants

New stem cell research has wide-reaching implications


Natural and synthetic embryos side-by-side to show comparable brain and heart formation.

 Credit: Armadei and Handford

One of the most common times for a pregnancy to fail is in the first few weeks – often before the parent realises they are pregnant. This biologically fragile time has long remained a mystery for researchers as it involves the implantation of a tiny embryo in the womb, so it’s been pretty much impossible to observe the process.

Until now.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge have been able to create embryos from mouse stem cells (rather than the usual way by combining an egg and sperm) in the lab, guiding their development to form a fully beating heart and the foundations of the entire brain – a first for this kind of study.

Embryonic stem cell research may aid scientist’s understanding of how early pregnancies fail. Credit: Oscar Wong/Getty Images

“This period is the foundation for everything else that follows in pregnancy. If it goes wrong, the pregnancy will fail,” say Professor Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, who led the research published in Nature. “This period of human life is so mysterious, so to be able to see how it happens in a dish – to have access to these individual stem cells, to understand why so many pregnancies fail and how we might be able to prevent that from happening – is quite special.”

Formation and development of an embryo in the womb results in stem cells creating three different types of tissue structures: the embryonic tissue, the placenta and the yolk sac.

In the lab, the team combined cultured stem cells to represent the three main types of tissues, thereby creating an environment similar to the womb. They found that not only did extraembryonic tissues (those outside the embryo) communicate with embryonic tissues via chemical signalling, but also through touch. Through these communications, the embryo was able to successfully self-assemble and develop.

This communication between tissues is crucial for the embryo’s survival, explains Zernicka-Goetz. “We looked at the dialogue that has to happen between the different types of stem cell at the time – we’ve shown how it occurs and how it can go wrong.”

Read more: Inside biology’s black box

This research is a step forward in stem cell science as the foundations for the whole brain were formed – the most progressed development of such embryonic tissue to date. “This opens new possibilities to study the mechanisms of neurodevelopment,” says Zernicka-Goetz.

This research may one day lead to better understanding of synthetic

 organs for human transplantation. 

Credit: Uchar/Getty Images

The team is also excited about the prospects of using similar techniques on human models, which may help guide the development of “synthetic” organs (that is, organs manufactured, rather than developed in the usual way inside an animal’s body), bringing hope for humans waiting for transplants. For some time, advances in stem cell research have been hotly anticipated to have the potential to develop safe and effective treatments for a number of ailments.

“What makes our work so exciting is that the knowledge coming out of it could be used to grow correct synthetic human organs to save lives that are currently lost. It should also be possible to affect and heal adult organs by using the knowledge we have on how they are made.”

IRONIC

LastPass suffers a security breach: hackers steal source code from password management company

• By Sofia Wyciślik-Wilson

LastPass, the firm behind the eponymous password management software, has revealed that it fell victim to a security breach two weeks ago. Although the company is quick to point out that passwords stored by users have not been exposed, the incident remains hugely significant.

The hackers were able to breach the security of a developer account and took advantage of this to steal "source code and some proprietary LastPass technical information". While LastPass is at pains to stress that it has seen "no evidence that this incident involved any access to customer data or encrypted password vaults" it is an incident that will nonetheless dent user confidence.

Karim Toubba, CEO of LastPass, published a blog post about the incident saying: "I want to inform you of a development that we feel is important for us to share with our LastPass business and consumer community".

Going on to detail what happened, Toubba says:

Two weeks ago, we detected some unusual activity within portions of the LastPass development environment. After initiating an immediate investigation, we have seen no evidence that this incident involved any access to customer data or encrypted password vaults. 

We have determined that an unauthorized party gained access to portions of the LastPass development environment through a single compromised developer account and took portions of source code and some proprietary LastPass technical information. Our products and services are operating normally.

In response to the incident, we have deployed containment and mitigation measures, and engaged a leading cybersecurity and forensics firm. While our investigation is ongoing, we have achieved a state of containment, implemented additional enhanced security measures, and see no further evidence of unauthorized activity. 

LastPass has also published a short FAQ to try to answer the concerns of users:

1. Has my Master password or the Master Password of my users been compromised?  

No. This incident did not compromise your Master Password. We never store or have knowledge of your Master Password. We utilize an industry standard Zero Knowledge architecture that ensures LastPass can never know or gain access to our customers' Master Password. You can read about the technical implementation of Zero Knowledge here. 

2. Has any data within my vault or my users’ vaults been compromised?  

No. This incident occurred in our development environment. Our investigation has shown no evidence of any unauthorized access to encrypted vault data.  Our zero knowledge model ensures that only the customer has access to decrypt vault data.  

3. Has any of my personal information or the personal information of my users been compromised? 

No. Our investigation has shown no evidence of any unauthorized access to customer data in our production environment.   

4. What should I do to protect myself and my vault data?  

At this time, we don’t recommend any action on behalf of our users or administrators. As always, we recommend that you follow our best practices around setup and configuration of LastPass which can be found here. 

5. How can I get more information? 

We will continue to update our customers with the transparency they deserve.  

LastPass says that it is "evaluating further mitigation techniques to strengthen our environment".