Thursday, September 22, 2022

Muslim women are taking off their headscarves and cutting their hair on TikTok to protest Iran's hijab rules following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini

Charissa Cheong
Wed, September 21, 2022

Mahsa Amini died in a Tehran hospital on Friday.Screenshots from TikTok
  • 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died on Friday after being arrested by Iran's Islamic morality police.

  • Police detained Amini on suspicion of breaking hijab-wearing rules, reports say.

  • Muslim women are now cutting their hair and hijabs on TikTok in protest.

Women in Iran are taking off their headscarves and cutting their hair to protest the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.

Amini died in a Tehran hospital on Friday after being arrested by Iran's Islamic morality police on Tuesday on suspicion of not correctly wearing a hijab — a head covering traditionally worn by Muslim women and is mandatory in Iran — according to reports.

Tehran police said Amini was arrested for the purpose of "justification and education" about the hijab, and told her family she died of a "sudden" heart attack. Her family say she had no known heart conditions, and witnesses said they saw police beating her up inside a van, according to BBC News.

On September 18, the day of Amini's funeral, protests erupted in Iran, with women removing their headscarves and waving them in the air to protest the hijab-wearing rules that led to the arrest of the 22-year-old.

Now, Muslim and Iranian women based all over the world are joining the protests by taking off their headscarves and cutting their hair in protest on TikTok and Instagram.

@persianziba Today exactly two years ago I started wearing hijab, today I cut my hair for #mahsaamini , who was an Iranian woman that got unal!ved in Iran because of the mandatory hijab law. I cannot show the video of me cutting my hair out of religious reasons (On my story there is a censored version of the video) so as a symbol of solidarity I made a video cutting my scarf as well in order to spread the message. I am wearing one of our traditional Persian scarfs around me to represent my people as an Iranian woman. I cannot go into detail for my own safety, so please do the research and spread our message. #fy #fyp #foryou #foryoupage #freedom #help #helpus #iran ♬ original sound - em🤍

In one video with 930,000 views, a woman can be seen cutting up her black headscarf with a pair of scissors. The caption under the video read, "Today exactly two years ago I started wearing hijab, today I cut my hair for #mahsaamini." The user wrote that she did not want to cut her hair on camera for "religious reasons," but filmed herself cutting the headscarf "to spread the message."

"My heart goes out to all my female friends fighting for their basic human rights in Iran," wrote one TikToker under a video with 430,000 views, where she could be seen snipping her long hair into a shoulder-length bob.

@mayamahyari For #Mahsa Amini. My heart goes out to all my female friends fighting for their basic human rights in Iran. #mahsa_amini #mahsaamini #no_to_islamic_republic_of_iran #humanrights #womenpower #griving #Iran #iranianwomenlivesmatter #iranianwomen ♬ original sound - em🤍

Some women who don't identify as Muslim have also been posting tributes to Amini on TikTok, saying they want to "stand with Iranian women." One TikToker took part in the hair-cutting trend and showed herself standing in front of a mirror with a newly-shaved head after a caption appeared on the clip saying, "Candian women stand with you."

Many of these TikTok videos used audio from "Another Love," a pop song by English singer Tom Odell. The song is also being used on TikTok to share clips filmed at protests in Iran following Amini's death, according to captions under the videos.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have both called for criminal investigations into Amini's death. Iranian state-run news agency IRNA reported that President Ebrahim Raisi has asked Iran's interior ministry to "investigate the cause of the incident with urgency and special attention.


Iran restricts access to WhatsApp and Instagram in response to Mahsa Amini protests


Mohamed Azakir / reuters


·Weekend Editor

Iran has blocked access to Instagram and WhatsApp as its government attempts to subdue protests that began last week following the death of a woman at the hands of local authorities. As of Wednesday, demonstrations across the country had been ongoing for four consecutive days. The protests began over the weekend after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in the custody of Iran’s morality police on September 16th. She was arrested for allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code for women.

According to internet watchdog NetBlocks (via Reuters), the Iranian government has gradually restricted web access across much of the country in recent days. The blackout began in Tehran and other parts of Iran when protests first broke out on Friday. On the evening of September 19th, the government extended restrictions to parts of the western Kurdistan province. As of Wednesday, accessing WhatsApp and Instagram through any of the country’s major internet providers was impossible. According to NetBlocks, the current restrictions are the most severe since 2019, when Iran shut down all internet access in response to fuel protests.

Meta did not immediately respond to Engadget’s request for comment. NetBlocks suggests the disruptions are likely to significantly limit the ability of the Iranian people to communicate freely. In theory, Iran’s government may believe that restricting internet access will reduce the likelihood of protestors organizing and allow it to better control the narrative of Amini's death.

US condemns death of Iranian woman in religious police custody while demonstrations erupt in Tehran
John Bowden
Wed, September 21, 2022

The US State Department has condemned the killing of an Iranian woman in police custody after she was detained for not wearing a head covering.

Outrage over the death of Mahsa Amini is growing both domestically inside Iran, according to reports from opposition groups, as well as around the world.

The 22-year-old’s death last Friday has sparked a new wave of resistance against Iran’s religious police and morality rules, including from some prominent left-leaning members of the country’s parliament. Protests have broken out in dozens of cities across the country, according to anti-government sources.

“Mahsa Amini’s death after injuries sustained while in police custody for wearing an ‘improper’ hijab is an appalling and egregious affront to human rights,” a spokesperson for Joe Biden’s National Security Council told reporters. “Our thoughts are with Mahsa’s family and loved ones.”

“Women in Iran should have the right to wear what they want, free from violence or harassment. Iran must end its use of violence against women for exercising their fundamental freedoms,” they continued. “There must be accountability for Mahsa’s death.”

In the US, protests continued with new fervour outside the United Nations’s headquarters as well as a nearby hotel where Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s president, is staying as he attends a meeting of the General Assembly. Thousands of protesters gathered in the streets on Wednesday, demanding justice.
Anti-Raisi protesters in the streets of New York City (OIAC)

“No one can nor should remain silent regarding the barbaric murders of the young 22-year-old Mahsa Amini by this brutal regime,” said Dr Ramesh Sepehrrad, advisory chair of the Organization of Iranian-American Communities.

Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, added that Ms Amini’s death “ignited the powder keg in our rebellious cities”.

“Indeed, the moment this murderer enters the building that is supposed to serve the nations of the world is a moment of shame and disgrace for those who appease the ruling religious fascism, a moment that scars the conscience of humanity,” Ms Rajavi added of Mr Raisi’s upcoming speech to the General Assembly.

At least some in the body appear to agree, as the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights has called for an investigation into Ms Amini’s death and alleged torture.

The Biden administration remains engaged in negotiations with Iran’s leadership regarding a possible resumption of the 2015 nuclear deal signed between the Obama administration, Tehran, and a handful of European countries.

Senators on the Foreign Relations committee told The Independent on Tuesday that they had no updates about the status of those negotiations, which are opposed entirely by more hawkish members of Congress.

Wave of protests in Iran reflects seething anger over how its regime treats women

Dan De Luce and Yasmine Salam and Hyder Abbasi and Bianca Britton

Wed, September 21, 2022

She traveled to Tehran to visit relatives, a dark-haired 22-year-old woman from Iran’s Kurdistan region. But outside a subway station, the “morality police” arrested Mahsa Amini for allegedly failing to fully cover her hair, and pulled her into a police van.

Three days later, she was dead.

Amini’s death in the capital has ignited a wave of protests across the country, exposing a raw anger among Iranian women about their treatment by the regime and an unprecedented willingness to defy the government.

"Many people are pointing out that this could be my daughter, my sister, my wife," said Hadi Ghaemi, the executive director of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran. "This has shaken people, that every time a woman leaves home, she might not come back.”

As Iran’s hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi met world leaders in New York for the United Nations General Assembly this week, extraordinary scenes have unfolded in his country, with women removing their headscarves and even burning them in front of cheering crowds, according to videos posted online.

The combination of viral videos and pent-up anger represent a potential “George Floyd” moment for Iran, Ghaemi said, with the regime now “forced into a corner given how innocent this woman was and there was no grounds for having treated her so violently.”

Iran’s U.N. mission did not respond to a request for comment.

Protesters in Tehran throw stones at police during demonstrations Tuesday over the death of a young woman who had been detained for violating the country's conservative dress code. (AP)
Protesters in Tehran throw stones at police during demonstrations Tuesday over the death of a young woman who had been detained for violating the country's conservative dress code. (AP)

Raisi has ordered an investigation into Amini’s death and expressed condolences to her father in a phone call, according to Iranian state media.

“I learned about this incident during my trip to Uzbekistan, and I immediately ordered my colleagues to investigate the matter specially," Raisi said on the call, according to his official website. "I assure you that I will demand this issue from the responsible institutions so that its dimensions are clarified."

The president emphasized that he considers all Iranian girls as his own children. "Your daughter is like my own daughter, and I feel that this incident happened to one of my loved ones. Please accept my condolences," he added.

Eyewitnesses — who were also in the van — told Amini’s father that she was beaten up in the police vehicle on the way to the detention center, human rights groups say. Iranian authorities, however, said she died from a heart attack and called the incident “unfortunate.”

“They said Mahsa had heart disease and epilepsy but as the father who raised her for 22 years, I say loudly that Mahsa did not have any illness. She was in perfect health,” Amini’s father told an Iranian news outlet.

Women’s rights advocates have battled the theocracy from its earliest days after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, protesting the mandatory veil or hijab, along with an array of laws that critics and U.N. rights monitors say render women second-class citizens.

But human rights groups say the women’s movement has gained new strength from social media in recent years and a younger generation more willing to confront the regime.

Since 2017, Iranian women increasingly have taken their opposition to the hijab law online, posting videos of themselves removing the headscarf accompanied by declarations that the government has no right to tell a woman how to dress.

Since Raisi was elected in June, the government has deployed more morality police units, who patrol the streets to ensure women adhere to the regime’s strict female dress code, said Raha Bahreini, Amnesty International’s Iran researcher based in London.

"One very distressing trend in recent months has been the persecution of females who defy compulsory veiling laws. The level of violence that women are facing in the street is really horrific," she said.

"And because there is now more vocal opposition, and campaigning against compulsory veiling laws in Iran, the Iranian authorities are also escalating their attacks on women in the streets," Bahreini said.

But phone cameras and hashtags have become a weapon for activists to push back, mobilize civil disobedience and expose what they allege is a surge in police repression against women.

The digital campaign has been cheered along by Masih Alinejad, an Iranian women rights activist who immigrated to the United States and has become a thorn in the side of the regime.

She invites Iranian women to post their protest videos on social media under her #WhiteWednesdays hashtag campaign. As a result, she has amassed millions of followers online and the FBI alleges she was the target of a recent kidnapping plot by the regime.

For the Iranian government, "the compulsory hijab is not just a small piece of cloth. It is like the main pillar of the Islamic Republic," Alinejad told NBC News.

"When mullahs took power in Iran, what was the first thing they did? They forced women to wear the hijab. Why? Because they use our bodies, like a political platform. So they write their own ideology on our bodies."

The regime likely fears that giving ground on the mandatory hijab rule could open the door to the whole theocratic system unraveling, said Mahsa Alimardani, a researcher at Article 19, a nongovernmental organization that promotes freedom of expression.

"They do not want to concede on this one point in fear that they would have to concede on a lot of other restrictions that help keep the regime in place," she said.

On July 12, when the Iranian government organized an annual “chastity” day to promote the mandatory hijab law, opponents organized counterprotests, posting videos of themselves removing their headscarves in public. Some of the protesters were identified and arrested, but a subsequent online protest on social media under the #No2Hijab hashtag attracted hundreds of thousands of supporters.

"The consequence of this campaign in Iran was to enrage government authorities, clergy and imams,” said Atena Daemi, an Iranian human rights activist who was imprisoned for seven years for protesting the death penalty and undertook three hunger strikes.

Government officials and clerics called for harsher penalties against women protesting the law, she said.

"Women, on the other hand, grew more motivated to continue their fight against the mandatory hijab because with each new action, they discover they are so many, they find each other, and unify and organize for the next movement,” Daemi added.

Human rights experts and activists say Iran has never wavered from its hard-line restrictions on women since the revolution, even when more pragmatic reformists have been in power.

According to Iran’s interpretation of Sharia law, women cannot travel abroad without the permission of a father or husband, are banned from singing or riding bicycles, are denied custody of their children if they remarry, can seek a divorce only under limited circumstances, can be legally married at age 13 and even younger if a court approves and can only inherit an eighth of their husband’s estate. Iran ranked 143 out of 146 countries surveyed in a recent World Economic Forum report on gender pay gaps around the world.

Image: Tehran protests (AP)
Image: Tehran protests (AP)

When faced with major street protests in the past, the Iranian government has responded with overwhelming force, including opening fire on unarmed protesters, according to human rights groups and Western governments. At least four people have been killed so far by police in this week’s protests, according to Iranian-focused human rights organizations.

NBC News has not verified the claims.

State media alleged that foreign agents and seditionist elements were behind the street protests.

It’s unclear if the protests will snowball further, or if the authorities will find a way to stifle the momentum of public anger.

Whatever the outcome of the current protests, Amini’s death has meant the regime is “definitely losing the battle for legitimacy,” Alimardani said.

Every prison sentence and arrest meted out by the regime has only radicalized Iranian women and served as a catalyst for more protests, Alinejad and other activists said.

“We have so many Rosa Parks in Iran. To me, I don’t see Iranian women like victims. They are like warriors,” Alinejad said, referring to the U.S. civil rights pioneer.

Daemi, one of the most prominent women’s rights advocates in Iran, said she has no plans to abandon her struggle despite the threat it poses to her health and her family.

“I am confident that humanity will win,” she said. “One day, the sun will break through the gloom.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

Iran's Revolutionary Guards issue warning as protests over woman's death spread



1/6

People attend a protest over the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who died after being arrested by the Islamic republic's "morality police", in Tehran, Iran September 21, 2022. 
WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

Revolutionary Guards issue warning over unrest

Reports of security forces coming under attack

Kurdish woman died after detention by morality police

Iranian government has pledged inquiry into her death

DUBAI, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards called on the judiciary on Thursday to prosecute "those who spread false news and rumours", in an apparent bid to take the steam out of nationwide protests over the death of a young woman in police custody.

The warning was a clear indication that the elite force is prepared to step up its crackdown on demonstrations.

Protesters in Tehran and other Iranian cities torched police stations and vehicles earlier on Thursday as public outrage over the death showed no signs of abating, with reports of security forces coming under attack.

Mahsa Amini, 22, died last week after being arrested in Tehran for wearing "unsuitable attire". She fell into a coma while in detention. The authorities have said they would launch an investigation into the cause of her death.

In a statement, the Guards expressed sympathy with the family and relatives of Amini.

"We have requested the judiciary to identify those who spread false news and rumours on social media as well as on the street and who endanger the psychological safety of society and to deal with them decisively," the Guards, who have cracked down on protests in the past, said.

Women have played a prominent role in the protests, waving and burning their veils, with some cutting their hair in public.

Pro-government protests are planned for Friday and some marchers have already taken to the streets, Iranian media said.

Judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei has ordered speedy action in the case of the rioters to "maintain the security and peace of the citizens", Tasnim news reported.

The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on Iran's morality police, accusing them of abuse and violence against Iranian women and of violating the rights of peaceful Iranian protesters, the U.S. Treasury said.

The protests over Amini's death are the biggest in the Islamic Republic since 2019. Most have been concentrated in Iran's Kurdish-populated northwest but have spread to the capital and at least 50 cities and towns nationwide, with police using force to disperse protesters. Amini was from the province of Kurdistan.

A new mobile internet disruption was registered in the country, internet monitoring group Netblocks wrote on Twitter, in a possible sign that the authorities fear the protests will intensify.

On Twitter, WhatsApp said it is working to keep Iranian users connected, adding that it is not blocking Iranian numbers.

A member of an Iranian pro-government paramilitary organisation, the Basij, was stabbed to death in the northeastern city of Mashhad on Wednesday, two semi-official Iranian news agencies reported on Thursday.

There was no official confirmation of the death.

Tasnim also said another member of the Basij was killed on Wednesday in the city of Qazvin from a gunshot wound inflicted by "rioters and gangs".

Nour news, a media outlet affiliated with a top security body, shared a video of an army officer confirming the death of a soldier in the unrest, bringing the total reported number of security force members killed in the unrest to five.

An official from Mazandaran said 76 members of the security forces were injured in the province during the unrest while the police commander of Kurdistan said more than 100 security forces were wounded.

In the northeast, protesters shouted "We will die, we will die but we'll get Iran back" near a police station which was set on fire, a video posted on Twitter account 1500tasvir showed. The account focuses on protests in Iran and has around 100,000 followers.

Reuters could not verify the footage.

PERSONAL FREEDOMS

Amini's death has reignited anger over issues including restrictions on personal freedoms in Iran - including strict dress codes for women - and an economy reeling from sanctions.

Iran's clerical rulers fear a revival of the 2019 protests that erupted over gasoline price rises, the bloodiest in the Islamic Republic's history. Reuters reported 1,500 were killed.

Protesters this week also expressed anger at Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. "Mojtaba, may you die and not become Supreme Leader," a crowd was seen chanting in Tehran, referring to Khamenei's son, who some believe could succeed his father at the top of Iran's political establishment.

Reuters could not verify the video.

Reports by Kurdish rights group Hengaw, which Reuters could not verify, said the death toll in Kurdish areas had climbed to 15 and the number of injured rose to 733. Iranian officials have denied that security forces have killed protesters, suggesting they may have been shot by armed dissidents.

In northern Iran, crowds armed with batons and rocks attacked two members of the security forces on a motorbike as a crowd cheered, according to footage which Reuters was unable to verify.
Hot gas bubble spotted spinning around Milky Way black hole

Agence France-Presse
September 22, 2022

The hot gas bubble is thought to orbit slightly outside the orange ring. 
(M. KORNMESSER European Southern Observatory/AFP)

Astronomers said Thursday they have spotted a hot bubble of gas spinning clockwise around the black hole at the centre of our galaxy at "mind blowing" speeds.

The detection of the bubble, which only survived for a few hours, is hoped to provide insight into how these invisible, insatiable, galactic monsters work.

The supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* lurks in the middle of the Milky Way some 27,000 light years from Earth, and its immense pull gives our home galaxy its characteristic swirl.

The first-ever image of Sagittarius A* was revealed in May by the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, which links radio dishes around the world aiming to detect light as it disappears into the maw of black holes.

One of those dishes, the ALMA radio telescope in Chile's Andes mountain range, picked up something "really puzzling" in the Sagittarius A* data, said Maciek Wielgus, an astrophysicist at Germany's Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy.

Just minutes before ALMA's radio data collection began, the Chandra Space Telescope observed a "huge spike" in X-rays, Wielgus told AFP.

This burst of energy, thought to be similar to solar flares on the Sun, sent a hot bubble of gas swirling around the black hole, according to a new study published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

The gas bubble, also known as a hot spot, had an orbit similar to Mercury's trip around the Sun, the study's lead author Wielgus said.

But while it takes Mercury 88 days to make that trip, the bubble did it in just 70 minutes. That means it travelled at around 30 percent of the speed of light.

"So it's an absolutely, ridiculously fast-spinning bubble," Wielgus said, calling it "mind blowing".


Astronomers detect hot gas bubble swirling around the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole


Peer-Reviewed Publication

ESO NEWS RELEASE 

The orbit of the hot spot around Sagittarius A* 

IMAGE: THIS SHOWS A STILL IMAGE OF THE SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLE SAGITTARIUS A*, AS SEEN BY THE EVENT HORIZON COLLABORATION (EHT), WITH AN ARTIST’S ILLUSTRATION INDICATING WHERE THE MODELLING OF THE ALMA DATA PREDICTS THE HOT SPOT TO BE AND ITS ORBIT AROUND THE BLACK HOLE. view more 

CREDIT: EHT COLLABORATION, ESO/M. KORNMESSER (ACKNOWLEDGMENT: M. WIELGUS) [[CREDIT MUST BE GIVEN TO THE CREATOR AND THE EUROPEAN SOUTHERN OBSERVATORY MUST BE MENTIONED IN THE MEDIA ARTICLE.]]

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers have spotted signs of a ‘hot spot’ orbiting Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the centre of our galaxy. The finding helps us better understand the enigmatic and dynamic environment of our supermassive black hole.

We think we're looking at a hot bubble of gas zipping around Sagittarius A* on an orbit similar in size to that of the planet Mercury, but making a full loop in just around 70 minutes. This requires a mind blowing velocity of about 30% of the speed of light!” says Maciek Wielgus of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, who led the study published today in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

The observations were made with ALMA in the Chilean Andes — a radio telescope co-owned by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) — during a campaign by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration to image black holes. In April 2017 the EHT linked together eight existing radio telescopes worldwide, including ALMA, resulting in the recently released first ever image of Sagittarius A*. To calibrate the EHT data, Wielgus and his colleagues, who are members of the EHT Collaboration, used ALMA data recorded simultaneously with the EHT observations of Sagittarius A*. To the team's surprise, there were more clues to the nature of the black hole hidden in the ALMA-only measurements.

By chance, some of the observations were done shortly after a burst or flare of X-ray energy was emitted from the centre of our galaxy, which was spotted by NASA’s Chandra Space Telescope. These kinds of flares, previously observed with X-ray and infrared telescopes, are thought to be associated with so-called ‘hot spots’, hot gas bubbles that orbit very fast and close to the black hole. 

What is really new and interesting is that such flares were so far only clearly present in X-ray and infrared observations of Sagittarius A*. Here we see for the first time a very strong indication that orbiting hot spots are also present in radio observations,” says Wielgus, who is also affiliated with the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Centre, Poland and the Black Hole Initiative at Harvard University, USA. 

Perhaps these hot spots detected at infrared wavelengths are a manifestation of the same physical phenomenon: as infrared-emitting hot spots cool down, they become visible at longer wavelengths, like the ones observed by ALMA and the EHT,” adds Jesse Vos, a PhD student at Radboud University, the Netherlands, who was also involved in this study.

The flares were long thought to originate from magnetic interactions in the very hot gas orbiting very close to Sagittarius A*, and the new findings support this idea. “Now we find strong evidence for a magnetic origin of these flares and our observations give us a clue about the geometry of the process. The new data are extremely helpful for building a theoretical interpretation of these events,” says co-author Monika Mościbrodzka from Radboud University.

ALMA allows astronomers to study polarised radio emission from Sagittarius A*, which can be used to unveil the black hole’s magnetic field. The team used these observations together with theoretical models to learn more about the formation of the hot spot and the environment it is embedded in, including the magnetic field around Sagittarius A*. Their research provides stronger constraints on the shape of this magnetic field than previous observations, helping astronomers uncover the nature of our black hole and its surroundings.

The observations confirm some of the previous discoveries made by the GRAVITY instrument at ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), which observes in the infrared. The data from GRAVITY and ALMA both suggest the flare originates in a clump of gas swirling around the black hole at about 30% of the speed of light in a clockwise direction in the sky, with the orbit of the hot spot being nearly face-on.

In the future we should be able to track hot spots across frequencies using coordinated multiwavelength observations with both GRAVITY and ALMA — the success of such an endeavour would be a true milestone for our understanding of the physics of flares in the Galactic centre,” says Ivan Marti-Vidal of the University of València in Spain, co-author of the study.

The team is also hoping to be able to directly observe the orbiting gas clumps with the EHT, to probe ever closer to the black hole and learn more about it. “Hopefully, one day, we will be comfortable saying that we ‘know’ what is going on in Sagittarius A*,” Wielgus concludes.

More information

This research was presented in the paper “Orbital motion near Sagittarius A* – Constraints from polarimetric ALMA observations” to appear in Astronomy & Astrophysics (https://www.aanda.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202244493).

The team is composed of M. Wielgus (Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Germany [MPIfR]; Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Centre, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland; Black Hole Initiative at Harvard University, USA [BHI]), M. Moscibrodzka (Department of Astrophysics, Radboud University, The Netherlands [Radboud]), J. Vos (Radboud), Z. Gelles (Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, USA and BHI), I. Martí-Vidal (Universitat de València, Spain), J. Farah (Las Cumbres Observatory, USA; University of California, Santa Barbara, USA), N. Marchili (Italian ALMA Regional Centre, INAF-Istituto di Radioastronomia, Italy and MPIfR), C. Goddi (Dipartimento di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Cagliari, Italy and Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil), and H. Messias (Joint ALMA Observatory, Chile).

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of ESO, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded by ESO on behalf of its Member States, by NSF in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and by NINS in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI). ALMA construction and operations are led by ESO on behalf of its Member States; by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), on behalf of North America; and by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) on behalf of East Asia. The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA. 

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) enables scientists worldwide to discover the secrets of the Universe for the benefit of all. We design, build and operate world-class observatories on the ground — which astronomers use to tackle exciting questions and spread the fascination of astronomy — and promote international collaboration in astronomy. Established as an intergovernmental organisation in 1962, today ESO is supported by 16 Member States (Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom), along with the host state of Chile and with Australia as a Strategic Partner. ESO’s headquarters and its visitor centre and planetarium, the ESO Supernova, are located close to Munich in Germany, while the Chilean Atacama Desert, a marvellous place with unique conditions to observe the sky, hosts our telescopes. ESO operates three observing sites: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its Very Large Telescope Interferometer, as well as two survey telescopes, VISTA working in the infrared and the visible-light VLT Survey Telescope. Also at Paranal ESO will host and operate the Cherenkov Telescope Array South, the world’s largest and most sensitive gamma-ray observatory. Together with international partners, ESO operates APEX and ALMA on Chajnantor, two facilities that observe the skies in the millimetre and submillimetre range. At Cerro Armazones, near Paranal, we are building “the world’s biggest eye on the sky” — ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope. From our offices in Santiago, Chile we support our operations in the country and engage with Chilean partners and society. 

Links





Updated climate models clouded by scientific biases, researchers find

Peer-Reviewed Publication

INSTITUTE OF ATMOSPHERIC PHYSICS, CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

Satellite captured cloudy Southern Ocean 

IMAGE: THE CLOUDY SOUTHERN OCEAN SHOWS AN IMPROVED RADIATION BUDGET IN THE LATEST IPCC CLIMATE MODELS, BUT THERE ARE STILL SIGNIFICANT BIASES IN THE SIMULATED CLOUD PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OVER THE SO. THOSE BIASES ARE LARGELY CANCELLED OUT WHEN THEY JOINTLY INFLUENCE THE CLOUD RADIATIVE EFFECT. THE CLOUD IMAGE IS CAPTURED BY FY-3D SATELLITE. view more 

CREDIT: NATIONAL SATELLITE METEOROLOGICAL CENTER OF CHINA METEOROLOGICAL ADMINISTRATION

Clouds can cool or warm the planet’s surface, a radiative effect that contributes significantly to the global energy budget and can be altered by human-caused pollution. The world’s southernmost ocean, aptly named the Southern Ocean and far from human pollution but subject to abundant marine gases and aerosols, is about 80% covered by clouds. How does this body of water and relationship with clouds contribute to the world’s changing climate?

Researchers are still working to figure it out, and they’re now one step closer, thanks to an international collaboration identifying compensation errors in widely used climate model protocols known as CMIP6. They published their findings on September 20 in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences.

“Cloud and radiation biases over the Southern Ocean have been a long-lasting problem in the past generations of global climate models,” said corresponding author Yuan Wang, now an associate professor in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at Purdue University. “After the latest CMIP6 models were released, we were anxious to see how they performed and whether the old problems were still there.”

CMIP6, a project of the World Climate Research Programme, allows for the systematic assessment of climate models to illuminate how they compare to each other and real-world data. In this study, Wang and the researchers analyzed five of the CMIP6 models that aim to serve as standard references.

Wang said the researchers were also motivated by other studies in the field that point to the Southern Ocean's cloud coverage as a contributing factor to some CMIP6 models’ high sensitivity, when the simulations predict a surface temperature that rises too quickly for the rate of increased radiation. In other words, if improperly simulated, the Southern Ocean clouds may cast a shadow of doubt on the projection of future climate change.

“This paper emphasizes compensating errors in the cloud physical properties in spite of overall improvement of radiation simulation over the Southern Ocean,” Wang said. “With space satellite observations, we are able to quantify those errors in the simulated cloud microphysical properties, including cloud fraction, cloud water content, cloud droplet size and more, and further reveal how each contributes to the total bias in the cloud radiative effect.”

The cloud radiative effect — how clouds interfere radiation to warm or cool the surface — is largely determined by the physical properties of the cloud. “Cloud radiative effects in CMIP6 are comparable with satellite observations, but we found there are large compensating biases in cloud fraction liquid water path and droplet effective radius,” Wang said. “The major implication is that, even though the latest CMIP models improve the simulation of their mean states, such as radiation fluxes at the top of the atmosphere, the detailed cloud processes are still of large uncertainty.”

According to Wang, this discrepancy also partially explains why the model climate sensitivity assessments do not perform as well, since those assessments rely on model detailed physics — rather than the mean state performance — to evaluate the overall effect on the climate.

“Our future work will aim to pin down individual parameterizations that are responsible for these biases,” Wang said. “Hopefully, we can work closely with model developers to get them solved. After all, the ultimate goal of any model evaluation study is to help improve those models.”

Other contributors include Lijun Zhao and Yuk L. Yung, Division of Geology and Planetary Science, California Institute of Technology; Chuanfeng Zhao, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, School of Physics, Peking University; and Xiquan Dong, Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Arizona.

Chimpanzee stone tool diversity

New analysis of chimpanzee stone tools show diverse material culture

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR EVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGY

Female chimpanzee cracking nuts 

IMAGE: FEMALE CHIMPANZEE CRACKING PANDA OLEOSA NUTS USING A GRANODIORITE HAMMERSTONE ON A WOODEN (PANDA TREE ROOT) ANVIL. view more 

CREDIT: © LIRAN SAMUNI, TAÏ CHIMPANZEE PROJECT

During fieldwork aimed at documenting the stone tool use of a group of wild chimpanzees in the Taï Forest in Cote d'Ivoire in early 2022, the researchers identified and 3D scanned a variety of stone tools used to crack different nut species.

It has long been shown that various chimpanzee groups possess different tool use cultures involving wooden and stone tools, however, only some groups in West Africa use stone tools to crack open nuts. By comparing the 3D models of different stone tools used by chimpanzees in the Taï Forest to those from another group in Guinea, the researchers showed that there exist notable differences between the two groups in terms of their material culture.

The study shows that this particular group of chimpanzees in Guinea uses stone hammers varying in the type of stone and sizes, and very large stone anvils, sometimes greater than one meter in length. These durable stone tools are widespread across the landscape; preserve different levels of damage related to their use and represent a lasting record of chimpanzee behaviours.

Stone tools used for nut cracking can differ between chimpanzee groups

This study highlights the fact that, although several groups of chimpanzees practice nut cracking, the tools they use can differ significantly from one another, potentially leading to group specific material signatures. These differences are driven by a combination of stone choice, stone availability, and the nut species eaten.

Previous research has shown, that by using stone tools, some groups of chimpanzees develop their own archaeological record dating to at least 4,300 years ago. “The ability to identify regional differences in stone tool material culture in primates opens up a range of possibilities for future primate archaeological studies,” says Tomos Proffitt from the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology, who led the research.

It has been hypothesised that a simple technology, like nut cracking, was a precursor to more complex stone technologies during the early stages of our own evolution more than three million years ago. Proffitt continues, “by understanding what this simple stone tool technology looks like, and how it varies between groups, we can start to understand how to better identify this signature in the earliest hominin archaeological record.”

Examples of chimpanzee hammerstones from Djouroutou, Cote d’Ivoire; illustrating their textured surface, three-dimensional surface, surface depth and surface gradient.

CREDIT

© Tomos Proffitt

People who distrust fellow humans show greater trust in artificial intelligence

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PENN STATE

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.— A person’s distrust in humans predicts they will have more trust in artificial intelligence’s ability to moderate content online, according to a recently published study. The findings, the researchers say, have practical implications for both designers and users of AI tools in social media.

“We found a systematic pattern of individuals who have less trust in other humans showing greater trust in AI’s classification,” said S. Shyam Sundar, the James P. Jimirro Professor of Media Effects at Penn State. “Based on our analysis, this seems to be due to the users invoking the idea that machines are accurate, objective and free from ideological bias.”

The study, published in the journal of New Media & Society also found that “power users” who are experienced users of information technology, had the opposite tendency. They trusted the AI moderators less because they believe that machines lack the ability to detect nuances of human language.

The study found that individual differences such as distrust of others and power usage predict whether users will invoke positive or negative characteristics of machines when faced with an AI-based system for content moderation, which will ultimately influence their trust toward the system. The researchers suggest that personalizing interfaces based on individual differences can positively alter user experience. The type of content moderation in the study involves monitoring social media posts for problematic content like hate speech and suicidal ideation.

“One of the reasons why some may be hesitant to trust content moderation technology is that we are used to freely expressing our opinions online. We feel like content moderation may take that away from us,” said Maria D. Molina, an assistant professor of communication arts and sciences at Michigan State University, and the first author of this paper. “This study may offer a solution to that problem by suggesting that for people who hold negative stereotypes of AI for content moderation, it is important to reinforce human involvement when making a determination. On the other hand, for people with positive stereotypes of machines, we may reinforce the strength of the machine by highlighting elements like the accuracy of AI.”

The study also found users with conservative political ideology were more likely to trust AI-powered moderation. Molina and coauthor Sundar, who also co-directs Penn State’s Media Effects Research Laboratory, said this may stem from a distrust in mainstream media and social media companies.

The researchers recruited 676 participants from the United States. The participants were told they were helping test a content moderating system that was in development. They were given definitions of hate speech and suicidal ideation, followed by one of four different social media posts. The posts were either flagged for fitting those definitions or not flagged. The participants were also told if the decision to flag the post or not was made by AI, a human or a combination of both.

The demonstration was followed by a questionnaire that asked the participants about their individual differences. Differences included their tendency to distrust others, political ideology, experience with technology and trust in AI.

“We are bombarded with so much problematic content, from misinformation to hate speech,” Molina said. “But, at the end of the day, it’s about how we can help users calibrate their trust toward AI due to the actual attributes of the technology, rather than being swayed by those individual differences.”

Molina and Sundar say their results may help shape future acceptance of AI. By creating systems customized to the user, designers could alleviate skepticism and distrust, and build appropriate reliance in AI.

“A major practical implication of the study is to figure out communication and design strategies for helping users calibrate their trust in automated systems,” said Sundar, who is also director of Penn State’s Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence. “Certain groups of people who tend to have too much faith in AI technology should be alerted to its limitations and those who do not believe in its ability to moderate content should be fully informed about the extent of human involvement in the process.”

New research shows U.S. Republican politicians increasingly spread news on social media from untrustworthy sources

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL

A study analysing millions of Tweets has revealed that Republican members of the US Congress are increasingly circulating news from dubious sources, compared to their European counterparts.

The research, led by the Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) in Austria and the University of Bristol in the UK, showed Republican Congress members are sharing more links to websites classified as ‘untrustworthy.’

It is widely acknowledged that what politicians share on social media helps shape public perceptions and views. The findings are especially pertinent, with the US midterm elections coming up in November and much of the campaigning taking place on social media platforms.

First author Dr Jana Lasser, Complexity Researcher from TU Graz, said: “The amount of untrustworthy information shared by politicians on social media is perceived to be increasing. We wanted to substantiate this with figures, so we analysed millions of original tweets by politicians from the USA, Great Britain and Germany.”

The team of researchers collected more than 3.4 million tweets from politicians made between 2016 to 2022. Specifically, these were 1.7 million tweets from members of the US Congress, 960,000 tweets from British MPs and 750,000 tweets from German MPs. The links contained in the tweets were compared with a database from the company NewsGuard, which assesses the credibility and transparency of news websites against nine journalistic criteria and identifies relevant details about the website’s ownership, funding, credibility and transparency practices.

The findings showed that members of the Republican Party in particular shared significantly more links to websites classified as “untrustworthy” over the years. Compared to the period 2016 to 2018, the number of links to untrustworthy websites has doubled over the past two years.

Dr Lasser said: “In general, members of parties in the right half of the political spectrum in all countries studied share more of these links – but only Republicans show this significant increase. In the other countries, the share remains stable.”

Specifically, the percentage of links to untrustworthy websites posted by Republicans more than doubled between 2016 to 2018 and 2020 to 2022, from 2.4% to 5.5%.

Overall, Republican members of Congress post about nine times as many such links as Democratic members of Congress, for whom only 0.4% of the links contained in tweets point to untrustworthy sites.

In Europe, parliamentarians are even less likely to link to untrustworthy sites. Even among Conservatives, only 0.25% of the links shared by British Tory politicians and 0.18% of the links shared by MPs from the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) and the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU), a centre-right Christian-democratic alliance, were untrustworthy. The only European party whose source selection for Twitter posts resembled that of the Republican MPs was the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a right-win populist political party.

“Repeating the analysis with a second, comparable database also produced very similar results. In such analyses, it is important to use different assessments of the credibility of news sources in order to exclude bias or partiality,” added Dr Lasser.

Corresponding author Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, Chair in Cognitive Psychology at the University of Bristol, said: “Politicians are part of the educated elite; their behaviour is a kind of compass of what is socially acceptable and what is not. When people in politics increasingly post misinformation or news from sources that are not very trustworthy, I think that is very problematic.

“Despite their high social standing, it is therefore important to take information shared by politicians critically and to question the sources.”

Paper

‘Social media sharing of low quality news sources by political elites‘ by Jana Lasser, Segun Taofeek Aroyehun, Almog Simchon, Fabio Carrella, David Garcia, Stephan Lewandowsky in PNAS Nexus

Hemp byproducts are good alternative feed for lambs, Oregon State study finds

Peer-Reviewed Publication

OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY

Hemp flower 

IMAGE: HEMP PLANT AT THE OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY NORTH WILLAMETTE RESEARCH AND EXTENSION CENTER. view more 

CREDIT: SEAN NEALON

CORVALLIS, Ore. – An Oregon State University study found that spent hemp biomass – the main byproduct of the cannabinoid (CBD) extraction process of hemp – can be included in lamb diets without any major detrimental effects to the health of the animals or their meat quality.

The findings are significant because the hemp byproducts, known as spent hemp biomass, currently have little to no economic value for the hemp industry, the researchers said.

Spent hemp biomass also has not been legalized as feed for livestock by the Food and Drug Administration due to the potential presence of THC and its potential impacts on animal health, so this finding is one step forward to getting that approval.

“To our knowledge, our study is the first to evaluate the effects of feeding spent hemp biomass to livestock,” said Serkan Ates, an associate professor in Oregon State’s College of Agricultural Sciences.

“The findings are important for both hemp farmers and livestock producers because they provide evidence that this byproduct of hemp can be used in livestock diets. If the Food and Drug Administration approves its use as an animal feedstuff, hemp farmers could have a market for what is essentially a waste product and livestock producers may be able to save money by supplementing their feed with the spent hemp biomass.”

The findings were recently published in the Journal of Animal Science.

Hemp was cultivated in the United States from Colonial times until it was banned in the 20th century because it was  regulated the same as marijuana. Hemp is the same species as marijuana but contains much lower amounts of THC, a psychoactive compound.

In recent years, hemp was legalized as an agricultural commodity, which led to a surge in farming. By 2021, 54,152 acres of hemp were planted in the U.S. and the total value of the crop was $824 million, according to the USDA

Hemp is a highly versatile crop that can be used in textiles, food, paper and construction materials, but until recently, it was predominately grown for CBD oil, which is extracted from the flowers and foliage of the hemp plant. According to the 2020 U.S. Department of Agriculture crop acreage data, 62% of cultivated hemp was grown for CBD extraction.

For the study, the Oregon State researchers fed male lambs two different amounts of spent hemp biomass (10% and 20% of total feed) and then withheld the hemp biomass for four weeks, a so-called withdrawal period. They then assessed weight gain, carcass characteristics, meat quality and health parameters of the lambs.

CAPTION

lambs

CREDIT

Celene Carillo

Their findings included:

The nutritional quality of spent hemp biomass is at par with alfalfa, which is commonly fed to lambs, and presents lower palatability and better digestibility.

  • Feed intake was negatively affected by feeding 20% spent hemp biomass in the short term but not in the long term, while feeding 10% spent hemp biomass increased feed intake long-term. Despite this, no effects on the weight of the lambs were observed.
  • Except for an increase in shrink and cook loss that also may affect the tenderness, other parameters related to carcass and meat quality were not affected by feeding spent hemp biomass.
  • Spent hemp biomass affected metabolism in a way that does not appear detrimental and improved the antioxidant capacity of the animals.
  • The liver of the animals was not affected but a decrease in liver clearance was observed, the ability of the liver to extract or metabolize a drug. The authors indicated that this last finding requires further investigation, since it could affect the clearance of other drugs that may be give to lambs.

“Although more research is still needed, spent hemp biomass can be considered a safe feed for ruminants and a good alternative to alfalfa for livestock, especially if it presents an economic benefit,” Ates said.

Co-authors of the paper were Nathan Parker, Massimo Bionaz, Hunter Ford andAgung Irawan, all of Oregon State’s Department of Animal and Rangeland Sciences; and Erminio Trevisi of Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Italy.

The Oregon Beef Council funded this research, with additional support from the Global Hemp Innovation Center at Oregon State University and the USDA Agricultural Research Service.

Scientists Believe Evolution Could Save Coral Reefs, If We Let It

Research shows protecting “hot reefs” is key to saving coral reefs

Peer-Reviewed Publication

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY

Coral reefs can adapt to climate change if given the chance to evolve, according to a study led by Coral Reef Alliance, Rutgers University, the University of Washington and other institutions.

The recent study, published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, finds that coral reefs can evolve and adapt to the effects of climate change—but only if we protect a sufficient diversity of coral reefs, particularly when it comes to temperatures.

“Evolution happens when corals that have already adapted to new environmental conditions breed with corals that have not yet adapted,” said Malin Pinsky, associate professor at Rutgers and a coauthor of the study. “As ocean temperatures rise, we need to keep corals in hotter waters healthy and protected so they can reproduce and spread their heat tolerance to other coral reef areas.” 

The study advocates for a conservation approach that protects coral reefs at local, regional and global scales, in a way that allows heat tolerance to spread.

The authors of the study said if humanity takes rapid and effective action to keep coral reefs healthy at local scales and addresses climate change, coral reef ecosystems may recover over the next century and thrive in the future. 

“The best part about these results are that they underscore the importance of our actions at local scales—we don’t have to just sit back and watch coral reefs suffer as our climate changes,” said Madhavi Colton, lead author of the study and former executive director of the Coral Reef Alliance. “This study provides guidance on how to design local conservation solutions that will have real, lasting impacts well into the future.” 

Coral reefs cover less than one percent of the earth’s surface, but they are one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on our planet. Home to about 25 percent of all marine life, coral reefs support an estimated one billion people with food, income and coastal protection. But threats to coral reefs continue to mount. Today, nearly 75 percent of all coral reefs are threatened by climate change and localized human activities.

Scientists predict 99 percent of coral reefs will be lost by the end of this century without concerted efforts to protect them.

“We simply cannot afford to lose coral reefs,” said Helen Fox, conservation science director at the Coral Reef Alliance and a collaborating author on the study. “It is imperative that we do what we can to save coral reefs now because we will be faced with combined global economic, humanitarian, and biodiversity crises if we do not.” 

The study was co-authored by Malin Pinsky, associate professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources at Rutgers University, as well as Lisa McManus, who conducted the work as a postdoctoral researcher at Rutgers University and is now faculty at the Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology, and researchers from Coral Reef Alliance, University of Washington, Stanford University, University of Queensland, University of British Columbia and The Nature Conservancy. The research was funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and The Nature Conservancy.