Synthetic fibers discovered in Antarctic air, seawater, sediment and sea ice as the ‘pristine’ continent becomes a sink for plastic pollution

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

 

IMAGE: DENSITY SEPARATION PROCESS DURING MICROPLASTICS ANALYSIS OF SAMPLES FROM WEDDELL SEA EXPEDITION (C) NEKTON view more 

CREDIT: NEKTON

As nations meet in Uruguay to negotiate a new Global Plastics Treaty, marine and forensic scientists publish new results this week that reveal the discovery of synthetic plastic fibres in air, seawater, sediment and sea ice sampled in the Antarctic Weddell Sea. The field research was undertaken during an expedition to discover Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship, the Endurance. The results are published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science.

Fibrous polyesters, primarily from textiles, were found in all samples. The majority of microplastic fibres identified were found in the Antarctic air samples, revealing that Antarctic animals and seabirds could be breathing them.

‘The issue of microplastic fibres is also an airborne problem reaching even the last remaining pristine environments on our planet’, stated co-author Professor Lucy Woodall, University of Oxford, Nekton Principal Scientist. ‘Synthetic fibres are the most prevalent form of microplastic pollution globally and tackling this issue must be at the heart of the Plastic Treaty negotiations.’ Professor Woodall was the first to reveal the prevalence of plastic in the deep sea in 2014.

A modelling analysis of air trajectories revealed that areas with higher numbers of fibres were associated with winds coming from southern South America. The discovery reveals that the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and the associated polar front is not, as previously thought, acting as an impenetrable barrier which would have prevented microplastics from entering the Antarctic region.

‘Ocean currents and winds are the vectors for plastic pollution to travel across the globe and even to the remotest corners of the world’, shared Nuria Rico Seijo, Nekton Research Scientist, Oxford, the co-lead author of the research. ‘The transboundary nature of microplastics pollution provides more evidence for the urgency and importance of a strong international plastic pollution treaty.’

The concentration of microplastics was also discovered by the team to be far higher in sea ice than in other sample types. Research indicates that microplastics are being trapped during the creation of the sea-ice layer every year.

‘Sea ice is mobile, can travel vast distances and reach the permanent ice shelves of the Antarctica continent where it can be trapped indefinitely with its gathered microplastic pollutants’, shared Dr Mánus Cunningham, Nekton Research Scientist, Oxford, the co-lead author of the research. ‘We believe the acquisition of microplastics in the multi-year sea ice combined with its seasonal changes could also be considered a temporary sink and one of the main transporters of microplastics within the Antarctic region’, concluded Dr Cunningham.

Extensive research was also conducted on sediment samples retrieved at depths ranging from 323 to 530 metres below the sea’s surface during the Weddell Sea Expedition. ‘Our discovery of microplastics in seabed sediment samples has revealed evidence of a plastic sink in the depths of the Antarctic waters’, said Professor Woodall. ‘Yet again we have seen that plastic pollution is being transported great distances by wind, ice and sea currents. The results of our research collectively demonstrate the vital importance of reducing plastic pollution globally.’

The scientific and forensic experts at Nekton’s Oxford University and collaborating laboratories (Staffordshire University, University of Cape Town and Nelson Mandela University) used a range of investigative methods to analyse the samples in the study. These include optical (Polarised Light Microscopy), chemical (Raman Spectrometry) investigative technologies and even a specialist adhesive “crime scene” tape to identify the polymer type. The modelling analysis used a method called Air Mass Back Trajectory analysis.

‘Our use of forensic science approaches had two important benefits; improved methods for both the reduction and monitoring of possible procedural contamination in the samples, and also more detailed characterisation of the microplastics, beyond just polymer type, allowing for better understanding of the number of possible sources. We would encourage future studies to harness these forensic approaches to ensure more robust data is gathered’ said Professor Claire Gwinnett, Staffordshire University.

According to the research team, the findings add urgency for a binding, globally agreed treaty to prevent microplastics from entering the environment, particularly oceans. Ahead of the Global Plastic Treaty discussions, they call on policy makers to:

• Reduce plastic pollution and production globally, by creating a robust global plastics treaty that builds on national and regional initiatives;
• Align plastic reduction actions with natural and societal targets to achieve multiple positive outcomes for society;
• Empower local communities to co-develop and use programmes that support full life-cycle solutions to plastic waste management.

They add that concerned individuals can also play their part by adopting simple lifestyle habits to reduce synthetic microfibre pollution. These include:

1. Fill your washing machine: more space to move around in the wash results in microfibres falling off.
2. Wash at 30C: gentle cycles and lower temperatures decreases microfibre shedding.
3. Ditch the dryer: tumble dryers generate about 40 times more microfibers than washing machines.
4. Microfibre capture for washing machines, e.g. GuppyFriend (https://guppyfriend.com) or Coraball (https://www.coraball.com).
5. Choose natural fibres, e.g. organic natural fibres like cotton, linen, hemp.
6. Avoid microfibre cleaning cloths - use natural alternatives.
7. Wash textiles less!

Source: A Sustainable Life: https://www.asustainablelife.co.uk/7-easy-ways-to-reduce-microfibre-pollution/

Polarised Light Microscopy image of polyester textile fibre found in sample (c) Nekton.

Scientists on the Weddell Sea Expedition taking ice core samples (c) Nekton 2022

Ice Shelf in Weddell Sea, seen from The SA Agulhas II research vessel during the field research. (c) Nekton jpg

Expert's recommendations for Global Plastic Treaty Negotiations (c) Nekton.

7 Easy Ways to Reduce Microfibre Pollution - Infographic (c) Nekton 2022

CREDIT

Nekton 2022.

Notes for Editors

The Publication: ‘The transport and fate of microplastic fibres in the Antarctic: The role of multiple global processes’ published in Frontiers in Marine Science. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2022.1056081/full

Research Partners: The international team, led by Nekton and scientists from Department of Biology, University of Oxford, collaborating with experts from UK and South African research institutions including Staffordshire University (UK), Nelson Mandela University, and the University of Cape Town (South Africa).

Video, photographic and infographic content: https://nektonmission.org/about/press-news

Contact               

• Dr Caroline Wood, University of Oxford, caroline.wood@admin.ox.ac.uk / Tel: +44 789 121 1052
• Oliver Steeds, Nekton, oliver@nektonmission.org / + 44 7984 677509                                               

Nekton: Nekton works to accelerate the scientific exploration and conservation of the ocean for people and the planet. Nekton is an independent, not-for-profit research institute and is a UK registered charity. www.nektonmission.org

University of Oxford: Oxford University has been placed number 1 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for the seventh year running, and ​number 2 in the QS World Rankings 2022. At the heart of this success are the twin-pillars of our ground-breaking research and innovation and our distinctive educational offer. Oxford is world-famous for research and teaching excellence and home to some of the most talented people from across the globe. Our work helps the lives of millions, solving real-world problems through a huge network of partnerships and collaborations. The breadth and interdisciplinary nature of our research alongside our personalised approach to teaching sparks imaginative and inventive insights and solutions. Through its research commercialisation arm, Oxford University Innovation, Oxford is the highest university patent filer in the UK and is ranked first in the UK for university spinouts, having created more than 200 new companies since 1988. Over a third of these companies have been created in the past three years. The university is a catalyst for prosperity in Oxfordshire and the United Kingdom, contributing £15.7 billion to the UK economy in 2018/19, and supports more than 28,000 full time jobs.

Flotilla Foundation: The research was funded by a philanthropic grant from the Flotilla Foundation, a Netherlands based charity that aims to pro­mote the con­ser­va­tion, pro­tec­tion and improve­ment of the phys­i­cal and nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment, in par­tic­u­lar­ly the ocean.

Weddell Sea Expedition: Led by the Flotilla Foundation and in partnership with Nekton, Scott Polar Research Institute, Nelson Mandela University, University of Cape Town and the University of Canterbury – The Weddell Sea Expedition deployed AUVs and ROVs to investigate life beneath the ice and the potential implications of climate change. 36 scientists, surveyors and technicians participated in the 45-day voyage in December 2019 to January 2020. Whilst in the Weddell Sea, the Expedition sought to locate Sir Ernest Shackleton’s vessel The Endurance. The expedition paved the way for the successful discovery of the vessel in 2022.

---

JOURNAL

Frontiers in Marine Science

DOI

10.3389/fmars.2022.1056081 

ARTICLE TITLE

The transport and fate of microplastic fibres in the Antarctic: The role of multiple global processes

Human evolution wasn’t just the sheet music, but how it was played

Brain, gut and immune system were fine-tuned after split from common ancestor of chimpanzees

Peer-Reviewed Publication

DUKE UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: THE FLUORESCENT GLOW OF MOUSE BRAIN CELLS ON THE RIGHT INDICATES THE EFFECTIVENESS OF A HUMAN-DERIVED GENE ENHANCER, HAQER0059, VERSUS A 6 MILLION YEAR OLD VERSION OF THE ENHANCER AT LEFT, WHICH CANNOT ACTIVATE GENES IN THE SAME WAY BECAUSE IT IS ABOUT 40 BASE PAIRS DIFFERENT FROM THE HUMAN VERSION. view more 

CREDIT: RILEY MANGAN, DUKE UNIVERSITY

DURHAM, N.C. -- A team of Duke researchers has identified a group of human DNA sequences driving changes in brain development, digestion and immunity that seem to have evolved rapidly after our family line split from that of the chimpanzees, but before we split with the Neanderthals.

Our brains are bigger, and are guts are shorter than our ape peers.

“A lot of the traits that we think of as uniquely human, and human-specific, probably appear during that time period,” in the 7.5 million years since the split with the common ancestor we share with the chimpanzee, said Craig Lowe, Ph.D., an assistant professor of molecular genetics and microbiology in the Duke School of Medicine.

Specifically, the DNA sequences in question, which the researchers have dubbed Human Ancestor Quickly Evolved Regions (HAQERS), pronounced like hackers, regulate genes. They are the switches that tell nearby genes when to turn on and off. The findings appear Nov.23 in the journal CELL.

The rapid evolution of these regions of the genome seems to have served as a fine-tuning of regulatory control, Lowe said. More switches were added to the human operating system as sequences developed into regulatory regions, and they were more finely tuned to adapt to environmental or developmental cues. By and large, those changes were advantageous to our species.

“They seem especially specific in causing genes to turn on, we think just in certain cell types at certain times of development, or even genes that turn on when the environment changes in some way,” Lowe said.

A lot of this genomic innovation was found in brain development and the GI tract. “We see lots of regulatory elements that are turning on in these tissues,” Lowe said. “These are the tissues where humans are refining which genes are expressed and at what level.”

Today, our brains are larger than other apes, and our guts are shorter. “People have hypothesized that those two are even linked, because they are two really expensive metabolic tissues to have around,” Lowe said. “I think what we’re seeing is that there wasn’t really one mutation that gave you a large brain and one mutation that really struck the gut, it was probably many of these small changes over time.”

To produce the new findings, Lowe’s lab collaborated with Duke colleagues Tim Reddy, an associate professor of biostatistics and bioinformatics, and Debra Silver, an associate professor of molecular genetics and microbiology to tap their expertise. Reddy’s lab is capable of looking at millions of genetic switches at once and Silver is watching switches in action in developing mouse brains.

“Our contribution was, if we could bring both of those technologies together, then we could look at hundreds of switches in this sort of complex developing tissue, which you can't really get from a cell line,” Lowe said.

“We wanted to identify switches that were totally new in humans,” Lowe said. Computationally, they were able to infer what the human-chimp ancestor’s DNA would have been like, as well as the extinct Neanderthal and Denisovan lineages. The researchers were able to compare the genome sequences of these other post-chimpanzee relatives thanks to databases created from the pioneering work of 2022 Nobel laureate Svante Pääbo.

“So, we know the Neanderthal sequence, but let's test that Neanderthal sequence and see if it can really turn on genes or not,” which they did dozens of times.

“And we showed that, whoa, this really is a switch that turns on and off genes,” Lowe said. “It was really fun to see that new gene regulation came from totally new switches, rather than just sort of rewiring switches that already existed.” 

Along with the positive traits that HAQERs gave humans, they can also be implicated in some diseases.

Most of us have remarkably similar HAQER sequences, but there are some variances, “and we were able to show that those variants tend to correlate with certain diseases,” Lowe said, namely hypertension, neuroblastoma, unipolar depression, bipolar depression and schizophrenia. The mechanisms of action aren’t known yet, and more research will have to be done in these areas, Lowe said.

“Maybe human-specific diseases or human-specific susceptibilities to these diseases are going to be preferentially mapped back to these new genetic switches that only exist in humans,” Lowe said.

Support for the research came from National Human Genome Research Institute – NIH (R35-HG011332), North Carolina Biotechnology Center (2016-IDG-1013, 2020-IIG-2109), Sigma Xi, The Triangle Center for Evolutionary Medicine and the Duke Whitehead Scholarship.

CITATION: "Adaptive Sequence Divergence Forged New Neurodevelopmental Enhancers in Humans," Riley J. Mangan, Fernando C. Alsina, Federica Mosti, Jesus Emiliano Sotelo-Fonseca, Daniel A. Snellings, Eric H. Au, Juliana Carvalho, Laya Sathyan, Graham D. Johnson, Timothy E. Reddy, Debra L. Silver, Craig B. Lowe. CELL, Nov. 23, 2022. DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2022.10.016

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JOURNAL

Cell

DOI

10.1016/j.cell.2022.10.016 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Adaptive Sequence Divergence Forged New Neurodevelopmental Enhancers in Humans

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

23-Nov-2022

Ilhan Omar pushes back on House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy's vow to strip her of committee

Sarah Elbeshbishi, USA TODAY
Wed, November 23, 2022 

Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar criticized House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy Tuesday for vowing to strip the Democrat of her committee assignments if he's elected House speaker by the new Congress.

In his effort to secure GOP support for the top House leadership role, McCarthy has promised to remove Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee as well as Reps. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., from the House Intelligence Committee.

McCarthy, along with several other Republican lawmakers, have said for months the three Democrats should be removed from their committee because of past statements regarding Israel, China and Russia.

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., speaks during a march in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 21, 2021

GOP House leadership: A poor GOP showing in the midterms could hamper Kevin McCarthy's path to be House speaker

Omar pushed back, responding to the GOP leader's comments Monday in a statement released on Twitter.

"McCarthy's effort to repeatedly single me out for scorn and hatred – including threatening to strip me from my committee – does nothing to address the issues our constituents deal with," the statement said. "It does nothing to address inflation, healthcare, or solve the climate crisis."



The Minnesota Democrat also accused McCarthy of amplifying hateful and dangerous rhetoric targeting minorities by GOP lawmakers, specifically naming Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Tom Emmer of Minnesota.

Emmer previously faced accusations of anti-Semitism for a 2019 fundraising letter that claimed Michael Bloomberg, Tom Steyer and George Soros "essentially bought control of Congress."

Omar, a progressive, has often been a target of Greene and other hard-right conservatives, including Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert. Both lawmakers have referred to Omar, among the first Muslim lawmakers in Congress, as a member of the "Jihad Squad" and peddled other anti-Muslim rhetoric aimed at Omar.

"At the same time, they have openly tolerated antisemitism, anti-Muslim hate and racism in their own party," Omar said in her statement.

Omar has drawn criticism from Democrats and Republicans over comments she's made about Israel. In 2019, she brought on a backlash over tweets accusing Israel of having "hypnotized the world" and another criticizing the influence of pro-Israel lobbying groups. She later apologized. Last year, about a dozen House Democrats accused her of equating the U.S. and Israel to Hamas and the Taliban on Twitter. Omar defended herself, saying she was not drawing a moral equivalency.

Race for House speaker: Kevin McCarthy wants to block three Democrats from committees if he becomes speaker

Some Democrats accuse McCarthy of going after the three Democratic lawmakers as a way to court the far-right caucus of his party in order to gain enough votes to be elected speaker, according to some Democrats.

"I suspect he will do whatever Marjorie Taylor Greene wants him to do," Schiff said on ABC's "This Week." "He is a very weak leader of his conference, meaning that he will adhere to the wishes of the lowest common denominator. And if that lowest common denominator wants to remove people from committees, that’s what they’ll do."

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., speaks to members of the press on Nov. 15, 2022.

McCarthy also has vowed to reinstate both Greene and Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., to committees if elected speaker after the new Congress is sworn in – even suggesting the lawmakers may receive "better" assignments.

Such a step would require a majority of the House to approve. Republicans will have control when a new Congress is sworn in Jan. 3 but only by a few seats.

In an unprecedented move, House Democrats along with 11 Republicans voted last year to strip Greene of her committee assignments because of violent rhetoric and promotion of conspiracy theories through a stream of past inflammatory social media posts.

Gosar, one of the GOP's far-right members, was censured late last year after the lawmaker posted an anime video on Twitter, which was edited to show him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and attacking President Joe Biden. Gosar was also removed from his committees by the Democratic-led House.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Rep. Ilhan Omar hits back as McCarthy vows to strip her of committee

World’s oldest meal helps unravel mystery of our earliest animal ancestors

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: THE KIMBERELLA FOSSIL. CREDIT: DR ILYA BOBROVSKIY/GFZ-POTSDAM view more 

CREDIT: CREDIT: DR ILYA BOBROVSKIY/GFZ-POTSDAM

The contents of the last meal consumed by the earliest animals known to inhabit Earth more than 550 million years ago has unearthed new clues about the physiology of our earliest animal ancestors, according to scientists from The Australian National University (ANU). 

Ediacara biota are the world’s oldest large organisms and date back 575 million years. ANU researchers found the animals ate bacteria and algae that was sourced from the ocean floor. The findings, published in Current Biology, reveal more about these strange creatures, including how they were able to consume and digest food. 

The scientists analysed ancient fossils containing preserved phytosterol molecules -- natural chemical products found in plants -- that remained from the animals’ last meal. By examining the molecular remains of what the animals ate, the researchers were able to confirm the slug-like organism, known as Kimberella, had a mouth and a gut and digested food the same way modern animals do. The researchers say it was likely one of the most advanced creatures of the Ediacarans.  

The ANU team found that another animal, which grew up to 1.4 metres in length and had a rib-like design imprinted on its body, was less complex and had no eyes, mouth or gut. Instead, the odd creature, called Dickinsonia, absorbed food through its body as it traversed the ocean floor.  

“Our findings suggest that the animals of the Ediacara biota, which lived on Earth prior to the ‘Cambrian Explosion’ of modern animal life, were a mixed bag of outright weirdos, such as Dickinsonia, and more advanced animals like Kimberella that already had some physiological properties similar to humans and other present-day animals,” lead author Dr Ilya Bobrovskiy, from GFZ-Potsdam in Germany, said.  

Both Kimberella and Dickinsonia, which have a structure and symmetry unlike anything that exists today, are part of the Ediacara biota family that lived on Earth about 20 million years prior to the Cambrian Explosion – a major event that forever changed the course of evolution of all life on Earth. 

“Ediacara biota really are the oldest fossils large enough to be visible with your naked eyes, and they are the origin of us and all animals that exist today. These creatures are our deepest visible roots,” Dr Bobrovskiy, who completed the work as part of his PhD at ANU, said. 

Study co-author Professor Jochen Brocks, from the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences, said algae are rich in energy and nutrients and may have been instrumental for Kimberella’s growth.  

“The energy-rich food may explain why the organisms of the Ediacara biota were so large. Nearly all fossils that came before the Ediacara biota were single-celled and microscopic in size,” Professor Brocks said.  

Using advanced chemical analysis techniques, the ANU scientists were able to extract and analyse the sterol molecules contained in the fossil tissue. Cholesterol is the hallmark of animals and it’s how, back in 2018, the ANU team was able to confirm that Ediacara biota are among our earliest known ancestors.  

The molecules contained tell-tale signatures that helped the researchers decipher what the animals ate in the lead up to their death. Professor Brocks said the difficult part was differentiating between the signatures of the fat molecules of the creatures themselves, the algal and bacterial remains in their guts, and the decaying algal molecules from the ocean floor that were all entombed together in the fossils. 

“Scientists already knew Kimberella left feeding marks by scraping off algae covering the sea floor, which suggested the animal had a gut. But it was only after analysing the molecules of Kimberella’s gut that we were able to determine what exactly it was eating and how it digested food,” Professor Brocks said. 

“Kimberella knew exactly which sterols were good for it and had an advanced fine-tuned gut to filter out all the rest. 

“This was a Eureka moment for us; by using preserved chemical in the fossils, we can now make gut contents of animals visible even if the gut has since long decayed. We then used this same technique on weirder fossils like Dickinsonia to figure out how it was feeding and discovered that Dickinsonia did not have a gut.” 

Dr Bobrovskiy retrieved both the Kimberella and Dickinsonia fossils from steep cliffs near the White Sea in Russia -- a remote part of the world home to bears and mosquitoes -- in 2018.  

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JOURNAL

Current Biology

DOI

10.1016/j.cub.2022.10.051 

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Guts, gut contents, and feeding strategies of Ediacaran animals

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

22-Nov-2022

Witchcraft beliefs are widespread, highly variable around the world

In new global dataset, witchcraft beliefs are associated with weak institutions, conformist cultures

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

 

IMAGE: A MAP SHOWING COUNTRY-LEVEL PREVALENCE OF WITCHCRAFT BELIEFS AROUND THE WORLD. view more 

CREDIT: BORIS GERSHMAN, 2022, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0 (HTTPS://CREATIVECOMMONS.ORG/LICENSES/BY/4.0/)

A newly compiled dataset quantitatively captures witchcraft beliefs in countries around the world, enabling investigation of key factors associated with such beliefs. Boris Gershman of American University in Washington, D.C., presents these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on November 23, 2022.

Numerous prior studies conducted around the world have documented people’s beliefs in witchcraft—the idea that certain individuals have supernatural abilities to inflict harm. Understanding people’s witchcraft beliefs can be important for policymaking and other community engagement efforts. However, due to a lack of data, global-scale statistical analyses of witchcraft beliefs have been lacking.

To deepen understanding of witchcraft beliefs, Gershman compiled a new dataset that captures such beliefs among more than 140,000 people from 95 countries and territories. The data come from face-to-face and telephone surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center and professional survey organizations between 2008 and 2017, which included questions about religious beliefs and belief in witchcraft.

According to the dataset, over 40 percent of survey participants said they believe that "certain people can cast curses or spells that cause bad things to happen to someone.” Witchcraft beliefs appear to exist around the world but vary substantially between countries and within world regions. For instance, 9 percent of participants in Sweden reported belief in witchcraft, compared to 90 percent in Tunisia.

Using this dataset, Gershman then conducted an investigation of various individual-level factors associated with witchcraft beliefs. This analysis suggests that, while beliefs cut across socio-demographic groups, people with higher levels of education and economic security are less likely to believe in witchcraft.

Gershman also combined this dataset with other country-level data, finding that witchcraft beliefs differ between countries according to various cultural, institutional, psychological, and socioeconomic factors. For instance, witchcraft beliefs are linked to weak institutions, low levels of social trust, and low innovation, as well as conformist culture and higher levels of in-group bias—the tendency for people to favor others who are similar to them"

These findings, as well as future research using the new dataset, could be applied to help optimize policies and development projects by accounting for local witchcraft beliefs.

The authors add: “The study documents that witchcraft beliefs are still widespread around the world. Moreover, their prevalence is systematically related to a number of cultural, institutional, psychological, and socioeconomic characteristics.”

#####

In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0276872

Citation: Gershman B (2022) Witchcraft beliefs around the world: An exploratory analysis. PLoS ONE 17(11): e0276872. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0276872

Author Countries: USA

Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

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JOURNAL

PLoS ONE

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0276872 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Witchcraft beliefs around the world: An exploratory analysis

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

23-Nov-2022

Biden says his administration is engaged in talks to avert railroad strike

REINSTATE 56 HOURS PAID SICK TIME

U.S. President Joe Biden visits a fire station on Thanksgiving in Nantucket, Massachusetts

Thu, November 24, 2022 
By Nandita Bose

NANTUCKET, Mass. (Reuters) -President Joe Biden said on Thursday that his administration was involved in negotiations to avert a looming U.S. railroad strike that could shut down supply chains across the country but added that he has not directly engaged on the matter yet.

Speaking to reporters outside a fire station on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, during a Thanksgiving holiday visit, Biden declined to provide details on how the talks were going because it was "the middle of negotiations."

"My team has been in touch with all the parties, and in (a) room with the parties and I have not directly engaged yet because they're still talking," Biden said.

More than 300 groups, including the National Retail Federation and the National Association of Manufacturers, urged Biden last month to get involved to help avoid a strike that could idle shipments of food and fuel while inflicting billions of dollars of damage to an already struggling national economy.

Earlier this week, several of these groups renewed calls for Biden and Congress to swiftly intervene to prevent a strike or employer lockout ahead of the holiday season.

A rail traffic stoppage could freeze almost 30% of U.S. cargo shipments by weight, stoke inflation and cost the American economy as much as $2 billion per day by unleashing a cascade of transport woes affecting U.S. energy, agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare and retail sectors.

On Monday, workers at the largest U.S. rail union voted against a tentative contract deal reached in September, raising the possibility of a year-end strike.

Labor unions have criticized the railroads' sick leave and attendance policies and the lack of paid sick days for short-term illness. There are no paid sick days under the tentative deal. Unions asked for 15 paid sick days and the railroads settled on one personal day.

The Biden administration helped avert a service cutoff by hosting last-minute contract talks in September that led to the tentative contract deal.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose and Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Ontario man captures 'unreal' wave resembling human face

Cody Evans, who reveres the art of coastal photography, said the wave bears a likeness to Poseidon, the ancient Greek god of the sea

Author of the article:National Post Staff
Publishing date:Nov 25, 2022 

A Lake Erie wave resembling a face taken on Nov. 19, 2022.

 PHOTO BY CODY EVANS
Strong winds and high waves whipped up a surge of water that looked a lot like a human face in Lake Erie on Saturday.

Cody Evans, of Ingersoll, Ont., braved the storm and was there at just the right time to capture the leaping visage.

“I was kind of blown away,” he told CBC. “You see a lot of stuff like that in waves and in clouds, but to have it clear like that was just unreal. That photo sure stood out of all the rest.”

Evans said he waited out the worst of the snowstorm before heading to a beach in Port Stanley and knew that day was special.

“It was just crazy, it was like the perfect day. I’ve been going there for three years, trying to get good shots and that was by far the best day I had there,” he said.

Evans, who reveres the art of coastal photography, said the wave bears a likeness to Poseidon, the ancient Greek god of the sea.

He captured 10,000 photographs that day, but the task wasn’t simple. The weather was well below freezing, and the 30 km/h winds stirred up sand and snow, which interfere with the shot, Evans noted.

“When it’s snowing, it’s difficult because your focus will bounce off what you’re trying to focus on,” he explained to CTV.

Evans uses a camera that can capture 20 shots a second, which lets him “get the whole sequence of what’s happening.”

The effect was created by the strong winds, which also causes lake-effect snow. When cold gusts sweep over the Great Lakes during fall and winter, it forms clouds that can produce heavy snow.

“We usually have an active storm track that runs through the lake this time of year especially in the wake of these stronger systems that bring in cold air masses,” Environment Canada meteorologist, Daniel Liota told CBC.

The well-timed shot also owes to the breakwater.

“The waves were crashing pretty good because the pier pushes the water back out into the lake so when the water is pushed back out, the waves collide and they cause those peaks,” Evans noted.

Evans said pursuit for the picture perfect shot is far from complete.

“I’ll have a camera in my hands till I can’t hold one anymore honestly, I love it,’ he said.

Braid: Albertans won't forget Smith's talk show years – because she meant what she said

Everyone who comes into public life carries baggage; Smith arrives with enough to fill the belly of a Westjet Dreamliner

Author of the article: Don Braid • Calgary Herald
Publishing date: Nov 24, 2022 • 

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith speaks during the Canadian Association of Energy Contractors 2023 drilling forecast luncheon at the Westin Calgary on Wednesday, November 23, 2022. 

PHOTO BY GAVIN YOUNG/POSTMEDIA
Article content

Even Premier Danielle Smith might get a laugh out of this. Or these days, maybe not.

The comic genius Buck Henry did a Saturday Night Live skit as a radio “shock jock” way back in 1976.

Frank Noland, the host, sits before a bank of phones that aren’t ringing. Increasingly desperate, he throws out one outrageous subject after another.

When the phones stay silent, he wraps all his bait into one final frantic try: “Killing puppies — it doesn’t bother me. That’s me, Frank Noland, and I LIKE dead puppies!

“I’m totally in favour of using federally supported municipal bonds to pay for forced busing of Soviet communists to come into your homes to kill your puppies!

“Give me a call, won’t you? The lines are open.”

Nobody calls.

Smith, of course, had no trouble getting calls as a host of her radio talk show for six years.

That’s because, unlike Frank Noland, she was taken seriously by people who liked her libertarian viewpoint. She meant what she said. Just as important, she listened respectfully to what THEY said.

Smith rolled their ideas around, discussing them with real attention, whatever the deep-space distance from the mainstream. And she repeated her own firm views about health care, Ottawa and many other subjects countless times.

Everyone who comes into public life carries baggage. Smith arrives with enough to fill the belly of a WestJet Dreamliner.

Now she wants us to set all that aside. In her TV speech Tuesday, she said that in her media career she discussed hundreds of topics, and “sometimes took controversial positions, many of which have evolved or changed as I have grown and learned from listening to you.

“But I know I’m not a talk-show host or media commentator any longer. That is not my job today.” The job, she added, is “to serve each and every Albertan with everything I have.”

Smith had a chance, right there, to explicitly disavow some of her more incendiary plans.

But she can’t do that without seeming cynical or insincere for all those years. Her core supporters wouldn’t like it, and Smith herself might feel she would be dishonest.

And so, we did not hear her say no, we will not continue to press for private health-care insurance with co-pay and deductibles.

She did not say — as she has before — that her idea for Health Savings Accounts, now official policy, is a pathway to much more private payment for health care.

She did not change her view that masks should not only never be forced on people, but never recommended by her as premier in any situation.

And it wasn’t just radio talk. She formalized many of her beliefs in a long section of a paper for the U of C’s School of Public Policy.

It came out just after ex-premier Jason Kenney said he would resign, and before she declared she would run to replace him.

A lot of what she says makes sense, especially on provincial finances. But her cures for the problems, especially on health care, are often right off the deep end of public opinion.

I don’t believe the UCP can win an election with those views still in question. They’re a giant political piñata for the NDP to shred for months on end.

Smith wrote: “Once people get used to the concept of paying out of pocket for more things themselves, then we can change the conversation on health care.”

In her view, the system “has to shift the burden of payment away from taxpayers and toward private individuals, their employers and their insurance companies.

“If we establish the principle of Health Spending Accounts, then we can also establish co-payments.”

When the paper was released in June 2021, she did a video interview with veteran journalist Mario Toneguzzi for Business Insider.

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She said it was a mistake to eliminate health-care premiums in 2008. (They brought about $1 billion annually into the health-care budget.)

Premiums “need to be brought back in a smarter way in the form of a genuine insurance program, where you pay some kind of deductible,” Smith asserted.

“You don’t need any major surgery in a year, you don’t pay any portion toward the cost. You have a major surgery in a year, you pay a portion of the cost in a deductible, just like you would if you had a claim in your car insurance.”

Depending on income, she said, a person might pay no deductible, or $500 or $1,000.

Does she still want to do that? Will she be quiet about it for now, and then do it after she wins an election? Does she plan to push health-care costs to individuals and private insurance companies?

Smith needs to be specific about all of this. Otherwise, she will eventually get the Buck Henry treatment. Silence.

Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald.

Twitter:@DonBraid

Don Braid: Smith's health spending accounts aim at grooming the public for private payment

This premier was a professional talker for so long that we often know what she really wants, which can be quite different from what she now says

Author of the article: Don Braid • Calgary Herald
Publishing date: Nov 21, 2022 •

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith speaks to the media outside Government House following the swearing-in of her new cabinet ministers, in Edmonton Monday, Oct. 24, 2022. PHOTO BY DAVID BLOOM /Postmedia
Article content

Premier Danielle Smith stoked many fires in her media days. Now she’s trying to stomp one out with her apparent retreat on health spending accounts.

First, she said people would pay for their visits to family doctors with these accounts. The government would seed them with an initial $375 payment, presumably to everyone who holds an Alberta Health card.

But Smith went much further than that. She suggested the private accounts would eventually be the ONLY way family doctors would be paid.

“My view is that the entire budget for family practitioners should be paid for from Health Care Savings Accounts,” she said in June 2021, in a paper written for the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy.


“If the government funded the account at $375 a year, that’s the equivalent of 10 trips to a GP, so there can be no argument that this would compromise access on the basis of ability to pay.”

Well, sorry, there is an argument. Many people need far more care in times of serious illness. The accounts would also discriminate against lower income people who lack the means to add their own funds to the account.

One GP calls the plan “short-sighted and knee-jerk, without due consideration of the vast array of concerns that a family doctor deals with.”


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Smith suggested Albertans put their own money on top of the government’s $375, get their employers to pay in still more, and even fundraise for their personal accounts.

She threw out these ideas before anybody dreamed she’d be premier. But she still pushes the accounts in her mandate letter to Health Minister Jason Copping, ordering him to “work to establish Health Spending Accounts.”

The premier now says people could use their accounts only for services that aren’t covered by public health insurance — physiotherapy, medications, whatever.

An excerpt from Premier Danielle Smith’s paper in the U of C School of Public Policy.

There’s no more talk of physician visits being part of the plan. She blasts NDP Leader Rachel Notley twisting the truth, when Notley is pretty much pointing out what Smith herself has said.

This premier was a professional talker for so long that we often know what she really wants, which can be quite different from what she now says.

And the goal of these saving accounts is to groom the public for widespread private payment. That’s clear from her own words.

Smith said in the U of C paper: “Once people get used to the concept of paying out of pocket for more things themselves, then we can change the conversation on health care.”

She argued that the system “has to shift the burden of payment away from taxpayers and toward private individuals, their employers and their insurance companies.”

Even more startling, Smith calls for a “proper” overall health insurance system with deductibles or co-payment.

“If we establish the principle of Health Spending Accounts, then we can also establish co-payments,” she wrote.

“I can guarantee you as well that if the government creates this structure, business and non-profits will step up.

“Employers will make matching contributions to Health Spending Accounts. Non-profits will be established to make charitable contributions to the Health Spending Accounts of low-income earners so they can get a broader range of health services.

“Because that is the character of Albertans. We take care of each other. It’s what we do.”

In my experience, Albertans have always demanded a better system, but never one that makes them pay out of their own pockets.

Smith is toying with political explosives far more dangerous than former Premier Ralph Klein detonated in 2005, when he brought in the Third Way, a plan that would have allowed people to pay for upgraded surgeries and queue-jumping.

The uproar was so furious that Klein had to abandon the plan, but not before throwing a Liberal health policy paper at a teenage legislature page and shouting “I don’t need that crap!”

Smith’s wider plans would inevitably violate the Canada Health Act. A single public pay system is the very heart of the Act. Because Alberta conforms, Ottawa will deliver $5.3 billion to the province this year, 21.5 per cent of the health care budget.

Smith now says anything she does would comply with the federal law. But she constantly voices opposition to many federal policies and actions, claiming the right to nullify them.

It raises the question: would she use her looming Sovereignty Act for health care?


Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald.

Twitter: @DonBraid

Bell: Danielle Smith, what the heck is up with your inflation plan?

Opinion by Rick Bell • 9h ago CALGARY SUN

FILE PHOTO: Alberta Finance Minister Travis Toews during a news conference in Edmonton.© Ed Kaiser/Postmedia

Stop the presses. Take the script back for a rewrite.

The good news sure didn’t last long.

Like less than 48 hours.

Premier Danielle Smith goes on TV and tells Albertans her $2.8-billion inflation plan is just the first step, with much more to be done.

The next day, Smith’s point man on the plan, Matt Jones, tells Albertans there IS more to come , some soon and some down the line.

Smith’s sidekick says what we saw rolled out by the premier was “an initial package” of inflation relief, not the full-meal deal.

This would be a good thing to say and a much better thing to actually do because Smith and her crew took the inflation file and decided to pick winners and losers.

All Albertans are equal but some Albertans are more equal than others, to fiddle with a line from the great George Orwell.

What is worse is the losers, those who got the short end of the stick, those who didn’t score cheques for the new select class of Dani Dollars , were singles and couples with no kids.

And quite a few of them live on far, far more modest incomes than the winners.

Households with a child or children get a cheque if their household income is up to a penny under $180,000 a year.

Seniors and it’s a cheque up to the same penny shy of $180,000 a year in income.

You see, we are told the Smith government considers these folks are feeling the pressure. They are vulnerable. They need the province’s extra help.

The Smith government has a surplus of cash to the tune of $12 billion-plus this year.

They also have enough dough to pay off more than $13 billion in debt, the largest such payment in Alberta history.

The amount of cash coming from the oilpatch is forecast to be an astounding record-breaking $28 billion!

The poor saps who are left out of Smith’s plan are told to be grateful.

There’s an electricity rebate, they are told. There’s the nixing of the province’s tax at the gas pump for six months, they are told.

Wonder how far that will go when the rent increase notice comes in at $200 a month.

Travis Toews is Smith’s budget boss, as he was former premier Jason Kenney’s budget boss.

Let’s just say, on this day, he is not exactly exuding empathy.

He cranks out bean-counter talk and doesn’t seem to connect to the questions he’s being asked.

He appears not to get it.

When the man is questioned again and again he goes on defence, repeating scripted talking points that don’t become truer because they are repeated.

Every Albertan is going to benefit. Every Albertan is going to benefit.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Some who should benefit a lot, benefit little.

“It is a very substantial package,” counters Toews.

Again, for some.

“It is targeted to those who are most vulnerable.”

A family with one kid and a yearly income of … let’s say … $175,000 is more “vulnerable” than a childless couple at $50,000 a year or a single person at $35,000.

Hope that’s not the math in the new school curriculum.

Alas, the endgame is this. There is NO indication there will be more. NONE. That much is clear. Smith and Jones must not have got the memo.

Somewhere along the way the subject of putting a cap on insurance premium hikes also comes up and Toews figures the premiums haven’t gone up.

It’s hopeless. Guess the insurance company mucky-mucks enjoy the same clout they had when Jason Kenney was premier.

Toews is asked again and again about the winners and losers in Smith’s plan.

The most he will admit is a very, very few may not benefit much.

He is sure we can all find a specific example of the very, very few, as if to say: What does that prove?

Toews adds Alberta is providing more support than any other province.

Last time anyone looked, other provinces don’t scoop $28 billion of black gold in one year.

Toews says in Alberta we have a “real affordability advantage.”

Why is Charles Dickens suddenly floating into my brain?

Seems some politicians need a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.

Trevor Tombe, a noted economist, says the inflation-fighting money is coming out of surplus dollars and the incredible windfall from the oilpatch.

A one-time payment to everyone would have been so easy. And added measures for the truly most vulnerable could still be funded.

“It’s fair. If you’re thinking about it as a dividend out of our now-incredibly valuable resources, well then, every Albertan is an owner of those resources and therefore is entitled to such a dividend.”

Shannon Phillips of the NDP weighs in. Talk about shooting fish in the barrel.

Phillips figures Smith’s approach is frantic and chaotic, creating a plan on the back of a napkin, and the Smith government is “perfectly willing to write off entire segments of society.”

Does she think Smith will add more fairness to her inflation plan?

“They don’t know whether they’re coming or going, these guys. They are throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks.”

Meanwhile, Smith’s budget boss Toews insists “we’re leaving no one behind.”

Yeah right.

rbell@postmedia.com

Friday's letters: Policies mean more to voters than Smith's PR

Story by Edmonton Journal • 9h ago

Premier Danielle Smith during her televised address to Albertans on Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2022.

Re. “Smith uses TV time to temper scarier parts of her image,” David Staples, Nov. 24

Mr. Staples seems to feel that all it will take is for an obvious public relations exercise to manipulate Danielle Smith’s image for Ms. Smith to win the next provincial election. I have news for Mr. Staples. Values, policies, and character will make more of a difference. Rachel Notley is clearly more in tune with her fellow Albertans today than is Danielle Smith. No amount of media scrubbing is going to change that fact.

Karlis Poruks, Edmonton

No bribe, no guilt in voting Smith out
Well, thank goodness, I do not fit the criteria for “Smith Bucks.” I will feel no guilt about the bribe from our premier in six months come voting time. Whew!

Grant Hammond, Edmonton

----

Alberta on track to hit $12.3 billion surplus as oil prices soften and spending ramps up

Bell: Team Danielle Smith, more inflation-fighting goodies coming!

After $2.4 billion announcement, critics worry too many Albertans ineligible for $600 inflation relief

Edmonton's Clover Bar landfill still not capped and releasing gas after 13 years, new capture technology planned

“There’s very harmful landfill gas that is able to escape through the top of it. We need to cap it, we need to put three feet of clay on top of it."

Author of the article: Lauren Boothby
Publishing date: Nov 25, 2022 • 

Heavy equipment is used to moved garbage at the Clover Bar landfill when it was still operating in 2005. Postmedia, file
Article content

Edmonton’s Clover Bar landfill is still uncovered and releasing fumes more than a decade after closing to the public, and new capture technology is in the works to convert its methane into renewable biogas for sale.


City council’s utility committee met privately Friday to get an update on the landfill-gas-to-renewable-gas conversion project at the Clover Bar landfill. The project was approved in February 2021, also in private, and is expected to be complete by mid-2024.

What was discussed at Friday’s meeting isn’t known, but Edmonton waste services’ utility rate filing offers some details about remediating the landfill, the new renewable natural gas facility, and funding. The waste services branch plans to spend $9.7 million next year and $3.3 million in 2024, along with a $10-million provincial grant, the city confirmed. Some cash will come from the waste services liability fund collected over the years. $1 million has been spent to date.

Capital Power is paying for a portion of the costs and will co-own the site, sharing the profits with the city, although the city would not confirm the contribution or payout.

Capital Power already runs a collection system converting landfill gas into electricity but it is aging and captured less than half of the emissions as of 2018, according to a previous utility rate filing.

Capping landfill would have big impact on greenhouse gas emissions

Before the meeting, waste services branch manager Denis Jubinville told the utility committee that covering the landfill is likely the biggest impact waste services can have on reducing greenhouse gases in the region. This work will be done alongside creating the conversion system.

“There’s very harmful landfill gas that is able to escape through the top of it. We need to cap it, we need to put three feet of clay on top of it,” he told councillors. “That will be a significant reduction in greenhouse gas.”

In an interview, Jubinville couldn’t say why the site hasn’t been covered since 2009 — he only took over leadership about a year-and-a-half ago — but said it takes a long time.

However, doing so is a priority for Jubinville, especially because the old landfill is full of organic waste.

“When (organics) decompose they create gas, and that’s really, really bad greenhouse gas. That’s methane, and that’s really bad for the environment, and because we don’t have a really thick layer of dirt on top, it’s going into our atmosphere right now,” Jubinville told Postmedia. “We really need to cap it.”

The city did not confirm the expected emissions reduction by deadline. However, according to the 2021 utility rate filing, the renewable natural gas technology could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 149,500 tonnes per year, and more than 2.5 million tonnes by 2040.

Postmedia files show the original plan for Clover Bar landfill was to cover it fully with native vegetation and link the site to trails in the river valley

Former waste management spokesman Gary Spotowski told the Edmonton Journal in 2009 that Clover Bar would continue releasing gas for 40 to 50 years, but it wasn’t a danger to the public.

At the time, Spotowski said “improved compaction” at the landfill meant when it’s fully covered it won’t create several small hills such as those in Rundle Park — which used to be the Beverly dump

Converting landfill gas to renewable natural gas, and putting it into the distribution network for sale, will be a first-of-its kind project in Alberta.

According to the capital profile in the 2023-2024 rate filing, the waste services branch chose a technology called pressure swing absorption because it is proven and reliable, conserving up to 98 per cent of the methane drawn out during the process.

Once collected, landfill gas is sent into a system to remove impurities like water, siloxane, ammonia, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen sulfide. This conditioned gas is fed into what’s called a pressure swing absorption upgrading unit that has a series of vertical towers connected by a complex network of valves and switches, cycling the gas between low pressure and high pressure where chemicals like carbon dioxide are absorbed, while others are captured in a filter.

This system is expected to generate up to 245,000 GJ per year for at least 20 years and bring in $3 million of revenue annually. The 2021 version of the capital profile said it would capture more than 75 per cent of the currently generated gas.

‘Pressure cooker’

While Jubinville thinks covering the landfill is important, it’s a complicated and long process. As they age, landfills can become unstable, he said.

“When you cap it, you’re creating a pressure cooker. It is still decomposing, and it’s creating pressure inside of this landfill, so we need a system to relieve that pressure.”

If the cover is too heavy, the sides could be pushed out and spill into the North Saskatchewan River. Reinforcing the riverbank is another part of the plan to prevent this from happening.

The methane created can be released, burned, or used for another purpose — in this case, drilling wells into the mound to pull out liquid and gas to be converted to renewable natural gas.

“If we can use this gas in an effective way in converting it into renewable natural gas, it is to the benefit of our community,” Jubinville said.

The Clover Bar landfill opened in 1975, closed in August 2009, and was Edmonton’s first engineered sanitary landfill. It lasted 20 years longer than expected after recycling programs were introduced in the late 1980s. The secondary landfill, which was built after the 1987 tornado, ceased operations in 2008