Scientists decode why people are scared of clowns

Vishwam Sankaran
Mon, 6 March 2023

A new study about the fear of clowns aims to reveal why people are scared of the performers whose entire purpose is to make their audience laugh.

The fear of clowns, or coulrophobia, is something that has been widely reported in both adults and children across several cultures.

In the new research, published recently in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, scientists from the University of South Wales assessed data from an international survey of nearly 1,000 adult participants from 64 countries and found that more than half of the respondents reported having some degree of coulrophobia.


About 5 per cent of the respondents said they were “extremely afraid” of clowns – a number reportedly higher than that for other phobias like heights, animals, or closed spaces.

Exaggerated facial features of clowns and makeup hiding emotional signals are the main reasons people fear them, according to the study. Another reason cited was the negative portrayals of clowns in popular culture, like that of the character of Pennywisein Stephen King’s It.

Another factor that attracted one the highest ratings among survey respondents was the alleged unpredictable behaviour of clowns.

Researchers pointed out that the lowest level of agreement among participants was fear stemming from a frightening personal experience with clowns.

Scientists suspect it may not be any of the individual elements that may be frightening itself, “but rather the juxtaposition of these features”.

They said the “uncanny valley effect” – due to clowns not appearing entirely like humans in appearance – compounded by makeup that completely covers the skin may be some of factors that play out in combination to induce fear among people.

Researchers also suspect the redness on the makeup, “reminiscent of disease and contagion”, could play a part in striking fear among adults and children.

“These factors can combine to give a clown an appearance of deformity, to which (sadly, but nevertheless unavoidably) humans have a natural reaction of revulsion and fear,” they wrote and called for future research to provide a stronger test of these hypotheses.

They said research assessing participants and measuring their subsequent reactions as they viewed clown images as well as varying makeup and hair colours on them could offer fresh insights on the phobia.

Citing some limitations of the study, researchers said while about 54 per cent of the participants self reported having some degree of fear of clowns, the study did not assess whether the respondents would meet the diagnostic criteria for a specific phobia.

Scientists said future research should consider other factors associated with “co-occurring mental health conditions”.

In future studies, researchers also hoped to unravel if people with their faces painted as animals tend to induce the same kind of fear or if the clown makeups particularly have fear-inducing properties.

“In conclusion, this study is the first to investigate the aetiology of clown fear and to consider competing explanations of the origins of this phenomena,” they added.

Legend may be true as Roman shrine found under Leicester Cathedral


Sarah Knapton
Tue, 7 March 2023 

Archaeologists have found the remains of a Roman place of worship at Leicester Cathedral

For centuries rumours have abounded that Leicester Cathedral was built on the site of a Roman temple.

Now, the source of the folklore may have been uncovered.

Archaeologists working at the cathedral have discovered evidence of a Roman shrine hidden beneath the structure, which may have been used by worshippers of a fertility or mystery cult.


The small chamber, 13ft by 13ft, was painted and contained an altar stone where sacrifices to the pantheon of Roman gods may have taken place.

It means that the Christian site may have been chosen because it was already a sacred location for pagans, and that worship has been happening at the spot for 1,800 years.

Mathew Morris, project officer at University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) who led the excavations, said: “Given the combination of a subterranean structure with painted walls and the altar we have found, one interpretation, which seemed to grow in strength as we excavated more, could be that this was a room linked with the worship of a god or gods.

“For centuries there has been a tradition that a Roman temple once stood on the site of the present Cathedral. This folktale gained wide acceptance in the late 19th century when a Roman building was discovered during the rebuilding of the church tower.

“The origins of this story have always been unclear but given that we’ve found a potential Roman shrine, along with burials deliberately interred into the top of it after it’s been demolished, and then the church and its burial ground on top of that, are we seeing a memory of this site being special in the Roman period that has survived to the present day?"

The remains of an altar stone and evidence of sacrifice have been found

The archaeologists believe the room was a private place of worship of either a family, or a cult room where a small group would meet together.

Similarly, underground chambers like this have often been linked with fertility and mystery cults and the worship of gods such as Mithras, Cybele, Bacchus, Dionysius and the Egyptian goddess Isis.

No evidence of an inscription survived on our altar, so it is unclear which gods were being honoured. Excavations have been ongoing ahead of the construction of a new heritage centre in the Cathedral Gardens.

In the final stages of the dig, when the team was ten feet down, they uncovered evidence of a well-made semi-subterranean structure with painted stone walls and a concrete floor.

The sunken room was probably built in the 2nd century AD, when Leicester was the roman town Ratae Corieltavorum and was deliberately dismantled and infilled, probably in the late 3rd or 4th century.

Within that space, lying broken and face down amidst the rubble, they also found the base to an altar stone, carved from local Dane Hills sandstone and measuring approximately ten inches by six inches, with decorative mouldings on three sides.

The back is plain, showing that it would have been placed against a wall. Archaeologists believe it would have originally stood around 2ft tall but it is broken mid-shaft and the upper part of the pedestal and the capital are missing.

Leicester was called Ratae Corieltavorum during the Roman era

Their excavations also uncovered over 1,100 burials ranging in date from the 11th century through to the mid-19th century.

John Thomas, deputy director at ULAS, said: “This excavation has produced a remarkable amount of archaeological evidence from a modestly sized area. The project allowed us to venture into an area of Leicester that we rarely have the opportunity to investigate, and it certainly did not disappoint.

“Fortunately, the archaeology was very well-preserved and whilst there is still a lot of analysis work still to do, we are confident that we’ll be able to address all of our questions and more.

“We’ll have a much clearer idea of what was happening on the site in the Roman period, when the parish church of St. Martins was founded, and a unique insight into the story of Leicester through its residents who were buried here for over 800 years.”

With stained pants, Kenyan senator fights menstruation taboo
 

EVELYNE MUSAMBI
Wed, March 8, 2023 

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The sight of a red bloodstain on Kenyan Senator Gloria Orwoba's white pantsuit was so startling that a female security guard rushed over to hide it.

It was an accident, Orwoba said. Just before walking into parliament, she looked down to discover that she had been caught unprepared by her monthly period.

For a moment, she considered retreat. But then she thought about how the stigma around menstruation affects Kenyan women and girls and strode into the building. To those who noticed the stain, she explained she was making a statement.

It didn’t last long. Within minutes, colleagues in the senate became so uncomfortable that another female lawmaker petitioned the speaker to ask Orwoba to leave and change her clothes. Male colleagues agreed, calling the issue “taboo and private,” and Orwoba walked out.


Women make up less than a third of Kenya’s senators: 21 of 67.

A male colleague accused her of faking her accident in parliament, to which she replied in a local media interview that “everyone would rather think it's a prank, because if it is a prank then it's acting and that way it doesn’t exist in the real world. Yet our girls are suffering.”

Whether or not Orwoba's menstrual stain was an accident or a stunt, the controversy it has elicited shows the considerable stigma that surrounds women's periods in Kenya and in many African countries.

Orwoba hasn’t been silenced. The incident last month has inspired considerable debate in Kenya about “period shaming” of women and the problem of the lack of access to sanitary pads for schoolgirls and others in many African countries.

Inspired, some of Orwoba’s friends have even paid for a billboard in the capital, Nairobi, that shows her in a white T-shirt with the words “I can do bleeding” — a spirited message against menstrual stigma in the largely conservative country.

In an interview with The Associated Press, the bubbly first-time senator acknowledged that the incident has prompted her to concentrate on drafting a bill calling on the Kenyan government to provide an annual supply of sanitary pads to all schoolgirls and incarcerated women.

“For legislators to feel the urgency of legislating things into law, they must be subjected to the advocacy and the noise,” she said of her public campaign.

The 36-year-old said she has never understood why menstruation is spoken of like a secret. She recalled being excited as a teenager to finally have her first period after being the last among her peers to get the “mark of womanhood.”

“My attitude toward menstruation since then has been open,” said Orwoba, who has warned her teenage son to never shame a girl for having her period.

Studies have shown that menstruation causes widespread absences from school in many African countries by girls who stay home for fear of staining their uniforms.

In 2019, one schoolgirl in Kenya killed herself after a teacher called her dirty and kicked her out of class.

One in 10 African schoolgirls misses school during menstruation, according to a U.N. survey, and many, after lagging behind, eventually drop out.

Official efforts and promises to provide sanitary pads have fallen short. In Kenya, the government increased budget funds to distribute pads to schoolgirls in 2018 but the amount was halved the next year.

Neighboring Tanzania removed taxes on sanitary pads to make them more affordable, but many still find them too expensive because of high production and import costs.

Now Orwoba receives calls from organizations that want to make menstruation products accessible to the poor, including a British firm that wants to put up sanitary pad dispensers in public toilets. Such dispensers for condoms have long been common in public toilets across Kenya as part of national campaigns against HIV.

In recent years, Kenya has seen the introduction of reusable menstruation products like washable pads and silicon cups. But the lack of access to water to clean them in some rural communities has prevented some users from embracing them.

Virginia Mwongeli, 24, sells menstruation cups in Nairobi and thinks Orwoba’s bold move will help end period shaming.

“We need to normalize periods,” she said.

The senator’s decision to walk into parliament with stained pants was “totally acceptable as people need to openly discuss menstruation,” said Lorna Mweu, popularly known as Mamake Bobo, who founded Period Party, an organization that holds an annual event in Kenya to help end stigma.

Orwoba said she longs for the day when accidental period stains will be seen as normal, not shameful. Women and girls are using up valuable sanitary pads by wearing them as a precaution out of anxiety, she said: “That’s a whole pack that you’ve wasted because of the fear of staining your clothes.”

Kenyan senator Gloria Orwoba speaks to the Associated Press at her office in Nairobi, Kenya, Monday, Feb. 27, 2023. Orwoba has said that she attended parliament last month while wearing a white pantsuit stained by her menstruation in order to combat the stigma surrounding women's monthly periods. 

(AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

UK defends asylum plan after Nazi comparison


Jitendra JOSHI
Wed, March 8, 2023 


Britain Wednesday hit back at critics including the United Nations and football presenter Gary Lineker, after he compared its new plan on illegal immigration to the rhetoric of Nazi-era Germany.

The Conservative government intends to outlaw asylum claims by all illegal arrivals and transfer them elsewhere, such as Rwanda, in a bid to stop thousands of migrants from crossing the Channel on small boats.

Stopping the boats is the "people's priority", Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told the House of Commons, vowing also to "break the criminal gangs" profiting from the crossings.

But rights groups and the United Nations said the legislation would make Britain itself an international outlaw under European and UN conventions on asylum.

"I am deeply concerned at this legislation," United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said in a statement.

"All people compelled to leave their country of origin to seek safety and dignity abroad are entitled to the full respect of their human rights, regardless of their migration status or mode of arrival."

Presenting the Illegal Migration Bill in parliament, Home Secretary Suella Braverman attached a letter conceding that she could not confirm yet whether the plan respected European human rights law.

But in a round of broadcast interviews, the interior minister insisted the government was within its rights to stop the seaborne migrants, who she said could total 80,000 this year.

"We're not breaking the law," she told Sky News, claiming support from the "vast majority" of the British public.

"We are very confident that our measures that we've announced yesterday (Tuesday) are in compliance with our international law obligations."

- 'Immeasurably cruel' -

Lineker, an ex-England striker who presents the BBC's flagship football coverage on TV, was warned by the broadcaster to respect its social media guidelines after he lashed out at Braverman on Twitter.

"Good heavens, this is beyond awful," he tweeted over a video of Braverman explaining her plan, in his latest broadside against the Conservatives' immigration policies.

"There is no huge influx. We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries," Lineker noted.

"This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s, and I'm out of order?"

Braverman has often been accused herself of using inflammatory language over the migration issue, as the Conservatives try to restore their weak standing in opinion polls ahead of local elections in May.

"I'm obviously disappointed that he should attempt to equate our measures with 1930s Germany," she told BBC radio.

The minister vowed to be "honest" with the British public, while defending her claim that "billions" of migrants were "eager" to come to the UK.

- 'Take back control' -

Sunak said he was ready to fight legal challenges to the bill, as he vowed to "take back control of our borders once and for all" -- reprising a popular pledge by Brexit campaigners in 2016.

But the prime minister, who meets French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Friday, faces pressure to restore migration cooperation with the European Union and get stronger action from Paris.

The perilous nature of the Channel crossings -- with migrants traversing one of the world's busiest waterways on fragile craft -- has been underlined by several tragedies in recent years.

In November 2021, at least 27 people drowned when their dinghy deflated. They were mostly Kurds from Iraq and included a child aged seven.

If passed by parliament, the draft law would prevent anyone deported after making the journey from re-entering the UK and ever claiming British citizenship.

More than 3,000 migrants have arrived by boat so far this year, often ending up in expensive hotels at taxpayer expense, and the backlog of asylum claims now exceeds 160,000.

The new plan would transfer illegal migrants to disused military barracks temporarily and cap the annual number of refugees who arrive legally.

Citing a similar, deeply controversial, policy in Australia, Braverman said the boat crossings would "fall dramatically" in time but could not say when.

jit/jwp/jj

Who is Joseph Kony? The altar boy who became Africa's most wanted man

Tonny Raymond Kirabira, Teaching Fellow, University of Portsmouth

Dennis Jjuuko, Doctoral Candidate, UMass Boston

THE CONVERSATION
Tue, March 7, 2023 

Joseph Kony speaks to journalists in southern Sudan in November 2006. 

Stuart Price/AFP via Getty Images

Eleven years ago, a documentary catapulted the name Joseph Kony onto the global stage. The controversial film Kony 2012 told the story of a Ugandan warlord whose forces are believed by the United Nations to be responsible for the deaths of more than 100,000 people, the abduction of at least 20,000 children and the displacement of more than two million people.

Though most of the world hadn’t heard of Kony before then, Ugandans knew and feared him. The founder of the Lord’s Resistance Army unleashed a wave of violence across northern Uganda for two decades.

In 2005, the International Criminal Court brought charges of crimes against humanity against Kony and four of his top commanders. In 2013 and 2021, the US announced a US million bounty for information leading to Kony’s capture.


Read more: ICC upholds jail term for Ugandan rebel commander Ongwen - why it matters for Africa

He remains at large.

Now the International Criminal Court wants to confirm the charges against Kony in his absence. The hope is that this will renew international efforts to find Africa’s most wanted fugitive.

So, who is Joseph Kony?

His early life

Joseph Rao Kony was born in 1961 in Odek sub-county in northern Uganda. He was one of six children in the Acholi middle-class family of Luizi Obol and Nora Oting.

Kony’s parents were farmers. His father was a Catholic, his mother an Anglican. Kony was an altar boy until 1976. He dropped out of school at age 15 to become a traditional healer.

In 1987, aged 26, Kony founded the Lord’s Resistance Army, a Christian fundamentalist organisation that operated in northern Uganda until 2006.
Altar boy turned rebel leader

Kony rose to prominence after taking over the Holy Spirit Movement, a rebel group led by Alice Lakwena, his aunt, to topple the Ugandan government.

The Holy Spirit Movement was formed after Ugandan president Tito Okello, an Acholi, was overthrown by the National Resistance Army – led by Yoweri Museveni – in January 1986. The Acholis largely occupy northern Uganda.

Museveni’s National Resistance Army was a rebel outfit that later metamorphosed into the Uganda Peoples’ Defence Forces. Today it’s the national army.

When it came to power, the National Resistance Army appeared to deliberately target the Acholi population in the north. Villagers were violently attacked by army troops and subjected to food shortages. Houses were burnt down, leading to forced displacements. The scale of these attacks was never documented or substantiated.

Kony joined the Holy Spirit Movement to fight for the rights of the Acholi. By 1987, however, army troops had crushed the movement – Lakwena escaped into Kenya where she died in a refugee camp in 2007.

Kony established the Lord’s Resistance Army and proclaimed himself his people’s prophet. He soon turned against his supporters, supposedly in an effort to “purify” the Acholi and turn Uganda into a theocracy.

The rebel group carried out indiscriminate killings. It forcibly recruited boys as soldiers and girls as sex slaves.

Read more: In one of 2016's best books, a former Lord's Resistance Army child soldier reveals the reason behind the mayhem

Ideologically, the group espoused a mix of mysticism, Acholi nationalism and Christian fundamentalism. It claimed to be establishing a theocratic state based on the biblical 10 commandments and Acholi tradition.

Kony proclaimed himself the spokesperson of God. He claimed to have been visited by a multinational host of 13 spirits, including a Chinese phantom.
Kony’s military offensive

Kony and his rebel outfit committed a string of atrocities against civilians. The group waged war for more than two decades within Uganda – and later in the politically unstable neighbouring countries of Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Central African Republic – in an effort to topple Museveni. The actual number of militia members varied over this period, hitting a high of 3,000 soldiers in the early 2000s.

After the 11 September 2001 terror attacks in the US, the American government designated the Lord’s Resistance Army a terrorist group.

In 2005, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for top commanders of the Lord’s Resistance Army for crimes against humanity.

In August 2008, the US declared Kony a global terrorist, a designation that carries financial and other penalties.

Read more: Ugandan rebel Joseph Kony: the latest US arrest bid raises questions

The Lord’s Resistance Army was eventually forced out of Uganda following the failed Juba peace talks of 2006-2008 between the group’s leadership and the Ugandan government. The talks were mediated by the government of southern Sudan.

Kony and his militia went into hiding in the DRC. In December 2008, Uganda, DRC and Sudan launched an offensive dubbed Operation Lightning Thunder to track them down.

Kony’s rebel group attacked Congolese civilians suspected of supporting the operation. Villagers were raped, their limbs mutilated and hundreds killed. The group eventually splintered to evade capture, with most members escaping into the Central African Republic.

Uganda called off the operation in March 2009, saying the Lord’s Resistance Army was at its weakest point ever.

In November 2013, Central African Republic officials reported that Kony was ready to negotiate his surrender. He was reported to be in poor health in Nzoka, a town in the country’s eastern region. He never showed up.

By 2017, the rebel group’s membership had shrunk to an estimated 100 soldiers. In April that year, the US and Ugandan governments ended efforts to find Kony. They stated he no longer posed a significant security risk to Uganda. But he is still wanted by the International Criminal Court.
Kony today

Some of the fighters from the Lord’s Resistance Army took advantage of Uganda’s 2000 amnesty programme, which offered blanket immunity to any rebel who had taken up arms against the government since 1986.

Kony’s exact location, however, remains unknown. He’s thought to be hiding in the vast jungles of the Central African Republic or in Sudan.

While attempts to bring Kony to justice continue, post-conflict northern Uganda is on the slow path to economic and social recovery.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. 

It was written by: Dennis Jjuuko, UMass Boston and Tonny Raymond Kirabira, University of Portsmouth.

Read more:

Child victim, soldier, war criminal: unpacking Dominic Ongwen’s journey

Kony 2012 and the case of the invisible media

Flirting with fire: African leaders and international law

Georgia's opposition calls fresh protests over new law after clashes

Wed, March 8, 2023 

Georgian opposition and civil society groups called for new protests Wednesday against government plans to introduce controversial "foreign agent" legislation, reminiscent of Russian legislation to pressure critics.

The calls came after more than sixty of people were detained and dozens of police officers wounded in violent clashes that broke out in the capital Tbilisi late Tuesday, amid fears of democratic backsliding in Georgia.

"Starting from 3:00 pm (1100 GMT), Georgians will start to gather on Rustaveli Avenue and that will continue every day," politician Nika Melia said.

Civil society groups called for protests outside parliament later Wednesday.

They are opposing a bill on the "transparency of foreign funding", which critics say resembles a Russian law against "foreign agents".

In Russia, the foreign agent label, which recalls the term "enemies of the people" of the Soviet era, has been used extensively by the authorities against political opponents, journalists and human rights activists accused of conducting foreign-funded political activities.

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili has defended his "balanced" Russia policy as aimed at ensuring "peace and stability".

After lawmakers gave initial backing for the draft law, thousands took to the streets on Tuesday.

Georgia's President Salome Zourabichvili expressed support for the demonstrators and vowed to veto the legislation.

Police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse the protesters.

Demonstrators had "thrown various objects -- stones, inflammable and blunt objects... physically assaulted and resisted policemen," the interior ministry said.

- Molotov cocktails -

"Later, people started an organised attack on the parliament building, throwing so-called 'Molotov cocktails' and fireworks," the ministry said.

It added that 66 people has been arrested for minor hooliganism and disobeying law enforcement forces.

Up to 50 police officers were wounded in the clashes, the ministry added, with several still hospitalised.

"No matter how many times they disperse us, no matter how much gas they use, we will gather again and again, and there should be more and more of us," Melia was cited as saying in local media.

Melia is chairman of the United National Movement party of Georgia's jailed ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili.

Georgia's treatment of Saakashvili, whose health has drastically deteriorated in jail, has drawn international condemnation.

Late last month, European Union member states issued a formal diplomatic warning to Georgia's leaders over Saakashvili's health.

In recent years Georgian authorities have faced mounting international criticism over a perceived backsliding on democracy, seriously damaging Tbilisi's ties with Brussels.

Georgia applied for EU membership together with Ukraine and Moldova days after Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year.

In June, EU leaders granted formal candidate status to Kyiv and Chisinau but said Tbilisi must implement a number of reforms first.

Plans to join NATO and the EU are enshrined in Georgia's constitution and are supported by at least 80 percent of the population, according to opinion polls.

bur/dt/js

Clashes in Georgia over contentious 'foreign agents' law

Tue, March 7, 2023 

Georgian police used tear gas and water cannon against protesters Tuesday as thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in the capital Tbilisi to oppose a controversial "foreign agents" bill.

At one point a protester opposed to the law, which would impose registration requirements on media and NGOs with foreign ties, threw a Molotov cocktail at a cordon of riot police, according to television footage.

The demonstration took place after Georgian lawmakers earlier Tuesday gave their initial backing to the draft law, which is reminiscent of Russia's legislation used to crack down on dissent.

In recent years Georgian authorities have faced mounting international criticism over perceived backsliding on democracy, seriously damaging Tbilisi's ties with Brussels.

In 2012, Russia adopted a law that allows authorities to take action against NGOs, media outlets and others deemed "foreign agents".

Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili expressed support for the demonstrators and vowed to veto the legislation.

"I stand with you because you are representing today the free Georgia which sees its future in Europe and will not let anyone steal this future," she said in a video from the United States where she is on an official visit.

"Nobody has the right to take away your future," she said in the address, with the Statue of Liberty seen in the background.

The US embassy in Georgia called the legislation "Kremlin-inspired" and said it was incompatible with the country's desire to join the European Union.

"Today is a dark day for Georgia's democracy," the embassy said in a statement, adding that the legislation raised questions about "the ruling party's commitment to Euro-Atlantic integration".

In Russia, the foreign agent label, which is reminiscent of the term "enemies of the people" of the Soviet era, has been used extensively by the authorities against political opponents, journalists and human rights activists accused of conducting foreign-funded political activities.

According to recently amended Russian legislation, anyone "under foreign influence" or receiving support from abroad -- not just foreign money -- can be declared a "foreign agent".

- Democratic backsliding -

Georgia applied for EU membership together with Ukraine and Moldova, days after Russia on February 24 invaded Ukraine.

In June last year, EU leaders granted formal candidate status to Kyiv and Chisinau but said Tbilisi must implement a number of reforms first.

Plans to join NATO and the EU are enshrined in Georgia's constitution and, according to opinion polls, are supported by at least 80 percent of the population.

In 2008, Russia and Georgia fought a five-day war but in recent years rights activists have accused the Georgian authorities of drifting towards the Kremlin.

Thousands of Russian men have fled to Georgia after President Vladimir Putin announced a military mobilisation last September.

Initially welcoming, Georgia has over the course of the past year deported a number of Russian activists with opposition views.

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili has defended his "balanced" Russia policy as aimed at ensuring "peace and stability".

The authorities have also been criticised over the worsening health of the jailed former president Mikheil Saakashvili.

Late last month European Union member states issued a formal diplomatic warning to Georgia's leaders over Saakashvili's health.

Sharks surround couples' fishing boat in stunning footage: 'Never seen anything like it'

Fishermen spot shark feeding frenzy off Louisiana coast


Kaitlin Stanford
Mon, March 6, 2023 

A group of friends was deep-sea fishing when they suddenly found themselves in a scary situation: A massive school of sharks not only appeared in the water beneath them but also quickly swam toward their boat, surrounding it on all sides.

The TikTok was shared by Kaitlyn Dix (@kaitlyndix), a Jacksonville, Florida, woman who frequently shares videos of her fishing trips and even runs an Etsy shop selling handmade shark-tooth jewelry. That may be why Dix was more stunned than terrified, writing in her post caption that she’d “never seen anything like it.”

But according to CBS News, the video was actually filmed by her boyfriend, Dillon May, who was equally amazed by what he saw.

The couple was reportedly fishing about 15 miles off the coast of Venice, Louisiana, in search of yellowfin tuna. But when the water around them started moving rapidly, they realized they might be in the presence of more than just a school of tuna.

Apparently, it was a group of hungry sharks in a feeding frenzy. And though they didn’t pose a threat to the fishermen, all the water they were splashing around seemed to have made its way on board. At one point during the video, you can hear a voice say, “It’s soaking wet!”

As the video continues to go viral, it’s received a wide range of responses in the comments section.

Some people couldn’t help but make jokes about the wild scene.

“When you change your status to ‘single,'” one person wrote.

“when just 1 girl shows up at the party,” another person joked.

“Dam. Can y’all take my ex wife fishing,” asked someone else.

But most commenters simply couldn’t hide their shock over the video, with many saying they would be absolutely “terrified” if they had been in that boat themselves.

“This would give me so much anxiety that I wouldn’t trust myself not to fall over so I’d have to lay down unfortunately,” one person wrote.

“I’m scared just watching this,” admitted someone else.

Cornwall's underground power source could turbocharge Britain

Rachel Millard
Tue, March 7, 2023 

Geothermal energy pioneers also want to extract lithium from Cornwall's waters 

- eye35 / Alamy Stock Photo

The race to develop cleaner energy has sent engineers in several directions: out to sea to plant wind turbines, to the desert to plant solar panels, and into the laboratory to try and develop nuclear fusion.

At an industrial site in Cornwall, however, they are looking in another direction: deep underground.

Private company Geothermal Engineering has drilled more than three miles underground near Redruth, tapping into water at temperatures of up to 180 degrees centigrade.

It plans to harness that heat to generate electricity for the national electricity grid and warmth for nearby homes.

It would be the first deep geothermal power plant in the UK, when up and running as planned in 2024.

Geothermal Engineering has now raised £15m to get the project over the line, £12m of which is coming from Kerogen Capital, the private equity firm.

The $2bn [£1.6bn] asset manager has been best known for its investment in oil and gas, but is pushing into lower carbon sources and has a dedicated clean energy division, CelerateX.

Its investment into Geothermal Engineering comes amid a wider global push into deep geothermal energy as part of efforts to replace fossil fuels and cut carbon emissions.

Companies are rapidly developing new ways of drilling and extracting the warmth from deep underground, raising hopes deep geothermal could move from the niche into the mainstream.

“I think it can be very significant,” says Michael Liebreich, energy expert and chairman of Liebreich Associates, who is also chairman of the advisory board of deep geothermal developer Eavor.

“I think there's always been a strong understanding that it's a big opportunity - the challenge is how do you get it out, and how do you get it out economically.”

Deep geothermal currently makes a tiny contribution to the global energy system, with projects generally providing heat and electricity for small, local communities.

The complications, risk and expense of drilling deep underground and drawing out warmth has held the industry back, with little reason to invest heavily when other, competitive sources of energy are plentiful.

That equation is changing, however, because of efforts to diversify away from oil and gas, with billions of pounds now flowing into finding cleaner energy solutions and the price of carbon emissions going up in several economies.

Global concerns over energy security this winter after Russia’s war on Ukraine rocked oil and gas markets is also focusing minds on new solutions.

“The current situation – characterised by highly volatile oil and gas prices – provides renewed opportunities for geothermal energy to further develop as a strategic alternative in electricity generation, heating and cooling worldwide,” Irena, the International Renewable Energy Agency, said in a report last month.

New drilling techniques, including some developed through the natural gas fracking boom in the US, are also helping to push the industry forward.

In the US, for example, Quaise Energy is developing a new technique which uses super high energy laser beams to ‘drill’ through hard rock deep underground.

The company says the “radical new approach” should enable them to reach depths of up to 20 kilometres and temperatures up to 500 degrees celsius.

The technology was developed by scientists working on nuclear fusion at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Carlos Araque, chief executive and co-founder, says he wants to build “clean electric generation and heat distribution plants within a short distance of every major population and industrial centre on the planet”.

In June, Quaise Energy raised $52m from companies including Techint Group, the Argentine conglomerate, and Safar Partners, US technology venture fund.

Before setting up Quaise, Mr Araque worked as a technology development manager at Schlumberger, the oilfield services company.

He is not alone in seeing the potential for assets and expertise from the fossil fuel industry to be redeployed.

In the oil and gas heartlands of Texas, oil and gas companies including Chevron and Halliburton have signed up to the new Texas Geothermal Energy Alliance.

"We've been drilling oil and gas wells for so long in Texas – over 1 million wells – that we have all this data about what's below the surface," Barry Smitherman, a former regulator in Texas, told S&P Global Platts last year. “That can inform geothermal developers about where to concentrate."

Meanwhile, in Europe heat is being extracted from an abandoned oil well in Kiskunhalas, Hungary, in a project officials hope could be replicated.

In South Wales, officials have been exploring whether water swirling through disused coal mines could be used to heat local homes.

Some investment is also coming from the fossil fuel sector. BP and Chevron have both backed Alberta-based Eavor.

Its approach involves using the geothermal warmth to heat water it pipes underground – acting like a large radiator – without needing to extract water from deep underground.

“Eavor has just dug the world’s deepest geothermal lateral in the world – we are really pushing the limits of drilling capability,” adds Mr Liebreich.

Geothermal is not without its problems: The process is energy intensive. In many cases, carbon dioxide dissolved in low quantities in water will also need capturing and sent back into the ground.

Geothermal drilling near Cornwall’s Eden Project had to be halted in March 2022 owing to seismic activity.

The UK’s banned natural gas fracking industry has argued geothermal drillers are treated unfairly given seismic risk.

However, the push away from fossil fuels gives geothermal a second impetus: electric car batteries need lithium, which can be extracted from geothermal waters at the same time as the heat.

In the UK, Geothermal Engineering is using a “binary” power plant.

Hot geothermal waters are piped from deep underground and used to heat a second fluid using a heat exchanger. The secondary liquid is used for steam to drive a turbine to produce electricity. The geothermal fluid is sent back underground.

Weekend; Beautiful park runs; Pix show the park run at the Eden Project, near St Austell, Cornwall.

Pic Jay Williams 14-09-19 - JAY WILLIAMS

Once that project is up and running, the company wants to build a fleet of small power stations around Cornwall.

Much will depend, however, on the outcome of an upcoming government auction to secure its electricity prices, where geothermal will compete against other technologies.

Ryan Law, Geothermal Engineering’s chief executive, estimates the cost of generating electricity from the plants could be in the region of £100 per MWh, which is far more expensive than offshore wind and other technologies.

As well as power supplies and heat, it also wants to extract lithium from the geothermal waters, and has been testing the viability with various approaches.

Law says an announcement should be made on that front in the next couple of months.

“It's a very exciting sort of development for us and potentially huge for UK PLC," he says.

“We’ve taken it step by step to try and get the solutions right, so that when we do produce lithium then we have meaningful quantities.”

He and Kerogen Capital, which is taking a majority stake, argue its investment “fires the starting gun” on a wider deep geothermal energy industry in the UK.

“Right beneath our feet, we’ve got the potential to heat every home in the UK with geothermal,” says Jason Cheng, chief executive of Kerogen Capital.

“It's been a niche industry, but now it's set to scale."

Two Google engineers built a ChatGPT-like AI chatbot years ago, but execs reportedly shut it down due to safety concerns

Aaron Mok
Wed, March 8, 2023

Years before ChatGPT, two google engineers developed an advanced AI chatbot.Leonardo Munoz/VIEWpress

Ex-Google engineers developed a conversational AI chatbot years ago, per The Wall Street Journal.


But Google execs thwarted their efforts to release it to the public due to safety concerns.


Google is now racing to catch up with Microsoft's AI and plans to release its AI chatbot this year.

Google is expected to release its widely anticipated AI chatbot Bard in the near future. But years ago, two ex-Google engineers pushed their former employer to release a similar chatbot to the public — and they were met with resistance, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal.

Around 2018, Daniel De Freitas, who was a research engineer at Google, started working on an AI side project with the goal of creating a conversational chatbot that mimicked the ways humans speak, former colleagues familiar with the matter told the Journal. Noam Shazeer, a software engineer for Google's AI research unit, later joined the project.

Per the Journal, De Freitas and Shazeer were able to build a chatbot, which they called Meena, that could argue about philosophy, speak casually about TV shows, and generate puns about horses and cows. They believed that Meena could radically change the way people search online, their former colleagues told the Journal.

But their efforts to launch the bot — which they renamed LaMDA, which would become the language model behind Bard — reached an impasse after Google executives said the chatbot didn't adhere to its AI safety and fairness standards, per the Journal. Executives thwarted multiple attempts made by the engineers to send the bot to external researchers, add the chat feature into Google assistant, and launch a demo to the public, the Journal reported.

Frustrated by the executive response, De Freitas and Shazeer left the company near the end of 2021 to start their own company called Character Technologies Inc. — despite CEO Sundar Pichai personally requesting they stay and continue working on the chatbot, per the Journal. Their company, which now goes by Character.ai, has since released a chatbot that can roleplay as figures like Elon Musk or Nintendo's Mario.

"It caused a bit of a stir inside of Google," Shazeer said in an interview with investors Aarthi Ramamurthy and Sriram Krishnan last month. "But eventually we decided we'd probably have more luck launching stuff as a startup."

De Freitas and Shazeer declined an interview request from the Journal, and did not respond to Insider's request for comment. Google did not respond to Insider's request for comment.

Google has been thwarting its AI efforts since 2012

Google's hesitancy to release its AI tools is nothing new.

In 2012, Google hired computer scientist Ray Kurzweil to work on its language processing models, TechCrunch reported. About one year later, Google bought British AI firm DeepMind which aimed to create artificial general intelligence, per TechCrunch.

However, academics and tech experts pushed back on using the tech due to ethical concerns around mass surveillance, the Journal reported, and Google committed to limit how it would use AI. In 2018, Google ended its project to use its AI tech in military weapons in response to employee backlash, per the Journal.

But Google's AI plans may now finally see the light of day, even as discussions around whether its chatbot can be responsibly launched continue. The company's chatbot, Bard, will come after Microsoft — whose stock is on the rise — released its own chatbot through Bing.

After Google's Bard chatbot generated a factual error during its first public demo last month, Google employees were quick to call the announcement "rushed" and "botched." Alphabet chairman John Hennessy agreed that Google's chatbot wasn't "really ready for a product yet."

CEO Pichai has asked all Google employees to spend two to four hours of their time helping test the product so it can be ready for launch.

"I know this moment is uncomfortably exciting, and that's to be expected: the underlying technology is evolving rapidly with so much potential," Pichai wrote to Google employees in a February memo.

"The most important thing we can do right now is to focus on building a great product and developing it responsibly," he said.

CUT DEFENSE BY 90%
If you want to balance the budget without raising taxes or cutting defense, Social Security, and Medicare, you'd probably have to fire nearly every park ranger and cut 70% of anti-poverty spending


Juliana Kaplan,Ayelet Sheffey
Tue, March 7, 2023



Republicans want to reduce the deficit, and they've suggested a range of areas to cut spending.

An analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Budget found balancing the budget would require some massive cuts.

That is, if tax increases, defense spending, Social Security, and Medicare remain off the table.

Right now, all eyes are on what Congress wants to spend on — or decide to chip away at.

Republicans want to pare down the deficit, and it's something that Democrats seem to be open to, as well. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said that the upcoming White House budget will have "substantial deficit reduction over the next decade," according to Reuters, and Democrats are willing to discuss cost-cutting measures with Republicans independent of the debt ceiling.


But if the government wants to get serious about its spending, it'll have to make some pretty big cuts, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB). According to a CRFB analysis, all government spending would have to be reduced by 27% to get budgets balanced in the next decade — and, if tax increases, defense spending, Social Security, and Medicare are all off the table, 78% of spending would have to be cut.

That "effectively means you're eliminating almost all of government other than the military and programs specifically for middle class seniors," Marc Goldwein, a senior policy director at CRFB, told Insider. "It's just not realistic."

As the New York Times notes in its visualization of CRFB's analysis, to close the gap between now and 2033 would require $16 trillion in spending cuts — the same size as all of Social Security, or all of Medicare plus every anti-poverty program.

"The thing is the government has basically three gigantic programs and it's the US military, Social Security, and Medicare," Goldwein said. As Nobel-Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman once wrote, the US government is "best thought of as a giant insurance company with an army."

With the military, Social Security, and Medicare off the table for cuts, it means other programs would have to be on the cutting block to balance the books. That means you would have to say goodbye to things like visiting national parks, and accessing food assistance programs, as the New York Times reports.

"The idea we're just going to eliminate all parts of government other than Social Security, Medicare, and defense — it's just not realistic, or desirable," Goldwein said.

Spending cuts are the name of the game in Congress right now. House Republicans have floated a number of areas in which they would support cutting spending in a potential debt ceiling deal to keep the US on top of paying its bills. Rather than agreeing to a clean debt ceiling increase, they are using the opportunity to negotiate with Democrats to achieve their own policy priorities.

For example, Republicans on the House Budget Committee said last month that they are on board with cutting spending for environmental programs and federal student-debt relief plans, and some GOP lawmakers have reportedly been chatting with former President Donald Trump's budget official, who has been pitching his 104-page plan with suggested budget cuts for every federal agency.

The Republican Study Committee also released a blueprint to balance the budget in seven years last year, which included making Trump's tax cuts permanent and ensuring Social Security's solvency by gradually raising the retirement age. An increase in the retirement age would translate into substantial lifetime benefit cuts for future retirees.

While it remains unclear what exactly Republicans are eyeing in a final deal, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy has vowed that cuts to Social Security and Medicare are off the table. Still, that hasn't stopped some GOP lawmakers from discussing changes to the programs, like the previously mentioned increase in the retirement age to 70.

Trump, who has frequently urged his party to preserve the two programs, blasted the idea during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) last week, saying that "we're not going back to people that want to destroy our great Social Security system, even some in our own party."

Goldwein thinks measures like putting caps on appropriations spending, reducing healthcare spending, restoring solvency to major funds, and tax reforms could help.

Biden is expected to unveil his federal budget plan on Thursday in Philadelphia, during which he will "deliver remarks on his plans to invest in America, continue to lower costs for families, protect and strengthen Social Security and Medicare, reduce the deficit, and more," the White House said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Democrats await Republicans' plan to move ahead with a deal to raise the debt ceiling before the US defaults.

"The GOP is divided and unable to unite around a plan to raise the debt ceiling. The hard right demands spending cuts," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote on Twitter. "Will they cut Medicaid? Pell Grants? Food for kids? Speaker McCarthy: It's March 2nd, where is your plan?"