Navalny learns about documentary’s Oscar win during court hearing

13 March 2023, 

95th Academy Awards – Show. Picture: PA

The 46-year-old was attending a court hearing via video link from the prison when his lawyer broke the news to him, according to his spokeswoman.

Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny learned from his lawyer that a film detailing his poisoning and political activism won the Oscar for best documentary feature.

The 46-year-old politician was attending a court hearing via video link from the prison when his lawyer broke the news to him about the documentary Navalny, by director Daniel Roher, according to his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh.

She called it “the most remarkable announcement of an (Oscar) win in history”.

Ms Yarmysh did not report what Navalny’s initial reaction was to the Oscar win.

Yulia Abrosimova, second from left, and members of the crew from Navalny accept the award for best documentary feature film at the Oscars in Los Angeles (Chris Pizzello/AP)

According to Ms Yarmysh, Navalny faced a court hearing in Kovrov, a town near where the prison is located in the Vladimir region east of Moscow.

President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critic participated in the hearing on a complaint he filed against Russian penitentiary officials.

At a briefing, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to comment on the Oscar win, saying that he has not seen the film and thus “it wouldn’t make sense to say anything” about it.

He added that “Hollywood sometimes does not shun politicising its work”.

Monday’s hearing was on one of the many lawsuits the defiant Navalny has filed against prison administrators over what he alleges are violations of his rights.

Two more hearings were scheduled, but those were postponed until later dates.

The documentary portrays Navalny’s career of fighting official corruption, his near-fatal poisoning with a nerve agent in 2020 that he blames on the Kremlin, and his five-month recuperation in Germany and his 2021 return to Moscow, where he was immediately taken into custody at the airport.

He was later sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison and last year was convicted and given another nine-year term.

Daniel Roher, from left, Odessa Rae, Diane Becker, Melanie Miller and Shane Boris, winners of the award for best documentary feature film for Navalny, in the press room at the Oscars (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Navalny has faced unrelenting pressure from authorities.

He spent several weeks in isolation in a tiny “punishment cell” and last month was placed in a restricted housing unit for six months.

He is effectively deprived of phone calls or visits from his family.

At the ceremony on Sunday night in Los Angeles, Roher accepted his Oscar by saying he dedicated it to Navalny and to all political prisoners around the world.

“Alexei, the world has not forgotten your vital message to us all: We must not be afraid to oppose dictators and authoritarianism wherever it rears its head,” he said.

Navalny’s wife, Yulia, also spoke, saying: “My husband is in prison just for telling the truth. My husband is in prison just for defending democracy.

“Alexei, I am dreaming of the day you will be free and our country will be free. Stay strong, my love.”

It’s a very important victory and I was unspeakably glad

Lyubov Sobol, Alexei Navalny's longtime ally

His daughter Dasha told reporters at the event that the only way the family is able to stay in touch with him is through letters, and defence lawyers are able to visit him occasionally.

His health is deteriorating, she said, which is worrying.

Lyubov Sobol, Navalny’s longtime ally, said in an interview with The Associated Press that the documentary’s success represented “an important signal that the world sees the efforts to fight for democracy in Russia, the world supports brave and courageous people who have challenged Vladimir Putin and have been fighting the unequal battle with evil, which is now tormenting the entire world and Ukraine in the first place”.

“It’s a very important victory and I was unspeakably glad,” Ms Sobol said.

By Press Association

UNITED KINGDOM

Junior doctors begin three-day strike

The BMA says that newly qualified medics make £14.09 an hour, less than a barista in a coffee shop.

Basit Mahmood Today

Junior doctors have begun three days of strike action from today, over poor pay and conditions.

The British Medical Association (BMA) says that junior doctors have experienced a cut of more than 25% to their salaries since 2008/09 and warns that the lack of investment in wages by the Government has made it harder to recruit and retain junior doctors.

The Tories have refused to negotiate with the BMA on junior doctor pay restoration, which the body says has left it with no choice but to call for a NHS junior doctors’ strike.

Members of the British Medical Association (BMA) in England will form picket lines outside hospitals across the country today in the longest-ever period of industrial action by junior doctors.

The BMA says that newly qualified medics make £14.09 an hour, less than a barista in a coffee shop.

An advertising campaign launched by the trade union says: “Pret a Manger has announced it will pay up to £14.10 per hour. A junior doctor makes just £14.09.

“Thanks to this government you can make more serving coffee than saving patients. This week junior doctors will take strike action so they are paid what they are worth.”

As many as 61,000 junior – or trainee – doctors will take part in strike action this week.

Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward

Thousands of junior doctors go on strike across England to demand better pay

Doctor's trade union claimed junior medics earn only $17 an hour

Published March 13, 2023 

Tens of thousands of junior doctors went on strike across England on Monday to demand better pay, kicking off three days of widespread disruption at the U.K.'s state-funded hospitals and health clinics.

Junior doctors — who are qualified but in the earlier years of their career — make up 45% of all doctors in the National Health Service. Their walkout means that operations and appointments will be canceled for thousands of patients, and senior doctors and other medics have had to be drafted in to cover for emergency services, critical care and maternity services.

The British Medical Association, the doctors' trade union, says pay for junior doctors has fallen 26% in real terms since 2008, while workload and patient waiting lists are at record highs. The union says burnout and the U.K.'s cost-of-living crisis are driving scores of doctors away from the public health service.

The union said newly qualified medics earn just $17 an hour.

"All that junior doctors are asking is to be paid a wage that matches our skill set," said Rebecca Lissman, 29, a trainee in obstetrics and gynaecology. "We love the NHS, and I don’t want to work in private practice, but I think we are seeing the erosion of public services."

"I want to be in work, looking after people, getting trained. I don’t want to be out here striking, but I feel that I have to," she added.

Other health workers, including nurses and paramedics, have also staged strikes in recent months to demand better pay and conditions. NHS figures show that more than 100,000 appointments have already been postponed this winter as a result of the nurses' walkouts.



Junior doctors picket outside St Thomas' Hospital in Westminster in London, on March 13, 2023. Thousands of junior hospital doctors are due to walk out for three days starting Monday. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Stephen Powis, medical director of NHS England, said the 72-hour strike this week is expected to have the most serious impact and will cause "extensive disruption."

He said some cancer care will likely be affected, alongside routine appointments and some operations.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told reporters on Sunday it was "disappointing that the junior doctors’ union are not engaging with the government." The doctors' union said officials have refused to engage with their demands for months, and that a recent invitation to talks came with "unacceptable" preconditions.

The doctors' strike this week will coincide with mass walkouts by tens of thousands of teachers and civil servants on Wednesday, the day the government unveils its latest budget statement.

A wave of strikes has disrupted Britons’ lives for months, as workers demand pay raises to keep pace with soaring inflation, which stood at 10.1% in January. That was down from a November peak of 11.1%, but is still the highest in 40 years.

Scores of others in the public sector, including train drivers, airport baggage handlers, border staff, driving examiners, bus drivers and postal workers have all walked off their jobs to demand higher pay.

Unions say wages, especially in the public sector, have fallen in real terms over the past decade, and a cost-of-living crisis fueled by sharply rising food and energy prices has left many struggling to pay their bills.

UN commission claims international community, Syrian government didn't react to earthquake quickly enough

Earthquake in Turkey, Syria killed over 50,000

The international community and the Syrian government did not act quickly last month to help people in need in the rebel-held northwest after a deadly earthquake hit Turkey and Syria, a U.N. commission said Monday.

The Feb. 6 magnitude 7.8 earthquake and strong aftershocks that ravaged southern Turkey and northwestern Syria killed more than 50,000 people, including over 6,000 in Syria.

The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria said there should be an investigation into why it took a week to open border crossings for aid to flow. It added that war-torn Syria "now needs a comprehensive cease-fire that is fully respected" for civilians, including aid workers, to be safe.

UNITED NATIONS OFFICIAL SAYS THE SYRIAN DEATH TOLL FROM EARTHQUAKE IS LIKELY TO RISE

It took a week for the U.N. and Syria’s President Bashar Assad’s government to agree on opening two more border crossings into the rebel-held region bordering Turkey as many people were still under the rubble.

"Since the earthquake, we have seen many acts to help victims by the Syrians themselves," commission member Paulo Pinheiro said during a news conference in Geneva. He added that "we also witnessed a complete failure by the government and the international community including United Nations to rapidly direct urgent lifesaving aid for northwest Syria."

Brazilian Paulo Pinheiro, center, Chairperson of the Commission of Inquiry on Syria, talks to the media during a press conference at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, on March 13, 2023. A United Nations commission claims the Syrian government and the international community did not act quickly with earthquake recovery efforts. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP)

"Many days were lost without any aid to survivors of the earthquake," Pinheiro said. "Actors didn’t rapidly direct urgent lifesaving aid to northwest Syria which became the epicenter of neglect."

INITIAL EARTHQUAKE AID DELAYS BLAMED ON SYRIA'S ASSAD, WARRING FACTIONS AND BUREAUCRACY

A week after the earthquake, the U.N. announced that Syrian President Bashir Assad agreed to open for three months two new crossing points from Turkey to the country’s rebel-held northwest to deliver desperately needed aid and equipment to help earthquake victims. Before that, the U.N. had only been allowed to deliver aid to the northwest Idlib area through a single crossing at Bab Al-Hawa, at Syrian ally Russia’s insistence.

"They failed to deliver international emergency support including rescue teams and equipment in the vital first week after the earthquake," Pinheiro said, adding that "Syrians, for good reasons, felt abandoned and neglected by those who (are) supposed to protect them in their most desperate time."

"Many voices are rightly calling ... for an investigation and accountability to understand how this failure, this disaster happened beyond the earthquake," Pinheiro said.

David Attenborough warns ‘nature is in crisis’ as new campaign is launched to halt destruction of UK wildlife

Sir David spoke out as a new campaign, Save Our Wild Isles, has been launched to halt the destruction and “ticking timebomb” of nature across the UK

By Isabella Boneham

2 hours ago

Sir David Attenborough has warned that “nature is in crisis” but is still “hopeful” for the future, as he urges people to save it.

The naturalist spoke out as the charities RSPB Scotland and WWF Scotland joined together to launch an initiative Save Our Wild Isles - aimed at halting the destruction of nature across the UK.

The campaign is calling on people to “go wild once a week” which could include planting wildflower seeds, eating more plant-based food or getting involved in community projects.

Speaking at the start of the Save Our Wild Isles campaign, RSPB Scotland warned that the country’s “amazing wildlife and wild places” are being “destroyed at terrifying speed”.

The charities said there is just enough of the UK’s natural world still left to save, and if everyone works together to aid its recovery, nature can begin to thrive again within the next few decades.

Sir David, a WWF ambassador, said: “The truth is, every one of us, no matter who we are, or where we live, can and must play a part in restoring nature. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed or powerless by the scale of the issues facing our planet, but we have the solutions.

“I am hopeful for the future, because although nature is in crisis, now is the time for action, and together we can save it.”

Almost three quarters of Scots are worried about the state of nature in the UK, according to a YouGov poll commissioned for the Save Our Wild Isles campaign

In Scotland, almost half of bird species have seen their numbers decline since 1994, with one in nine species now threatened with extinction. The poll revealed four out of five Scots want to see all political parties come together to produce an action plan to protect nature.

(Images by NationalWorld/Mark Hall/Getty Images).

‘We need to act fast, but there is hope’

Hilary McGrady, director-general at National Trust, Beccy Speight, chief executive of the RSPB and Tanya Steele, CEO of WWF (UK), said in a joint statement: “Huge numbers of animals, birds and habitats have been quite literally wiped out in our own lifetimes and we must now accept that without urgent and collective action, our economy, the climate and the stability of future generations living in our wild isles all face a ticking timebomb.

“It is a massive challenge, and we need to act fast, but there is hope. The science is clear about what we need to do and there are already amazing people transforming farms, businesses, coasts, urban spaces, transport networks, energy supplies and communities for nature. We just need much more of it.”

Read More

• How old is David Attenborough? Wild Isles star’s age, when and where he was born explained
• Where was Wild Isles filmed? Filming locations for BBC’s David Attenborough documentary series
• David Attenborough: BBC claims Wild Isles was 'always five episodes' amid 'right-wing' censorship row

Scottish bidoversity minister Lorna Slater said the campaign “couldn’t come at a more critical moment in the global fight to end extinctions and restore our natural environment.”

She added: “Here in Scotland we are ramping up action. We are expanding and improving protected areas and investing in nature through our new Nature Restoration Fund.

“We know we need to do more though, and are currently taking forward plans to create at least one new national park and to designate 10% of our waters as Highly Protected Marine Areas.”

While UK Environment Secretary Therese Coffey praised “Sir David’s indefatigable enthusiasm” for “reminding us just how much we have to celebrate and how much we still need to do to protect and restore nature here in the UK.”

She said: “That is why we put in law the requirement to halt the decline in nature and protect the abundance of species, and why we are committed to increasing the amount of habitat for nature to thrive. To protect and restore nature is a truly national endeavour in which we can all play a part.

“That is why I welcome the call to Go Wild Once a Week so everyone – the public, communities, businesses and we in government – can work together to make a difference for nature in this country.”

China's new premier seeks to reassure private sector
Reuters
March 13, 2023


BEIJING (Reuters) — New Chinese Premier Li Qiang sought to reassure the country's private sector on Monday, saying the environment for entrepreneurial businesses will improve and that equal treatment will be given to companies, regardless of ownership type.

Li, installed as premier on Saturday during the annual session of China's parliament, is tasked with reviving the world's second-largest economy after three years of COVID curbs.

But he faces challenges including weak confidence among consumers and private industry, sluggish demand for exports and worsening relations with the United States.

Making his public debut in a wide-ranging media conference, the former Communist Party secretary of Shanghai and close ally of President Xi Jinping also said China will take measures to boost jobs, especially in the services sector.

"Developing the economy is the fundamental solution for creating jobs," Li, 63, said during the televised session at the Great Hall of the People in central Beijing.

China's private sector has been rattled in recent years by a sweeping regulatory clampdown targeting some of its most vibrant industries, including the internet and private education.

At the opening of the annual parliamentary session, China set a GDP growth target of 5% percent, its lowest goal in nearly three decades, after the economy grew just 3% last year.

Achieving the target would not be easy, Li said, with China facing many difficulities this year.

'GREAT WALL OF STEEL'

Earlier on Monday, Xi said China needs security to develop and must modernise its military to make it a "Great Wall of Steel", calling for China to step up its ability to safeguard national security and manage public security.

Xi was speaking for the first time since the National People's Congress, China's parliament, unanimously voted to confirm him in a precedent-breaking third term as China's president.

"Security is the foundation for development, stability is the prerequisite for prosperity," Xi, 69, said at the closing of the annual parliament session.

The ruling Communist Party is expected to tighten party oversight over security matters, a move that comes after Xi replaced top security officials with his trusted allies.

Xi said China will distribute the fruits of development more equitably, in an effort towards "common prosperity", his signature policy of reducing wealth gap by ways such as asking private firms to pitch in.

China must achieve greater self-reliance and strength in science and technology, Xi said, a call that comes as the United States blocks China's access to chip making equipment and other cutting-edge technologies.

On Taiwan, the self-ruled island which China claims its own and a major producer of semiconductors, Xi said China must oppose pro-independence and secessionist activities and the interference of external forces.

China's relations with the United States sank to a low after then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August 2022. China launched unprecedented military drills around Taiwan and halted military dialogue with Washington.

(Reporting by Yew Lun Tian, Ryan Woo and Beijing newsroom; Writing by Tony Munroe; Editing by Kim Coghill and Lincoln Feast.)

Woody Guthrie's family tells Josh Hawley 'This Land Is Your Land' not for use by 'insurrectionists'

David Edwards
March 13, 2023

American folk music singer Woody Guthrie (Al Aumuller/Library of Congress)

The family of the author of "This Land Is Your Land" has called on Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) to stop using the song's lyrics.

The Kansas City Star reported Nora Guthrie, daughter of singer Woody Guthrie, wrote an email asking Hawley to stop using the song to promote his "This Land is Our Land Act," which would prevent U.S. farmland from being owned by anyone associated with the Chinese Communist Party.

Guthrie said politicians have long used "This Land Is Your Land" to promote their campaigns and the U.S.

"In this particular case, the co-opting or parodying of the lyric by those not aligned with Woody's lyrics – i.e. misrepresentation by autocrats, racists, white nationalists, anti-labor, insurrectionists, etc. – is not condoned," Guthrie wrote. "We do not consider Josh Hawley in any way a representative of Woody's values therefore we would never endorse or approve of his reference to Woody's lyrics."

"It is more of a vision of democracy," Guthrie said of the song. "The song simply reiterates the concept, 'By the people, for the people.'"

The paper pointed out that Guthrie has no legal avenue to prevent Hawley from using the lyrics.

Josh Hawley flattened for ignoring massive medical insurance fraud when he was attorney general of Missouri

Tom Boggioni
March 13, 2023

Josh Hawley (Photo by Tom Williams for AFP)


Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) was raked over the coals over the weekend by his hometown newspaper which accused him of ignoring his duties when he was Missouri's attorney general because he was too busy working on raising his national profile.

According to the editorial board of St. Louis Post Dispatch, Hawley dropped the ball when it came to going after executives at a Christian-backed medical insurance company that was accused of defrauding customers.

At issue are accusations lodged against Missouri-based Medical Cost Sharing Inc. which was finally shut down by federal regulators after Hawley and his two successors, Republicans Eric Schmitt and current AG Andrew Bailey, failed to take action.

As the editors wrote, Hawley and Schmitt, who is now the junior senator representing Missouri, did nothing because they "were both too busy with national ideological crusades."

According to the editorial, "Medical Cost Sharing Inc. was essentially a health insurance company. Members paid premiums in exchange for the promise that any future medical bills would be covered — but under the auspices of a Christian-focused nonprofit."

It added, "The Justice Department alleges that using various excuses, the organization routinely refused to pay claims for long-time members who had in some cases been paying as much as $750 a month in premiums for years. Many were left holding five-figure medical bills as the company’s owners pocketed millions. Following FBI raids of the company in December, a judge in January issued an injunction freezing the company’s finances pending further investigation."

Noting that the first allegations against the company were made when Hawley was the AG, the editorial pointed out, "Hawley, who won the office in 2016 with a campaign decrying “ladder-climbing” by politicians, was busy climbing toward the Senate (in large part, ironically enough, by joining a partisan lawsuit against the federal government that would have limited Missourians’ health care options).

Schmitt was also called out for kicking the can down the road to his successor who also did nothing.

Summing up, the editors wrote, "So it took the feds to do the job that three Republican state attorneys general couldn’t be bothered with, because they were too busy feeding red meat to the base. What a perfect illustration of how ill-served Missourians are by an important office that seems more focused on electioneering than upholding the law."

You can read the article here.

Marburg virus outbreaks are increasing in frequency and geographic spread – three virologists explain
The Conversation
March 13, 2023

Marburg virus (Shutterstock)

The World Health Organization confirmed an outbreak of the deadly Marburg virus disease in the central African country of Equatorial Guinea on Feb. 13, 2023. To date, there have been 11 deaths suspected to be caused by the virus, with one case confirmed. Authorities are currently monitoring 48 contacts, four of whom have developed symptoms and three of whom are hospitalized as of publication. The WHO and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are assisting Equatorial Guinea in its efforts to stop the spread of the outbreak.


Marburg virus is structurally similar to the Ebola virus. 

Photo12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Marburg virus and the closely related Ebola virus belong to the filovirus family and are structurally similar. Both viruses cause severe disease and death in people, with fatality rates ranging from 22% to 90% depending on the outbreak. Patients infected by these viruses exhibit a wide range of similar symptoms, including fever, body aches, severe gastrointestinal symptoms like diarrhea and vomiting, lethargy and sometimes bleeding.

We are virologists who study Marburg, Ebola and related viruses. Our laboratory has a long-standing interest in researching the underlying mechanisms of how these viruses cause disease in people. Learning more about how Marburg virus is transmitted from animals to humans and how it spreads between people is essential to preventing and limiting future outbreaks.
Marburg virus disease

Marburg virus spreads between people by close contact only after they show symptoms. It is transmitted through infected body fluids such as blood, and is not airborne. Contact tracing is a potent tool to combat outbreaks. The incubation time, or time between infection and the onset of symptoms, ranges from two to 21 days and typically falls between five and 10 days. This means that contacts must be observed for extended periods for potential symptoms.

Marburg virus cannot be detected before patients are symptomatic. One major cause of the spread of Marbug virus disease is postmortem transmission due to traditional burial procedures, where family and friends typically have direct skin-to-skin contact with people who have died from the disease.

There are currently no approved treatments or vaccines against Marburg virus disease. The most advanced vaccine candidates in development use strategies that have been shown to be effective at protecting against Ebola virus disease.

Without effective treatments or vaccines, Marburg virus outbreak control primarily relies on contact tracing, sample testing, patient contact monitoring, quarantines and attempts to limit or modify high-risk activities such as traditional funeral practices.

What causes Marburg virus outbreaks?

Marburg virus outbreaks have an unusual history.

The first recorded outbreak of Marburg virus disease occurred in Europe. In 1967, laboratory workers in Marburg and Frankfurt in Germany, as well as in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia) were infected with a previously unknown pathogen after handling infected monkeys that had been imported from Uganda. This outbreak led to the discovery of the Marburg virus.

Identifying the virus took only three months, which, at the time, was incredibly fast considering the available research tools. Despite receiving intensive care, seven of the 32 patients died. This case fatality rate of 22% was relatively low compared to subsequent Marburg virus outbreaks in Africa, which have had a cumulative case fatality rate of 86%. It remains unclear if these differences in lethality are due to variability in patient care options or other factors such as distinct viral strains.

Subsequent Marburg virus disease outbreaks occurred in Uganda and Kenya, as well as the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola in Central Africa. In addition to the current outbreak in Equatorial Guinea, recent Marburg virus cases in the West African countries of Guinea in 2021 and Ghana in 2022 highlight that the Marburg virus is not confined to Central Africa.

Strong evidence shows that the Egyptian fruit bat, a natural animal reservoir of Marburg virus, might play an important role in spreading the virus to people. The location of all Marburg virus outbreaks coincides with the natural range of these bats. The large area of Marburg virus outbreaks is unsurprising, given the ecology of the virus. However, the mechanisms of zoonotic, or animal-to-human, spread of Marburg virus still remain poorly understood.


A number of Marburg virus outbreaks are linked to human activity in caves where Egyptian fruit bats are known to roost. 

Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post via Getty Images

The origin of a number of Marburg virus disease outbreaks is closely linked to human activity in caves where Egyptian fruit bats roost. More than half of the cases in a 1998 outbreak in the northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo were among gold miners who had worked in Goroumbwa Mine. Intriguingly, the end of the nearly two-year outbreak coincided with the flooding of the cave and the disappearance of the bats in the same month.

Similarly, in 2007, four men who worked in a gold and lead mine in Uganda where thousands of bats were known to roost became infected with Marburg virus. In 2008, two tourists were infected with the virus after visiting Python Cave in the Maramagambo Forest in Uganda. Both developed severe symptoms after returning to their home countries – the woman from the Netherlands died and the woman from the United States survived.

The geographic range of Egyptian fruit bats extends to large portions of sub-Saharan Africa and the Nile River Delta, as well as portions of the Middle East. There is potential for zoonotic spillover events, to occur in any of these regions.

More frequent outbreaks

Although Marburg virus disease outbreaks have historically been sporadic, their frequency has been increasing in recent years.

The increasing emergence and reemergence of zoonotic viruses, including filoviruses (such as Ebola, Sudan and Marburg viruses), coronaviruses (which cause SARS, MERS and COVID-19), henipaviruses (such as Nipah and Hendra viruses) and Mpox appear to be influenced by both human encroachment on previously undisturbed animal habitats and alterations to wildlife habitat ranges due to climate change.

Most Marburg virus outbreaks have occurred in remote areas, which has helped to contain the spread of the disease. However, the large geographic distribution of Egyptian fruit bats that harbor the virus raises concerns that future Marburg virus disease outbreaks could happen in new locations and spread to more densely populated areas, as seen by the devastating Ebola virus outbreak in 2014 in West Africa, where over 11,300 people died.

Adam Hume, Research Assistant Professor of Microbiology, Boston University; Elke Mühlberger, Professor of Microbiology, Boston University, and Judith Olejnik, Senior Research Scientist, Boston University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Smell is the crucial sense that holds ant society together, helping the insects recognize, communicate and cooperate with one another

The Conversation
March 13, 2023

Ants (Shutterstock)

Ants can be found in nearly every location on Earth, with rough estimates suggesting there are over 10 quadrillion individuals – that is a 1 followed by 16 zeroes, or about 1 million ants per person. Ants are among the most biologically successful animals on the planet.

A surprising part of their evolutionary success is the amazing sense of smell that lets them recognize, communicate and cooperate with one another.

Ants live in complex colonies, sometimes referred to as nests, that are home to a wide range of social interactions. Here, one or more queens are responsible for all the reproduction within that colony. The vast majority of colony members are female workers – sisters that never mate or reproduce and live only to serve the group.

Ants need to defend their colony, seek food and take care of offspring. To accomplish these tasks some ant species domesticate other insects, while others create agricultural systems, harvesting leaves from which they grow edible fungal gardens. Successfully coordinating all these intricate tasks requires reliable and secure communication among nestmates.

We are biologists who study the remarkable sensory abilities of ants. Our recent work shows how their societies depend on the exchange of reliable information which, if disrupted, spells doom for their colonies.

Unique scents

Human communication relies primarily on verbal and visual cues. We usually identify our friends by the sound of their voice, the appearance of their face or the clothes they wear. Ants, however, rely primarily on their acute sense of smell.

An exterior shell, known as an exoskeleton, encases an ant’s body. This greasy coat carries a unique scent that varies from individual to individual and gives each ant a unique odor signature that other ants can detect. This odor signature can communicate important information.

The queen, for example, will smell slightly different from a worker, and thus receive special treatment within the colony. Importantly, ants from different colonies will smell slightly different from one another. The detection and decoding of these differences is vital for colony defense and can trigger aggressive turf wars between colonies when ants catch a whiff of intruders.

Interactions between nestmates are friendly. But when ants sniff out enemy non-nestmates, there is rapid and deadly aggression. Produced by the Zwiebel Lab, Vanderbilt University, filmed by Stephen Ferguson.

For ants and other insects, receiving chemical information begins when an odor enters the small hairs located along their antennae. These hairs are hollow and contain special receptors, called chemosensory neurons, that sort and send the chemical information to the ant’s brain.

Odors, such as those given off from an ant’s greasy coat, act like chemical “keys.” Ants can smell these odor keys only if they are inserted into the correct set of chemosensory neuron “locks.” A neuronal lock remains shut to any odors except its particular key. When the correct key binds to the correct neuronal lock, though, the receptor sends a complex message to the brain. The ant’s brain is able to decode this sensory information to make decisions that ultimately lead to cooperation between nestmates – or battles between non-nestmates.


A colony of carpenter ants (Camponotus floridanus) reared in the Zwiebel Lab at Vanderbilt University. LJ Zwiebel, Vanderbilt University, CC BY-ND

Changing the locks

To better understand how ants detect and communicate information, we use laboratory tools such as precisely targeted drugs and genetic engineering to manipulate their sense of smell. We are especially interested in what happens when an ant’s sense of smell goes wrong.

For example, when we prevent an odor “key” from opening a chemosensory “lock,” it prevents the chemical information from reaching the brain. This would be like plugging your nose or standing in a completely dark room – no scents or sights would register. We can also open all the “locks” at the same time, which floods the neurons with too many messages. Both of these scenarios dramatically compromise an ant’s ability to detect and receive accurate information.

When we messed with ants’ sense of smell – whether shutting down or flooding their odor receptors – we found they no longer attacked non-nestmates. Instead, they became less aggressive. In the absence of clear information, ants exercised restraint and opted to accept rather than attack their fellow ant. Put another way, ants ask questions first and shoot later.

We believe this social restraint is hard-wired and gives ants an evolutionary advantage. When you live in a colony with tens of thousands of sisters, a simple case of mistaken identity or miscommunication could lead to deadly infighting and societal chaos, which is potentially very costly.

When ants in our experiments lose their sense of smell, and their ability to detect accurate information becomes compromised, they no longer stick together in a cohesive colony.

Not only do they fail to recognize and attack foes, they also stop cooperating with their friends. Without nurses to take care of the young or foragers to collect food, the eggs dry up and the queen goes hungry.


We discovered that without an accurate means of communicating and receiving chemical information, ant societies collapse and the colony quickly dies. Miscommunication or the lack of accurate information affects other highly social animals, including humans, as well. For ants, it all depends on their sense of smell.

Laurence Zwiebel, Professor of Biological Sciences and of Pharmacology, Vanderbilt University and Stephen Ferguson, Postdoctoral Scholar in Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The earliest modern humans in Europe mastered bow-and-arrow technology 54,000 years ago

The Conversation
March 13, 2023

Arrows. (Ludovic SLIMAK / EUREKALERT!/AFP)

Based on research in France’s Mandrin cave, in February 2022 we published a study in the journal Science Advances that pushed back the earliest evidence of the arrival of the first Homo sapiens in Europe to 54,000 years ago – 11 millennia earlier than had been previously established.

In the study, we described nine fossil teeth excavated from all the archeological layers in the cave. Eight were determined to be from Neanderthals, but one from one of the middle layers belonged to a paleolithic Homo sapiens. Based on this and other data, we determined that these early Homo sapiens of Europe were later replaced by Neanderthal populations.

The single Homo sapiens tooth was discovered in a remarkable and rich archeological layer that also included approximately 1,500 tiny stone blades or bladelets – some were less than 1 centimeter in length. They were all part of the “Neronian” tradition, named in 2004 by one of us, Ludovic Slimak, after the Néron cave in France’s Ardèche region. Neronian stone tools are distinctive and there were no similar points found in the layers left behind by the Neanderthals who inhabited the rock shelter before and after. They also bear striking parallels with those made by other Homo sapiens along the east Mediterranean coast, as exemplified at the site of Ksar Akil northeast of Beirut.


View of archeological excavations at the entrance of France’s Mandrin cave. Ludovic Slimak, CC BY-ND

This month in the journal Science Advances, we published a study announcing that the humans who arrived in Europe some 54,000 years ago had mastered the use of bows and arrows. This discovery pushes back the origin in Eurasia of these remarkable technologies by approximately 40,000 years.

The emergence in prehistory of mechanically propelled weapons – spears or arrows sent on their way by throwing sticks (atlatl) or bows – is commonly perceived as one of the hallmarks of the advance of modern human populations into the European continent. However, the origin of archery has always been archeologically difficult to trace because the materials used tend to disappear from the fossil record.

Archaeological invisibility

Armatures – hard points made of stone, horn or bone – constitute the main evidence of weapon technologies in the European Paleolithic. Materials associated with archery – wood, fibers, leather, resins, and sinew – are perishable, however, and so are rarely preserved. This makes archaeological recognition of these technologies difficult.

Partially preserved archery equipment was found in Eurasia only in more recent times, between 10 and 12 millennia ago, and in frozen ground or peat bogs, as at the Stellmoor site in Germany. Based on the analysis of armatures, archery is now well documented in Africa approximately 70,000 years ago. While some flint or deer-antler armatures suggest the existence of archery from the early phases of the Upper Paleolithic in Europe more than 35,000 years ago, their shape and how they were hafted – attached to a shaft or handle – do not allow confirmation that they were propelled by a bow.

More recent armatures from the European Upper Paleolithic bear similarities to each other, not allowing us to clearly determine whether they were propelled by a bow or an atlatl. This makes the possible existence of archery during the European Upper Paleolithic archeologically plausible, but difficult to establish.

Experimental replicas

The stone points found in the Mandrin cave are both extremely light (30% weigh hardly more than a few grams) and small (almost 40% of these tiny points present a maximum width of 10mm).

To determine how they could have been propelled, the first step was to make experimental replicas. We then hafted the newly made points into shafts and tested how they behaved when shot with bows and spear-throwers, or by simply thrusting them. This allowed us to test their ballistic characteristics, limits and efficiency.


The tiny experimental points were used as arrowheads and shot by bow or atlatl, and the resulting fractures were compared with the scars found on the archeological material. Laure Metz, Slimak Ludovic, CC BY-ND


After our experimental replicas were shot, we examined the fractures that resulted and compared them with those found on the archeological material. The fractures and scars show that they were distally hafted – attached to the split end of a shaft. Their small size and especially narrow width allow us to conclude how they were fired: only high-speed propulsion by a bow was possible, our analysis determined.



Nanotechnologies of the first Homo sapiens in Europe. More than 1,500 points were found abandoned by these earliest modern humans during their stay in Mandrin cave. This very light point, found in the cave’s Layer E, is dated to 54,000 years old and presents diagnostic microscopic scars of its use as a weapon. Laure Metz, Ludovic Slimak, CC BY-ND

The data from the Mandrin cave and the tests that we performed enrich our knowledge of these technologies in Europe and now allow us to push back the age of archery in Europe by more than 40,000 years.

Our study also sheds light on the weaponry of these Neanderthal populations, who were contemporaries of the Neronian modern humans. Neanderthals did not develop mechanically propelled weapons and continued to use their traditional weapons based on the use of massive stone-tipped spears that were thrust or thrown by hand, and thus requiring close contact with the game they hunted. The traditions and technologies mastered by these two populations were thus distinct, illustrating a remarkable objective technological advantage for modern populations during their expansion into Europe.

Not only do these discoveries profoundly reshape our knowledge of Neanderthals and modern humans in Western Europe, but they also raise many questions about the structure and organization of these different populations on the continent. Technical choices are not solely the result of the cognitive capacities of differing hominin populations, but may also have depended on the weight of traditions within these Neanderthal and modern human populations.

To deepen one’s understanding the complex question of the relationship between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals during the first migration to the European continent, the reader can turn to Ludovic Slimak’s book “Néandertal nu” (Odile Jacob 2022), soon available from Penguin books as “The Naked Neanderthal”.

Laure Metz, Archéologue et chercheuse en anthropologie, Aix-Marseille Université (AMU); Jason E. Lewis, Lecturer of Anthropology and Assistant Director of the Turkana Basin Institute, Stony Brook University (The State University of New York), and Ludovic Slimak, CNRS Permanent Member, Université Toulouse – Jean Jaurès

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Bow: A Techno-Mythic Hermeneutic--Ancient Greece and the Mesolithic

• September 1981
• Journal of the American Academy of Religion XLIX(3)

DOI:10.1093/jaarel/XLIX.3.425

Authors:

James B. Harrod

• Jim's Lab for Research on the Origins of Art Religion and Symbols