It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Sunday, June 04, 2023
Bright orange ocean water being tested by B.C. scientists
Such blooms regularly appears in the Strait of Georgia, but it's not the most common or most harmful algae.
“Noctiluca blooms can disrupt the overall balance of marine ecosystems as they ‘steal’ food from zooplankton,” she said.
Under a microscope, the organisms "look like giant watermelons with pigtails and they wave those pigtails," said Esenkulova, who has a sample of the orange ocean water in her kitchen. When the water is cold, she can see the organisms trying to catch food.
Such blooms regularly appears in the Strait of Georgia — this one has been seen off Vancouver Island, Salt Spring Island and the Sunshine coast — but it’s not the most common or harmful algae. It also draws a lot of attention from the public, Esenkulova said, for its bright colour.
Sarah Merriam was at Maple Bay Marina near Duncan last Saturday when she spotted the bright orange water.
“It was thick. You couldn’t even see the water, like under the water. It was just straight orange,” said Merriam, who recorded the phenomenon on video.
Merriam thought it looked like red tide, an algae bloom that has toxic effects on people, fish, shellfish, marine mammals and birds.
Esenkulova said Noctiluca blooms do not produce biotoxins and do not cause shellfish poisoning. But that doesn't mean they don't have an impact.
Ocean ecosystem could be impacted by orange bloom
Every year, the Pacific Salmon Foundation provides a summary of its annual observations on oceanography and harmful algae to Fisheries and Oceans Canada. The foundation aims to restore wild Pacific salmon populations and their habitats in British Columbia and the Yukon.
So far, it’s too early to say if the salmon are being impacted by this particular bloom, Esenkulova said.
“We’re not there yet. Right now, we have a lot of data. It takes years to determine this level of impact.”
However, there are short-term impacts that are known, she said.
“It could potentially have a very big impact on the ecosystem,” Esenkulova said. “Once this bloom dies off, there is a decomposition process happening and the dissolved oxygen level in the water drops down and causes hypoxia,” or low oxygen levels.
The Pacific Salmon Foundation will continue to study the algae. The organization relies on the public to alert them to the blooms.
If you see anything unusual in the water, you’re asked to take a photo, note the time and location and collect a water sample. Esenkulova can be reached at sesenkulova@psf.ca.
New Study Is Extremely Embarrassing for Lab-Grown Meat "It’s not a panacea."
Image byGetty / Futurism
Researchers at UC Davis have made a startling discovery that could change the way we view lab-grown meat.
As detailed in a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper, they found that the meat alternative's environmental impact appears to be "orders of magnitude" higher than retail beef you can buy at the grocery store — itself already a very environmentally damaging foodstuff — at least based on current production methods.
If confirmed, the research could be damning: lab-grown meat, long seen as a greener alternative to meat products that don't involve the slaughter of animals, could be more harmful to the environment than the products it's trying to replace.
"Our findings suggest that cultured meat is not inherently better for the environment than conventional beef," said corresponding author Edward Spang, an associate professor at UC Davis, in a statement.\\
"It’s not a panacea."
Fortunately, there could be effective ways to reduce that carbon footprint significantly in the long run, the researchers suggest, meaning that it's not game over for lab-grown meat just yet.
Assessing the cycle of energy needed and the greenhouse gas emissions involved in all stages of producing lab-grown meat compared to conventional beef, they found that the global warming potential — an environmental metric measured in kilograms of CO2 emissions — of lab-grown meat is between four and 25 times greater than the average for beef products sold in stores.
One of the biggest drawbacks, they say, is the need for highly-refined growth media, which are the cultures that allow cells to multiply in a lab setting.
"If companies are having to purify growth media to pharmaceutical levels, it uses more resources, which then increases global warming potential," said lead author and doctoral graduate Derrick Risner, in the statement. "If this product continues to be produced using the 'pharma' approach, it’s going to be worse for the environment and more expensive than conventional beef production."
While the Food and Drug Administration approved the sale of cultured meat in the US last year, no such products are being sold in the country as of the time of writing.
That's despite the emergence of a number of new startups, particularly in Silicon Valley, trying to capitalize on the idea. Many of them, it's worth noting, are still struggling to scale up their operations, nevermind break into the mainstream market.
But there's a growing momentum. Back in March, the FDA deemed a cultivated chicken product produced by cultured meat company Good Meat safe to consume, meaning that it will only need an all-clear from the Department of Agriculture to start selling the product.
Lab-grown meat companies have tried to end their reliance on pharmaceutical-grade ingredients and focus on food-grade ones instead, something that would make growing meat in a lab far more environmentally competitive.
"We believe commercial-scale cultivated meat production will be more sustainable, efficient and healthier for the planet than conventional animal agriculture because we will not be raising and slaughtering billions of animals or using one-third of the planet’s ice-free land to grow food for them," Andrew Noyes, vice president and head of global communications at Good Meat, told the San Francisco Chronicle.
If the companies were to make that switch, cultured meat's global warming potential could end up being anywhere between 80 percent lower to 26 percent higher than conventional beef production, according to the researchers.
But ending their reliance on pharma-grade ingredients is still proving extremely difficult.
"It’s possible we could reduce its environmental impact in the future, but it will require significant technical advancement to simultaneously increase the performance and decrease the cost of the cell culture media," said Spang in the statement.
In the meantime, Spang is working with Bay Area companies to develop the tech further. For now, he told the Chronicle that we'll likely see more companies combining cultured meat with other plant-based ingredients to make it more competitive with meat products.
While the numbers paint a damning picture of the current state of the lab-grown meat industry, researchers and cultured meat companies aren't willing to throw in the towel just yet. It may just take a little longer than they might like to get there.
‘Only going to get worse’: Asia’s record-shattering heatwaves raise fears over climate change
People use fans as they gather in a park amid a heatwave warning in Shanghai, China. - Copyright REUTERS/Aly Song/File Photo
By Euronews Green with Reuters
The latest heatwave to hit the continent set temperature records in multiple countries including Vietnam, Thailand, and Singapore as well as cities across China.
Countries across Asia have been hit by another round of extreme heat that has toppled seasonal temperature records throughout the region.
It has raised concerns about the region's ability to adapt to a rapidly changing climate.
After punishing heatwaves struck large parts of the continent in April, temperatures spiked again in late May - normally the start of the cooler monsoon season.
Seasonal highs were registered in China, Southeast Asia and elsewhere. Experts warned that there was more extreme heat to come.
"We can't say that these are events that we need to get used to, and adapt to, and mitigate against because they are only going to get worse as climate change progresses," said Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, a climate scientist with the University of New South Wales in Australia.
The heatwave in Vietnam, expected to last well into June, has already forced authorities to turn off street lights and ration electricity as air conditioning demand threatened to overwhelm the power grid.
The country recorded its highest temperature ever on 6 May at 44.1C in Thanh Hoa province, about 150 km south of Hanoi. Another province came close to the record on Wednesday31 May, hitting 43.3C.
Vietnam's national weather forecaster warned on Thursday of residential fire risks due to high power consumption. With temperatures set to range from 35C and 39C in the coming days, it also warned of the risks of dehydration, exhaustion and heat strokes.
A woman uses a fan as she wears a cloth that protects her from the sun on a street, amid a heatwave warning in Shanghai.REUTERS/Aly Song/File Photo
In China, Shanghai endured its hottest May day in more than a century on Monday. A day later, a weather station in the southeastern tech manufacturing hub of Shenzhen also set a May record of 40.2C. The heatwave is set to continue across the south for a few more days.
India, Pakistan and southeast Asia already experienced a punishing heatwave in April, causing widespread infrastructure damage and a surge in heat stroke cases. Bangladesh was also at its hottest in 50 years, while Thailand hit a record 45C.
Seasonal temperature records also continued to tumble through May, with steamy Singapore at its hottest for the month in 40 years.
The April heatwave was "30 times more likely" because of climate change, a team of climate researchers said last month. The current temperature spike "is likely to be caused by the same factors," said Chaya Vaddhanaphuti from Thailand's Chiang Mai University, who was part of the team.
India and other countries have established protocols to deal with the health risks arising from extreme heat, opening up public "cool rooms" and imposing restrictions on outdoor work.
But, Vaddhanaphuti said, governments need to plan better - especially to protect more vulnerable communities.
A man carries an air cooler at a market, on a hot summer day in New Delhi, India.ANUSHREE FADNAVIS/REUTERS
But for countries like India, where humidity is already pushing "wet bulb" temperatures to unsafe levels, preparing for the worst might not be enough, said Vikki Thompson, the paper's lead author.
"At some point, we get to the limit of humans actually being able to cope with the temperatures," she said. "There could be a point where nobody could cope with them."
As many as 2 billion people will be exposed to dangerous heat if the world remains on its current track to rise an average of 2.7C this century, with India likely to be the worst hit, scientists warned in another study published last week.
Cutting cow numbers isn’t the answer to curbing CO2 emissions, say French farmers
A herd of Charolais cows, in a meadow in Saint Cosmes-en-Vairais northwestern France. - Copyright Jean-François MONIER / AFP
Cattle farmers say calls to cut the number of cows would mean more imported meat.
France needs to have fewer cows to meet climate change commitments, according to the Cour des Comptes - an independent court in charge of auditing public funds.
The French government recently unveiled a plan to speed up cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. It includes a target reduction of 50 per cent by 2030 compared with levels in 1990.
Included in this plan is a goal to reduce emissions from agriculture by almost 20 per cent during the same period - but there aren’t any details yet on how France will do this.
With 17 million cows, cattle farms in France are thought to generate nearly half of all agricultural emissions. Overall, they make up 12 per cent of France’s total emissions.
In its ruling, the court wrote “the state of cattle farming is not favourable for the climate” adding that, despite other efforts to reduce greenhouse gases like fixing carbon in the soil, overall emissions still remained very high.
The report from the Cour des Comptes, released on Monday (22 May), came as Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne presented the new plan to cut carbon emissions across all sectors.
Farmers milk cows on the eve of the opening day of the Agriculture fair in Paris on February 24, 2023.STEPHANE DE SAKU
It asked the Ministry of Agriculture to define its strategy to reduce methane emissions which it says “necessarily requires a significant reduction in the herd”. The court said the ministry had already communicated its aim to reduce cattle herds from 17 million to 15 million by 2035 then 13.5 million by 2050
It also added that France would still be able to produce enough meat to feed its population without imports if the public stuck to guidelines which recommend eating no more than 500g a week.
French cattle farmers say cutting the number of cows in the country isn’t the answer.
The French Interprofessional Association for Cattle and Meat, Interbev, said in a statement that the fields in which cows graze help capture carbon and protect biodiversity.
It also claimed that the continued reduction in cattle herds would “accentuate the increase in imported meat” asking “Are we really ready to sacrifice our sustainable farming model and food sovereignty?”
“This is why Interbev deplores the fact that the climate issue is too often reduced to carbon issues alone,” the association added.
Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Marc Fesneau made a lengthy post on Twitter in response to the debate. He said that recommendations for a “forced downsizing” were “curious if not out of touch with reality.”
Fesneau asked whether it would mean an increase in imported food and if “in a hypocritical way” these emissions needed to feed the country wouldn’t be counted in its total.
Cour des Comptes pointed out that low earnings and harsh working conditions were already causing farms to downscale or close. The number of cows in France has already dropped from 20.3 million in 2000.
The court recommended that “farmers in difficulty” should be compensated to allow them to “turn to other systems of production” or “change professional direction”.
Rhythmically stimulating the brain with electrical currents could boost cognitive function, according to analysis of over 100 studies
By Shrey Grover, Boston University
The Conversation
May 28, 2023
Research suggests that brain cells communicate effectively when they coordinate the rhythm of their firing. (File photo: Fakurian Design/Unsplash)
Figuring out how to enhance a person’s mental capabilities has been of considerable interest to psychology and neuroscience researchers like mefor decades. From improving attention in high-stakes environments, like air traffic management, to reviving memory in people with dementia, the ability to improve cognitive function can have far-reaching consequences. New research suggests that brain stimulation could help achieve the goal of boosting mental function.
During this procedure, people wear an elastic cap embedded with electrodes that deliver weak electrical currents oscillating at specific frequencies to their scalp. By applying these controlled currents to specific brain regions, it is possible to alter brain activity by nudging neurons to fire rhythmically.Another type of transcranial electric stimulation, tDCS, applies a direct electrical current to the brain.
Why would rhythmically firing neurons be beneficial? Research suggests that brain cells communicate effectively when they coordinate the rhythm of their firing. Critically, these rhythmic patterns of brain activity show marked abnormalities during neuropsychiatric illnesses. The purpose of tACS is to externally induce rhythmic brain activity that promotes healthy mental function, particularly when the brain might not be able to produce these rhythms on its own.
However, tACS is a relatively new technology, and how it works is still unclear. Whether it can strengthen or revive brain rhythms to change mental function has been a topic of considerable debate in the field of brain stimulation. While some studies find evidence of changes in brain activity and mental function with tACS, others suggest that the currents typically used in people might be too weak to have a direct effect.
When faced with conflicting data in the scientific literature, it can be helpful to conduct a type of study called a meta-analysis that quantifies how consistent the evidence is across several studies. A previous meta-analysis conducted in 2016 found promising evidence for the use of tACS in changing mental function. However, the number of studies has more than doubled since then. The design of tACS technologies has also become increasingly sophisticated.
We set out to perform a new meta-analysis of studies using tACS to change mental function. To our knowledge, this work is the largest and most comprehensive meta-analysis yet on this topic, consisting of over 100 published studies with a combined total of more than 2,800 human participants.
After compiling over 300 measures of mental function across all the studies, we observed consistent and immediate improvement in mental function with tACS. When we examined specific cognitive functions, such as memory and attention, we observed that tACS produced the strongest improvements in executive function, or the ability to adapt in the face of new, surprising or conflicting information.
We also observed improvements in the ability to pay attention and to memorize information for both short and long periods of time. Together, these results suggest that tACS could particularly improve specific kinds of mental function, at least in the short term.
To examine the effectiveness of tACS for those particularly vulnerable to changes in mental function, we examined the data from studies that included older adults and people with neuropsychiatric conditions. In both populations, we observed reliable evidence for improvements in cognitive function with tACS.
Interestingly, we also found that a specialized type of tACS that can target two brain regions at the same time and manipulate how they communicate with each other can both enhance or reduce cognitive function. This bidirectional effect on mental function could be particularly useful in the clinic. For example, some psychiatric conditions like depression may involve a reduced ability to process rewards, while others like bipolar disorder may involve a highly active reward processing system. If tACS can change mental function in either direction, researchers may be able to develop flexible and targeted designs that cater to specific clinical needs.
Developments in the field of tACS are bringing researchers closer to being able to safely enhance mental function in a noninvasive way that doesn’t require medication. Current statistical evidence across the literature suggests that tACS holds promise, and improving its design could help it produce stronger, long-lasting changes in mental function.
Admittedly, when you consider how many redevelopments happen across the province every month, those outside Vancouver could consider it overkill.
But it’s been a powerful debate because of the confluence of issues the parking lot represents: across the street from the Chinese Cultural Centre, two blocks from the Downtown Eastside, owned by one the city’s most prominent developers.
However, there are strong reasons to believe that this vote, unlike those in the past, will move the project forward.
First, all the people involved in rejecting the original tower — first at the council table, then at the permit board — are no longer with the city. The only person on the permit board who voted against killing the project in 2017 is now Vancouver’s city manager, Paul Mochrie. The city has already lost one lawsuit on the issue and has been ordered by a judge to give better reasons should it reject the project again.
Next, Vancouver’s election brought a new ruling party in ABC Vancouver that has talked consistently about building more housing and has explicitly talked about a change in focus for Chinatown, with one councillor alleging “misinformation” and “misleading renderings” by opponents of the proposal.
Third, while in 2017, there were very few Chinatown groups explicitly supporting the proposal, this time around, seven of them have jointly lobbied for its approval.
Beedie also commissioned polling on the proposal, and in a sample size of 330 Vancouver residents contacted my phone, 43 per cent said they supported the project, vs. 22 per cent who said they had mixed feelings, 17 per cent who opposed it, and 18 per cent who said they didn't know.
(The poll was done by Fairview Strategy and has a margin of error of 5.4 per cent 19 times out of 20)
And so the odds seem in favour of the tower being approved. But whatever way the vote goes, the fault lines will remain.
After all, next door to 105 Keefer, there’s a nine–metre-long neon sign saying “Let’s Heal the Divide.”
It was created by Toni Latour, who, on her website for the piece of art, says Chinatown is “a neighbourhood confronted with gentrification, class inversion, and the threat of cultural displacement from urban developers and city rezoning.”
If the tower is approved, the sign will be blocked out.
Crowd of 300 gathers to oppose contentious Vancouver Chinatown condo proposal
Meanwhile, business, cultural groups line up to support Beedie's 111-unit project for 105 Keefer St.
Participants in a rally Thursday at Chinatown Memorial Plaza raise red cards as a sign of protest against developer Beedie’s proposal to build a 111-unit condo building adjacent to the plaza. Photo Mike Howell About 300 people gathered Thursday in Vancouver’s Chinatown to publicly state their opposition to a proposal from a developer to build a nine-storey condo building on a large piece of property in the heart of the historic community.
Beedie (Keefer Street) Holdings Ltd. will go before the city’s development permit board May 29 to make another attempt to get its 111-unit condo development approved at 105 Keefer St., which currently serves as a parking lot and construction material storage area.
The message from speakers Thursday at the Chinatown Memorial Plaza and those interviewed during the rally was clear: they don’t want luxury condos, and the site should be 100 per cent social housing.
“We hope that the government will work with the developer to build luxury condos for low-income tenants,” Zhi Ping Zhang, 70, told the crowd in Cantonese to applause. “Even though we are low-income residents, we are the majority and we need to be united to fight for our rights.”
Zhang, who recently moved out of a single-room-occupancy hotel into social housing in Chinatown, was among a large group of seniors who attended the rally, with some arriving on a bus from a nearby seniors’ home.
Zhi Ping Zhang was one of the speakers at Thursday's rally at Chinatown Memorial Plaza. Photo Mike Howell
Housing that seniors can afford
Members of the Indigenous community and the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users also spoke to the crowd, and emphasized the need for more low-income housing in a city where homelessness and poverty persists, particularly in the Downtown Eastside.
Former city councillor Jean Swanson said the Beedie proposal is opposite of what is needed in Chinatown, which has seen an increase in pricey restaurants and cafes near some of the newer condos built on Main Street.
“What we need is housing that lower-income folks and Chinese seniors can afford,” said Swanson, standing at a microphone in front of a monument in the plaza that honours Chinese-Canadian veterans and railway workers.
“What we get with this project is probably million-dollar condos with residents who can afford Virtuous Pie, but aren’t likely to be customers for Kent’s Kitchen or Gain Wah [on Keefer Street].”
Thursday's rally in Chinatown was held next to the site of Beedie's proposed condo development at 105 Keefer St. Photo Mike Howell
Higher building rejected in 2017
The fight to stop Beedie’s proposal has been a protracted one, with the city at one time discussing a land swap or purchase of the property for $22 million. In 2017, the council of the day opposed the developer’s original 12-storey, 118-foot project.
Reasons given by the Vision Vancouver-dominated council included the building’s design being too bulky and that it would block views and cast shadows on the neighbouring Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden.
They also said the building wouldn’t preserve the heritage and cultural character of Chinatown, and that there wasn’t enough social housing in the plan, although 25 units were included in the project.
Beedie revised its application and reduced the project to nine storeys and 90 feet tall, erasing the need for a rezoning or public hearing. The social housing component was also wiped from the new proposal.
That was the version rejected by the development permit board in a 2-1 vote in 2017.
Beedie refused to accept the decision and took legal action, which led to a B.C. Supreme Court ruling in December 2022 that has allowed the developer to make another pitch Monday to the development permit board.
That pitch will be for the identical proposal rejected in 2017.
Jade Ho of the Vancouver Tenants' Union with seniors Thursday in Chinatown. Mike Howell
'We've got to try again'
Jade Ho, one of the organizers of the rally and a member of the Vancouver Tenants’ Union, acknowledged the difficult task to convince three members of the development permit board to reject Beedie’s proposal for a second time.
“We have to try, right, because this is really important to the community,” Ho told Glacier Media. “And what we experienced in 2017 [with the development permit board’s rejection of the proposal] tells us that, yes, we can do it. So we’ve got to try again.”
Ho said the rally was organized to give people who wouldn’t otherwise go to city hall a venue to express their views, whether that be in English, Mandarin or Cantonese, which were all spoken and translated during the event.
“The processes of the city have been really inaccessible to the low-income residents in Chinatown and in the Downtown Eastside,” she said. “A decision that will make a such a big impact in the community should really be made by the residents here, by the people here.”
None of the development permit board members who voted in the 2017 decision will vote Monday, with Gil Kelley and Jerry Dobrovolny both having left their posts at city hall; city manager Paul Mochrie remains, but he will not cast a vote.
The voting members are expected to be the city’s director of planning, Theresa O’Donnell, head engineer Lon LaClaire and Andrea Law, general manager of development, buildings and licensing.
'Unprecedented, collective display of support'
The day before the rally, Chinatown Business Improvement Association Society president Jordan Eng circulated a news release saying the organization along with six others, including cultural associations, support Beedie’s proposal.
The others are the Chinese Benevolent Association of Vancouver, Chinese Freemasons of Vancouver, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden Society, Chinese Cultural Center of Greater Vancouver, Vancouver Chinatown Merchants’ Association and Vancouver Chinatown Foundation
“This is an unprecedented, collective display of support for our community, when it comes to development,” Eng said.
“While our community was divided over this issue [with Beedie's original 12-storey proposal], much has changed since then and today. We stand united in support for this project, and for the continued renewal of Chinatown; this important, historic and cultural jewel in our city.”
In an accompanying letter to the development permit board, the seven organizations outlined reasons to support the project, saying that with the exception of a long-ago closed gas station, the site has been a vacant parking lot for more than 50 years “and exists as an eyesore in the heart of Chinatown.”
“The proposal will add 111 units of housing without displacing existing residents and businesses,” they said in their letter. “More feet on the street will help reverse the descent of the district into further street disorder.”
Eng has said previously that more affordable housing is needed in Chinatown for seniors, and that he and other leaders in the community are working with the city to ensure more gets built as part of the Northeast False Creek Plan, which requires the Dunsmuir and Georgia viaducts to first be demolished.
Glacier Media contacted Beedie this week for comment on the protest and the support of the Chinatown organizations, but had not received a response by the time this story was posted.
In a previous statement, Rob Fiorvento, managing partner at Beedie, said “we continue to believe the 105 Keefer project will provide many benefits for Vancouver’s Chinatown, especially given the focus on revitalizing the neighbourhood since the development permit board‘s decision in 2017.”
The development permit board hearing begins at 3 p.m. Monday.
