Unveiling the secret of viruses-bacteria interactions in man-made environments

CITY UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG

 

IMAGE: PROFESSOR PATRICK LEE KWAN-HON (RIGHT) IN THE SCHOOL OF ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT (SEE) AT CITYU, MISS DU SHICONG (LEFT), PHD STUDENT IN SEE AND THE TEAM COLLECTED SAMPLES FROM DIFFERENT TYPES OF MAN-MADE ENVIRONMENTS IN HONG KONG FOR THE RESEARCH. view more 

CREDIT: CITY UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG

Viruses in man-made environments cause public health concerns, but they are generally less studied than bacteria. A recent study led by environmental scientists from City University of Hong Kong (CityU) provided the first evidence of frequent interactions between viruses and bacteria in man-made environments. It found that viruses can potentially help host bacteria adapt and survive in nutrient-depleted man-made environments through a unique gene insertion.

By understanding these virus–bacteria interactions and identifying the possible spread of antibiotic resistance genes, the research team hopes its latest findings can help derive effective control strategies to minimize human exposure to harmful microorganisms.

Virus–host interactions are central to the ecology and evolution of microbial communities in diverse ecosystems. However, the immune mechanisms of infection and the virus–host interactions that occur in man-made environments, including buildings, public space, transportation and infrastructure, have been poorly understood. 

“As more and more of the global population are living in urban areas, the importance of hygiene in man-made environments is growing, particularly indoor ones, as occupants inside are constantly exposed to diverse microorganisms, which have public health implications. However, most previous studies of man-made environments overlooked viruses,” said Professor Patrick Lee Kwan-Hon in the School of Energy and Environment (SEE) at CityU, who led the study.

“Therefore, in our study, we comprehensively investigated viruses in man-made environments, and we identified many novel molecular mechanisms in which viruses and bacteria interact with each other. These findings are important not only for basic microbial science, but also the management of man-made environments to protect residents’ health,” added Professor Lee. 

In the study, researchers collected 738 samples from different types of man-made environments, including public facilities and residences, in Hong Kong. They collected the samples mainly from the surfaces of handrails, bollards, floors, poles, doorknobs and skin of residents. Then they used the metagenomic sequencing technique for analysis.

The analysis resulted in many interesting discoveries. First, the data showed that viruses are integral members of microbial communities in man-made environments. Among them, bacteriophages, a kind of virus that infects and replicates within bacteria, are all over various surfaces in man-made environments. The team also identified many viruses that are distinct from those in other ecosystems.

Second, the team found evidence of viruses inserting genes that control a specific step in a metabolic pathway and even the entire metabolic pathway into bacteria hosts. This suggests that viruses could help bacteria adapt and coevolve to survive in nutrient-depleted man-made environments. 

The study also found diverse and novel immune systems against viruses in bacteria, and small proteins in viruses that can evade bacteria immune systems. These results suggest that viruses and bacteria hosts frequently interact with each other in man-made environments and that they each have mechanisms to defend against each other.

They also detected antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in viruses on human skin and frequently touched indoor surfaces. These ARG-carrying viruses might infect bacterial hosts, and ARGs might be horizontally transferred between bacterial species. Therefore, the role played by viruses in man-made environments in the development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria is crucial and warrants further investigation.

“Our study shows that the diversity, composition, metabolic functions and lifestyle of viruses vary, depending on the conditions of each man-made environment,” said Professor Lee. “Therefore, it is important to develop customized control strategies to minimize human exposure to harmful microorganisms and to better protect residents’ health. Our findings can contribute to this goal by enhancing the fundamental understanding of complex virus–bacteria interactions in man-made environments.” 

The findings were published in the scientific journal Nature Communications under the title “Highly host-linked viromes in the built environment possess habitat-dependent diversity and functions for potential virus-host coevolution”.

Network diagram illustrating viruses and their predicted bacterial hosts in various man-made environments. The circles and diamonds indicate the predicted bacterial hosts (at the family taxonomic level) and viruses, respectively, and the edges are coloured according to the prediction methods. The frequency of virus–host links occurring in a habitat is shown on the right

Schematic illustrating the insertion of genes by a virus into a bacteria host, disrupting the host genome or providing beneficial metabolic functions for the host.

CREDIT

Du, S. et al, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-38400-0

The first author is Miss Du Shicong, PhD student in SEE, and the corresponding author is Professor Lee. Other team members include Professor Alvin Lai Chi-Keung, Professor Chan Chak-Keung and Dr Tong Xinzhao, from SEE, and Professor Christopher E. Mason, from Weill Cornell Medicine.

The research is supported by the Research Grants Council’s Research Impact Fund and the General Research Fund in Hong Kong. 

https://www.cityu.edu.hk/research/stories/2023/07/06/unveiling-secret-viruses-bacteria-interactions-man-made-environments

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JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-023-38400-0 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Highly host-linked viromes in the built environment possess habitat-dependent diversity and functions for potential virus-host coevolution

Wastewater monitoring could act as pandemic early warning system

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MURDOCH CHILDRENS RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Wastewater monitoring could act as an early warning system to help countries better prepare for future pandemics, according to a new study.

An international collaboration involving Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, The Rockefeller Foundation, Mathematica and the United Kingdom’s Health Security Agency has shed light on how different countries monitor wastewater during infectious diseases outbreaks and where improvements could be made.

For the study, samples from treatment plants, rivers, wetlands and open drains were reported from 43 nations, spanning six continents, during 2022.

Murdoch Children’s and University of Melbourne Professor Julie Bines, who worked with colleagues from Universitas Gadjah Mada in Yogjakarta, said the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for robust and resilient disease surveillance systems.

“Despite decades of funding being directed into global infectious disease surveillance and warning signs that came from both traditional and non-traditional data sources, much of the world was caught off-guard by the rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2,” she said.

“The pandemic could potentially have unfolded differently if there had been a dedicated surveillance system that was on constant alert, transmitting information about pathogens circulating in the environment across the globe. With such a system in place, experts may have identified SARS-CoV-2 far more quickly. Even if pandemic spread was inevitable, health-care systems could have better prepared for the fallout with more advanced notice, saving many lives.”

The research, published in The Lancet Global Health, found monitoring for SARS-CoV-2 variants was more common in high income countries (59 per cent) than lower middle-income countries (13 per cent). Most data was shared internally and with partner organisations but not publicly and there were no comprehensive guidelines to promote ethical wastewater monitoring practices.

“We found testing for COVID-19 in wastewater was an effective and objective way to measure where the disease was spreading, with most samples processed in less than four days,” Professor Bines said.

Professor Bines said with ongoing attention and investment, wastewater surveillance could be used as a global early warning system for outbreaks of infectious disease.

“To truly advance wastewater monitoring, we need a global framework that includes flexible testing, enhanced data capture and reporting, as well as ethical monitoring that does not further marginalise disadvantaged communities,” she said.

“This way we could identify a range of current and future health threats like cholera, mpox (formerly monkeypox), influenza and typhoid, before they take hold of a community. But we need support to develop systems that can accurately capture, interpret and communicate data from different regions, especially vulnerable communities with limited infrastructure.”

 

Publication: Aparna Keshaviah, Megan B Diamond, Matthew J Wade and Prof Samuel V Scarpino on behalf of the Global Wastewater Action Group. ‘Wastewater monitoring can anchor global disease surveillance systems,’ The Lancet Global Health. DOI: 10.1016/S2214-109X(23)00170-5

About Murdoch Children’s Research Institute

Murdoch Children's Research Institute is the largest child health research institute in Australia committed to making discoveries and developing treatments to improve child and adolescent health in Australia and around the world. They are pioneering new treatments, trialling better vaccines and improving ways of diagnosing and helping sick babies, children and adolescents. It is one of the only research institutes in Australia to offer genetic testing to find answers for families of children with previously undiagnosed conditions.

Funding:

The research was funded by The Rockefeller Foundation, with additional funding provided by Mathematica to support manuscript development, data collection, analysis, interpretation and writing.

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JOURNAL

The Lancet Global Health

DOI

10.1016/S2214-109X(23)00170-5 

ARTICLE TITLE

Wastewater monitoring can anchor global disease surveillance systems

Why you won’t see kangaroos in Java but you will find goannas in Australia

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: AN EASTERN GREY KANGAROO. CREDIT: JAMIE KIDSTON/ANU view more 

CREDIT: CREDIT: JAMIE KIDSTON/ANU

Ask anyone what first springs to mind when they think of Australia and they’ll most likely say a kangaroo; the marsupial is ingrained in our national identity. But have you ever wondered why kangaroos never ventured beyond our shores? 

A major study led by biologists at The Australian National University (ANU) and ETH Zurich in Switzerland provides a new explanation for why you won’t find kangaroos, koalas and other Aussie marsupials in Indonesia, but you will find many groups of animals that originated in Asia, such as goannas, rodents and kookaburras in Australia.  

Biologists have long described this asymmetrical distribution of Australian and Asian species using an imaginary line that separates Australia, New Guinea and parts of Indonesia from continental Southeast Asia. This invisible boundary is known as Wallace’s Line.  

In a new paper published in Science, the researchers say changing plate tectonics and a dramatic shift in Earth’s climate tens of millions of years ago are the reasons for the uneven distribution of Australian and Asian creatures on both sides of the invisible boundary -- finally providing an explanation for the enigma of Wallace’s Line, which has long baffled scientists.  

The ANU researchers found species that originated in Asia could tolerate a wide variation in climactic conditions and were more successful at adapting to and settling in Australia, which explains why there is more Asian fauna found in Australia compared to the other way around.  

“If you travel to Borneo, you won't see any marsupial mammals, but if you go to the neighboring island of Sulawesi, you will. Australia, on the other hand, lacks mammals typical of Asia, such as bears, tigers or rhinos,” Dr Alex Skeels, from ANU, said. 

According to Dr Skeels, this uneven distribution of animal species on both sides of Wallace’s Line is partly due to changes in ancient plate tectonics -- dating back 45 million years -- that ultimately led to a “continental collision” that altered the geographic composition of Earth.  

“About 35 million years ago, Australia was located much further south and was connected to Antarctica,” he said.  

“At some point in Earth’s timeline, Australia broke away from Antarctica and over millions of years drifted north, causing it to crash into Asia. That collision gave birth to the volcanic islands that we now know as Indonesia.”  

The islands of Indonesia served as “stepping stones” for animals and plants that originated in Asia to reach New Guinea and northern Australia, and vice versa. 

“Our research shows far more groups of Asian fauna crossed over and established themselves in Australia than in the opposite direction,” Dr Skeels said. 

But as ANU researchers explain, a shift in plate tectonics is just one piece of the puzzle in explaining the migration of Asian species to Australia. When Australia broke away from Antarctica, there was a climactic shift that led to a trend of global cooling and drying of the continents, which led to mass extinction events around the world. 

“When Australia drifted away from Antarctica, it opened up this area of Deep Ocean surrounding Antarctica which is now where the Antarctic Circumpolar Current is. This dramatically changed Earth’s climate as a whole; it made the climate much cooler,” Dr Skeels said.  

“Despite this global cooling, the climate on the Indonesian islands, which organisms used as a gateway to hop to Australia, remained relatively warm, wet and tropical. So Asian fauna were already well adapted and comfortable with these conditions, so that helped them settle in Australia.  

“This was not the case for the Australian species. They had evolved in a cooler and increasingly drier climate over time and were therefore less successful in gaining a foothold on the tropical islands compared to the creatures migrating from Asia.” 

The researchers analysed a dataset of about 20,000 birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians to determine which species hopped between Indonesia and Australia, and which ones were able to successfully adapt to their new home. 

“Our findings could also inform predictions for animal migration in the future and help us predict which species may be better versed at adapting to new environments, as changes to Earth’s climate continues to impact global biodiversity patterns,” Dr Skeels said.  

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JOURNAL

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.adf7122 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Paleoenvironments shaped the exchange of terrestrial vertebrates across Wallace’s Line

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

6-Jul-2023

Shrinking Arctic glaciers are unearthing a new source of methane

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

 

IMAGE: PROGLACIAL ICING FORMED IN THE BED OF A GLACIAL RIVER DURING THE ARCTIC WINTER. view more 

CREDIT: GABRIELLE KLEBER

As the Arctic warms, shrinking glaciers are exposing bubbling groundwater springs which could provide an underestimated source of the potent greenhouse gas methane, finds new research published today in Nature Geoscience.

The study, led by researchers from the University of Cambridge and the University Centre in Svalbard, Norway, identified large stocks of methane gas leaking from groundwater springs unveiled by melting glaciers.

The research suggests that these methane emissions will likely increase as Arctic glaciers retreat and more springs are exposed. This, and other methane emissions from melting ice and frozen ground in the Arctic, could exacerbate global warming.

“These springs are a considerable, and potentially growing, source of methane emissions — one that has been missing from our estimations of the global methane budget until now,” said Gabrielle Kleber, lead author of the research who is from Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences.

Scientists are concerned that additional methane emissions released by the Arctic thaw could ramp-up human-induced global warming. The springs the researchers studied hadn’t previously been recognized as a potential source of methane emissions.

Kleber spent nearly three years monitoring the water chemistry of more than a hundred springs across Svalbard, where air temperatures are rising two times faster than the average for the Arctic. She likens Svalbard to the canary in the coal mine of global warming, “Since it is warming faster than the rest of the Arctic, we can get a preview of the potential methane release that could happen at a larger scale across this region.”

Professor Andrew Hodson, study co-author from the University Centre in Svalbard said, “Living in Svalbard exposes you to the front-line of Arctic climate change. I can’t think of anything more stark than the sight of methane outgassing in the immediate forefield of a retreating glacier.”

Previously, research has centred on methane release from thawing permafrost (frozen ground). “While the focus is often on permafrost, this new finding tells us that there are other pathways for methane emissions which could be even more significant in the global methane budget,” said study co-author Professor Alexandra Turchyn, also from Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences.

Hodson added, “Until this work was conducted, we didn’t understand the source and pathways of this gas because we were reading about studies from completely different parts of the Arctic where glaciers are absent.”

The methane-delivering springs they identified are fed by a plumbing system hidden beneath most glaciers, which taps into large groundwater reserves within the underlying sediments and surrounding bedrock. Once the glaciers melt and retreat, springs appear where this groundwater network punches through to the surface.

The researchers found that methane emissions from glacial groundwater springs across Svalbard could exceed 2,000 tonnes over the course of a year — which equates to roughly 10% of the methane emissions resulting from Norway’s annual oil and gas energy industry.

This source of methane will likely become more significant as more springs are exposed, said Kleber, “If global warming continues unchecked then methane release from glacial groundwater springs will probably become more extensive.”

Glacial groundwater springs aren’t always easy to recognize, so Kleber trained her eye to pick them out from satellite images. Zooming in on the areas of land exposed by the retreat of 78 glaciers across Svalbard, Kleber looked for tell-tale blue trickles of ice where groundwater had leaked to the surface and frozen. She then travelled to each of these sites by snowmobile to take samples of the groundwater at locations where the ice had blistered due to pressurized water and gas build up.

When Kleber and the team profiled the chemistry of the water feeding these springs, they found that all bar one of the sites studied were highly concentrated with dissolved methane — meaning that, when the spring water reaches the surface, there is plenty of excess methane that can escape to the atmosphere.

The researchers also identified localized hotspots of methane emissions, which were closely related to the type of rock from which the groundwater emerges. Certain rocks like shale and coal contain natural gases, including methane, produced by the breakdown of organic matter when the rocks formed. This methane can move upwards through fractures in the rock and into the groundwater.

“In Svalbard we are beginning to understand the complex and cascading feedbacks triggered by glacier melt — it seems likely that there are more outcomes like this which we have yet to uncover,” said Kleber.

“The amount of methane leaking from the springs we measured will likely be dwarfed by the total volume of trapped gas lying below these glaciers, waiting to escape,” said Hodson, “That means we urgently need to establish the risk of a sudden increase in methane leakage, because glaciers will only continue to retreat whilst we struggle to curb climate change.”

Glacier cave on Svalbard, Norway formed by large volumes of glacial meltwater that flows through it during summer. During winter, an extensive proglacial icing forms at its mouth and extends across the entire floodplain in front of the glacier, which is visible through the cave opening in the picture.

Glacier cave on Svalbard, Norway.

CREDIT

Gabrielle Kleber

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JOURNAL

Nature Geoscience

DOI

10.1038/s41561-023-01210-6 

ARTICLE TITLE

Groundwater springs formed during glacial retreat are a large source of methane in the high Arctic

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

6-Jul-2023

How hot is too ‘too hot’ for humans?

SOCIETY FOR EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY

 

IMAGE: PROFESSOR LEWIS HALSEY AS A PARTICIPANT IN AN EXPERIMENT LED BY PHD STUDENT CHRIS WOLFE. THE EXPERIMENT PRIMARILY INVOLVES COMPARING THE PARTICIPANT’S RESTING METABOLIC RATE AT ROOM TEMPERATURE AND AT 50C (WITH 25% HUMIDITY). SKIN AND RECTAL TEMPERATURE ARE ALSO RECORDED, AS IS HEART RATE. view more 

CREDIT: PROF. LEWIS HALSEY, UNIVERSITY OF ROEHAMPTON.

Ongoing research by Prof. Lewis Halsey and his team at the University of Roehampton, UK has identified that an upper critical temperature (UCT) exists for humans and is likely to be between 40°C and 50°C. Further research is now underway to explain this rise in metabolic energy costs at high temperatures.

Prof. Halsey and his team have found that resting metabolic rate, a measure of how much energy the human body consumes to keep ticking over, can be higher when people are exposed to hot and humid conditions. “Quite a lot of work has been done on the range of temperatures that different animal species prefer to live at in terms of their metabolic rates being minimal and thus their energy expenditure being low, but, weirdly, information is much less available for humans when considering the upper limits of our thermal neutral zone,” says Prof. Halsey.

Understanding the temperatures at which human metabolic rates start to rise, and how this varies between people, can have implications for working conditions, sport, medicine and international travel. “This research provides fundamental knowledge about how we react to suboptimal environments, and how ‘optimal’ differs between people with different characteristics,” adds Prof. Halsey.

Prof. Halsey and his team are also investigating how heart function is affected by temperatures above the UCT, and how effects on the heart vary between people with different characteristics such as age and physical fitness. “We found some considerable changes in heart function responses to the heat between categories of people, the most novel being between the sexes,” adds Prof. Halsey. “That is, on the average, men and women display some key differences in their cardiovascular responses to the heat”.

Prof. Halsey’s team measured detailed heart function using a state-of-the-art echocardiograph. “It was not easy to operate this kit in the heat!”, he adds. “The sort of equipment you’d see in hospitals but rarely in research laboratories”.

These experiments are ongoing and Prof. Halsey’s talk at the SEB conference will highlight their most recent findings. “We are steadily building a picture about how the body responds to heat stress, how adaptable it can be, the limits to those adaptations, and – crucially – how varied responses are between individuals. In a warming world, this knowledge becomes ever more valuable,” he adds.

Rights group reports allegations of dozens of abuses in critical minerals supply chain

s

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — A human rights advocacy group says it found allegations of dozens of labor and environmental abuses by Chinese-invested companies involved in mining or processing minerals used in renewable energy.

The report released Thursday by the Business and Human Rights Resource Center in London says it found 102 cases of alleged abuses in all phases of using such minerals: from initial explorations and licensing to mining and processing.

The report studied supply chains for nine minerals — cobalt, copper, lithium, manganese, nickel, zinc, aluminum, chromium and the so-called rare earth elements. All are vital for high-tech products such as solar panels and batteries for electric vehicles.

Indonesia, with 27 cases, had the highest, followed by Peru with 16 and the Democratic Republic of Congo with 12, Myanmar with 11, and Zimbabwe with 7.

Over two-thirds involved human rights violations, with Indigenous communities the most affected.

Many projects invested in or operated by Chinese companies were located in countries that had mineral wealth but “limited options for victims to seek remedy.”

To limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the global guardrail set by the 2015 Paris climate agreement, the world needs to triple its clean energy capacity by 2030 from where it was last year, according to the International Energy Agency. That has triggered a scramble for so-called “transition minerals” like cobalt, copper, lithium and zinc that are needed in clean energy technologies.

China isn't the only one — a separate tracker from the advocacy group notes similar alleged abuses by companies based out of the U.S., Australia, the U.K. and Canada — but it plays a vital role in mining, processing, and refining these minerals, as well as making solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicle batteries. So its companies are central to ensuring equity and fairness in the world’s transition away from fossil fuels.

“The bottom line is if the energy transition is not fair, it will not be as fast as it needs to be and we will fail to meet our climate deadlines,” said Betty Yolanda, the organization’s Director of Regional Programs.

Climate change has an inordinate impact on the world's poor, who have done the least to contribute to warming and now are bearing the brunt of the negative impacts of mining the minerals needed for the transition to renewables, she said, speaking on behalf of the authors of the report.

The report's authors did not want to be identified publicly because of fears of retaliation.

Rich countries like Australia that have abundant mineral wealth don't need foreign investments for extraction, though projects often do involve foreign investors. But copper-rich developing nations like Peru and nickel-exporting countries like Indonesia and the Philippines increasingly rely on Chinese investment and know-how to mine and process those minerals, generally with fewer regulatory safeguards.

“This is the time to not do the same mistakes of the past. The renewable energy transition must be done in a just and equitable way,” said Eric Ngang, global policy adviser for the Natural Resources and Governance Department of Global Witness, a UK-based non-profit not involved in the report.

Weak legal safeguards against such abuses facilitate corrupt practices that benefit companies and dishonest politicians at the expense of the environment and human rights.

About 42% of the human rights allegations detailed in the report were concentrated in Asia & the Pacific, 27% were in Latin America and 24% in Africa. More than half were cases of environmental damage, often loss of access to safe water supplies. More than a third involved allegations workers’ rights were violated, with the majority linked to health and safety risks at work.

Those are likely the “tip of the iceberg,” Yolanda said, since the report relies on publicly available information about alleged abuses committed by companies, cases where civil society has taken action, or where attacks against activists have been reported. “It is most difficult to receive information from countries with very little civic freedom and from conflict zones,” she added.

The report noted that improved safeguards are crucial as countries increasingly try to keep some of the value from their mineral wealth at home by requiring miners and companies downstream in the supply chain to build smelters and other infrastructure. For instance, Indonesia, which has the world's largest nickel supply, is trying to set itself up as a hub for making electric vehicles and also make nickel-based batteries to create a complete nickel supply chain that involves Chinese investments.

Without safeguards, these ambitions “may be frightfully compromised” by the harm done to people and the environment, the report said.

Only 7 of the 39 Chinese mining companies mentioned in the report had published human rights policies and despite transparency commitments, the Business and Human Rights Resource Center received only 4 responses from 22 companies in the sector that has been approached with the allegations.

China’s Huayou Cobalt “partially” admitted allegations of environmental damage in Indonesia by acknowledging social and enviromental challenges, the report said. But the company denied alleged exploitation of Chinese workers in a separate project. Ruashi Mining said that human rights abuse allegations in the Democratic Republic of Congo were false and the state-run conglomerate Norinco denied having corrupt ties with Myanmar's army elite.

China lacks laws to regulate the impacts of Chinese overseas businesses and supply chains and policies on such issues are mostly voluntary. Such problems are being addressed in the U.S. and Europe and the report said Japan and South Korea increasingly are making human rights and environmental due diligence a part of their regulatory frameworks.

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Aniruddha Ghosal, The Associated Press

Two Mi’kmaq lawyers from Nova Scotia, Newfoundland appointed to Senate

Senate appointment recommendations are made to the prime minister by an independent advisory board that reviews submissions

The Canadian Press
Published Jul 06, 2023

The Senate Chamber in Ottawa. 

PHOTO BY SEAN KILPATRICK/THE CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA — Two Mi’kmaq lawyers from Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador have been appointed to the Senate.

Paul Prosper, the former chief of Paqtnkek Mi’kmaw Nation and a former Assembly of First Nations regional chief, will represent Nova Scotia.

Judy White, who was the assistant deputy minister of Indigenous affairs and reconciliation in Newfoundland and Labrador, will represent that province.

Their appointments were formally made by Gov. Gen. Mary Simon today on the advice of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Senate appointment recommendations are made to the prime minister by an independent advisory board that reviews submissions.

Dan Christmas, who retired earlier this year, became Canada’s first Mi’kmaw senator when he was appointed to the upper chamber in 2016.

New Canadians more religious than their natural-born counterparts: study

Story by Bryan Passifiume • 

Many new immigrants to Canada hold deeper religious beliefs than those born in this country.© Provided by National Post

Newcomers to Canada tend to be more religious than their natural-born counterparts, a new study suggests.

The study, released Thursday by think tank Cardus, suggests many new immigrants to Canada hold deeper religious beliefs than those born in this country, attend religious services more often, and say those in public positions should be free to integrate their faith into their words and actions.

“W e’re now a nticipating about 1.5 million new immigrants coming into the country by 2025,” said Rev. Dr. Andrew Bennett, Cardus’ faith communities program director.

“I f you look at the the data for new immigrants, disproportionately they’re coming from countries where religion is a much more public r eality than in most western democracies.”

The report, Bennett said, suggests that religion plays a larger role of in the lives of newcomers compared to those born in Canada.

“New immigrants are more likely to express their religion publicly than non-immigrant Canadians,” he said. “ They’re more likely to attend religious services, t hey’re more likely to desire to have their children educated a ccording to their religious tradition.”

Data published by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada points to India as this country’s top source of immigrants in 2022, with 118,095 new people arriving from that nation last year.

That was followed by China (31,815), Afghanistan (28,735), Nigeria (22,085) and the Philippines (22,070).

Rounding out the top 10 were France, Pakistan, Iran, the United States and Syria.

The government’s 2023-2025 immigration plan, which was released last November , aims to bestow permanent residency status upon 465,000 new immigrants in 2023, 485,000 in 2024 and an even 500,000 in 2025.

The Cardus report, which used survey data gathered in partnership with the Angus Reid Institute, focused on the differences between contemporary Canadians’ religious beliefs and those of newcomers, and how recent arrivals view the role of faith in everyday life in Canada.

The study’s authors used the poll’s responses to drill down the results into a “spectrum of spirituality” index — classifying respondents into four categories: those who are religiously committed, privately faithful, spiritually uncertain and non-religious.

Among those who consider themselves “religiously committed,” only 14 per cent were born in Canada, while 28 per cent were born outside of the country.

Those who say they are “privately faithful” were a bit more evenly spread — 18 per cent of natural-born Canadians compared to 22 per cent of those born outside of Canada. Nearly half of those born in Canada self-identify as “spiritually uncertain,” compared to 36 per cent of those born elsewhere.

For those who consider themselves non-religious, 15 per cent of foreign-born Canadian residents fell into that category compared to 20 per cent of Canadian-born citizens.

As for those who say they believe in a higher power, 72 per cent of Canadian immigrants say they believe in God, compared to 64 per cent of non-immigrant Canadian citizens.

While data suggests most Canadians consider passing their religious beliefs on to their children to be important, foreign-born Canadians tend to hold this view more frequently than those born here.

A little over a quarter of those who strongly agree with the importance of teaching religion to their children were born outside of Canada, compared to 18 per cent of those born here.

Of those who strongly disagreed, 20 per cent were born in Canada compared to 16 per cent who weren’t.

Immigrants are also more likely to read sacred texts such as the Bible, Adi Granth or Qu’ran — around 20 per cent of immigrants say they consult their holy books between every day or a few times per week, a three-fold increase compared to Canada-born citizens who hold the same beliefs.

Just under 60 per cent of Canadian-born respondents say they never read sacred texts, compared to 36 per cent of those born outside of the country.

A growing number of foreign-born residents also see more importance in public figures integrating their faith into their work.

When asked if Canadians who hold public office should feel free to both speak and act based on their religious beliefs, 44 per cent of respondents who agreed with that sentiment were born outside of Canada, compared to 33 per cent who were born in Canada.

Maintaining a firm separation between church and state is a sentiment shared by 67 per cent of respondents born in Canada, while 56 per cent of those born outside of Canada agreed.

Canada’s ambitious immigration targets are sparking concern over the strain these new residents will put on our country’s already stretched infrastructure.

“The population (growth) is positive, but our infrastructure has to catch up and has to be able to keep pace, or else all of the types of frustrations and issues that we’re seeing today are only going to be magnified,” University of Toronto’s School of Cities’ Matti Siemiatycki told National Post in December.

 

Code Language Limitations: The Achilles’ Heel Of Autonomous Vehicles

By Kurt Cobb - Jul 03, 2023

• Autonomous vehicles, with their programming limited to their creators' understanding and coding abilities, fail to account for unpredictable elements of human driving and environmental factors, causing disruptions on the road.
• 
  
• Due to the limited and simplified nature of coding language, the complex subtleties of human driving experience, including intuition, cannot be fully encapsulated.
• 
  
• These vehicles pose a significant threat to other drivers and pedestrians, as there's no way for humans to communicate their intentions effectively to a machine.

Self-driving vehicles are stopping in traffic for no apparent reason and blocking emergency vehicles reports the Los Angeles Times. The writer alludes to a famous high-tech shibboleth: "Move fast and break things." But in this case the things that are being broken are the health and lives of California residents who are having to endure the growing presence of so-called autonomous vehicles on the state's streets and highways.

I have repeatedly warned that autonomous vehicles could only be truly safely operated on closed courses where the possible moves of all other vehicles would be known in advance and therefore predictable. Humans and the environments in which they drive will never be that predictable.

Beneath the bravado of the self-driving booster club is a completely obvious truth: Autonomous vehicles can only do what they are programmed to do, and that programming is limited to what their creators can put into words or, more precisely, that subset of language we call code.

As I keep repeating, language and the computer code derived from it is inherently limited in its ability to describe the reality that we all experience. Even a task as seemingly simple as driving a vehicle is fraught with subtleties and surprises. Our total experience as humans while driving does not narrow substantially when we get into a car or truck. We are still receiving signals from the total environment in which we find ourselves and that includes intuitions, hunches and a stream of thoughts projected onto our inner awareness.

Language of any kind cannot hope to capture that total experience. If it could, it would be experience itself rather than a description of it. Description always, always involves reducing complex perceptions into a sample of our experience.

With relatively low speeds on the city streets, mistakes made by autonomous cars may not be that destructive. Of course, there is no guarantee because low-speed accidents can result in death and injury. But since California seems determined to put autonomous trucks on its highways, we can look forward to some spectacular accidents when higher mass teams up with higher speeds and the nonhuman algorithms driving these trucks. These algorithms may fail to take into account crucial subtleties and changes in conditions and then misfire.

It's not just other drivers who are at risk. As I've previously asked, "[H]ow can you make your intentions known to a robot? How could a pedestrian communicate with a robot car in the way that approaches the simplicity of a nod or a wave to acknowledge the courteous offer from a driver to let the pedestrian cross the street?"

No matter how hard we try to accurately describe the situations a driver might encounter, "words are a surprisingly imprecise way to convey meaning, freighted as they are with nuance, cultural context, history and so many other interlocking dependencies for their meaning." And, of course, much of our experience is beyond words. How many times have you said the following about a strange, new experience: "I have no words to describe it. You just have to experience it."

Our tech barons seem to lack the literary education needed to understand these limits and so press ahead with ill-advised schemes to fill the roadways with autonomous vehicles.

Let me conclude with the final words of a previous piece that are even more relevant today than when I first wrote them:

If we reduce all of our efforts at addressing our problems to language a machine can understand, we will get machine solutions. What we need, however, are solutions that come from our deep connections to this planet as beings of this planet, connections that no machine will ever fathom.

That is the bigger issue.

By Kurt Cobb via Resource Insights