Elon Musk Says First Neuralink Patient Can Move Computer Cursor With Mind


ByEdd Gent
February 23, 2024


Neural interfaces could present an entirely new way for humans to connect with technology. Elon Musk says the first human user of his startup Neuralink’s brain implant can now move a mouse cursor using their mind alone.

While brain-machine interfaces have been around for decades, they have primarily been research tools that are far too complicated and cumbersome for everyday use. But in recent years, a number of startups have cropped up promising to develop more capable and convenient devices that could help treat a host of conditions.

Neuralink is one of the firms leading that charge. Last September, the company announced it had started recruiting for the first clinical trial of its device after receiving clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration earlier in the year. And in a discussion on his social media platform X last week, Musk announced the company’s first patient was already able to control a cursor roughly a month after implantation.

“Progress is good, patient seems to have made a full recovery…and is able to control the mouse, move the mouse around the screen just by thinking,” Musk said, according to CNN. “We’re trying to get as many button presses as possible from thinking, so that’s what we’re currently working on.”

Controlling a cursor with a brain implant is nothing new—an academic team achieved the same feat as far back as 2006. And competitor Synchron, which makes a BMI that is implanted through the brain’s blood vessels, has been running a trial since 2021 in which volunteers have been able to control computers and smartphones using their mind alone.

Musk’s announcement nonetheless represents rapid progress for a company that only unveiled its first prototype in 2019. And while the company’s technology works on similar principles to previous devices, it promises far higher precision and ease of use.

That’s because each chip features 1,024 electrodes split between 64 threads thinner than a human hair that are inserted into the brain by a “sewing machine-like” robot. That is far more electrodes per unit volume than any previous BMI, which means the device should be capable of recording from many individual neurons at once.

And while most previous BMIs required patients be wired to bulky external computers, the company’s N1 implant is wireless and features a rechargeable battery. That makes it possible to record brain activity during everyday activities, greatly expanding the research potential and prospects for using it as a medical device.

Recording from individual neurons is a capability that has mainly been restricted to animal studies so far, Wael Asaad, a professor of neurosurgery and neuroscience at Brown University, told The Brown Daily Herald, so being able to do the same in humans would be a significant advance.

“For the most part, when we work with humans, we record from what are called local field potentials—which are larger scale recordings—and we’re not actually listening to individual neurons,” he said. “Higher resolution brain interfaces that are fully wireless and allow two-way communication with the brain are going to have a lot of potential uses.”

In the initial clinical trial, the device’s electrodes will be implanted in a brain region associated with motor control. But Musk has espoused much more ambitious goals for the technology, such as treating psychiatric disorders like depression, allowing people to control advanced prosthetic limbs, or even making it possible to eventually merge our minds with computers.

There’s probably a long way to go before that’s in the cards though, Justin Sanchez, from nonprofit research organization Battelle, told Wired. Decoding anything more complicated than basic motor signals or speech will likely require recording from many more neurons in different regions, most likely using multiple implants.

“There’s a huge gap between what is being done today in a very small subset of neurons versus understanding complex thoughts and more sophisticated cognitive kinds of things,” Sanchez said.

So, as impressive as the company’s progress has been so far, it’s likely to be some time before the technology is employed for anything other than a narrow set of medical applications, particularly given its invasiveness. That means most of us will be stuck with our touchscreens for the foreseeable future.

Image Credit: Neuralink

DOCTORS CONCERNED ABOUT NEURALINK'S FIRST PATIENT
"[NEURALINK IS] ONLY SHARING THE BITS THAT THEY WANT US TO KNOW ABOUT."


FEB 24, 2024/ BY FRANK LANDYMORE

Neuralink founder Elon Musk claimed this week that the first human to receive one of his company's heavily scrutinized brain implants was already able to control a mouse cursor with their mind.

The only problem? Since then, Neuralink hasn't shared any evidence supporting that claim — and medical researchers are starting to call its bluff.

As shared in a new writeup for Nature, not only is this is hardly a new innovation, but we're not getting enough information from Neuralink to verify its claims, or more distressingly, to assess the safety of its practices.

"[Neuralink is] only sharing the bits that they want us to know about," Sameer Sheth, a neurosurgeon who specializes in implanted neurotechnology at the Baylor College of Medicine, told Nature. "There's a lot of concern in the community about that."

Musk claimed on X-formerly-Twitter last month that the human patient who received the brain implant was "recovering well." But as anyone who's been following Neuralink can tell you, there's good reason to be worried about what's happening behind the scenes.

Overshadowing the company's purported achievements are grisly revelations made about its treatment of monkeys. Leaked documents detailed how the implants resulted in a myriad of grotesque injuries, including rupturing a monkey's brain and causing severe cerebral swelling. In many cases, the monkeys spent the final days of their life in needless agony that experts say could've been prevented.

Echoing those safety concerns, Sheth told Nature that researchers are still in the dark on the capabilities of Neuralink's robotic surgeon. So far, he notes, we've only seen footage of it "operating" on a dummy, which was over a year ago. In fact, it still hasn't been confirmed if the robotic surgeon was used on the human patient.

A relevant detail that raises questions about Neuralink's surgical capabilities is another report of a monkey with a botched brain implant. According to an autopsy, the monkey had to be euthanized after the device became so loose that the screws attaching it to the skull "could easily be lifted out."

Those tests happened several years ago, so for the patient's sake we can hope that Neuralink has gotten safer with its practices since then. Based on the scant details so far, though, it's also not clear that Neuralink has accomplished anything groundbreaking.

"A human controlling a cursor is nothing new," Bolu Ajiboye, a brain computer interface researcher at Case Western Reserve University, told Nature. He notes that the first human to control a cursor with a brain implant was in 2004, and that tests have demonstrated this in monkeys for even longer.

Meanwhile, other brain implant projects have allowed fully paralyzed patients to communicate through a digital avatar using only their mind, or to control life-changing robotic prosthetics.

Still, Ajiboye isn't ready to count Neuralink out yet.

"The more companies involved in human BCIs," he told Nature, "the better to push the field forward."

More on Neuralink: Lawmakers Demand Investigation Into Carnage at Neuralink

John Wayne's Wildest Non-Western Movie Sees Him Fight A Sea Monster (He Almost Turned It Down)

BYCHARLES NICHOLAS RAYMOND

SCREEN RANT

PUBLISHED 1 DAY AGO


Despite being given a chance to team up with an acclaimed director, John Wayne nearly turned down a chance to fight a sea monster in a wild 1942 film.



SUMMARY

John Wayne's versatile filmography included sea monster movie "Reap the Wild Wind," a unique break from his usual Westerns and war films.

Wayne's character in "Reap the Wild Wind" challenges his traditional roles by losing a fight and not getting the girl in the end.

Despite initial reluctance, starring in "Reap the Wild Wind" actually enhanced John Wayne's Hollywood reputation and led to more opportunities.

Despite being a huge critical and commercial success, John Wayne's only sea monster movie is far from one of his best-known films. Although famous primarily for headlining Westerns and war films, the Hollywood action legend wasn't associated exclusively with those two genres. At numerous points in his long career in Hollywood, Wayne broke away from his standard formula.

In addition to a multitude of Westerns and war classics, Wayne also held lead roles in romantic comedies, adventure films, modern-day dramas, and more. One of these periods was in the early 1940s, even though he had recently made his first massive Western hit, Stagecoach, in 1939. John Wayne took time to star in a number of non-Westerns, including The Shepherd of the Hills, A Man Betrayed, and more. After starring opposite Joan Blondell in 1942's Lady for a Night, Wayne appeared in Reap the Wild Wind, which would go on to become a unique entry in his filmography.

Reap The Wild Wind Bucks 2 Massive John Wayne Movie Trends

Reap the Wild Wind was an unusual movie for Wayne for more than one reason. Taking place in the 19th century, the 1942 adventure epic featured an ending in which the main characters battled a monster-sized giant squid. Wayne played the role of Jack Stuart, a ship captain who winds up in a love triangle with the other two leads, Ray Milland's Steven Tolliver and Paullette Goddard's Loxi Claiborne. A dispute over what caused a mysterious shipwreck - which Jack was taking the blame for - resulted in Jack and Steve teaming up to fight the 45-foot-long squid in the ocean in Reap the Wild Wind's ending.

As if John Wayne fighting a sea monster rather than a Western outlaw isn't surprising enough on its own, it's only part of what makes Reap the Wild Wind such a strange movie for the actor. True to his "tough guy" image, John Wayne characters regularly get involved in gunfights and brawls, and provided that the fight is fair, there's always an expectation for them to come out on top. However, that's not what happens in Reap the Wild Wind, which pits Jack against Steve. Despite initially painting Jack as 'the hero' of the story, it's actually Steve who wins their fist fight - and the one who ends up with the two men's love interest at the end of the film.

Why John Wayne Almost Turned Down His Reap The Wild Wind Role

Interestingly, Reap the Wild Wind taking such an unexpected direction with a John Wayne movie almost resulted in the actor passing up the role. According to Empire of Dreams: The Epic Life of Cecil B. DeMille by Scott Eymann, getting Wayne to accept the part of Jack took some convincing, partially because of the fight his character was to lose to Steve. The book claims that after the director said that the role wouldn't lead to any loss of dignity, Wayne told DeMille that being beaten up by Ray Milland would "lose anybody their dignity."

It's important to keep in mind that although Wayne was not necessarily Hollywood's biggest star in 1942 and many of his biggest films were still years away, Wayne was still considered a leading actor by this point. Wayne had already made Stagecoach and was accustomed to getting top billing. In Shooting Star: A Biography Of John Wayne, Maurice Zolotow revealed that Wayne expressed his concerns to DeMille about playing what he felt was a supporting part. But as the book says, DeMille managed to sway Wayne through his persistence, telling the actor, "I want you very much. I give you my word of honor that I will do you justice."

How Reap The Wild Wind Helped John Wayne's Career




Reap the Wild Wind isn't usually mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Red River, Sands of Iwo Jiwa, Rio Bravo, or Stagecoach, but even so, it remains an important milestone in the Hollywood icon's career. It received critical acclaim at the time, including three Academy Award nominations. The positive buzz it had earned at the time, combined with the prestige that comes with starring a Cecil DeMille film, helped improve Wayne's reputation and garnered him additional interest from other studios.

Zolotow wrote in Shooting Star that John Wayne had said of his career after Reap the Wild Wind, "I had no trouble holding up my head in Hollywood." Based on his comments, putting aside his reservations about the Jack Stuart role was the right move for the actor. After all, it obviously didn't harm his image, as his litany of "tough guy" roles only piled up as the years passed.

 

Consumers are increasingly pushing back against price increases — and winning

In recent months, consumer resistance has led large food companies to respond by sharply slowing their price increases from the peaks of the past three years.

Stuart Dryden reaches for an item at a grocery store on Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2024, in Arlington, Va. 

(AP Photo/Chris Rugaber)

Author: CHRISTOPHER RUGABER AP Economics Writer
Published: 9:04 AM PST February 25, 2024

WASHINGTON — Inflation has changed the way many Americans shop. Now, those changes in consumer habits are helping bring down inflation.

Fed up with prices that remain about 19%, on average, above where they were before the pandemic, consumers are fighting back. In grocery stores, they're shifting away from name brands to store-brand items, switching to discount stores or simply buying fewer items like snacks or gourmet foods.

More Americans are buying used cars, too, rather than new, forcing some dealers to provide discounts on new cars again. But the growing consumer pushback to what critics condemn as price-gouging has been most evident with food as well as with consumer goods like paper towels and napkins.

In recent months, consumer resistance has led large food companies to respond by sharply slowing their price increases from the peaks of the past three years. This doesn't mean grocery prices will fall back to their levels of a few years ago, though with some items, including eggs, apples and milk, prices are below their peaks. But the milder increases in food prices should help further cool overall inflation, which is down sharply from a peak of 9.1% in 2022 to 3.1%.

Public frustration with prices has become a central issue in President Joe Biden’s bid for re-election. Polls show that despite the dramatic decline in inflation, many consumers are unhappy that prices remain so much higher than they were before inflation began accelerating in 2021.

Biden has echoed the criticism of many left-leaning economists that corporations jacked up their prices more than was needed to cover their own higher costs, allowing themselves to boost their profits. The White House has also attacked “shrinkflation,” whereby a company, rather than raising the price of a product, instead shrinks the amount inside the package. In a video released on Super Bowl Sunday, Biden denounced shrinkflation as a “rip-off.”

Consumer pushback against high prices suggests to many economists that inflation should further ease. That would make this bout of inflation markedly different from the debilitating price spikes of the 1970s and early 1980s, which took longer to defeat. When high inflation persists, consumers often develop an inflationary psychology: Ever-rising prices lead them to accelerate their purchases before costs rise further, a trend that can itself perpetuate inflation.

“That was the fear — that everybody would tolerate higher prices,” said Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY, a consulting firm, who notes that it hasn't happened. “I don't think we've moved into a high inflation regime.”

Instead, this time many consumers have reacted like Stuart Dryden, a commercial underwriter at a bank who lives in Arlington, Virginia. On a recent trip to his regular grocery store, Dryden, 37, pointed out big price disparities between Kraft Heinz-branded products and their store-label competitors, which he now favors.

Dryden, for example, loves cream cheese and bagels. A 12-ounce tub of Kraft's Philadelphia cream cheese costs $6.69. The store brand, he noted, is just $3.19.

A 24-pack of Kraft single cheese slices is $7.69; the store label, $2.99. And a 32-ounce Heinz ketchup bottle is $6.29, while the alternative is just $1.69. Similar gaps existed with mac-and-cheese and shredded cheese products.

“Just those five products together already cost nearly $30,” Dryden said. The alternatives were less than half that, he calculated, at about $13.

“I’ve been trying private-label options, and the quality is the same and it’s almost a no-brainer to switch from the products I used to buy a ton of to just the private label," Dryden said.

Alex Abraham, a spokesman for Kraft Heinz, said that its costs rose 3% in the final three months of last year but that the company raised its own prices only 1%.

“We are doing everything possible to find efficiencies in our factories and other parts of our business to offset and mitigate further price increases,” Abraham said.

Last week, Kraft Heinz said sales fell in the final three months of last year as more consumers traded down to cheaper brands.

Dryden has taken other steps to save money: A year ago, he moved into a new apartment after his previous landlord jacked up his rent by about 50%. His former apartment had been next to a relatively pricey grocery store, Whole Foods. Now, he shops at a nearby Amazon Fresh and has started visiting the discount grocer Aldi every couple of weeks.

Samuel Rines, an investment strategist at Corbu, says that PepsiCo, Kimberly-Clark, Procter & Gamble and many other consumer food and packaged goods companies exploited the rise in input costs stemming from supply-chain disruptions and Russia's invasion of Ukraine to dramatically raise their prices — and increase their profits — in 2021 and 2022.

A contributing factor was that millions of Americans enjoyed solid wage gains and received stimulus checks and other government aid, making it easier for them to pay the higher prices.

Still, some decried the phenomenon as “greedflation." And in a March 2023 research paper, the economist Isabella Weber at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, referred to it as “seller's inflation.”

Yet beginning late last year, many of the same companies discovered that the strategy was no longer working. Most consumers have now long since spent the savings they built up during the pandemic.

Lower-income consumers, in particular, are running up credit card debt and falling behind on their payments. Americans overall are spending more cautiously. Daco notes that overall sales during the holiday shopping season were up just 4% — and most of it reflected higher prices rather than consumers actually buying more things.

As an example, Rines points to Unilever, which makes, among other items, Hellman's mayonnaise, Ben & Jerry's ice cream and Dove soaps. Unilever jacked up its prices 13.3% on average across its brands in 2022. Its sales volume fell 3.6% that year. In response, it raised prices just 2.8% last year; sales rose 1.8%.

“We're beginning to see the consumer no longer willing to take the higher pricing,” Rines said. “So companies were beginning to get a little bit more skeptical of their ability to just have price be the driver of their revenues. They had to have those volumes come back, and the consumer wasn’t reacting in a way that they were pleased with.”

Unilever itself recently attributed poor sales performance in Europe to “share losses to private labels.”

Other businesses have noticed, too. After their sales fell in the final three months of last year, PepsiCo executives signaled that this year they would rein in price increases and focus more on boosting sales.

“In 2024, we see ... normalization of the cost, normalization of inflation,” CEO Ramon Laguarta said. “So we see everything trending back to our long-term” pricing trends.

Jeffrey Harmening, CEO of General Mills, which makes Cheerios, Chex Cereal, Progresso soups and dozens of other brands, has acknowledged that his customers are increasingly seeking bargains.

And McDonald's executives have said that consumers with incomes below $45,000 are visiting less and spending less when they do visit and say the company plans to highlight its lower-priced items.

“Consumers are more wary — and weary — of pricing, and we’re going to continue to be consumer-led in our pricing decisions,” Ian Borden, the company's chief financial officer, told investors.

Officials at the Federal Reserve, the nation's primary inflation-fighting institution, have cited consumers' growing reluctance to pay high prices as a key reason why they expect inflation to fall steadily back to their 2% annual target.

“Firms are telling us that price sensitivity is very much higher now,” Mary Daly, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and a member of the Fed's interest-rate setting committee, said last week. “Consumers don't want to purchase unless they're seeing a 10% discount. ... This is a serious improvement in the role that consumers play in bridling inflation.”

Surveys by the Fed's regional banks have found that companies across all industries expect to impose smaller price increases this year. The New York Fed says companies in its region plan to raise prices an average of about 3% this year, down from about 5% in 2023 and as much as 7% to 9% in 2022.


Such trends suggest that companies were well on their way to slowing their price hikes before Biden's most recent attacks on price gouging.

Claudia Sahm, founder of SAHM Consulting and a former Fed economist, said, “consumers are more powerful than President Biden.”

 Alaska Legislature

Alaska lawmaker’s bid to revive stalled green energy policy defines coal as ‘clean’

By Nathaniel Herz, Northern Journal

Updated: 7 hours agoPublished: 12 hours ago

Golden Valley Electric Association's Healy Power Plant

(Marc Lester / ADN archive)

Burning coal to make electricity generates significantly more carbon pollution than using natural gas for the same purpose.

But a new bill drafted by Sutton Republican Rep. George Rauscher still seeks to define coal-generated electricity as “clean energy” — putting it on the same footing as wind, solar, tidal and hydroelectric power.

The proposed legislation, House Bill 368, is Rauscher’s bid to advance an energy policy debate that has otherwise stalled at the Alaska Capitol.

“There’s a reality to keeping the lights on and keeping everybody warm today,” Rauscher said. “As opposed to the vision of what we’re going to have in the future.”

Conservation and other advocacy groups have been pressing lawmakers to require Alaska’s urban utilities — which serve residents and businesses between Fairbanks, Anchorage and the Kenai Peninsula — to generate more of their electricity from sources like wind and solar. Such a policy is known as a renewable portfolio standard, or RPS.

The utilities currently generate some 80% of their power from fossil fuels — namely natural gas, and some coal. But amid tightening gas supplies, advocates are pushing lawmakers to pass an RPS that requires the utilities to generate 80% of their electricity from renewable sources by 2040.

[Developers say proposed wind farm project could help power Anchorage, reducing strain on gas]

Two legislators — Anchorage Democratic Sen. Löki Tobin and Wasilla Republican Rep. Jesse Sumner — have each proposed bills with those targets. A preliminary analysis by federal energy researchers found that meeting them would not meaningfully raise prices for consumers because the costs of renewable power projects are already competitive with natural gas plants.

But both bills have stalled amid skepticism from some utility leaders, and concerns from legislative Republicans about moving away from fossil fuel-based power sources. Even as advocates have hired lobbyists to push the legislation forward, no hearings on the two bills have taken place since this year’s legislative session began in January.

Sumner’s bill is languishing in the House Energy Committee chaired by Rauscher, while Nikiski GOP Sen. Jesse Bjorkman, the chairman of the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee where Tobin’s bill is stuck, has vowed to block RPS legislation.

Rauscher said his new bill aims to break that gridlock. Included in its expansive definition of “clean energy” are other sources of electricity that have drawn industry interest, like nuclear power; it also sets a less aggressive target of 60% clean energy by 2051, and gives utilities even more time unless the state makes expensive upgrades to Alaska’s electrical grid.

Rep. George Rauscher, R-Sutton, chats with a colleague on Thursday, Jan. 19, 2023

 at the Alaska State Capitol in Juneau. (Loren Holmes / ADN)

The RPS legislation “was not going to work,” Rauscher said. “It was dead.” He said he drafted several versions of his bill and discussed his ideas with stakeholders, including utilities, members of a state energy task force, regulators and green power advocates.

“This was, ‘OK, let’s look at this from a different angle,’” he said. “What we want to do is incentivize the utility companies to try alternative measures. But yet we don’t want to rule out the fact that there are existing things we are utilizing right now — like coal, up in the Fairbanks area, there’s power plants — we don’t want to say, ‘You’ve got to dismantle those.’ We’re not saying that we’re going to move completely off of hydrocarbons so fast it’ll make your head spin.”

Rauscher’s proposal, and particularly its treatment of coal, are already drawing derision from boosters of renewable energy, however. Erin McKittrick, a Seldovia-based writer and analyst, described the bill as a “jumbled mess” in a blog post that first reported the bill’s definition of coal as a clean energy source.

McKittrick said it was “nonsensical” to call coal clean while excluding natural gas, which emits less carbon per unit of electricity generated, from the same treatment. She also poked holes in other elements of the legislation, like how it would only give utilities credit for renewable power projects that they own — rather than projects built by private developers that sell electricity back to them.

Rauscher described that omission as an oversight that will be fixed.

[Could a new Alaska coal power plant be climate friendly? An $11 million study aims to find out]

Other supporters of more aggressive renewable energy targets were more charitable, saying they object to the coal provisions of Rauscher’s bill but are eager to see negotiations advance at the Capitol.

“For me, the general interest is in how we’re going to get to yes. And I’m excited to see other folks putting their ideas and concepts on the table,” said Tobin, the sponsor of the Senate RPS bill. “I personally think that we need to be putting our resources toward diversification and moving toward a future that reduces our carbon footprint, our carbon impacts. However, I think the strength of the Legislature in Alaska is that we’re willing to have these difficult conversations and negotiate.”

Rauscher has scheduled his bill for its first hearings, in the energy committee he chairs, this week.

Nathaniel Herz, Northern Journal

Anchorage-based independent journalist Nathaniel Herz has been a reporter in Alaska for nearly a decade, with stints at the Anchorage Daily News and Alaska Public Media. Read his newsletter, Northern Journal, at natherz.substack.com

Israelis take little heed of global anger. But their contempt for Netanyahu is growing

The population is fast losing patience with a leadership that they see as fanatical and corrupt, and willing to sacrifice democracy and hostages

Dahlia Scheindlin

THE GUARDIAN

Sun 25 Feb 2024 


After four horrible months, the Israel-Hamas war drags on, and Israel seems more isolated than ever. Mass protests against Israel on US college campuses and UK streets in the early weeks of the war gave way to South Africa’s appeal to the international court of justice accusing Israel of genocide. The US, Israel’s best friend, moved from quietly pushing it to begin downscaling the war and allow more humanitarian aid to Gaza, to slapping sanctions on violent West Bank settlers and pushing a UN security council resolution for a ceasefire; even Prince William called for the fighting to stop.

But little of this global pressure has moved Israelis. In a mid-January survey from Tel Aviv University, more than half of Jewish Israeli respondents thought Israel was using the right amount of force, but another 43% said that it had not used enough. In a survey last week by the Israel Democracy Institute, a majority of Jewish Israelis opposed a detailed political agreement to end the war, and two-thirds opposed humanitarian aid to Gaza. This data is sobering, though mirrored by trends among the Palestinian public, during the war, where polls show high support for Hamas and for the 7 October attacks.

Most societies rally behind a war effort. But there are reasons why Israelis seem impervious to growing international opprobrium, not to mention the human disaster in Gaza, that go beyond regular wartime rallying.
It’s not that Israelis don’t care about global attitudes. Global protests shook Israelis – with anger

First, Israelis are simply shattered by 7 October, a day they have been living ever since, along with fresh trauma from the war. Outsiders often blame the Israeli media for insufficient coverage of suffering people in Gaza but this misses the point: Israelis have retreated inward. The media is simply hyper-focused on Israelis.

Hours of broadcast news are devoted each day to individual stories about soldiers killed in the war, displaced people from the north or the south, witnesses and survivors from 7 October or their family members. Tune into the radio at any time, and the most common conversation is: “Tell us about your late son/husband/brother killed in Gaza. Who was he?” The answer is never “My father was…” it’s always “Dad was”. Israel is a very personal society; everyone wants to hear about the dead person’s special qualities, the winning smile, the life of the party.

The remaining news time is fragmented into items about the war, politics, the budget, divisive social issues. International news, even about Israel, can be buried in the mix.

It’s not that Israelis don’t care about global attitudes. Global protests, and particularly the international court of justice hearings, shook them – with anger. Their conclusion is not that Israel’s war has gone too far; rather, that their suspicions that the world is always against them have come true. That magnifies their sense of an existential threat, a latent constant fear before 7 October, viscerally inflamed ever since. Arab citizens, logically, show radically different views towards the war in surveys and cannot be analysed together with Jewish Israeli trends.

And yet, something is changing in Israeli Jewish attitudes regarding the war. Polls from the Institute for National Security Studies show falling confidence in the war itself. From a high point of more than three-quarters of the Jewish population in November, just 58% now think Israel can achieve all or most of its war aims. In a survey by the Israel Democracy Institute this month, only a minority, 39% of all Israelis, think there is a high or very high likelihood of “absolute victory”, as the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has promised.

But it’s probably not Joe Biden, Prince William or the world court that’s changing their minds, at least not exclusively. I believe they’re worried about what’s going wrong in the region.

Families are frantic that their loved ones will die before being released in a deal that never comes

Israelis see that Hamas has not been destroyed and is still fighting; as I write this, nearly five months in, the shrill tones of alarm apps announce rocket fire in the south. Reports that the Hamas mastermind Yahya Sinwar skipped town to the Sinai with hostages in tow may or may not be true, but he’s definitely not dead. And, after brief euphoria when the Israel Defense Forces liberated two hostages in a military raid, families are frantic that their loved ones will die before being released in a deal that never comes.

Their concerns about the war achievements tap into another overriding dynamic in public opinion: unlike most other countries, who rally around their leaders in wartime, all polls show that Israeli support for its government plunged after 7 October.

Three demonstrations held every Saturday night for weeks now tell the story. The biggest one is led by the families of hostages; it mobilises large, politically mainstream crowds demanding that the government prioritise hostage release, while avoiding an overtly anti-government message. The second is a swelling group drawn from the massive pro-democracy, anti-government movement of 2023. These protesters call openly and angrily to oust the government, and thousands of them fill a central plaza in Tel Aviv weekly. In a far corner of the plaza is the third group – a tiny clutch of activists protesting against the war, supporting a ceasefire and opposing Israel’s occupation. Few pay them much attention.

Yet, together, the protesters have been gathering force. Some strands have blocked the main highway out of Tel Aviv at night. Protests have spread to Jerusalem, at the prime minister’s residence, or to his private home in Caesarea, and other locations.

External pressure probably won’t change Israelis’ minds on its own. But it can add to the public’s growing image of its leadership as fanatical, corrupt, lethally incompetent, eager to sacrifice both democracy and the hostages while turning the country and its people into global pariahs. At some point, just as they voted this ruinous government in, Israelis will have to throw that same government out.

Dahlia Scheindlin is a Tel Aviv-based political analyst and author of The Crooked Timber of Democracy in Israel published by De Gruyter

Green Chemistry Breakthrough: Researchers Create Ethylene from CO2

By Brian Westenhaus - Feb 25, 2024, 

Associate Professor Jingjie Wu and his team have enhanced the electrochemical conversion of CO2 into ethylene, a crucial chemical in various industries, using a modified copper catalyst.

This breakthrough could shift ethylene production from fossil fuels to green energy sources, significantly reducing carbon emissions.

The collaboration with multiple universities and the focus on making the process commercially viable aim to decarbonize chemical production and promote sustainability in the industry.


Engineers at the University of Cincinnati created a more efficient way of converting carbon dioxide into valuable products while simultaneously addressing climate change.

The study paper has been published in the journal Nature Chemical Engineering.

In his chemical engineering lab in UC’s College of Engineering and Applied Science, Associate Professor Jingjie Wu and his team found that a modified copper catalyst improves the electrochemical conversion of carbon dioxide into ethylene, the key ingredient in plastic and a myriad of other uses.

Ethylene has been called “the world’s most important chemical.” It is certainly among the most commonly produced chemicals, used in everything from textiles to antifreeze to vinyl.

The chemical industry generated 225 million metric tons of ethylene in 2022.

Wu explained that the process holds promise for one day producing ethylene through green energy instead of fossil fuels. It has the added benefit of removing carbon from the atmosphere.

Wu said, “Ethylene is a pivotal platform chemical globally, but the conventional steam-cracking process for its production emits substantial carbon dioxide. By utilizing carbon dioxide as a feedstock rather than depending on fossil fuels, we can effectively recycle carbon dioxide.”

Wu’s students, including lead author and UC graduate Zhengyuan Li, collaborated with Rice University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Stony Brook University and Arizona State University. Li received a prestigious graduate student award last year from the College of Engineering and Applied Science.



RhCu catalyst images. d, TEM image of the RhCu catalyst. e, HAADF-STEM image of the RhCu catalyst. The blue circles highlight Rh atoms. f, STEM-EDS mapping of the RhCu catalyst, showing atomic dispersion of Rh sites on the Cu matrix. Image Credit: University of Cincinnati. For more images click the study paper link to the open access (At time of posting.) paper.

The electrocatalytic conversion of carbon dioxide produces two primary carbon products, ethylene and ethanol. The researchers found that using a modified copper catalyst produced more ethylene.

“Our research offers essential insights into the divergence between ethylene and ethanol during electrochemical CO2 reduction and proposes a viable approach to directing selectivity toward ethylene,” lead author Li noted.

“This leads to an impressive 50% increase in ethylene selectivity,” Wu added. “Ideally, the goal is to produce a single product rather than multiple ones.”

Li said the next step is refining the process to make it more commercially viable.

The conversion system loses efficiency as byproducts of the reaction such as potassium hydroxide begin forming on the copper catalyst.

“The electrode stability must be improved for commercial deployment. Our next focus is to enhance stability and extend its operation from 1,000 to 100,000 hours,” Li said.

Wu explained these new technologies will help make the chemical industry greener and more energy efficient. “The overarching objective is to decarbonize chemical production by utilizing renewable electricity and sustainable feedstock,” Wu said. “Electrifying the conversion of carbon dioxide to ethylene marks a significant stride in decarbonizing the chemical sector.”

The study was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy where its Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office is leading efforts to reduce fossil fuels and carbon emissions in industry wherever possible.

**
This research group has its wits working. Knowing and understanding process technology well enough to get to a 100,000-hour working life is a great idea. Another bonus in research management is striving to a single product process. That would simplify the process greatly and cut the invested capital dramatically.

So far, the research is depending on renewable electrical power, at a low cost, collecting and getting the CO2 to the processor at low cost and making production sales into a market of really inexpensive ethylene.

Its going to take a lot of brain power to get this tech to economic market success.

By Brian Westenhaus via New Energy and Fuel

Why this is a pivotal moment for Hanford’s nuclear waste cleanup

Feb. 25, 2024

 A lab sample of the finished vitrification product, minus the radioactive material, at Bechtel offices in Richland on Feb. 8. (Kevin Clark / The Seattle Times)

By Esmy Jimenez
Seattle Times staff reporter

Fifty-five million gallons of radioactive waste.

A decadeslong timeline reaching easily into 2070.

A complex assembly involving several state and federal agencies, private contractors, tens of thousands of workers, local residents, and advocates all invested in a colossal effort, estimated to be the largest nuclear cleanup project in the world.

The Hanford site in Benton County is at a pivotal moment, set to finally transform the nuclear leftovers of a century past into glass that can be safely stored — a process called vitrification. Last October, the first of two melters used to actually vitrify the waste became active, with the second melter scheduled to launch this spring.

The project’s success — or failure — will ultimately influence the future of a dilemma that has long plagued the Northwest and the U.S.

“They’re doing something out there that has never been done before,” said Nikolas Peterson, the executive director of Hanford Challenge, a nonprofit watchdog.

“I think I have to constantly remind myself of that even when I’m critical of the facility.”

For staff at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, who are developing and testing the glass formulations, this moment in time feels significant.

“It’s really exciting to see how far it’s come,” said Tom Brouns, the lead of the environmental manager sector at PNNL, who’s worked at Hanford for more than 30 years.

“It’s taking a long time but it’s so close.”



How it works

Vitrification is not a new technology. The same process is used in making pottery, where high heat is applied to a material that leads to metamorphosis of the original substance.

Researchers in France have studied the vitrification of nuclear waste going back to the 1950s, and the country successfully built several facilities to tackle cleanup. Within this specialized industry, it’s considered one of the best methods to stabilize waste — it’s expensive but performs well over long periods of time (hundreds or thousands of years) and is an international standard when it comes to managing waste with high levels of radioactivity.

The process to vitrify waste at Hanford is highly complex and involves multiple steps.

It starts with a removal system that separates high-level waste that’s more toxic and radioactive from low-activity waste that is simpler to process and store. According to a 2023 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, about 95% of the waste in storage tanks is low activity when it comes to the physical volume. High-level waste only comprises about 5% of the volume but more than 70% of the radioactivity.

Separating the waste is crucial to better management, treatment and disposal.

This low-activity waste is pumped to a separate holding tank that then is pumped into another tank for mixing. Silica (a material commonly used to make sand) along with other additives are added to create the material that will ultimately be glass.

That mixture is pumped into melters, giant 300-ton devices that are the “heart” of the vitrification process. These burn at 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit and will create a molten substance over several days. It’s poured into stainless steel canisters where it eventually cools enough to become solid glass.

“Glass is a superior matrix,” Brouns explained. “Because the radio nuclei actually get trapped in the chemical matrix of the glass. Literally, they’re part of the atom.”



Frit, glass beads used in the vitrification process to solidify radioactive material, at Bechtel offices in Richland on Feb. 8. (Kevin Clark / The Seattle Times)

Over email, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Energy shared that so far, “The [Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant] team has successfully filled four stainless steel containers with molten test glass.”

It’s all part of a slow but steady process to monitor for safety and environmental compliance as Hanford prepares to fully begin the active vitrification process starting next year.

The decision to vitrify the waste in Hanford’s 177 storage tanks goes back to what’s known as the Tri-Party Agreement, a legal agreement and consent order between the U.S. Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency and Washington’s Department of Ecology. This agreement lays out the responsibilities of each agency when it comes to cleanup efforts and timelines, and ultimately tries to ensure that federal laws governing the disposal of solid waste and hazardous waste are followed.

Eventually, vitrified low-activity waste will be disposed of on-site in stainless steel casks, and a separate melter just for high-level waste will come online to manage the most toxic waste. That glassified product will go to a deep geological repository, though at this point, the U.S. does not have such a site.
Hanford’s history

Hanford’s origin traces back to the 1940s as part of World War II efforts to produce plutonium for a nuclear weapon as part of The Manhattan Project.

It was the world’s first nuclear production plant, though most workers were in the dark about their contributions. The materials produced on site were part of the atomic bomb that was later dropped on the people of Nagasaki, Japan.

Central Washington’s desert terrain was selected as a site due to its proximity to the Columbia River and its low population count.

The site kept producing plutonium through the Cold War, and in 1987 the last reactor was shut down. Over the nearly four decades since, officials have developed a plan to clean up the waste, as many of the tanks that hold nuclear waste have outlived their original life spans, leaking waste into the surrounding area.

This pollution has led Hanford to be categorized as a Superfund site: one of four areas on the EPA’s national priorities list for cleanup.

“This is a multigenerational process,” Brouns said. “It’s going to take longer to clean it up than it took to produce the waste in the first place.”


Two melters are installed, with one in operation, at the Low-Activity Waste Facility in the Hanford Vit Plant near Richland on Feb. 8.

\ (Kevin Clark / The Seattle Times)

Part of the challenge has been the collaboration among several state and federal agencies and shifting the culture from one devoted to the creation of nuclear materials, often mired in secrecy and urgency, to a new movement devoted to cleanup.

It’s also led to discussions of who’s footing the bill and how that’s affecting the timeline, pushing the goal post further and further into the future.

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GAO‘s report estimated the total cost of Hanford’s cleanup to be around $341 billion, with completion estimated for 2084.

“Historically, what’s happened is Hanford has been kind of routinely underfunded by like 700 million to a billion dollars or so,” said Ryan Miller, a spokesperson for the nuclear waste program at the Washington Department of Ecology.

Last year, President Joe Biden’s budget requested a record amount for Hanford dollars, at $3 billion. State officials hope for the same this year.

According to Ecology, every year of inadequate funding delays cleanup an additional 1½ to 3 years.

One of the greatest concerns for environmental advocates is a cheaper option that’s been floated by some federal agencies, called grouting, which involves solidifying the waste in specialized concrete.

This could cut costs and potentially shorten the cleanup timeline, but it’s less stable than vitrification and does not last as long.

For Peterson from Hanford Challenge, vitrification is key.

“Nobody wants to see this process fail,” Peterson said.

 

Several county leaders grill Oregon forestry officials after sawmill closures

By April Ehrlich (OPB)

Feb. 24, 2024 7 a.m.

Three sawmills have closed in Oregon within less than two months, prompting several counties’ leaders to grill state forestry officials about a plan that would limit logging in western Oregon forests.

The Interfor Sawmill in Philomath will shut down over the coming months,

 the company announced Feb. 16.

Courtesy of Zach Urness/Stateman Journal

The mill closures in Philomath, Banks and Springfield resulted in a loss of 183 jobs, as reported by the Salem Statesmen Journal. The mill owners pointed to market factors like high log costs, but they also called out state policies around species protections, including the Western Oregon State Forests Habitat Conservation Plan.

The habitat conservation plan was on Friday’s agenda for the Forest Trust Land Advisory Committee, which is made up of seven county commissioners from different parts of the state who advise the Board of Forestry and state forester.

“In Columbia County, practically all of our mills have closed,” said Columbia County Commissioner Margaret Magruder. “We’ve got a couple left, but it is just devastating.”

State Forester Cal Mukumoto told the committee that he had trouble connecting the mill closures to the state habitat conservation plan, since the plan has not yet been finalized.

“I do believe it’s probably linked to high log prices,” Mukumoto said. “And that’s always a problem from production facilities when those things collapse.”

Linn County Commissioner Will Tucker took issue with Mukumoto’s statement.

“Your comment came across as not compassionate for those 183 people who won’t have their careers anymore, whose employment plans and insurance policies, their medical care, all of that stuff is going to stop, and that is a big deal,” Tucker said.

Multiple commissioners said they were unhappy with the current draft of the habitat conservation plan and called for a “middle ground,” without specifying what that could look like.

Mukumoto is scheduled to give his recommendation on the draft plan at the Board of Forestry’s March 7 meeting

The Western Oregon State Forests plan promises to protect certain vulnerable species — like the Northern spotted owl, salmon and the marbled murrelet — by limiting timber harvesting activities in some forest lands managed by the state. It also allows species to be harmed in other areas where timber harvesting does occur.

The state and local counties share the revenue from logging on the 364,000-acre Tillamook State Forest.

Courtesy of Oregon Department of Forestry

Many conservation groups see it as a compromise. State officials see it as a way to avoid litigation.

Each time the forestry department plans to harvest and sell timber on state land, it undergoes a time-consuming and expensive process called “take avoidance,” which involves surveying the area for endangered or threatened species.

Oregon Department of Forestry officials say this process has historically opened the agency up to legal challenges that allege the department harmed protected species despite its survey efforts. By admitting that some species will be harmed during the logging process through a habitat conservation plan, there are fewer avenues for lawsuits.

The habitat conservation plan also seeks to provide some certainty about how much timber the state could harvest, explained state forest division chief Michael Wilson. He said as more animal and plant species become listed under the federal Endangered Species Act, more regions could become off-limits to logging. So without a conservation plan, the state can’t guarantee that timber harvesting won’t decline.

“What the [habitat conservation plan] really does would bring stability to these things,” Wilson said.

One thing is also certain with the plan: Timber harvests on state lands will decrease.

“We know that’s going to happen with this current HCP, and we have a good idea of what that’s going to be,” Wilson said. “Without an HCP, it is unknown.”

During Friday’s meeting, Clatsop County Commissioner Courtney Bangs questioned whether the forestry department’s spending on take avoidance was really a major burden to its budget, which has increased every year.

“It actually shows that you might have a spending problem,” Bangs said.

Wilson said that, despite Bangs’ assessment, the department is “not financially solvent.”

“The only way we managed to build our budget was through austerity measures for a number of years,” Wilson said, adding that the department has cut several things while other costs have risen rapidly, including wildfire management. “Everything has gone up. So, yes, we are currently deficit spending.”

Farmers from 12 EU countries continue to protest agricultural policies
By Euronews, APPublished on 23/02/2024 - 

Farmers complain that the EU’s environmental policies, such as the Green Deal, and low-cost imports from third countries which they say don't have to respect such high environmental standards.

Farmers from 10 EU countries, ranging from Central Europe to the Baltics and the Balkans, were on Thursday participating in a protest against the bloc's agriculture policies, bureaucracy and overall conditions for their business, organisers say.

Many of the farmers from the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland and Slovakia, met at a number of border crossings.

Farmers complain that the EU’s environmental policies, such as the Green Deal, which calls for limits on the use of chemicals and on greenhouse gas emissions, limit their business and make their products more expensive than non-EU imports.

They also complain about low prices for their products and say grain and other agriculture products coming from Ukraine and Latin America negatively affect the market.

Farmers had invited Czech Agriculture Minister Marek Vyborny, his Slovak counterpart Richard Takac, and the representatives of farmers from Poland and Hungary to rally at a Czech-Slovak border crossing known as Hodonin-Holic, which was blocked by hundreds of tractors.

“We don't protest against the EU, we protest against the wrong decisions by the European Commission,” said Andrej Gajdos from the Slovak Chamber of Agriculture and Food.

Elsewhere, clashes were reported on Thursday between Spanish farmers and police in Zaragoza, the capital of the northeastern Aragon region.

Talks between the government and farmers failed earlier this week with the biggest protest in weeks staged in Madrid on Wednesday.

The government has unveiled a package of 18 measures it said it will present to other EU member states at a meeting of agriculture ministers on February 26.

Carles Peris, Secretary General of the Union of Farmers and Stockbreeders of Valencia, said: "We want a law on the agri-food chain that is able to balance itself, it cannot be that those who generate the value, the producers, are the ones who receive the least money." 

Spanish farmers plan to gather in their thousands in the country's capital on Sunday.

In France, some farmers have indicated that they could block the opening on Saturday of the Salon International de L'Agriculture in Paris, which runs until March 3.

Protests were meanwhile held in several cities north of Paris on Thursday with one farmer in the Oise saying: "We feel like we're being taken for a ride, in the sense that the government has promised us a lot of things that we still haven't received."

"This is to show them that we're still here and we're still waiting for answers," he added.

The protests were held despite the government announcing on Wednesday a new bill to strengthen the law on agriculture and food and improve salaries in the sector.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal also said several million euros would be paid as emergency aid, particularly to livestock farmers. 

The new law comes three weeks after the government unveiled a package of measures to stymie the protest movement that included no new pesticide ban "without a solution" and a ban on imports of fruits and vegetables coming from outside the EU that have been treated with Thiaclopride, an insecticide currently banned in the bloc. 

The government also said it would propose the creation of a "European control force" to combat fraud, particularly regarding health regulations, and fight against import of food products that go against European and French health standards. It also reaffirmed its opposition to the signing of the EU-Mercosur trade deal.