Sweet potatoes came to Polynesia before humans did, study suggests
Scientists studied Polynesian sweet potatoes collected by Captain Cook in 1769.

Rows of sweet potatoes are pictured growing in Peru. Photo by Oxford University

April 13 (UPI) -- The sweet potato made its way to Polynesia without human assistance, new research suggests, colonizing the islands prior to the arrival of the first humans.

When European explorers first visited Polynesia, they found an abundance of sweet potatoes, a root vegetable native to the Americas. Researchers led by a team at Britain's University of Oxford have interpreted their discovery as proof of early contact between Polynesians and Americans prior to the arrival of European explorers and colonists.

New genomic evidence, however, undermines such an interpretation. Analysis of the remains of Polynesian sweet potatoes collected by Captain Cook in 1769 showed the vegetables were of a variety that colonized before the arrival of the earliest Polynesia peoples.

Researchers sequenced the genomes of several varieties of sweet potatoes, both planted and wild varieties, using historic and modern samples. Their analysis, published this week in the journal Current Biology, linked the historic wild varieties with the cultivated crop.

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The research suggests that wild sweet potatoes came to Polynesia through natural means. It's possible the seeds were carried to the islands by migrating birds. Scientists also determined that several other species of morning glories closely related to wild sweet potatoes colonized Polynesia during pre-human times.

"The sweet potato's early presence in Polynesia has been widely interpreted as strong evidence for human contact between Polynesia and America in the Pre-Columbian era," Pablo Muñoz-Rodríguez, a researcher at Oxford, said in a news release. "However, our finding is that the plant probably reached the Pacific Islands through natural dispersal by birds, wind or sea currents in pre-human times, as did several other species of morning glory."

Survey shows pollution in Gulf 10 years after Deepwater Horizon spill

Researcher Erin Pulster, marine scientist at the University of South Florida, is pictured identifying fish specimens alongside research partners from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Photo by USF

April 15 (UPI) -- For the first time, scientists have a conducted a Gulf-wide survey of oil pollution among fish populations.

The massive study -- comprising samples from 2,500 fish representing 91 species spread across 359 locations in the Gulf of Mexico -- suggests contamination from oil pollution remains widespread roughly 10 years after the Deepwater Horizon spill.

Researchers published the results of the record survey on Wednesday in the journal Scientific Reports.

"This is the largest comprehensive fish survey ever conducted in a large marine ecosystem and provides the first spatial and temporal baselines for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon in fishes in the Gulf of Mexico," study author Erin L. Pulster, marine scientist and postdoctoral researcher at the University of South Florida, told UPI in an email.

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Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, are one of the most toxic chemical components found in crude oil. The toxins, which have been linked to heart disease and cancers in humans, get trapped in the bile of fish.

"This study demonstrates the chronic and widespread oil pollution in this ecosystem," Pulster said. "Given the extensive oil and gas extraction activities in the Gulf of Mexico for the last eight decades, it is unclear why this has not been conducted prior to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill."

The new survey revealed elevated levels of PAH in every surveyed fish species living in the Gulf, but the highest levels were found in yellowfin tuna, golden tilefish and red drum.

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Elevated levels were expected in tilefish, which spend most of their lives stirring up seafloor sediment, where oil pollution settles. But researchers were surprised to find such elevated PAH levels in tuna, which live their lives in the water column, where oil pollution tends to persist for only short amounts of time.

As part their research, scientists also mined data from previous PAH exposure surveys. The research team found evidence of elevated PAH levels in the tissue and bile of 10 popular grouper species.

"The elevated and increasing PAH levels in fish is the result of a combination of sources which include both anthropogenic and natural sources," Pulster said. "Anthropogenic sources include the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, leaking infrastructure, riverine discharge, marine vessel traffic and the resuspension of contaminated sediments. Natural sources are mainly natural oil seeps and submarine groundwater discharge located throughout the Gulf of Mexico."

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Not all fish populations show the same levels of contamination. Scientists measure higher concentrations of the toxins near places with greater oil and gas activity. Researchers also found PAH hotspots among fish populations near coastal cities like Tampa Bay, which suggests urban runoff can exacerbate oil pollution problems.

"The continued degradation of the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem is demonstrated by the chronic, widespread oil pollution," Pulster said.

Despite the alarming results, scientists suggest the evidence of PAH contamination is more concerning for the health of Gulf ecosystems and fish populations than the health and safety of consumers of Gulf seafood. Toxin levels in the flesh of commercial fish species are closely monitored and PAH levels in fish flesh remain below public health advisory levels.

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However, prolonged exposure to elevated PAH and other oil-related toxins can cause the liver to shutdown, threatening the health of fish in the Gulf. Previous studies have revealed 50 to 80 percent population declines in deep water, or mesopelagic, fish populations near the Deepwater Horizon blowout site.

Researchers hope their baseline study of PAH contamination among Gulf fish is only the beginning of a more robust monitoring effort.

"Providing funding is available, our research efforts will continue to monitor and evaluate PAH levels in fish and the subsequent sub lethal effects," Pulster said. "Additionally, a major research focus will be geared toward identifying the sources of PAHs in surface waters that are impacting pelagic [openwater] species."

Genomics help scientists estimate the population size of the first Samoans


The earliest population of Samoans measured between 700 and 3,000 individuals, according to a new study. Photo by Charles S. Greene/Talofa, Samoa: A Summer Sail to an Enchanted Isle/Wikimedia Commons
April 15 (UPI) -- New genomic analysis has allowed scientists to estimate the population size of the first Samoans to arrive on the Pacific island some 3,000 years ago.

From approximately 3,000 to 1,000 years ago, between 700 and 3,400 people lived on the island of Samoa. Roughly 1,000 years ago, the island's population exploded from a few thousand to 10,000 individuals.

By analyzing the genomes of 1,197 individuals living in Samoa, scientists were able to gain new insights into one of the last major migrations of humans into previously uninhabited territories.

The results of the genomic analysis -- published this week in the journal PNAS -- could also help researchers explore links between early human history in Samoa and the modern health problems, including obesity, hypertension and Type 2 diabetes, that currently plague the island nation.

"These findings are relevant for our ongoing public health research in Samoan populations because they highlight the importance of population history and size in influencing our ability to identify the effect of novel genetic variations, and their interactions with 21st century environments on population health," study co-author Stephen McGarvey, professor of epidemiology and of anthropology at Brown University, said in a news release.

The prevalence of obesity in Samoa has led to record rates of related problems, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, kidney disease and cancer, according to McGarvey, who has been studying the island's health issues for many years.

"Smaller populations and the evolutionary mechanisms resulting from them, including genetic drift from bottlenecks and natural selection from novel challenging environments such as experienced by the first settlers of Samoa, make it easier to detect new gene variants and different frequencies of known variants that affect cardiometabolic disease risk factors now in the 21th century," McGarvey said.

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The latest genomic data showed modern Samoans get most of their genetic heritage from from Austronesian lineages. Samoans are the descendants of the aboriginal peoples of Taiwan, the islands of Southeast Asia, coastal New Guinea and other Oceanic islands.

The analysis also showed modern Samoans only derive 24 percent of their genome from the people of Papua New Guinea. Most other Polynesian groups share most larger portions of their ancestry with Papuans.

In addition to revealing the ancestry of modern Samoans, the latest data revealed evidence of the population decline that followed the arrival of the earliest European visitors. Hundreds of Samoans died from diseases brought by the first Europeans. Around 150 years ago, the island's population stabilized and began to grow once more.

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"These findings indicate that the modern Samoan population is a result of these demographic dynamics from the earliest times 3,000 years ago to the very recent colonial period in the 19th century," McGarvey said. "Any questions about putative genetic influences and their interactions with modern ways of life must be asked in the context of population history."
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Newly discovered black iguana species in Caribbean is endangered

Scientists discovered a new species of iguana, the melanistic black lizard, or Iguana melanoderma. Photo by M. Breuil

April 14 (UPI) -- Scientists have discovered a new iguana species in the eastern Caribbean. The novel reptile, Iguana melanoderma, was found on the Saba and Montserrat islands of the Lesser Antilles.

Researchers announced their discovery in the journal ZooKeys. According to the paper, the new species -- the melanistic black iguana -- is severely threatened.

"This new melanistic taxon is threatened by unsustainable harvesting -- including for the pet trade -- and both competition and hybridization from escaped or released invasive alien iguanas," scientists wrote.

The Lesser Antilles are home to three iguana species, but only one is endemic. The Lesser Antillean iguana, Iguana delicatissima, has lived among the northernmost islands of the Lesser Antilles for thousands of years. More recently, the islands have welcomed a pair of newcomers: the common iguana, Iguana iguana iguana, from South America and the green iguana, Iguana rhinolopha, from Central America.

Physically, the new species is differentiated by a black spot located between the eye and its ear cavity. Juveniles also boast a dorsal carpet pattern that darkens as the reptiles age. Genetically, the species is marked by a series of unique mitochondrial patterns.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the Lesser Antillean iguana remains a species of least concern, but the group's Red List fails to differentiate between different populations. In some parts of the Caribbean, such as Guadeloupe, the common iguana and the green iguana have pushed the Lesser Antillean iguana to the brink of extinction through competition and hybridization.

Similar trends are underway on the islands of the Lesser Antilles, and scientists worry the newly discovered melanistic black iguana will face a similar fate.

"With the increase in trade and shipping in the Caribbean region and post-hurricane restoration activities, it is very likely that there will be new opportunities for invasive iguanas to colonize new islands inhabited by endemic lineages," lead study author Frédéric Grandjean, professor at the University of Poitiers in France, said in a news release.

Researchers hope that future analysis of the region's iguana species will help scientists better differentiate endemic lineages from invasive iguanas.

"Priority actions for the conservation of the species Iguana melanoderma are biosecurity, minimization of hunting and habitat conservation," said Grandjean. "The maritime and airport authorities of both islands must be vigilant about the movements of iguanas, or their sub-products, in either direction, even if the animals remain within the same nation's territory. Capacity-building and awareness-raising should strengthen the islands' biosecurity system and could enhance pride in this flagship species."

Plant diversity in Europe's forests is on the decline

As nitrogen levels have increased in Europe's temperate forests, small-ranged species have declined and disappeared. Photo by Martin Adámek/Czech Academy of Sciences

April 13 (UPI) -- Plant diversity in the forests of Europe is not what it used to be. Rare plant species are being replaced by more common species at an alarming rate, according to a new study published Monday in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.

Across the globe, the list of threatened plant and animal species gets longer every year. But on smaller scales, some species are thriving. Researchers wanted to figure out why some plants are becoming more abundant, while others are getting snuffed out.

Scientists surveyed changes in the abundance of 1,162 different herb-layer plant species growing among 68 temperate forest sites in Europe. The survey relied on data collected and shared by a network of forest ecologists, known as forestREplot.

"This network has the advantage that the experts on the actual locations can be asked if something is unclear, and, in this way, it differs from many other large databases," lead study author Ingmar Staude, doctoral student at the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research and the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, said in a news release.

Analysis of the forestREplot data showed species with limited geographical ranges were more vulnerable to extinction in certain forests.

"This is not so much due to the smaller population size of such plants, but rather to their ecological niche," Staude said.

Scientists hypothesized rare and declining species were more likely to be adapted to less common soil nutrients. Further analysis showed species with limited geographical ranges were more likely to be declining in forests with excess nitrogen levels.

The numbers suggest chronic and excessive nitrogen deposition has led to a 4 percent decline in the abundance of plant species with small ranges.

In some cases, the increase in nitrogen levels has allowed rare nitrogen-loving species to thrive, but more typically, species with limited ranges are being replaced by more widespread species.

While the average biodiversity among individual forests remains relatively stable, the latest research showed plant diversity across the temperate forest biome is decreasing. The research was conducted in protected forests; biodiversity declines are likely worse in forests open to logging.

"We now have to find out whether the processes we observe in forests are similar in other biomes," said Staude.

Puerto Rico's coquí is the Caribbean's oldest frog

Today, frogs in the genus Eleutherodactylus, which includes the common coquí, dominate the Caribbean, having diversified into many different body forms and sizes. A newly found fossil shows they have been in the region for at least 29 million years. Photo by Alberto Lopez Torres

April 8 (UPI) -- The discovery of a tiny arm bone suggests the coquí frog has been living in the forests of the Caribbean for at least 29 million years.

The ancient arm bone -- described Wednesday in the journal Biology Letters -- is the oldest evidence of a frog living in the Caribbean. The fossil was found in Puerto Rico, where the coquí frog is much beloved.

"It's a national treasure," lead study author David Blackburn, curator of herpetology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, said in a news release. "Not only is this the oldest evidence for a frog in the Caribbean, it also happens to be one of the frogs that are the pride of Puerto Rico and related to the large family Eleutherodactylidae, which includes Florida's invasive greenhouse frogs."

The fossil was recovered from a river bank outcropping in northwestern Puerto Rico by study co-author Jorge Velez-Juarbe, an associate curator of marine mammals at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

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The dig site has previously yielded fossil seeds, as well as remains of sea cows and side-necked turtles. Scientists also previously unearthed the oldest remains of rodents and gharials, a group of crocodiles, in the Caribbean.

"There have been many visits from which I have come out empty-handed over the last 14 years," Velez-Juarbe said. "I've always kept my expectations not too high for this series of outcrops."

Previously, scientists have used genetic analysis to estimate that rain frogs lived in the Caribbean during the early Oligocene Epoch, but until now, they had no fossils to prove it. Small, fragile bones and the Caribbean's hot, humid weather isn't a great recipe for preservation.

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After discovering the tiny bone, Velez-Juarbe conferred with experts to identify the frog to which the fossil belonged.

Scientists suspect the Caribbean's first frogs rafted over the islands from South America during the Oligocene. Today, the Eleutherodactylus genus features 200 species. The relatives of coquí dominate the Caribbean forests.

"This is the most diverse group by two orders of magnitude in the Caribbean," Blackburn said. "They've diversified into all these different specialists with various forms and body sizes. Several invasive species also happen to be from this genus. All this raises the question of how they got to be this way."

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Researchers hope additional discoveries will she more light on the early evolution of Eleutherodactylus frogs in the Caribbean.

"I am thrilled that, little by little, we are learning about the wildlife that lived in Puerto Rico 29-27 million years ago," Velez-Juarbe said. "Finds like this help us unravel the origins of the animals we see in the Caribbean today."

Ancient long-lived pioneer trees store majority of carbon in tropical forests

Old-growth forest on Barro Colorado Island, in Panama, hosts 300 tree species. Photo by Christian Ziegler/UT-Austin

April 10 (UPI) -- Trees that grow fast, live long and reproduce slowly, known as long-lived pioneers, store the majority of carbon found in tropical forests.

Scientists arrived at their discovery after analyzing the different development strategies used by various tree species.

"In an earlier study we found that trees pursue different strategies during their development, and those strategies can be classified according to two independent criteria," lead study author Nadja Rüger, a scientist with the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research, told UPI.

Some tree species, scientists found, grow fast and die young. Other species grow slow and reach old age. Different tree species also achieve different statures.

Fertility also influences a trees' development pattern. Some trees grow big and tall but are limited in their reproductive abilities. Smaller species like shrubs can reproduce in great numbers, but they fail to get very big.

Long-lived pioneers are a unique group. They grow fast, helping to pioneer new patches of forest. But they also grow old, allowing them to reach great stature. There are trade-offs, of course. Long-lived pioneers, or infertile giants, produce only small numbers of offspring.

To better understand how the different characteristics of tree species influence the formation, composition and evolution of tropical forests, scientists plugged data on growth rates, longevity, stature and fertility into sophisticated computer models.

"We discovered that the nearly 300 unique tree species can be represented in our computer model by just five functional groups and still produce accurate forecasts of tree composition and forest biomass over time," study co-author Caroline Farrior, assistant professor of integrative biology at the University of Texas at Austin, told UPI.

The models showed long-lived pioneers account for a majority of a forest's biomass and carbon storage.

The research -- published this week in the journal Science -- could be used to craft more effective conservation plans, and to prioritize the protection for forests with larger numbers of long-lived pioneers.

When studying forest development and composition in the past, scientists focused mostly on the trade-off between growth and survival -- grow fast and die young, or grow slow and grow old. But the latest analysis showed that balancing the trade-off between stature and reproduction is just as important.

For the most recent study, scientists utilized tree data meticulously collected from dense forests on Barro Colorado Island in Panama. Researchers are currently working to see if they can repeat their predictive modeling efforts for forests that haven't already been extensively studied by scientists.

"One of our goals is to extend this approach to forests with less complete data, very young secondary forests and tropical dry forests," Rüger said. "If this succeeds, it will be much easier than today to scientifically support renaturation projects and sustainable timber use in tropical forests, and also, of course, to estimate how effectively re-growing forests contribute to carbon storage and, therefore, to climate mitigation."

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Hidden armies of crown of thorns starfish can devastate coral reefs

Juvenile crown of thorns starfish eat algae. As adults, they become voracious consumers of coral. Photo by The University of Sydney

April 9 (UPI) -- As adults, crown of thorns starfish are voracious consumers of coral, but as juveniles, the starfish only eat algae.

New research suggests crown of thorns starfish can delay their dietary switch for 6.5 years, proliferating on reefs as coral recover. These hidden armies can devastate reefs made vulnerable by coral bleaching.

"Despite the notoriety of the large adult starfish and their propensity for coral prey, the juveniles eat algae," Maria Byrne, professor of marine and developmental biology at the University of Sydney in Australia, said in a news release. "For outbreaks to arise, these algal-eating juveniles must transition into coral predators."

When coral is abundant, crown of thorns starfish transition to a coral diet after only a few months. But the starfish can bide their time, delaying adulthood, on reefs where the coral supply is depleted.

RELATED Study shows changes in Great Barrier Reef fish during heat wave

"This Peter Pan effect means that populations of juvenile crown of thorns starfish can build up on reefs in the absence of coral," said Dione Deaker, doctoral student at the University of Sydney. "They could become a hidden army waiting to consume reefs as the reefs recover."

Coral damage caused by crown of thorns starfish has been documented across the Great Barrier Reef and the reefs of the Indo-Pacific, but how exactly the starfish transition from their juvenile diet to their adult eating pattern hasn't been closely studied.

For the new study, published this week in the journal Biology Letters, scientists reared crown of thorns starfish in the lab on a diet of algae for 10 months and 6.5 years. Both groups reached the same maximum size, between 16 to 18 millimeters. After both groups were transitioned to a coral diet, they adopted similar growth patterns.

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"Suppression of the switch to a coral diet due to scarcity of prey might occur after coral bleaching events," Deaker said. "The remarkable resilience of juvenile starfish to coral scarcity complicates our ability to age them and indicates the potential for reserves of juveniles to accumulate on the reef to seed outbreaks when favorable conditions arise."

Researchers suggest reef protection and conservation plans need to account for the possibility of a reserve population, a hidden army of crown of thorns starfish, lying in wait among recovering coral reefs.

"Another important implication of our findings is the possibility that the current adult starfish killing programs used to manage crown of thorns starfish might, in fact, trigger a feedback mechanism in the starfishes' transition to coral predator as juveniles are released from adult competition," Byrne said.

Climate change to blame for megadrought emerging across Western U.S.

Geologists walk across Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park, one the many places across the American Southwest that has experienced intense drought conditions over the last two decades. Photo by Kevin Krajick/Earth Institute

April 17 (UPI) -- Across much of the Western United States, a megadrought is underway. And according to a study published this week in the journal Science, anthropogenic climate change is at least partially to blame.

"Global warming has pushed what would have been a moderate drought in southwestern North America into megadrought territory," researchers wrote in the paper.

Scientists used soil and tree-ring analysis, as well as hydrological modeling, to show that the nearly two-decade span from 2000 to 2018 was the driest 19-year period in more than four centuries.

Tree ring data dating back to 800 A.D. helped scientists identify a handful of prolonged droughts, similar in severity to the current megadrought. Soil moisture data allowed scientists to characterize the level of dryness experienced over the last two decades.

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The analysis showed only one earlier drought was comparable to the ongoing drought. The period from 1575 to 1603 was the last time the region experienced such a prolonged and intense drought.

The latest megadrought has been most intense across the American Southwest, especially in Southern California and Arizona. But the megadrought is ongoing and continues to expand, with below-average precipitation plaguing a large swath of the country, stretching from Oregon and Montana down through California, New Mexico and portions of northern Mexico.

According to the new study, natural climate patterns play a significant role in the occurrence of megadroughts. Unusually cool weather across the tropical Pacific Ocean -- the so-called La Niña pattern -- tends to push storm tracks farther north, starving the Southwestern U.S. of much-needed precipitation.

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Researchers determined the current drought has been exacerbated by human-caused climate change. As a result of global warming, average temperatures in the region have risen some 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit over the last two decades. Because hot air holds more moisture, prolonged heat waves can pull large amounts of moisture from the soil, making drought conditions worse.

The scientific community isn't in agreement on exactly what constitutes a megadrought. Generally speaking, a megadrought is defined as a drought persisting across decades, but the specific parameters are contentious.

But the authors of the latest study suggest a tidy definition of a megadrought isn't needed to determine whether climate change is significantly worsening current drought conditions.

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"It doesn't matter if this is exactly the worst drought ever," study co-author Benjamin Cook, climate scientist at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in a news release. "What matters is that it has been made much worse than it would have been because of climate change."

Because temperatures are expected to continue rising for the foreseeable future -- and until humans dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions -- Cook suggests the current drought is likely to persist. If the drought does subside, it's likely another will begin soon after.

"Because the background is getting warmer, the dice are increasingly loaded toward longer and more severe droughts," said lead study author Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. "We may get lucky, and natural variability will bring more precipitation for a while. But going forward, we'll need more and more good luck to break out of drought, and less and less bad luck to go back into drought."

Machine learning helps scientists distinguish ancient human, dog poop

APRIL 17, 2020 / By Brooks Hays

Scientists have developed a machine learning algorithm to help archaeologists distinguish between ancient human and dog coprolites, fossilized poop. Photo by Jada Ko/Courtesy of the Anhui Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology
April 17 (UPI) -- Researchers have developed a new machine learning algorithm that can determine whether ancient excrement was deposited by a human or a dog.

Bones and artifacts are great, but ancient poop can offer archaeologists tremendous insights, too -- insights into dietary patterns, parasite evolution and more. The only problem is that it can be hard to identify the owner of really old feces.




Specifically, scientists have trouble differentiating between ancient human and dog feces. Dogs have been hanging out around humans for thousands of years. As a result, droppings from both are often found at archaeological dig sites. The droppings are frustratingly similar in size, shape and composition.

The difficulty of telling dog poop from human poop isn't insurmountable. Over the years, researchers have developed imperfect solutions to the problem.

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"It's not a complete black and white story, there was some work done before, especially by one of our co-author Karl Reinhard on identifying the 'host species' using pollen grains and parasites -- some are specific to some species -- but this still remained a challenge," Maxime Borry, researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany, told UPI in an email.

For a better way to identify ancient excrement, Borry and her colleagues at the Max Planck Institute teamed up with scientists from Harvard University and the University of Oklahoma to develop a machine learning algorithm.

The technology -- dubbed coproID, short for coprolite identification -- works by combining analysis of ancient host DNA with machine learning software trained to differentiate between the bacteria in the gut microbiomes of dogs and humans.

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"Our machine learning method was trained using gut microbiome composition of modern human, dog and soil samples," Borry said. "Once the model was giving good results on modern samples, we applied it to our paleofeces to predict their 'host species' -- human or dog."

Scientists hope their new technology will help researchers gain insights into the evolution of the human gut microbiome, including details related to the emergence of food intolerances and changes in human health.

The new technology -- described Friday in the journal PeerJ -- is not only useful, it also doesn't require much extra effort from scientists.

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"The key advantage of coproID is that it's using the same data that would anyway need to be generated to ask molecular evolution questions -- shotgun sequencing data -- so in a way, a coproID analysis in this kind of projects comes for free," Borry said.

Borry and her colleagues are currently working on a study of the evolution of the gut microbiome -- with the help of coproID, of course. Luckily for other archaeologists, the technology isn't proprietary.

"Scientists can already start using this technology if they have the data to work with: our method is freely and openly available online," Borry said. "This method is the first line of analysis for any further archaeological question: this helps verify the 'host species' of a sample before drawing any conclusion of the species microbiome with other techniques."

Fog harp can harvest water from even the lightest of fogs

Virginia Tech researchers Jonathan Boreyko and Brook Kennedy inspect their fog harp at Kentland Farm, where they pitted the water harvesting device against similar devices. Photo by Peter Means/Virginia Tech

DOES IT PLAY CELTIC MUSIC TOO 


April 17 (UPI) -- Engineers at Virginia Tech University have developed a new, more efficient fog harp capable of harvesting water from even a light fog.

Previous iterations of the technology, first unveiled in 2018, required dense fog to work, but the latest tests suggest the improved harp is viable in a variety of fog conditions.

The improved efficiency could allow the harp to be deployed as a sustainable water harvesting device in new parts of the world.

"Billions of people face water scarcity worldwide," Brook Kennedy, an associate professor of industrial design at Virginia Tech, said in a news release. "We feel that the fog harp is a great example of a relatively simple, low-tech invention that leverages insight from nature to help communities meet their most basic needs."


Water drops are seen on the wires of a fog harp. Photo by Peter Means/Virginia Tech University

The fog harp looks like a harp, with parallel wires that collect the fog's ambient water droplets. Similar devices use screen mesh, but analysis by engineers at Virginia Tech showed parallel wires more efficiently collected water and encourage drainage into the collector.

In dense fog produced in the lab, the parallel wires outperformed mesh screens by a factor of two. In field tests, scientists pitted the fog harp against other fog harvesting devices, some with wires closer together and others with mesh screens. Fog conditions in the field were considerably lighter than the fog in the lab, but the fog harp still outperformed the competitors.

Even when fog was too light to produce water on the wires of the other devices, the fog harp was able to harvest ambient water.

Scientists described the success of their water harvesting device this week in the journal Advanced Sustainable Systems.

"We already knew that in heavy fog, we can get at least two times as much water," said Jonathan Boreyko, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Virginia Tech. "But realizing in our field tests that we can get up to 20 times more water on average in a moderate fog gives us hope we can dramatically enhance the breadth of regions where fog harvesting is a viable tool for getting decentralized, fresh water."

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Timing of Earth's biggest earthquakes follows a 'devil's staircase' pattern

Scientists have found global earthquake sequences tend to occur in clusters -- outbursts of seismic events separated by long but irregular intervals of silence. Photo by Angelo_Giordano/Pixabay
April 14 (UPI) -- The timing of large, shallow earthquakes across the globe follows a mathematical pattern known as the devil's staircase, according to a new study of seismic sequences.

Previously, scientists and their models have theorized that earthquake sequences happen periodically or quasi-periodically, following cycles of growing tension and release. Researchers call it the elastic rebound model. In reality, periodic earthquake sequences are surprisingly rare.

Instead, scientists found global earthquake sequences tend to occur in clusters -- outbursts of seismic events separated by long but irregular intervals of silence.

The findings, published this week in the journal Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, suggest large earthquakes increase the probability of subsequent seismic events.

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Previous models failed to account for the interconnected nature of global fault systems. Seismic event don't occur in isolation. Each major quake alters the dynamics of other fault systems.

While the research suggests large quake sequences are "burstier" than previously thought, they remain as unpredictable as ever. The gaps between bursts are irregular, making it exceedingly difficult to anticipate the next cluster.

"Mathematically described as the devil's staircase, such temporal patterns are a fractal property of nonlinear complex systems, in which a change of any part -- e.g., rupture of a fault or fault segment -- could affect the behavior of the whole system," scientists wrote in their paper.

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The devil's staircase pattern is also evidence in Earth's sedimentation sequences and reversals of the planet's magnetic field, as well as crustal uplift and erosion rates.

In addition to ignoring the interconnected nature of fault systems, most previous earthquake pattern models focused on too few earthquakes across time frames that were too short and regions that were too small. As a result, earlier models failed to pick up on the staircase pattern.

When models fail to take a wide-angle view of earthquake sequences -- instead, looking at seismic patterns over short periods of time -- it becomes impossible to tell whether a series of seismic events occurred within a single cluster or spanned two clusters and an interval of silence.

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"For this same reason, we need to be cautious when assessing an event is 'overdue' just because the time measured from the previous event has passed some 'mean recurrence time' based an incomplete catalog," researchers wrote in their paper.

While scientists still aren't sure of the mechanisms that dictate the irregularity of the gaps between earthquake clusters, they hope that by studying the influence of major earthquakes on other fault systems via stress transfer, they can better predict how outbursts of large, shallow earthquakes will play out -- knowledge that could offer advanced warnings to vulnerable populations.

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Navajo Nation positive COVID-19 cases, deaths continue to rise
By Jean Lotus

More positive COVID-19 cases were reported on the Navajo Nation reservation Thursday, but President Jonathan Nez said the residents would "get through this together." Screenshot courtesy U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva

April 17 (UPI) -- The number of positive tests for COVID-19 continue to climb this week on the Navajo Nation reservation, and the tribal government extended weekend lockdowns for two more weeks to try to stop the spread of the virus.

The number of positive cases rose to 1,042 Thursday with an increase of 121 cases in a single day, the Navajo Epidemiology Center reported. The number of deaths reached 41.

Health agencies said 3,440 total negative test results had been tallied as of Thursday.

RELATED Positive coronavirus tests jump in Navajo Nation

"Our warriors are on the front lines once again, battling and fighting a monster called COVID-19," Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez said Friday at an online tribal roundtable in Indian Country sponsored by U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz. 

"A couple of weeks ago, it was stated that COVID-19 would wipe us all out," Nez said. "I want to tell everyone that native people are resilient. We are overcomers and we will get through this together."

The newest figures show the highest numbers of confirmed cases in five counties, with the most, 306, in Navajo County, Ariz. Other high numbers Arizona include 147 cases in Apache County and 199 in Coconino County. In New Mexico, health officials reported 203 cases in McKinley County and 140 in San Juan County.

Along with a weekend curfew, new health rules require that anyone who enters a public facility will be required to wear a protective mask and gloves, Nez said.

RELATED Navajo leaders self-quarantine after COVID-19 exposure

Nez and Vice President Myron Lizer urged members of the Navajo Nation to be "prudent with their stimulus funds" and to save money going forward through the uncertain times of the pandemic.

Nez and Lizer have both voluntarily self-quarantined for two weeks after being exposed to a first responder with the virus.

About 175,000 people live on the reservation, which overlaps the state boundaries of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado.

RELATED Navajo Nation reservation COVID-19 outbreak strains hospitals

About 40 percent of residents have no access to running water, which makes hand washing difficult. Many tribal residents are older and many have chronic health conditions that make them more vulnerable to the virus, including asthma, cancer, diabetes, and heart disease.

The tribe's government signed an order in March blocking non-residents from visiting. Tribe-operated casinos also closed in New Mexico and Arizona.

"Please utilize local Navajo businesses as much as possible -- they might not offer all of the products you need, but please consider buying local before traveling to border towns and putting yourselves at greater risk due to greater exposure to others," Lizer said earlier this week.

"We will win this fight with COVID-19, but we have to do it together and everyone must be a part of the process," he said.

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=NAVAJO

Saudi princess says she's in prison and poor health

Saudi Princess Basmah bint Saud bin Abdulaziz al-Saud attends a discussion at the Middle East Institute (MEI) in Washington, D.C., on April 12, 2017. Michael Reynolds/EPA

April 17 (UPI) -- A Saudi princess posted on social media this week that she has been held in prison with her daughter and pleaded to be released for medical reasons.

Princess Basmah bint Saud bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, 56, the outspoken daughter of Saudi Arabia's King Abdul Aziz, who ruled the country from 1953-64, appealed to her uncle, King Salman and cousin, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to be freed.

"I am currently being arbitrarily held at Al-Ha'ir prison without criminal, or otherwise any charges against my person," the princess said on her official Twitter account. "My health is deteriorating to an extent that is serve, and that could lead to my death."

A former business partner of the princess confirmed the tweets Thursday and said someone hacked into her account and deleted them.

RELATED Fighting continues in Yemen despite cease-fire, coronavirus outbreak

The princess and her daughter were taken into custody last March when they tried to leave Saudi Arabia for Switzerland. She said at the time she needed urgent medical treatment.

Al-Saud has been known for years to support progressive causes, which were seen as controversial in Saudi Arabia. She called for women's rights, reforms during the Arab Spring and changing how the country is run from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy.

"The arrest of a Saudi princess should come as no surprise," said Rothna Begum, senior women's rights researcher at the humanitarian watchdog Human Rights Watch. "Princess Basmah has been openly critical of the country's women's rights record in the past and her arrest shows that no woman, no matter her background, is untouchable if she is deemed to be a potential threat."

Mushroom sales soar as Americans cook more at home during pandemic
By Jessie Higgins

Mushroom sales were up 18 percent during the last week of March compared with a year ago, according to the Chicago based analytics firm IRI. Photo courtesy of the Mushroom Council

EVANSVILLE, Ind., April 17 (UPI) -- As produce sales at grocery stores surge during the coronavirus pandemic, one item is selling particularly well -- mushrooms.

During the last week of March, fresh mushroom sales were up 18 percent over the same time last year, compared to an 8 percent rise in overall fresh produce sales, according to the Chicago-based data and analytics firm IRI.

"We take heart in those numbers," said Eric Davis, a spokesman for the Mushroom Council, an industry group based in Redwood Shores, Calif. "We take heart that we're in that group of staple items. You look for bright spots during this time, and that is one for us."

The Mushroom Council believes home cooks might be using mushrooms to stretch meat dishes and make them last longer, Davis said.

EVEN TODAY COTTON IS PICKED BY SLAVES, IN INDIA, PAKISTAN, ETC.RELATED Cotton demand plummets during coronavirus pandemic

"It slots into so many things," Davis said. "If you're making meat loaf, you can add mushrooms. If you're making stew, tacos, spaghetti, or even a packet of ramen, mushrooms bulk it out."

Davis was quick to add, thought, that while retail demand is booming, demand from food service has all but disappeared.

Mushroom growers who supply retail stores are seeing a huge surge in demand. But those who sell predominantly to restaurants are struggling to sell their crops.

RELATED Yeast supplies run low as homebound Americans turn to baking

"Restaurants comprised about 75 percent of our business," said Amanda Olson, owner of the Maine Mushroom Co., a one-year-old mushroom farm in Augusta, Maine.

"The day the governor of Maine issued an order that restaurants couldn't be opened to the public, they all canceled their orders within 24 hours. It was pretty devastating," Olson said.

Olson said she and her husband, Andy, grow specialty mushrooms for high-end restaurants. After Maine's restaurants were closed March 18, they worried their business would go under.

SOCIAL SABOTAGE FOR PROFIT
RELATED Dairy industry dumps milk as demand drops due to pandemic

The couple has worked quickly over the last few weeks to find new customers and have had some success, Olson said. The number of individuals who order mushrooms directly has exploded, and the couple has started to receive new orders from area natural food stores.

"The retail side from individuals just buying mushrooms and from natural food stores is up 300 percent," Olson said. "The pathway to get to the customer has changed."

The new business does not totally replace their lost restaurant customers, she said. But she thinks it will be enough to keep them afloat until stay-at-home rules end.

Other growers have seen similar trends.

In Pennsylvania, mushroom supplier Buona Foods has seen its retail demand increase some 35 percent, while food service contracts have dropped by roughly the same percentage.

"Until a month ago, we were about evenly split, half retail, half food service," said Chris Johansen, a Buona Foods spokesman. "Now, we're about 85-15."

Because Buona Foods already supplied retail stores, it has been able to pivot and meet the new retail demand, Johansen said. Other businesses have been less fortunate.

"Growers that don't have the right machinery to package for retail are in a difficult situation," Johansen said. "There are many tons of mushrooms being dumped into fields because they have nowhere to go."

THIS MAY DAY STAY HOME

America Is About to Witness the Biggest Labor Movement It’s Seen in Decades
It took 40 years and a pandemic to stir up a worker revolution that’s about to hit corporate America

Illustrations: Shira Inbar

Steve LeVine Apr 14



September 1945, a little-remembered frenzy erupted in the United States. Japan had surrendered, ending World War II, but American meat packers, steelworkers, telephone installers, telegraph operators, and auto assemblers had something different from partying in mind. In rolling actions, they went on strike. After years of patriotic silence on the home front, these workers, along with unhappy roughnecks, lumberjacks, railroad engineers, and elevator operators — some 6 million workers in all — shut down their industries and some entire cities. Mainly they were seeking higher pay — and they got it, averaging 18% increases.

The era of raucous labor is long past, and worker chutzpah along with it. That is, it was — until now. Desperately needed to staff the basic economy while the rest of us remain secluded from Covid-19, ordinarily little-noticed workers are wielding unusual leverage. Across the country, cashiers, truckers, nurses, burger flippers, stock replenishers, meat plant workers, and warehouse hands are suddenly seen as heroic, and they are successfully protesting. For the previous generation of labor, the goal post was the 40-hour week. New labor’s immediate aims are much more prosaic: a sensible face mask, a bottle of sanitizer, and some sick days.


The question is what happens next. Are we watching a startling but fleeting moment for newly muscular labor? Or, once the coronavirus is beaten, do companies face a future of vocal workers aiming to rebuild lost decades of wage increases and regained influence in boardrooms and the halls of power?

For now at least, some of the country’s most powerful CEOs are clearly nervous. Late last month, Apple, faced with reporters asking about a company decision to furlough hundreds of contract workers without pay, did a quick about-face. Those employees, Apple now said, would receive their hourly wages. A few weeks earlier, after Amazon warehouse workers demanded better benefits during the virus pandemic, that company also reversed course, offering paid sick days and unlimited unpaid time off.

The backdrop is a country at a standstill and uncertain over which businesses will survive the current economic shakeout, and in what form. With some notable exceptions, very few companies seem prepared to risk riling their employees, especially given broad popular support for workers at their grocery stores, nurses at their hospitals, and drivers who are keeping supply arteries open.


The past four decades have been perhaps labor’s weakest since the Industrial Age.

But if companies are responding to those who are protesting, they might also think ahead and preempt festering trouble down the road. “I like to believe people will say, ‘We treat these people as disposable, but they are pretty indispensable. Maybe we should do what we can to recognize their contribution,’” says David Autor, a labor economist at MIT and co-director of the school’s Work of the Future Task Force.

Until the 1980s, layoffs were barely a thing, writes Louis Uchitelle in The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences. Companies tended to avoid large-scale dismissals, because they violated a red line of publicly accepted practice and also could finger the company for blame. The United States was still in the age of company as community and societal patron, and even when workers went on strike, they were generally not replaced, because the optics would be bad.

But in 1981, President Ronald Reagan changed all that. Some 12,000 air traffic controllers went on strike, demanding higher pay and a shorter workweek. In a breathtaking decision, Reagan fired all but a few hundred of them. The Federal Labor Relations Authority decertified the controllers’ union entirely. The era of strong labor was over.

In the subsequent age of the no-excuses layoff, the number of major strikes has plunged. Starting in 1947, when the government began keeping such data, there were almost always anywhere from 200 to more than 400 big strikes every year. But in 1982, the year after the air traffic controllers debacle, the number for the first time fell below 100. In 2017, there were just seven. “There was damage to self-esteem every time there was a layoff. It took the militancy out of organized labor, and I don’t think it ever recovered,” Uchitelle says.


The past four decades have been perhaps labor’s weakest since the Industrial Age. For a half century, those working for hourly wages have won almost no real gains. The real average hourly wage in 2018 dollars adjusted for inflation was $22.65 in 2018, compared with $20.27 in 1964 — just an 11.7% gain, according to Pew Research. Real median hourly wages rose by only another 0.6% last year despite the sharp tightening of the job market and an increase in the minimum wage across the country, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The current revival of worker activism precedes Covid-19 in the unlikeliest of places. In 2018, West Virginia teachers, among the lowest paid in the nation and four years without a raise, went on strike for nine days in a demand for higher pay. That they won a 5% increase was one astonishing thing. But the walkout itself was stunning, specifically because of the state where it occurred — a former bedrock of ultramilitant coal miners who had repeatedly gone to actual war for better pay and safety but more recently were a bastion of worker passivity.


If teachers are an indicator of what is coming, Amazon, fast food restaurants, hospitals, and gig companies have a long, hot few years ahead.

Last year, the West Virginia teachers were on the picket lines again. This time, they stopped the state legislature from funding private schools in what they saw as an attempt to weaken their newly revived strength. Officials buckled after just a day. The strikes meanwhile spread to a dozen red and blue cities and states. Often wearing red shirts as the symbol of the strikes, the teachers were demanding more money — from 2000 to 2017, teachers’ real salaries actually shrunk by 1.6% nationally, according to the National Center for Health Statistics — as well as more supplies and help in the classroom. In Arizona, teachers won a 20% raise, and Los Angeles teachers won a 6% raise. That triggered more strikes through much of 2019, with Chicago teachers, for one, winning a 16% pay raise. Strikes seemed likely this year, too, in Detroit and Philadelphia, for starters.

If teachers are an indicator of what is coming, Amazon, fast food restaurants, hospitals, and gig companies have a long, hot few years ahead. On April 6 alone, the employees of a Los Angeles McDonald’s walked out when a co-worker was diagnosed positive for the coronavirus. For the second time in a month, workers at a Staten Island Amazon warehouse went on strike after 26 co-workers came down with the virus. And outside Chicago, employees of two plants walked out because management failed to immediately announce that co-workers had been diagnosed with Covid-19.

Across the country, workers are on the march over safety, pay, and sick days. The picture is jarring at a time when 16 million people are newly out of work. Companies and CEOs need to prepare for a new post-Covid-19 reality where workers will recognize their power — and use it.




Tragic stories are part of what is giving new labor its resonance, like that of Leilani Jordan, a 27-year-old grocery clerk with cerebral palsy in Largo, Maryland, who kept working despite feeling sick because she felt needed during the crisis and died last week. (Her final paycheck: $20.64.) And of postal workers across the country who keep sorting, transporting, and delivering the mail and packages to every one of our homes, with a toll so far of 12 dead, 600 confirmed with the virus, another 6,000 under quarantine — and very little apparent hope of a government bailout.

Workers are galvanizing and telling their stories through social media, rarely requiring the organizational meticulousness that made Old Labor so formidable. How companies respond to, and get in front of, such post-union employees will largely cement their reputation after Covid-19 passes.

When public relations firm Edelman recently surveyed public opinion in 12 countries on what companies should do in the age of the coronavirus, 89% responded “protect your employees.” If you can get ahead of worker activism and look after your employees now, says CEO Richard Edelman, the public will begin on your side.


“Business models based on ridiculous labor rates plus arbitrage where you foist all your costs onto the employee are coming to an end.”

When the virus struck Hilton Hotels starting in January, its global occupancy plummeted to somewhere between 10% and 15%, and most of its 6,100 managed and franchised properties closed. Executives were convinced that the travel industry would eventually rebound, but from there they faced a conundrum: They did not want to lose a trained workforce, but they also knew they and their franchisees could not afford to keep their approximately 260,000 employees on the payroll. So, on March 24, the decision was announced to, in effect, loan them out.

Staff in Hilton’s human relations unit contacted counterparts at Amazon, Albertson’s, CVS, and Walgreens, says Nigel Glennie, vice president of corporate communications at Hilton. These retailers were experiencing Covid-19 boomlets and, combined, were in the market for hundreds of thousands of workers. Were they interested in some already trained workers, Hilton asked, who are expert specifically in catering to exceedingly particular customers? So an expedited hiring portal was set up, ultimately connecting Hilton’s workforce with 28 retailers that were suddenly responsible for almost the entire working economy.

The outcome was ideal for Hilton: It would not lay off but instead furlough its workers, thus allowing them to collect unemployment checks or work elsewhere. Once the crisis ended, they could return to Hilton. “We have a commercial interest in this decision. We know we have well-trained people who we want back,” Glennie says. “We wanted to make sure they were looked after. We want to do the right thing by our people.”

Jeff Lackey, vice president of talent acquisition for CVS Health, says his company was seeking 50,000 new employees at the time. Albertson’s says it was hiring 30,000. Neither know exactly how many of Hilton’s workforce are now working for their respective companies, but Lackey says the hiring process was being completed in as little as a single day. “I understand what it’s like to live paycheck to paycheck,” he says.


Less flattering attention has gone to companies that have violated an unwritten set of rules that have emerged for corporate behavior. Hospital management has been upbraided for suspending nurses who try to protect themselves by buying their own equipment and disciplining those who speak out. Former employees of Bird, the scooter company, described drawn-out hours of uninformed dread prior to an announced Zoom meeting, followed by a short announcement by someone they did not know. And Dig Inn, the fast-casual chain, sprung the news by text.

Sephora, too, has been faulted publicly by recently laid-off employees. At first, the retail beauty chain closed but promised to keep paying everyone for as long as the stores remained shuttered. Then, on March 31, it laid off part-time staff anyway. The decision caught a lot of Sephora employees by surprise. In tweets and online videos, some workers said they had been on calls with their managers that very day discussing the opposite — how they would go ahead in the new environment. Suddenly, though, employees received texts saying that in 15 minutes, they were to participate in a mandatory audio call.

When Lydia Cymone, a Sephora makeup artist in Alpharetta, Georgia, heard the call, she was right in the middle of videotaping a makeup tutorial and posted the tearful video. Brittney Coorpender, who did facial treatments at a Sephora store in San Jose, California, told me in an email exchange that she felt misled. “Women/men who forgot to mute themselves could be heard sobbing right before I ended the call,” Coorpender wrote. “They promised and promised us we were fine and gave zero indication we weren’t, until that call.”

In response to a request for comment, Sephora sent the March 31 statement it posted to its website. Dan Davenport, president of recruiter Randstad RiseSmart, says, “If you’re making a statement that you’re not going to be laying anyone off, you better be right about that.”




Ifcorporate America does face a post-Covid-19 reckoning from workers, the gig economy seems like one of the top probable targets. Jim Chanos, president of Kynikos Associates, a hedge fund that shorts stocks, was made famous in the early 1990s for blowing the whistle on Enron. Today, Chanos is shorting Uber and Grubhub, among other gig companies. In an interview, he said he had already been shorting the two companies but has added to these bets since the virus struck.

What makes them weak, in Chanos’ view, is the optics of their business model, which is based on paying an arguably miserly cut of revenue to their workers and a refusal to make them actual employees. While allowing these companies to avoid a lot of the conventional costs of doing business, the strategy has also always left the gig companies at risk of their workers and the public turning against them. Chanos predicts that’s exactly what’s going to happen in the post-coronavirus era. The public is “going to look askance” at companies that have relied on taxpayers to fully cover their workers’ jobless benefits, since they do not pay into unemployment insurance funds. “Business models based on ridiculous labor rates plus arbitrage where you foist all your costs onto the employee are coming to an end,” he says.


Until the virus, the notion of unionized tech workers was just that — a notion that seemed to violate the very spirit of Silicon Valley. It’s still hard to imagine unionized software engineers. But it’s equally difficult to say where the boundaries of the possible lie.

White-collar tech activism goes back two years, when Google workers around the world walked off the job in a protest against sexual harassment. More workers are griping now. Last month, some Instacart workers walked off the job in a bid for a higher share of the revenue and better safety; in some cities, they are starting to join unions like the United Food and Commercial Workers local in Chicago. In San Francisco, Uber and Lyft drivers protested last month in front of Uber headquarters.

The tremors, though, will be felt not just in the gig economy but also tech at large: In February, employees at Kickstarter, the crowdfunding platform, voted to unionize, becoming the first white-collar tech company staff to do so, according to a database at Cal Berkeley. The Teamsters are making an open run at organizing other Silicon Valley workers. If you put Covid-19 out of your mind, the move is mind-blowing. Until the virus, the notion of unionized tech workers was just that — a notion that seemed to violate the very spirit of Silicon Valley. It’s still hard to imagine unionized software engineers. But it’s equally difficult to say where the boundaries of the possible lie.

The biggest fish of all in terms of tech unionization is Amazon. The e-commerce giant is beset with worker complaints just as it has begun to transcend its barbarian image, repositioning itself as a public good at the very center of the U.S. economy. An issue that has drawn particular heat is its decision on March 30 to fire Chris Smalls, a worker at an Amazon warehouse on Staten Island who loudly complained about health safety. On April 8, a group of Democratic U.S. senators wrote a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos raising skeptical questions about Smalls’ dismissal and Covid-19 safety generally at company warehouses. Amazon has seemed generally conflicted: On one hand, it has responded with added pay and off-days for sick employees. But Amazon has also repeatedly fired workers it has deemed disloyal — three employees just over the past week who had criticized health conditions. Whole Foods, too, owned by Amazon and run by John Mackey, the devotee of “conscious capitalism,” faced a sick-out in March. In a statement, an Amazon spokesperson said the points raised in the senators’ letter were unfounded and that Smalls was dismissed for violations of social distancing guidelines. “Nothing is more important than the safety of our teams,” the spokesperson said.



Robert Shiller, the Nobel Prize–winning economist at Yale, compares labor’s newfound position to its stature in the Great Depression, when workers also suddenly were conferred with vast public sympathy.

While complaints and denunciation of Amazon abound, no one has gone so far as to try an old-style shutdown of any of the company’s operations — the kind of display of strength that typified unions in their heyday. For that matter, no rabble-rousing worker is known to have recently banged on the desk of a major company executive — or a leading politician — and demanded the production of a plant be kept open and workers on the job. Even if one did, would the public go along? Would large numbers of people stop shopping at Amazon? If they did, Amazon would have to concede quickly, just as railroad workers shut down transportation across the country in labor’s peak. “If you could really shut down a warehouse, that would really shock Amazon and get them to address the worker concerns,” says Steven Greenhouse, author of Beaten Down, Worked Up, a history of American labor.

Robert Shiller, the Nobel Prize–winning economist at Yale, compares labor’s newfound position to its stature in the Great Depression, when workers also suddenly were conferred with vast public sympathy. “The narrative was that it wasn’t their fault. There was something in the system,” Shiller told me. “This is another case where obviously it’s not their fault. And there is heroism in how they are delivering to us through this.”

In a way, labor’s resurgence is not all that surprising. The age of Trump and Brexit is, at its crux, an uprising against globalization, the movement that, after Reagan and his contemporaneous British counterpart, Margaret Thatcher, diminished labor and championed worldly capitalism at whatever the local cost. If we are spurning globalization, it stands to reason that the local comes back into focus. And what is more local than the grocery bagger, the postman, the nurse?

Where workers have advantage today has been in keeping their demands modest, drawing the public to their side, and making it very difficult for management to refuse. Worker efforts could be blunted by high unemployment, at least until jobs return. But their pluck, beaten out of them by the years of layoffs, has returned with Covid-19.






WRITTEN BY Steve LeVine
I am Editor at Large at Medium with interests in ferreting out the whys for the turbulence all around us. Ex-Axios, ex-Quartz, ex-WSJ, ex-NYT, ex-FT.