Tuesday, July 14, 2020

Converting female mosquitoes to non-biting males with implications for mosquito control

VIRGINIA TECH
 
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IMAGE: JAMES BIEDLER (LEFT), A RESEARCH SCIENTIST IN ZHIJIAN TU'S LAB; AZADEH ARYAN (MIDDLE), THE FIRST AUTHOR ON THE PAPER AND A RESEARCH SCIENTIST IN ZHIJIAN TU'S LAB; AND MARIA SHARAKHOVA... view more 
CREDIT: VIRGINIA TECH
Virginia Tech researchers have proven that a single gene can convert female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes into fertile male mosquitoes and identified a gene needed for male mosquito flight.
Male mosquitoes do not bite and are unable to transmit pathogens to humans. Female mosquitoes, on the other hand, are able to bite.
Female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes require blood to produce eggs, making them the prime carriers of the pathogens that cause Zika and dengue fever in humans.
"The presence of a male-determining locus (M locus) establishes the male sex in Aedes aegypti and the M locus is only inherited by the male offspring, much like the human Y chromosome," said Zhijian Tu, a professor in the Department of Biochemistry in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
"By inserting Nix, a previously discovered male-determining gene in the M locus of Aedes aegypti, into a chromosomal region that can be inherited by females, we showed that Nix alone was sufficient to convert females to fertile males. This may have implications for developing future mosquito control techniques."
These findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"We also discovered that a second gene, named myo-sex, was needed for male flight. This work sheds light into the molecular basis of the function of the M locus, which contains at least 30 genes," said Azadeh Aryan, a research scientist in Tu's lab and the first author on the paper.
Aryan and colleagues generated and characterized multiple transgenic mosquito lines that expressed an extra copy of the Nix gene under the control of its own promoter. Maria Sharakhova, an assistant professor of entomology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and Anastasia Naumencko, a former graduate research assistant, mapped the chromosomal insertion site of the extra copy of Nix.
The Virginia Tech team, in collaboration with Zach Adelman's lab in the Department of Entomology at Texas A&M University and Chunhong Mao of the Biocomplexity Institute & Initiative at the University of Virginia, found that the Nix transgene alone, even without the M locus, was sufficient to convert females into males with male-specific sexually dimorphic features and male-like gene expression.
"Nix-mediated sex conversion was found to be highly penetrant and stable over many generations in the laboratory, meaning that these characteristics will be inherited for generations to come," said Michelle Anderson, a former member of the Adelman and Tu labs and currently a senior research scientist at the Pirbright Institute in the United Kingdom.
Although the Nix gene was able to convert the females into males, the converted males could not fly as they did not inherit the myo-sex gene, which is also located in the M locus.
Knocking out myo-sex in wild-type males confirmed that the lack of myo-sex in the sex-converted males is the reason why they could not fly. Although flight is needed for mating, the sex-converted males were still able to father viable sex-converted progeny when presented with cold-anesthetized wild-type females.
"Nix has great potential for developing mosquito control strategies to reduce vector populations through female-to-male sex conversion, or to aid in the Sterile Insect Technique, which requires releasing only nonbiting males," said James Biedler, a research scientist in the Tu lab.
Genetic methods that rely on mating to control mosquitoes target only one specific species. In this case, the Tu team is targeting Aedes aegypti, a species that invaded the Americas a few hundred years ago and poses a threat to humans.
However, more research is needed before potentially useful transgenic lines can be generated for initial testing in laboratory cages. "One of the challenges is to produce transgenic lines that convert females into fertile, flying male mosquitoes by inserting both the Nix and myo-sex genes into their genome together," said Adelman.
As the Tu team looks to the near future, they wish to explore the mechanism by which the Nix gene activates the male developmental pathway. The team is also interested in learning about how it evolves within mosquito species of the same genus.
"We have found that the Nix gene is present in other Aedes mosquitoes. The question is: how did this gene and the sex-determining locus evolve in mosquitoes?" said Tu, who is also an affiliated faculty member of the Fralin Life Sciences Institute.
In addition to diving into the depths of the Nix gene in mosquitoes, researchers hope that these findings will inform future investigations into homomorphic sex chromosomes that are found in other insects, vertebrates, and plants.
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Yumin Qi, a research scientist at Virginia Tech, and Justin Overcash, a former graduate student at both Virginia Tech and Texas A&M University, also contributed to this research.
Written by Kristin Rose Jutras and Kendall Daniels
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For chimpanzees, salt and pepper hair not a marker of old age

New GW study finds there is significant variation in how chimpanzees experience pigment loss
GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
 
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IMAGE: THERE IS SIGNIFICANT INDIVIDUAL VARIATION IN HOW CHIMPANZEES, LIKE THIS ONE AT GOMBE NATIONAL PARK, EXPERIENCE PIGMENT LOSS. view more 
CREDIT: IAN C. GILBY
WASHINGTON (July 14, 2020)--Silver strands and graying hair is a sign of aging in humans, but things aren't so simple for our closest ape relatives--the chimpanzee. A new study published today in the journal PLOS ONE by researchers at the George Washington University found graying hair is not indicative of a chimpanzee's age.
This research calls into question the significance of the graying phenotype in wild non-human species. While graying is among the most salient traits a chimpanzee has--the world's most famous chimpanzee was named David Greybeard--there is significant pigmentation variation among individuals. Graying occurs until a chimpanzee reaches midlife and then plateaus as they continue to age, according to Elizabeth Tapanes, a Ph.D. candidate in the GW Department of Anthropology and lead author of the study.
"With humans, the pattern is pretty linear, and it's progressive. You gray more as you age. With chimps that's really not the pattern we found at all," Tapanes said. "Chimps reach this point where they're just a little salt and peppery, but they're never fully gray so you can't use it as a marker to age them."
The researchers gathered photos of two subspecies of wild and captive chimpanzees from their collaborators in the field to test this observation. They visually examined photos of the primates, evaluated how much visible gray hair they had and rated them accordingly. The researchers then analyzed that data, comparing it to the age of the individual chimpanzees at the time the photos were taken.
The researchers hypothesize there could be several reasons why chimpanzees did not evolve graying hair patterns similar to humans. Their signature dark pigmentation might be critical for thermoregulation or helping individuals identify one another.
Dr. Brenda Bradley, an associate professor of anthropology, is the senior author on the paper. This research dates back to an observation Dr. Bradley made while visiting a field site in Uganda five years ago. As she was learning the names of various wild chimpanzees, she found herself making assumptions about how old they were based on their pigmentation. On-site researchers told her that chimps did not go gray the same way humans do. Dr. Bradley was curious to learn if that observation could be quantified.
There has been little previous research on pigmentation loss in chimpanzees or any wild mammals, Dr. Bradley said. Most existing research on human graying is oriented around the cosmetic industry and clinical dermatology.
"There's a lot of work done on trying to understand physiology and maybe how to override it," Dr. Bradley said. "But very little work done on an evolutionary framework for why is this something that seems to be so prevalent in humans."
The researchers plan to build on their findings by looking at the pattern of gene expression in individual chimpanzee hairs. This will help determine whether changes are taking place at the genetic level that match changes the eye can see.
This study comes ahead of World Chimpanzee Day on July 14. GW's faculty and student researchers make contributions to our global understanding of chimpanzees and primates as part of the GW Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology. Through various labs, investigators study the evolution of social behavior in the chimpanzees and bonobos, the evolution of primate brain structure, and lead on-the-ground projects at the Gombe Stream Research Center in Tanzania. Dr. Bradley's lab is also currently working on research about color vision and hair variation in lemurs.
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Ancient oyster shells provide historical insights

New research suggests ways to improve reef management and stabilize ecosystems
UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA
An interdisciplinary team of scientists studying thousands of oyster shells along the Georgia coast, some as old as 4,500 years, has published new insights into how Native Americans sustained oyster harvests for thousands of years, observations that may lead to better management practices of oyster reefs today.
Their study, led by University of Georgia archaeologist Victor Thompson, was published July 10 in the journal Science Advances.
The new research argues that understanding the long-term stability of coastal ecosystems requires documenting past and present conditions of such environments, as well as considering their future. The findings highlight a remarkable stability of oyster reefs prior to the 20th century and have implications for oyster-reef restoration by serving as a guide for the selection of suitable oyster restoration sites in the future.
Shellfish, such as oysters, have long been a food staple for human populations around the world, including Native American communities along the coast of the southeastern United States. The eastern oyster Crassostrea virginica is a species studied frequently by biologists and marine ecologists because of the central role the species plays in coastal ecosystems.
Oyster reefs are a keystone species that provide critical habitats for other estuarine organisms. Oyster populations, however, have dramatically declined worldwide over the last 100 years due to overexploitation, climate change and habitat degradation.
"Oyster reefs were an integral part of the Native American landscape and our study shows that their sustainability over long periods of time was likely due to the sophisticated cultural systems that governed harvesting practices," said Thompson, professor of anthropology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and director of the UGA Laboratory of Archaeology.
According to Thompson, prior models used by archaeologists have not adequately accounted for the role Indigenous people had not only sustaining ecosystems, but also enhancing biodiversity.
"Our research shows that harvesting was done likely with an aim towards sustainability by Native American communities," he said. "Work here along the Georgia coast, along with colleagues working in the Pacific and in Amazonia, indicates that Indigenous peoples had a wealth of traditional ecological knowledge regarding these landscapes and actively managed them for thousands of years."
Changes in oyster shell size and abundance is widely used to examine human population pressures and the health of oyster reefs. The researchers measured nearly 40,000 oyster shells from 15 Late Archaic (4500 - 3500 years Before Present) through Mississippian (1150 - 370 years BP) period archaeological sites situated along the South Atlantic coast of the United States to provide a long-term record of oyster harvesting practices and to document oyster abundance and size across time.
The new findings show an increase in oyster size throughout time and a nonrandom pattern in their distributions across archaeological sites up and down the coastline that the authors believe is related to the varying environmental conditions found in different areas.
When the researchers compared their work to maps of the 19th-century oyster reef distributions, they found that the two were highly correlated. All of the data on oyster size and reef size suggested there was considerable stability in oyster productivity over time, even if some reefs were not quite as productive as others. This overall productivity changed, however, in the early 1900s when industrial oyster canning devastated the reefs, leaving only a small percent of the reefs viable today.
"This work, which was partially supported by the Georgia Coastal Ecosystems Long Term Ecological Research project, demonstrates the importance of understanding the role that humans play in shaping the landscape, and that is something that is not always appreciated in ecological studies," said Merryl Alber, professor and director of the UGA Marine Institute on Sapelo Island, a site of excavations for this study.
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The Georgia Coastal Ecosystems research project, established in 2000 with a grant from the National Science Foundation and renewed for the third time in 2019, studies long-term change in coastal ecosystems such as the saltwater marshes that characterize Georgia's coastline.
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New lithium battery charges faster, reduces risk of device explosions

Researchers at Texas A&M University have invented a technology that can prevent lithium batteries from heating and failing
TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
 
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IMAGE: A SCHEMATIC SHOWING LITHIUM BATTERY WITH THE NEW CARBON NANOTUBE ARCHITECTURE FOR THE ANODE view more 
CREDIT: JURAN NOH/TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
Cell phone batteries often heat up and, at times, can burst into flames. In most cases, the culprit behind such incidents can be traced back to lithium batteries. Despite providing long-lasting electric currents that can keep devices powered up, lithium batteries can internally short circuit, heating up the device.
Researchers at Texas A&M University have invented a technology that can prevent lithium batteries from heating and failing. Their carbon nanotube design for the battery's conductive plate, called the anode, enables the safe storage of a large quantity of lithium ions, thereby reducing the risk of fire. Further, they said that their new anode architecture will help lithium batteries charge faster than current ¬¬commercially available batteries.
"We have designed the next generation of anodes for lithium batteries that are efficient at producing large and sustained currents needed to quickly charge devices," said Juran Noh, a material sciences graduate student in Dr. Choongho Yu's laboratory in the J. Mike Walker '66 Department of Mechanical Engineering. "Also, this new architecture prevents lithium from accumulating outside the anode, which over time can cause unintended contact between the contents of the battery's two compartments, which is one of the major causes of device explosions."
Their results are published in the March issue of the journal Nano Letters.
When lithium batteries are in use, charged particles move between the battery's two compartments. Electrons given up by lithium atoms move from one side of the battery to the other. On the other hand, lithium ions travel the other direction. When charging the battery, lithium ions and electrons go back to their original compartments.
Hence, the property of the anode, or the electrical conductor that houses lithium ions within the battery, plays a decisive role in the battery's properties. A commonly used anode material is graphite. In these anodes, lithium ions are inserted between layers of graphite. However, Noh said this design limits the amount of lithium ions that can be stored within the anode and even requires more energy to pull the ions out of the graphite during charging.
These batteries also have a more insidious problem. Sometimes lithium ions do not evenly deposit on the anode. Instead, they accumulate on the anode's surface in chunks, forming tree-like structures, called dendrites. Over time, the dendrites grow and eventually pierce through the material that separates the battery's two compartments. This breach causes the battery to short circuit and can set the device ablaze. Growing dendrites also affect the battery's performance by consuming lithium ions, rendering them unavailable for generating a current.
Noh said another anode design involves using pure lithium metal instead of graphite. Compared to graphite anodes, those with lithium metal have a much higher energy content per unit mass or energy density. But they too can fail in the same catastrophic way due to the formation of dendrites.
To address this problem, Noh and her teammates designed anodes using highly conductive, lightweight materials called carbon nanotubes. These carbon nanotube scaffolds contain spaces or pores for lithium ions to enter and deposit. However, these structures do not bind to lithium ions favorably.
Hence, they made two other carbon nanotube anodes with slightly different surface chemistry -- one laced with an abundance of molecular groups that can bind to lithium ions and another that had the same molecular groups but in a smaller quantity. With these anodes, they built batteries to test the propensity to form dendrites.
As expected, the researchers found that scaffolds made with just carbon nanotubes did not bind to lithium ions well. Consequently, there was almost no dendrite formation, but the battery's ability to produce large currents was also compromised. On the other hand, scaffolds with an excess of binding molecules formed many dendrites, shortening the battery's lifetime.
However, the carbon nanotube anodes with an optimum quantity of the binding molecules prevented the formation of dendrites. In addition, a vast quantity of lithium ions could bind and spread along the scaffold's surface, thereby boosting the battery's ability to produce large, sustained currents.
"When the binding molecular groups are abundant, lithium metal clusters made from lithium ions end up just clogging the pores on the scaffolds," said Noh. "But when we had just the right amount of these binding molecules, we could 'unzip' the carbon nanotube scaffolds at just certain places, allowing lithium ions to come through and bind on to the entire surface of the scaffolds rather than accumulate on the outer surface of the anode and form dendrites."
Noh said that their top-performing anodes handle currents five times more than commercially-available lithium batteries. She noted this feature is particularly useful for large-scale batteries, such as those used in electric cars, that require quick charging.
"Building lithium metal anodes that are safe and have long lifetimes has been a scientific challenge for many decades," said Noh. "The anodes we have developed overcome these hurdles and are an important, initial step toward commercial applications of lithium metal batteries."
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Other contributors to this research include Jian Tan from the mechanical engineering department; and Digvijay Rajendra Yadav, Peng Wu and Dr. Kelvin Xie in the materials science and engineering department.
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Global methane emissions soar to record high

The pandemic has tugged carbon emissions down, temporarily. But levels of the powerful heat-trapping gas methane continue to climb, dragging the world further away from a path that skirts the worst effects of global warming.
STANFORD'S SCHOOL OF EARTH, ENERGY & ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
 
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IMAGE: THE GLOBAL METHANE BUDGET FOR 2017 BASED ON DATA FROM SATELLITE SENSORS. ORANGE SHOWS SOURCES RELATED TO HUMAN ACTIVITIES; GREEN SHOWS NATURAL SOURCES AND SINKS FOR THE GAS; HATCHED ORANGE-GREEN... view more 
CREDIT: JACKSON ET AL. 2020 ENV. RES. LETT.
Global emissions of methane have reached the highest levels on record. Increases are being driven primarily by growth of emissions from coal mining, oil and natural gas production, cattle and sheep ranching, and landfills.
Between 2000 and 2017, levels of the potent greenhouse gas barreled up toward pathways that climate models suggest will lead to 3-4 degrees Celsius of warming before the end of this century. This is a dangerous temperature threshold at which scientists warn that natural disasters, including wildfires, droughts and floods, and social disruptions such as famines and mass migrations become almost commonplace. The findings are outlined in two papers published July 14 in Earth System Science Data and Environmental Research Letters by researchers with the Global Carbon Project, an initiative led by Stanford University scientist Rob Jackson.
In 2017, the last year when complete global methane data are available, Earth's atmosphere absorbed nearly 600 million tons of the colorless, odorless gas that is 28 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping heat over a 100-year span. More than half of all methane emissions now come from human activities. Annual methane emissions are up 9 percent, or 50 million tons per year, from the early 2000s, when methane concentrations in the atmosphere were relatively stable.
In terms of warming potential, adding this much extra methane to the atmosphere since 2000 is akin to putting 350 million more cars on the world's roads or doubling the total emissions of Germany or France. "We still haven't turned the corner on methane," said Jackson, a professor of Earth system science in Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth).
Growing sources of methane
Globally, fossil fuel sources and cows are twin engines powering methane's upward climb. "Emissions from cattle and other ruminants are almost as large as those from the fossil fuel industry for methane," Jackson said. "People joke about burping cows without realizing how big the source really is."
Throughout the study period, agriculture accounted for roughly two-thirds of all methane emissions related to human activities; fossil fuels contributed most of the remaining third. However, those two sources have contributed in roughly equal measure to the increases seen since the early 2000s.
Methane emissions from agriculture rose to 227 million tons of methane in 2017, up nearly 11 percent from the 2000-2006 average. Methane from fossil fuel production and use reached 108 million tons in 2017, up nearly 15 percent from the earlier period.
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, carbon emissions plummeted as manufacturing and transportation ground to a halt. "There's no chance that methane emissions dropped as much as carbon dioxide emissions because of the virus," Jackson said. "We're still heating our homes and buildings, and agriculture keeps growing."
Emissions around the globe
Methane emissions rose most sharply in Africa and the Middle East; China; and South Asia and Oceania, which includes Australia and many Pacific islands. Each of these three regions increased emissions by an estimated 10 to 15 million tons per year during the study period. The United States followed close behind, increasing methane emissions by 4.5 million tons, mostly due to more natural gas drilling, distribution and consumption.
"Natural gas use is rising quickly here in the U.S. and globally," Jackson said. "It's offsetting coal in the electricity sector and reducing carbon dioxide emissions, but increasing methane emissions in that sector." The U.S. and Canada are also producing more natural gas. "As a result, we're emitting more methane from oil and gas wells and leaky pipelines," said Jackson, who is also a senior fellow at Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment and Precourt Institute for Energy.
Europe stands out as the only region where methane emissions have decreased over the last two decades, in part by tamping down emissions from chemical manufacturing and growing food more efficiently. "Policies and better management have reduced emissions from landfills, manure and other sources here in Europe. People are also eating less beef and more poultry and fish," said Marielle Saunois of the Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin in France, lead author of the paper in Earth System Science Data.
Possible solutions
Tropical and temperate regions have seen the biggest jump in methane emissions. Boreal and polar systems have played a lesser role. Despite fears that melting in the Arctic may unlock a burst of methane from thawing permafrost, the researchers found no evidence for increasing methane emissions in the Arctic - at least through 2017.
Human driven emissions are in many ways easier to pin down than those from natural sources. "We have a surprisingly difficult time identifying where methane is emitted in the tropics and elsewhere because of daily to seasonal changes in how waterlogged soils are," said Jackson, who also leads a group at Stanford working to map wetlands and waterlogged soils worldwide using satellites, flux towers and other tools.
According to Jackson and colleagues, curbing methane emissions will require reducing fossil fuel use and controlling fugitive emissions such as leaks from pipelines and wells, as well as changes to the way we feed cattle, grow rice and eat. "We'll need to eat less meat and reduce emissions associated with cattle and rice farming," Jackson said, "and replace oil and natural gas in our cars and homes."
Feed supplements such as algae may help to reduce methane burps from cows, and rice farming can transition away from permanent waterlogging that maximizes methane production in low-oxygen environments. Aircraft, drones and satellites show promise for monitoring methane from oil and gas wells. Jackson said, "I'm optimistic that, in the next five years, we'll make real progress in that area."
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Rob Jackson is Stanford's Michelle and Kevin Douglas Provostial Professor. Co-authors of the paper in Environmental Research Letters are affiliated with Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement at Universite? Paris-Saclay; the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) in Canberra, Australia; the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; the European Commission Joint Research Centre; the Center for Global Environmental Research at the National Institute for Environmental Studies and the Meteorological Research Institute in Ibaraki, Japan; the TNO Department of Climate Air & Sustainability in Utrecht, The Netherlands; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute in Helsinki, Finland.
The research received support from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Stanford University, the Australian Government's National Environmental Science Programme's Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub (JGC) and Future Earth.
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This gorgeous Hubble image hides an incredible secret
A distant star casts "bat wing" shadows across space. Image source: NASA, ESA, and STScI

By Mike Wehner @MikeWehner
July 13th, 2020

The Hubble Space Telescope captured an image of a distant star casing “bat wing” shadows into space.

The star’s bright light is hitting a disk of debris surrounding the star, casting wide shadows we can see thanks to Hubble.

The wings even “flap” as a result of the wavy shape of the debris ring.Take a look at the glorious image above and see what details you can spot. There’s a handful of bright stars and lots of dust and loose material floating around that might eventually coalesce into stars, planets, or moons. There are also some very distant stars that appear as tiny dots scattered about. There’s enough to take in that you might have missed one of the most interesting features of image: a “bat shadow,” as NASA calls it.
Take a look toward the right-hand side of the image and you’ll see a bright dot sitting between what appears to be two very dark triangular shadows. That’s a newborn star, and the shadow being cast by a wealth of material orbiting it.




That so-called “bat shadow” is an indication that the star is surrounded by a disc of matter that will eventually form the features we see in places like our own solar system — namely, planets and moons and asteroids. We can see the bright shine of the star but if we were directly in line with its disc, it may be partially shrouded in the same shadow we see beaming from either side of it.

Via NASA:

Astronomers using a previously captured Hubble imagery spotted a remarkable image of a young star’s unseen, planet-forming disk casting a huge shadow across a more distant cloud in a star-forming region. The star is called HBC 672, and the shadow feature was nicknamed the “Bat Shadow” because it resembles a pair of wings. The nickname turned out to be unexpectedly appropriate, because now those “wings” appear to be flapping!

Wait, flapping? It’s true! Hubble’s observations of the faraway system appear to show changes in the shape and orientation of the shadows, suggesting that the ring of debris circling the star isn’t uniform, and the light beaming from the star takes on sightly different appearances based on the shape of that ring. The wobble of the ring may be due to a planet also orbiting the star, embedded within the debris disk.

“You have a star that is surrounded by a disk, and the disk is not like Saturn’s rings – it’s not flat,” Klaus Pontoppidan of the Space Telescope Science Institute said in a statement. “It’s puffed up. And so that means that if the light from the star goes straight up, it can continue straight up – it’s not blocked by anything. But if it tries to go along the plane of the disk, it doesn’t get out, and it casts a shadow.”



\Mike Wehner has reported on technology and video games for the past decade, covering breaking news and trends in VR, wearables, smartphones, and future tech. Most recently, Mike served as Tech Editor at The Daily Dot, and has been featured in USA Today, Time.com, and countless other web and print outlets. His love of reporting is second only to his gaming addiction.

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Fauci knows exactly why the coronavirus pandemic is out of control

Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci takes off his face mask before testifying before a House Committee on Energy and Commerce on the Trump administration's response to the COVID-19 pandemic on Capitol Hill in Washington on Tuesday, June 23, 2020. Image source: Kevin Dietsch/Pool via AP

By Chris Smith @chris_writes
July 14th, 2020

Dr. Anthony Fauci explained why the coronavirus is out of control in the United States right now, and the reasons aren’t surprising.

The health expert said that the US should have down entirely a few months ago, and the current surges can be explained by that failure.

Furthermore, phased reopenings did not work as planned, Fauci said. The doctor said things can still be turned around, advising young people to play their part in reducing the spread of the virus.

The novel coronavirus pandemic is out of control in several countries, with the United States leading the pack. The US will top 3.5 million cases at some point on Tuesday, as it’s currently averaging more than 60,000 new cases per day. The death toll nears 140,000, a milestone that will be reached in just a few days. Brazil, India, and Russia complete the top four when it comes to the number of cases and coronavirus fatalities. But even combined, the number of cases in those three countries don’t match America’s caseload. Of course, none of the official stats are really accurate. The actual number of people infected with the novel coronavirus is much higher in every county, as many people never get tested for the virus because they’re asymptomatic carriers. The total number of deaths might not tell an accurate story either, as it’s likely that some COVID-19 deaths go uncounted.

The world is in a much worse place than it was a few months ago when it comes to fighting this modern plague, and Dr. Anthony Fauci knows precisely why the virus is out of control, at least in the US.

The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has been at the forefront of America’s response to the pandemic from the beginning. Fauci is also one of the most trusted scientists involved with handling the disease, a voice who brings science-based facts about the pandemic and the progress of efforts to stop it.

The NIAID expert spoke during a virtual conversation hosted by Stanford Medicine (via Mercury News), where he explained why the virus is ravaging several US states right now. Fauci said that the surge in cases has a simple explanation: The US failed to shut down completely in its initial response.

“We did not shut down entirely, and that’s the reason why we went up,” he said. “We started to come down, and then we plateaued at a level that was really quite high, about 20,000 infections a day. Then as we started to reopen, we’re seeing the surges that we’re seeing today as we speak.

Furthermore, Fauci said that the government’s initial guidelines for the phased reopenings did not go as planned. But Fauci said that things can still be corrected. “We made a set of guidelines a few months ago… unfortunately, it did not work very well for us,” Fauci noted. “We can get a handle on that. I am really confident we can if we step back.”

The health expert explained that the US doesn’t necessarily need to go for another lockdown to slow the spread. “But pull back a bit. And then proceed in a very prudent way,” he said. Fauci added that young people are responsible for the majority of new infections in these new surges, and he called on them to recognize their “societal responsibility” in preventing the spread.

“We’ve got to convince them that just because they get infected, and the likelihood is that they’re not going to get seriously ill, doesn’t mean that their infection is not a very important part of the propagation of the outbreak,” he said.

Fauci did not address the government’s new moves, including the push to reopen schools. The interviewers also did not bring up the White House’s recent criticisms of Fauci as the Trump administration continues its blatant attempts to shift blame away from the president’s many failings. But the doctor again emphasized the need for caution going forward.

“The best way to open the country and to get back to normal is to be very prudent in protecting yourself from getting infected,” Fauci added. “That’s a difficult message when people don’t take something seriously, but we’ve got to hammer that home.”

Fauci also discussed the ongoing vaccine work, explaining that he’s still cautiously optimistic about having drugs ready in late 2020 or early next year. However, distributing the vaccine could be a challenge for officials, especially “in this era of anti-vax and anti-science” movements. On top of that, he said that the distribution will have to be done equitably.

The expert emphasized the need for the US government to rebuild the public health infrastructure, which is now in “tatters.”

“It’s one of those things where you’re a victim of your own success,” Fauci said. “We were so good at controlling smallpox, polio, tuberculosis, that we let the infrastructure locally go unattended… And now when we need good local public health capability, it’s not as good as it should be. We’ve got to build it up again.”


Chris Smith started writing about gadgets as a hobby, and before he knew it he was sharing his views on tech stuff with readers around the world. Whenever he's not writing about gadgets he miserably fails to stay away from them, although he desperately tries. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.
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This 4K video of comet NEOWISE is downright stunning
The comet NEOWISE. Image source: NASA


By Mike Wehner @MikeWehner
July 14th, 2020

The comet known as NEOWISE was captured by time-lapse images from the International Space Station, and it’s now been made into a stunning 4K video.
The comet was barely visible when it was headed toward the Sun but after it appeared on the other side of its flyby it was much brighter.
The comet was heated by the Sun and is now producing much more gas as it cruises through space.

A comet near Earth is giving skywatchers plenty of reasons to gaze toward the heavens this month. The comet, called C/2020 F3, was spotted by the Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) satellite and has been nicknamed NEOWISE as a result. It was first spotted headed toward the Sun but after it made its loop around our star it became much bright, and can now be seen from Earth.

That also means that it can be seen from the International Space Station, and the high-resolution cameras the orbiting laboratory has mounted on its exterior provide a glorious glimpse of the comet as it breaks the horizon. YouTuber Seán Doran took it upon himself to convert time-lapse images from the space station and convert them into a realtime video that you can enjoy in ultra-sharp 4K resolution.

The video, which is seven minutes in length, shows the Earth appearing to rotate, but that’s just the Space Station making its way around the planet as it cruises at nearly five miles per second. Eventually, you’ll notice a small dot creeping over the horizon and its iconic tail. That’s comet NEOWISE speeding through space and leaving dust and gasses in its wake.

It’s a stunning glimpse of both Earth and its tiny visitor, and it’s great that the ISS cameras were able to capture NEOWISE during its trip back from the Sun.

When the comet was first detected it was very difficult to spot. After it made its way around the Sun it got a whole lot brighter, stunning some astronomers who were shocked to see that it was visible with nothing more than a pair of binoculars. Eventually, the comet became visible to the naked eye, and while it won’t be close enough to see for much longer, we have plenty of awesome images of its flyby to enjoy for years to come.

Comets like NEOWISE are some of the most interesting objects in our solar system. Chunks of ice and rock that have orbited the Sun for ages and are constantly shedding their gasses and dust due to being heated by the light from our star. The fact that NEOWISE became much brighter after it took its trip around the Sun is no coincidence; NEOWISE was heated by the intense energy of the Sun and, when we saw it again, it was bursting with brightness, spewing more material than had previously been observed.
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Alberta NDP, Indigenous leaders renew calls for Kenney to fire speechwriter over 2013 essay

Phil Heidenreich
2020-07-07
© Global News Alberta NDP Indigenous Relations Critic Richard Feehan speaks at a news conference in Edmonton on July 6, 2020.

Members of Alberta's official Opposition and some Indigenous leaders have renewed calls for Premier Jason Kenney to fire his speechwriter over a 2013 essay that was critical of how Indigenous issues are framed in Canada, and which argues the narrative around residential schools amounts to a "bogus genocide story."

"Today I asked the premier to take these calls seriously and remove Paul Bunner. He ignored me," Alberta NDP Indigenous Relations Critic Richard Feehan said at a news conference in Edmonton on Monday.

"Paul Bunner enjoys a highly-paid position of influence in our province as one of the premier's closest collaborators," he said. "Paul Bunner harbours a profound hatred and contempt for Indigenous people.


"Why won't the premier confront the racism in his own office today? This is shameful. Paul Bunner must be fired immediately."

Kenney has previously said that while he has not read the article in question, he has seen excerpts from it and that he fundamentally disagrees with them. However, in an interview with Global News last week, the premier said that although Bunner may have written things over the years that he disagrees with, "in virtually every product he's prepared for me, there is a deliberate effort to recognize the nobility of the First Nations."

Bunner has not spoken publicly since people began calling for his removal. Global News has twice attempted to reach him through the premier's office but not received a response to requests for interviews or statements.

Treaty 8 Grand Chief Arthur Noskey also spoke at Monday's news conference and said that he and other chiefs are "amazed at the level of disrespect brandished by Premier Kenney, who continues to employ an individual who has published anti-First Nations views that are harmful, divisive, dehumanizing and racist to say the least."

"[Bunner's essay] demeans First Nations' long fight for treaty and Aboriginal rights and goes on to disparage residential school experiences and survivors," he said. "This article in its entirety is unconscionable.

"How can Premier Kenney know about this article and overlook the harm it continues to cause... [his] acceptance of these articles demonstrates nothing but racism."

Noskey said he and other chiefs want to see Bunner removed from his current role and not be hired in any capacity by the government.

Despite Kenney vocalizing his disagreement with some of Bunner's writing, Noskey said "actions speak louder than words."

While a number of pieces Bunner has written over the years have come under scrutiny in recent weeks, an essay titled "The 'Genocide' That Failed," published in a right-wing online publication called the C2C Journal in 2013, has been at the centre of the criticism.

A spokesperson for Indigenous Relations Minister Rick Wilson told Global News that Bunner recently met with Wilton Littlechild, the former Grand Chief of the Confederacy of Treaty Six, for a three-hour meeting that included "honest and forthright dialogue."

He said the meeting, which took place in Maskwacis, was set up by Wilson.

Global News has attempted to reach out to Littlechild via the Confederacy of Treaty Six and Bunner through the premier's office for their thoughts on the meeting.

Adam North Peigan, the president of the Sixties Scoop Indigenous Society of Alberta, said Monday that as someone who represents those "directly affected by the holocaust of the residential schools," he is troubled by how the premier has dealt with recent criticism of Bunner's writing.

"Paul Bunner's attitude is what reinforces the attitude of privilege towards the first peoples of this land we now call Canada to the point of denying the atrocities of this assimilation," he said, noting that the Blackfoot Confederacy also recently called for Bunner to be removed.

READ MORE: Blackfoot Confederacy calls for Alberta premier to fire speechwriter over residential school comments

Noskey suggested he wanted Kenney's UCP government to support the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and to "acknowledge that we are people, human beings, with rights --not only human rights, but inherent and treaty rights."

"The exploitation of our land and resources is constant," he said.

READ MORE: UCP introduces bill, $1 billion would support First Nations economic investments

When asked about past comments the Kenney government has made about being partners in prosperity with Indigenous people, Noskey said he does not believe such a partnership is in place.

"I know that the billion-dollar Indigenous fund was promised... but I think that's to the big corporations that are out there," he said
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