The Oil Industry Jumps On The Low Carbon Bandwagon

Ed Hirs Contributor
Energy
Feb 8, 2021

FILE - In this Thursday, April 29, 2010 file photo, 

a pair of coal trains idle on the tracks  ASSOCIATED PRESS

There are two main roads leading to a low-carbon future. The first involves decreasing our combustion of fossil fuels via conservation and a switch to renewable energy. 

The second is via the increased capture of carbon dioxide out of the air.

Big fossil fuel providers are not in the business of decreasing the use of their products, which is why it is unsurprising that oil giant ExxonMobil XOM +3.9% XOM +3.9% announced its plan to accelerate carbon capture and to invest $3 billion over the next five years to advance 20 new opportunities. In doing so, they unveiled an initial plan for how they can continue to operate their core business in a carbon constrained world. Theirs is just the latest in a series of responses from oil and gas companies starting to answer this crucial question.

It’s easy to be cynical about oil companies aiming to reduce carbon emissions, but the truth is that many, including BP, Total and Occidental Petroleum have been moving in that direction for years.

The recently published BDO 2021 Energy CFO Outlook Survey is an annual, anonymous survey of chief financial officers across the energy spectrum including the industry sectors of primary energy producers—oil and gas, renewable liquids fuels, solar and wind—and the secondary energy producers, the electric utilities including generators, transmission companies, and local distribution firms. A majority of the respondents expect that the shift to renewable energy resources will accelerate through 2021—similar to their pre-pandemic view—and this is no surprise. It probably does come as a surprise to many that a supermajority of the CFOs is planning to finance renewable energy projects in 2021 including those designed to lower the carbon footprint of the company’s own activities. For example, electricity from wind and solar is used to power oilfield pumps and pipeline compressor stations.

Research and New Technologies

While oil companies typically loathe discussing proprietary research, recent filings and public announcements of investments and projects by OXY, ExxonMobil, BP, and Chevron CVX +2.2% CVX +2.2% pull back the curtain for carbon capture and the use of low carbon fuels such as renewable diesel. Universities and entrepreneurs are the source of the leading edge technologies in the press today.

In the spirit of the Orteig Prize, won by Charles Lindbergh for his flight across the Atlantic Ocean, the Carbon XPrize competition began in 2015 and has now reached the finals for ten companies. The winners will be announced in late 2021. The finalists are competing on two criteria: 1) the quantity CO2 is converted, and 2) the net value of products manufactured. Four of the finalists are U.S. companies:

· Air Company utilizes CO2 from the atmosphere to produce impurity-free ethanol for award winning vodka, fragrances, cleaning, and, potentially, rocket fuel for NASA.

· Carbon Corp. collects CO2 at the emission point to manufacture carbon nanotubes for industrial and commercial use.

· CO2Concrete converts flue gases into CO2Concrete, stable minerals used for building products, with a 75% smaller CO2 footprint than traditionally manufactured concrete. The target market includes cement plants and electricity generators that use coal or natural gas.

· Dimensional Energy focuses sunlight into a photocatalytic reactor to directly convert captured CO2 into fuel.

The other finalists from India, China, UK, and Canada represent the breadth of interest and level of competition. The lead sponsors for the competition are the U.S. utility NRG and COSIA, Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance. Prize partners range from oil companies to Google.

What’s the prize for everyone else?

The IRS issued the final regulations for “45Q” on January 6. Under 45Q, companies that capture CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions can qualify for a tax credit of up to $50 per metric ton of carbon that is sequestered but not otherwise used or sold. If the CO2 is used in processes or the production of other products such as injection into old oilfields to increase oil production, the maximum credit is $35 per metric ton.

The federal Renewable Fuels Standards program established under the administration of President George W. Bush requires refineries to blend in renewable fuels such as ethanol, renewable diesel, and biodiesel. Economic incentives, and disincentives due to the required use of renewable fuels, are traded in the RINs market. RINs, or Renewable Identification Numbers, are assigned to renewable fuels against a benchmark of a gallon of ethanol and currently provide an economic incentive of between $1.50 per gallon for D3 (such as cellulosic biofuel) to $0.50 per gallon for D6 (total renewable fuel). In this way, refiners’ required purchases of renewable fuels provide price floors for the renewable fuels producers.


EPA's market for RINs prices EPA.GOV

State incentives vary, and California leads the way with low carbon fuel credits that are currently trading at the equivalent of $200 per metric ton of carbon (or about $1.88 per gallon of gasoline). Voluntary carbon offsets are now a thing, and CMEGroup CME +0.7% CME +0.7% is launching a trading vehicle for Global Emissions Offsets to accommodate that demand on March 1. The wave of the low carbon future has reached global hedge funds that are putting their money into carbon instruments. These incentives are now front and center, and with the support of the Biden administration, not going to leave the markets. Consumers and producers alike are adjusting to the new paradigm, or, as the old stock market saying goes: “Don’t fight the tape.”

This latest initiative by ExxonMobil is a big step toward a low-carbon future for the company, the industry, and the consumer.

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website.

Ed Hirs UH Energy Fellow at the University of Houston

ON DISABILITIES

Man With Cerebral Palsy On Inspiring Nike's New Hands-Free Shoe

February 7, 2021
Heard on All Things Considered

 

Transcript

NPR's Michel Martin speaks with Matthew Walzer, who at age 16 wrote a letter to Nike back in 2012 that helped inspire the brand's new accessible shoe line.


MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

And finally, Nike unveiled a new sneaker design last week, but these are not named for some superstar or even up-and-coming athlete. No, these are called the Go FlyEase. And they are the company's first hands-free sneaker. That means no laces to tie, no Velcro to strap, no zippers necessary. It's the latest model of a Nike line made with accessibility in mind, so people living with disabilities or who just have trouble tying and untying shoes can also have a cool, supportive sneaker for everyday wear.

And that line exists in part because of Matthew Walzer. He is living with cerebral palsy, and that affects some of his motor skills. Back in 2012, when he was just 16, Walzer wrote a letter to the company asking them to make shoes that he and others like him could wear. Walzer collaborated on the early models of FlyEase, and he is with us now to tell us more. Hello.

MATTHEW WALZER: Hello, Michel. How are you?

MARTIN: I'm good. Well, congratulations, sir. It's not every day I get to meet the inspiration for a Nike shoe, so let me just drink it in for a minute here (laughter). So we'll get to the design in a minute. But I was just wondering if you could take us back to 2012, when you first wrote that letter. I mean, would you mind just reading a bit for me? I particularly liked the couple sentences that began with, out of all the challenges I've overcome in my life.

WALZER: Sure. (Reading) Out of all the challenges I have overcome in my life, there's one that I'm still trying to master - tying my shoes. Cerebral palsy stiffens the muscles in the body. As a result, I have flexibility in only one of my hands, which makes it impossible for me to tie my shoes. My dream is to go to the college of my choice without having to worry about someone coming to tie my shoes every day.

MARTIN: And you go on to describe, you know, that you're a great student, that you have most mobility, that - you know, you - obviously your speech is not impaired. You can do all the things. But, hey, you know, you're thinking about going to college and not being able to tie your shoes. What gave you the idea to write the letter? Did you think that they would see it, that the Nike folks would see it?

WALZER: You know, I want to take you back a bit, if I can, to the beginning of my life. I was born two months premature and was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, CP, at birth. And I had overcome a lot to even get to the point to where I could feasibly know in the back of my mind that I could go away to college and that the only thing that was stopping me at the time was, you know, not being able to tie my shoes.

I have full dexterity in my left hand and very limited in my right. At the time, there was obviously nothing out there like there is now with the various options of FlyEase. And I didn't want to have to worry about who was coming to put on my shoes every day. And so I wrote this letter not only for myself, but also for the millions of other disabled people out there that can't put on their shoes for one reason or another. And I honestly wasn't expecting Nike to respond. I mean, it's hard to - as a 16-year-old to have that as my expectation. But I knew I had to make my voice heard and let Nike know that there is a need out there for a product like this.

MARTIN: So say more about why you wanted an athletic shoe because, you know, part of inclusivity, obviously is wanting to participate in things that everybody else can participate in. So you have every right to want, you know, a cool shoe, you know, like everybody else, and not necessarily to wear, you know, what my kids would call teacher shoes.

WALZER: (Laughter).

MARTIN: But is there another reason you didn't just want to be limited to slip-ons or sort of penny loafers or something like that?

WALZER: Sure. So with CP and, you know, various physical disabilities, you need a supportive shoe to assist with walking. And, you know, there are slip-ons and sandals, but those don't offer the support that someone like myself with cerebral palsy needs. And at the same time, you want something that looks just as good as it functions. And so that's why I, without question, wanted a basketball and a running shoe with a closure system that can be used by everybody.

MARTIN: So talk a little bit about - like, when you first saw them, do you remember what you thought?

WALZER: You're talking about the FlyEase Go?

MARTIN: The new ones, yeah, when they unveiled the first hands-free just a few days ago.

WALZER: Yeah. I saw them on Monday on social media. And once I saw the video of how they function, it's - you know, it's absolutely incredible. They have that kickstand system where the shoe kind of does all the work for you once you start to put your foot into it. And it's great for people that have little to no dexterity in their hands or have no hands at all for one reason or another.

When Nike's designing a shoe like this, it doesn't mean that everybody can't not wear them, right? You could wear them. I could wear them. It doesn't matter. And the entire concept of universal design as a whole needs to be further explored not just in the shoe industry and in the fashion industry, but across all sectors. I'm talking transportation. I mean, when a person with a disability goes and buys a car - right? - they have to go and pick out that car off the showroom and then go take it out to a third party and get it modified. We can't go in and work with Toyota or Ford and say, you know, I want the disability, you know, package, per se, like you get the convenience package on a car. And so we could buy a car in April and get it in October - because that's what happened to me.

You know, there's so many disabled drivers on the road as there's ever been. Like, why is it so difficult to get a car? You know, easy for all is easy for everybody. And something as simple as, you know, opening the bags that cereal comes in, you know, inside the box and how difficult it can be for someone like myself with limited dexterity to get that bag open sometimes. It's, like, why isn't this just easier? Because I'm sure if it was, someone without a disability would appreciate that just as much.

MARTIN: So can I go back and ask you - you know, you wrote this letter. You were thinking ahead to college. You obviously went, and (laughter) you did really well. How did it go for you? I mean, did you ever get sneakers in time to - I mean, was there a design available that allowed you to do what you wanted to do, which is, you know, take care of yourself?

WALZER: Yes. I mean, the prototype phase kind of even goes back to when I was in high school. So in high school and then the first year and a half of college, I wore, you know, Nike prototypes to school and to class every day. And so, yeah, there was a design in time. And the college in itself, on a personal level, was a lot of growing up emotionally faster than I was ready for but also making sure I advocated for things that I needed at my university to be able to function in a safe and inclusive manner, whether it was my - things with my dorm or transportation.

And so it just goes back to advocating. And my goals for the future are to work across different companies, organizations and sectors to address so many different issues that are out there that, to be quite honest, are being just ignored or not addressed.

MARTIN: Well, before we let you go, Matthew, you know I have to ask, are the sneakers cool?

WALZER: You know, I haven't tried them yet. I don't have a pair yet. So from what I've seen online, they are. They do look extremely cool. And I'm very, very excited to try them.

MARTIN: That was Matthew Walzer. His letter to Nike back in 2012 helped inspire the company's FlyEase line of sneakers. The newest hands-free model will be available later this year.

Matthew Walzer, thank you so much for being with us. Keep us posted - will you? - on everything you're up to.

WALZER: I will, Michel. Thank you for having me.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NIKES ON MY FEET")



Copyright © 2021 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

.

Kenyan police asked if my husband was a 'sorcerer'

By Roncliffe Odit & Basillioh Mutahi
BBC Swahili, Nairobi



While Chirindo Chisubi was still mourning her husband, she was shocked by a question asked by the police investigating his death in Kenya's Kilifi County on the Indian Ocean coast.

"This man, your husband, was he a sorcerer?" they asked the 63-year-old newly widowed woman.

Her husband, Dzuya Chisubi, had been hacked to death over accusations that he practised witchcraft.

Ms Chisubi knew that her husband had never been a sorcerer and believed the killing was over something else - a dispute over land.

"I told them [the police] that since I got married to him, I had never seen anything in him to show that he was a sorcerer," she said.

The death of her husband pained her, although she believed that there was nothing she could do.

She had been told that the husband's own brother planned the killing, she told the BBC, saying the hired killer had confessed to the police.

The two men were arrested and charged. Both denied the allegations.

Many graves in the village

Ms Chisubi's pain is a familiar experience for the residents in Buni Kisimani in Kilifi, whose relationships are at times soured and torn apart because of the widespread belief in witchcraft.

A number of graves dot the village, some of which are the result of gruesome killings.

Authorities say 150 men have been killed in the last two years in Kilifi

In this region, it is not uncommon for misfortunes including common illnesses or deaths in the community to be associated with witchcraft.

Often, elderly men are accused of sorcery and blamed for these misfortunes. The punishment is at times brutal death.

The victims are often hacked or burnt to death. Some are killed by their own relatives.

Traditional beliefs coexist with Christianity and Islam, which are Kenya's dominant religions. A survey by Pew Research Center, conducted in 2010, showed 11% of Kenyans believed in witchcraft.

The government does not collect data on the prevalence of the belief in witchcraft, which is illegal and attracts up to 10 years in prison, but local media often report on incidents depicting the practice across the country.

These often include the lynching of those suspected of sorcery.

The police told the BBC that in Kilifi County alone, more than 150 elderly men have been killed on allegations of witchcraft in the last two years.

Mutual suspicion

Naturally, the old men and women in the village of Buni Kisimani are living in fear for their lives.

When the BBC arrived here late last year, there were many young men around, some on boda bodas (motorcycle taxis), the ubiquitous mode of transport in the area. It was hard to spot an elderly man.

The elderly are often blamed for the misfortunes of society

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the mention of any old man's name appears to raise eyebrows. The association of the elderly with sorcery creates fear among some sections of the population.

But the elderly and some of their relatives also live in fear that they might be attacked because of such beliefs.

A few metres from Mr Chisubi's grave in the village lies another one - that of Mwakoyo Dzayo's father, who was killed last year.

Mr Dzayo says his father was killed on suspicion that he was a witchdoctor, an allegation that he denies.

"I have not seen him, not even for a day, as a witchdoctor," he says.

What is being done about it?

The authorities say they have arrested and charged 28 people over the deaths of old men in the area.

However, the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic has delayed some of the cases, including that of Mr Chisubi's killing, which is due back in court later in February.

Khamisi Mwaguzo, the programme coordinator of the Kenya Muslim Youth Alliance, has also been trying to get to the bottom of the issue - and says that everyone needs to get involved.

Different groups have been coming together for reconciliation

He notes that different groups within the society have been blaming one another for the problems based on religious or cultural differences.

He has been bringing the groups together to teach and reconcile them.

"Some of the Christians say the Kaya [traditional cultural] leaders are devilish, that they are backward people.

"The Kaya people say the religious people are the reason why most of the elders are getting killed," he says.

Mr Mwaguzo says all the groups including Christians, Muslims and the Kaya elders "must come together, preach peace and teach the residents that there is no witchcraft here".

"The young people must learn to earn their own living instead of solely relying on land belonging to their elderly parents," he says.

Land disputes

It is just over a year after Ms Chisubi's husband was killed, and she holds on to the hope that justice will be served.

She does not believe that the death of her husband had anything to do with witchcraft, which he was accused of, but rather a dispute over land inheritance with his brother.

"They had a farm that belonged to their father, all that remained was to get a surveyor so that they share the land," she said.

BBC
"It's the younger people who don't own land and have no decent means of earning their livelihoods who are involved in the crimes.Fred Abuga

Local police commander

Rabai police commander Fred Abuga says land disputes and greed for quick wealth are the primary cause of the killings in the area, according to their investigations.

"The root of all these issues has to do with land. You find that many elderly men own titles to the land.

"It is the younger people who are not involved in land matters, own no land, and have no decent means of earning their daily livelihoods who are involved in the crimes," he says.

'We are not free'

Despite the attempts to deal with the issue, the killings have not abated.

"As we are talking now, one of our elders in Kaya Chonyi [one of the Kaya sub-groups] is lying in the morgue in Kilifi," says Daniel Mwawara Garero, chairman of the local council of elders.

"Even in one of the homesteads here, there is an elderly man who was slaughtered just the other day, so the killings continue and we are living in fear," he says.

Even Ms Chisubi's family is still uneasy over what has transpired since her husband was killed.

"Now he is angry at my children," she says, about her brother-in-law who was freed after denying allegations against him in court. The man who confessed is still in prison awaiting trial.

"We are being asked to leave our land because we talk too much and we don't know what this talking too much is all about.

"We did not report him [to the police], the killer is the one who did.

"We are not free, we are not happy at all," she says.

Tanzania 'witchcraft' murders: 'Our son was robbed of his future'

UK’s youngest convicted neo-Nazi terrorist spared jail time
8 Feb, 2021 13:38
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FILE PHOTO: A general view shows Old Bailey central criminal court
in London, Britain, November 25, 2019. © REUTERS / Hannah McKay

A 16-year-old convicted neo-Nazi has avoided prison time in the UK after a court handed down a 24-month youth rehabilitation order at London’s Old Bailey criminal court on Monday.

The child, who can’t be named for legal reasons, pled guilty to 12 offences, including disseminating terrorist documents and possession of terrorist material.

Having gained possession of instructions for building explosives at the age of 13, he went on to collect terrorist material that he shared with other individuals online, as part of far-right chat groups, all from his grandmother’s house in Cornwall.

The boy engaged in the criminal behaviour between 2018 and 2019 and attempted to conceal his identity online. By the summer of 2019, when he was just 14, he had become the British leader of a neo-Nazi cell called the Feuerkrieg Division (FKD).

Established in late 2018, the FKD used online messaging platforms to recruit young members and spread fascist ideology. The group believed that society would eventually break out into racial warfare, allowing them to create a neo-Nazi state.

In 2020 three other members were prosecuted for crimes linked to the group. In February, a counter-terrorism investigation resulted in the confession of an American man who’d considered burning down a synagogue. Later that month a US solider admitted to distributing materials about explosives and weapons of mass destruction. Lithuania police also charged a teenager, believed to be from the group, with planting a bomb, which didn’t detonate, outside an office in Vilnius.

ALSO ON RT.COM

FIVEFOLD increase in number of children investigated for links to right-wing extremism in UK – report

The group was outlawed by the UK government after the police arrested the child, and Home Secretary Priti Patel made it a criminal offence to either be a member of or encourage others to join FKD.

Sentencing the offender, who is now 16, Judge Mark Dennis QC stated that he had “entered an online world of wicked prejudice” that required rehabilitation lest he reoffend and fall into a “spiral of ever-lengthening terms of incarceration”.

Rehabilitation was deemed more effective than a custodial sentence, as the child was viewed as “vulnerable” and having suffered an “abnormal childhood” due to his “restricted and isolated” life.

Taking a wider look at the impact of the case, the judge warned that it revealed a “deeply concerning” picture of “the actions, words and mindset of teenagers.”

Bitcoin Flies To Over $44k After Tesla Purchases $1.5 Billion in BTC

By Niels Broekhuijsen 2 hours ago

Tesla to accept Bitcoin Payments in the future

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Tesla's CEO Elon Musk has been rather vocal about his enthusiasm for cryptocurrency lately, and now, the automaker Tesla has purchased $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin, according to a new SEC filing. The automaker also stated that it would start accepting Bitcoin payments in the near future, meaning you'll be able to buy a Tesla with just cryptocurrency exchanging hands. Unfortunately, that isn't good news for hardware enthusiasts as it means that demand for other coins, including those mined with GPUs, could intensify, exacerbating the ongoing shortages. 

Tesla claims to have bought in this much bitcoin to "to further diversify and maximize returns on our cash" (Section 22 of the SEC filing) -- likely meaning it will sell at least some of the cryptocurrency in the future.

But, curiously, Tesla's move came right before Elon Musk expressed enthusiasm about Bitcoin and Dogecoin on Twitter, which appears to have led both cryptocurrencies to higher prices. As such, Bitcoin is currently at a staggering price of over $44,000 USD, with Dogecoin moving from half a cent to well above 8 cents per coin, a new record high. 

Considering the filing is from January, chances are that the $1.5 billion investment has already surpassed $2 billion in value.

That being said, this isn't great news for PC hardware. As Cryptocurrencies become more expensive, mining crypto becomes more profitable and therefore, miners will be willing to pay higher prices for graphics cards, which will only make the shortage worse than it already is. News just broke that Nvidia's RTX 3000 series GPUs are set for concerning shortages in Q1, and this is likely to only make matters worse.

Tesla under threat from Apple Car? 

Not anytime soon as Apple slams brakes on Hyundai deal

Apple Car not due soon as Apple retreats from Hyundai deal – for now


(Image credit: Getty)

BY LUKE WILSON 6 HOURS AGO

Information around the cryptic Apple Car has hit fever-pitch in recent weeks, but it’s now on hold, according to new comments.

Reports now suggest Apple is pushing deals at not just one, but multiple Japanese auto firms that would see the firms lined up under a linear labor model, an approach that has been wildly successful for Apple’s iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Max. This horizontal approach to its supply chain has successfully churned out the latest iPad models, including the Apple iPad Air (2020), en masse to customers but under significant strain to suppliers.

It’s frustrating news for those who were hoping for confirmation of Apple’s take on the automobile following a host of retracted comments and rumors that pointed to a model. That said, we tend to think that any publicity around its products – true or untrue – is grist to Apple's mill.

Talks with Kia to handle manufacturing have now stalled, defying reports that a deal between the two could’ve been struck as early as March (via Bloomberg). Apple had reportedly been eyeing up an eye-watering $3.6 billion investment in Hyundai-owned Kia before subsequently restraining from the rumors

The Japanese news site, Nikkei, reports Apple is actually in talks with multiple Japanese car manufacturers over the Apple Car. It could be a double-edged sword for suppliers that risk being swallowed by Apple’s notoriously demanding supply chain, even demoted to the role of sub-contractor.

Apple is likely to outsource to multiple third parties if it ever develops an Apple Car; therefore, automakers are uncertain about what role they would play long term in what will, undoubtedly, be an enormous project.

Of course, the Cupertino-giant has been historically pegged to many rumors around the autonomous automobile through the Project Titan alias, which would lavish fans with all the bells and whistles of an Apple consumer product, but in a chassis. This is bolstered by the recent hire of Porsche’s Vice President of Chassis Development, Dr Manfred Harrer, who analysts see as a sign of Apple’s ambitions in cars.

If you're already feeling the tinges of the looming cost of such a vehicle, you're not alone. In the interim, you can keep an all-seeing eye on your prized motor with T3's best dash cam of 2021, ever more vital to rendering crisp images of the world outside of your car when on the road.

As is usually the case, there's more to these reports than initially unveiled. The problems in inking a deal seem to lie in the exact details manufacturers will play in the longer-term scope of the project. As this would be Apple's first foray into cars, it's paramount for automakers to map this out before agreeing on a deal. For now, the project rolls onwards.

Ancient Mummy Found Entombed in Strange Cocoon Never Seen by Archeologists


(Sowada et al., PLOS ONE, 2021)

HUMANS

LAURA GEGGEL, LIVE SCIENCE
4 FEBRUARY 2021


The discovery of a rare "mud mummy" from ancient Egypt has surprised archaeologists, who weren't expecting to find the deceased encased in a hardened mud shell.

The "mud carapace" is an unparalleled find; it reveals "a mortuary treatment not previously documented in the Egyptian archaeological record," the researchers wrote in the study, published online Wednesday (Feb. 3) in the journal PLOS One.

It's possible the "mud wrap" was used to stabilize the mummy after it was damaged, but the mud may have also been meant to emulate practices used by society's elite, who were sometimes mummified with imported resin-based materials during a nearly 350-year period, from the late New Kingdom to the 21st Dynasty (about 1294 BCE to 945 BCE), the researchers said.

So, why was this individual covered with mud, rather than resin?

"Mud is a more affordable material," study lead researcher Karin Sowada, a research fellow in the Department of History and Archaeology at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, told Live Science in an email.

The mud sheath isn't the mummy's only oddity. The mummy, dated to about 1207 BCE, was damaged after death, and was even interred in the wrong coffin actually meant for a woman who died more recently, the researchers found.

(Sowada et al./PLOS ON/CC BY 4.0)

Above: This decorated coffin (right) doesn't belong to the unusual mud-wrapped mummy (left).

Related: Image gallery: Mummy evisceration techniques

Like many ancient Egyptian mummies, the "mud mummy" and its lidded coffin were acquired in the 1800s by a Western collector, in this case, Sir Charles Nicholson, an English-Australian politician who brought it to Australia.

Nicholson donated them to the University of Sydney in 1860, and today they reside at the university's Chau Chak Wing Museum. But it appears that whoever sold the artifacts tricked Nicholson; the coffin is younger than the body buried in it, the researchers found.

(Sowada et al. 2021/Chau Chak Wing Museum/Macquarie Medical Imaging/CC BY 4.0)

Above: 3D-rendered CT images showing the mud carapace.

"Local dealers likely placed an unrelated mummified body in the coffin to sell a more complete 'set,' a well-known practice in the local antiquities trade," the researchers wrote in the study. The coffin is inscribed with a woman's name – Meruah or Meru(t)ah – and dates to about 1000 BCE, according to iconography decorating it, meaning the coffin is about 200 years younger than the mummy in it.

While the individual isn't Meruah, anatomical clues hint that it is a female who died between the ages of 26 and 35, the researchers said.

Muddy treatment

Researchers got their first inkling that the 3,400-year-old mummy was unusual in 1999, when a CT (computed tomography) scan revealed something strange inside. To investigate, the researcher extracted a few samples of the wrappings and discovered they contained a sandy mud mixture.

When a new team of researchers re-scanned the mummy in 2017, they uncovered previously unknown details about the carapace, especially when they chemically reexamined the mud fragments.

 

(Sowada et al. 2021/Chau Chak Wing Museum/Macquarie Medical Imaging/CC BY 4.0)

Above: CT images of the mummified person's internal features. The carapace can be seen as a thin white line.

After she died, the woman was mummified and wrapped in textiles. Then, her remains, including her left knee and lower leg, were damaged in "unknown circumstances," possibly by grave robbers, which prompted someone to repair her mummy, likely within one to two generations of her first burial – a feat that included "rewrapping, packing and padding with textiles, and application of the mud carapace," the researchers wrote in the study.

Whoever repaired the mummy made a complicated earthy sandwich, placing a batter of mud, sand and straw between layers of linen wrappings. The bottom of the mud mixture had a base coat of a white calcite-based pigment, while its top was coated with ochre, a red mineral pigment, Sowada said.

"The mud was apparently applied in sheets while still damp and pliable," she said. "The body was wrapped with linen wrappings, the carapace applied, and then further wrappings placed over it."


Related: In photos: The life and death of King Tut

Later, the mummy was damaged again, this time on the right side of the neck and head. Because this damage affects all of the layers, including the muddy carapace, it appears this damage was more recent and prompted the insertion of metal pins to stabilize the damaged areas at the time, the researchers said.

This "mud mummy" isn't the only ancient Egyptian mummy subject to post-mortem repair; the body of King Seti I was wrapped more than once, and so were the remains of King Amenhotep III (King Tut's grandfather), the researchers noted.

As for the woman's mud carapace, "this is a genuinely new discovery in Egyptian mummification," Sowada said. "This study assists in constructing a bigger — and a more nuanced — picture of how the ancient Egyptians treated and prepared their dead."

Related content:

Photos: The amazing mummies of Peru and Egypt

Photos: Amazing discoveries at Egypt's Giza Pyramids

In photos: Ancient Egyptian coffin with 'odd' art

This article was originally published by Live Science. Read the original article here.

THE BOSS IS A PSYCOPATH
Narcissists Become CEO With More Speed Than Their Peers, Despite The Harm They Can Do


(John Lamb/The Image Bank/Getty Images)

CARLY CASSELLA
7 FEBRUARY 2021

People who are fundamentally entitled, self-confident, manipulative, and callous do really well in the modern workplace.

Now, a new study in Italy suggests those who show five narcissistic personality traits climb the corporate ladder much faster than their peers.

In a survey of 172 Italian CEOs, those who scored higher in extraversion, overconfidence, self-esteem, dominance, and authoritarianism were more likely to get appointed CEO after a certain amount of time at their firm.

The relationship was found to be so sensitive that even just a slight increase in narcissism levels resulted in a 29 percent higher likelihood of becoming CEO compared to the sample's average narcissism levels.

"Our results are somewhat worrying – in fact, they imply that organizations and boards favor the emergence of narcissistic individuals to key leadership positions," psychologists Paola Rovelli and Camilla Curnis told Psypost.

"Narcissism is known to be a dark trait, and individuals who are characterized by higher levels of narcissisms are known to procure negative outcomes for the firm, such as financial crime, tax avoidance, less collaborative cultures and more."

The statistical analysis is relatively small, and the results will need to be verified in other nations. However, since most research on CEO narcissism looks at executives in the United States, the new paper is a welcome international extension.

Plenty of research has shown CEOs are disproportionately prone to narcissistic tendencies – oftentimes masking their own strong desires for power and prestige with a confident, charming exterior.

In recent years, numerous studies have been done to explore the role of CEO and this position's narcissistic tendencies. So far, the literature has tended to focus on how an individual's personality impacts the workplace based on strategy, performance, and compensation.

Some studies have shown, for instance, that narcissistic CEOs are tied to unequal compensation, lower employee satisfaction, and a lack of communication in the workplace. They also appear more willing to commit crimes for the sake of the business.

"Once they're in power, narcissists consolidate their position by firing everyone who challenges them," explained psychologist Charles O'Reilly for the Stanford University newsroom in 2020.

"In their place rise a plague of toadies, opportunists, and enablers equally guided by self-interest and short on scruples. So you end up with these individualistic cultures with no teamwork and low integrity. We've documented this in a bunch of Silicon Valley tech firms."

The psychology study in Italy is one of the first to examine whether narcissism speeds up a person's promotion to CEO. Its findings suggest youth and personality are stronger promoting forces than actual experience.

Measuring narcissism through the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, the authors have compared the scores of various Italian CEOs against their career histories.

"Our empirical analyses revealed that narcissism has a significant positive effect on how quickly individuals advance to the CEO position," the authors conclude.

The effect was found even in family businesses, with narcissism having, on average, the same effect on advancement chances as if the business were a non-family business. However, if the CEO was a part of the family that owned the business, narcissism had less of an impact on their advancement.

The new study provides a strong explanation for the prominence of narcissists in CEO positions, but it has several limitations. It assumes, for instance, that narcissistic traits are stable over time.

Clinical narcissism is thought to emerge in early childhood and remain with a person through adulthood, but there is a chance that these Italian CEOs are accruing narcissistic personality traits after they gain power in a business.

In other words, the authors write, "experiences of power might, to a certain extent, stimulate narcissism."

In the future, studies should therefore try and measure personality traits over a longer period of time to help determine when these traits appear in a person's life and career.

"Similarly, it would be important to assess the moderating effect of the economic environment, to see whether narcissistic individuals are more likely to be appointed in periods of economic boom or bust," explain Curnis and Rovelli.

"This is w[h]ere we aim to go with ou[r] future research."

The study was published in The Leadership Quarterly.

Whale That Washed Up on Florida Beach Turns Out to Be an Entirely New Species

Stranded Rice whale, Florida, January 2019.

 (Florida Everglades National Park)

CHRIS CIACCIA, LIVE SCIENCE

5 FEBRUARY 2021

A 38-foot-long (11.5 meters) whale that washed ashore in the Florida Everglades in January 2019 turns out to be a completely new species. And it's already considered endangered, scientists say.

When the corpse of the behemoth washed up along Sandy Key - underweight with a hard piece of plastic in its gut - scientists thought it was a subspecies of the Bryde's (pronounced "broodus") whale, a baleen whale species in the same group that includes humpback and blue whales. That subspecies was named Rice's whale.

Now, after genetic analysis of other Rice's whales along with an examination of the skull from the Everglades whale, researchers think that, rather than a subspecies, the Rice's whale is an entirely new species that lives in the Gulf of Mexico. 

The discovery, detailed January 10 in the journal Marine Mammal Science, also means that there are fewer than 100 members of this species living on the planet, making them "critically endangered," according to a statement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Related: Amazing new video shows baby humpback whales nursing from their moms

According to the study, the researchers looked at records of the Bryde's whale in the Caribbean and greater Atlantic Ocean and concluded the whales they spotted were evidence "of an undescribed species of Balaenoptera from the Gulf of Mexico." 

The lead study author Patricia Rosel and her co-author, Lynsey Wilcox, both at Southeast Fisheries Science Center, completed the first genetic tests of this whale in 2008, finding that the skull of the Rice's whale was different than that of Bryde's whales.

In addition to having different skulls, Rice's whales are slightly different in size than Bryde's whales, the new analysis showed. They can weigh up to 60,000 pounds (27,215 kilograms) and grow up to 42 feet (12.8 meters) long, according to NOAA, whereas Bryde's whales have been known to reach upwards of 50 feet (15.2 m) and weigh more than 55,000 pounds (24,947 kg).

Rosel and her colleagues think the whales in the new species can live approximately 60 years, but given that there are so few in existence, researchers need further observation of the whales to get a better idea of their life expectancy.

Given their location in the Gulf of Mexico, Rice's whales are particularly vulnerable to oil spills, vessel strikes and energy exploration and production, NOAA added.

AIR POLLUTION ENVIRONMENTAL TOXINS

‘But I never smoked’: A growing share of lung cancer cases is turning up in an unexpected population


By SHARON BEGLEY @sxbegle

JANUARY 26, 2021

Mandi Pike near her home in Edmond, Okla. Pike, a never-smoker, was diagnosed with lung cancer in November 2019.NICK OXFORD FOR STAT


Sharon Begley died of complications of lung cancer on Jan. 16, just five days after completing this article. She was a never-smoker.

Breast cancer wouldn’t have surprised her; being among the 1 in 8 women who develop it over their lifetime isn’t statistically improbable. Neither would have colorectal cancer; knowing the risk, Mandi Pike “definitely” planned to have colonoscopies as she grew older.

But when a PET scan in November 2019 revealed that Pike, a 33-year-old oil trader, wife, and mother of two in Edmond, Okla., had lung cancer — she had been coughing and was initially misdiagnosed with pneumonia — her first
reaction was, “but I never smoked,” she said. “It all seemed so surreal.”

Join the club. Cigarette smoking is still the single greatest cause of lung cancer, which is why screening recommendations apply only to current and former smokers and why 84% of U.S. women and 90% of U.S. men with a new diagnosis of lung cancer have ever smoked, according to a study published in December in JAMA Oncology. Still, 12% of U.S. lung cancer patients are never-smokers.

Scientists disagree on whether the absolute number of such patients is increasing, but the proportion who are never-smokers clearly is. Doctors and public health experts have been slow to recognize this trend, however, and now there is growing pressure to understand how never-smokers’ disease differs from that of smokers, and to review whether screening guidelines need revision.

“Since the early 2000s, we have seen what I think is truly an epidemiological shift in lung cancer,” said surgeon Andrew Kaufman of Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, whose program for never-smokers has treated some 3,800 patients in 10 years. “If lung cancer in never-smokers were a separate entity, it would be in the top 10 cancers in the U.S.” for both incidence and mortality.

A 2017 study of 12,103 lung cancer patients in three representative U.S. hospitals found that never-smokers were 8% of the total from 1990 to 1995 but 14.9% from 2011 to 2013. The authors ruled out statistical anomalies and concluded that “the actual incidence of lung cancer in never smokers is increasing.” Another study that same year, of 2,170 patients in the U.K., found an even larger increase: The proportion of lung cancer patients who were never-smokers rose from 13% in 2008 to 28% in 2014.

“It is well-documented that approximately 20% of lung cancer cases that occur in women in the U.S. and 9% of cases in men, are diagnosed in never-smokers,” Kaufman said.

To a great extent, this is a function of straightforward math, said epidemiologist Ahmedin Jemal of the American Cancer Society. Fewer people smoke today than in previous decades — 15% in 2015, 25% in 1995, 30% in 1985, 42% in 1965. Simply because there are fewer smokers in the population, out of every 100 lung cancer patients, fewer will therefore be smokers. And that means more of them will be never-smokers.

There are also hints that the absolute incidence of lung cancer in never-smokers has been rising, said oncologist John Heymach of MD Anderson Cancer Center. Some data say it has, but other data say no. The stumbling block is that old datasets often don’t indicate a lung cancer patient’s smoking status, Heymach said, making it impossible to calculate what percent of never-smokers in past decades developed lung cancer.

Jemal, however, cautions that it is not the case that a never-smoker has a greater chance of developing lung cancer today than never-smokers did in the past.

Current cancer screening guidelines recommend a CT scan for anyone 50 to 80 years old who has smoked at least 20 pack years (the equivalent of one pack a day for 20 years, or two packs a day for 10 years, and so on) and who is still smoking or quit less than 15 years ago. Screening is not recommended for never-smokers because the costs of doing so are deemed greater than the benefits, Jemal said; thousands of never-smokers would have to be screened in any given year to find one lung cancer.

Still, low-dose CT can catch lung cancer in a significant number of never-smokers. A 2019 study in South Korea diagnosed lung cancer in 0.45% of never-smokers, compared to 0.86% of smokers. The researchers urged policymakers to “consider the value of using low-dose CT screening in the never-smoker population.”

“It used to be that the high-risk group” for whom CT screening is recommended “was the vast majority of lung cancer patients,” Heymach said. “But now that so many lung cancer cases are in nonsmokers, there is absolutely a need to reevaluate the screening criteria.”

Related:
Lung cancer deaths are declining faster than new cases. Advances in treatment are making the difference

Researchers are trying to improve screening by reducing the incidence of false positives — when CT finds lung nodules “or an old scar that you got 20 years ago,” he said. Those don’t pose a threat but have to be biopsied to ascertain that. Screening never-smokers would also be more efficient than it is today “if we could identify who, among nonsmokers, are at higher risk,” he said.

Cancer doctors already know part of the answer: women. Worldwide, 15% of male lung cancer patients are never-smokers. But fully half of female lung cancer patients never smoked. And women never-smokers are twice as likely to develop lung cancer as men who never put a cigarette to their lips.

Beyond sex, “nothing stands out as a single large risk factor that, if we only got rid of it, we would solve the problem” of lung cancer in never-smokers, said Josephine Feliciano, an oncologist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “But air pollution, radon, family history of lung cancer, [and] genetic predispositions” all play a role. Chronic lung infections and lung diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD) also seem to increase risk.

None of those, with the possible exception of genetics and indoor pollution (cooking fires in some low-income countries), affect women more than men. So what’s going on?

At least one biotech believes that biological differences between lung cancer in never-smokers and smokers merits a new drug, and one that might be especially effective in women. “A different disease needs a different drug,” said co-founder and CEO Panna Sharma of Lantern Pharma. In fact Lantern, which is developing a drug for lung cancer in female never-smokers, believes that disease is so different it recently tried to convince the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to designate it an orphan disease, said Sharma.

Called LP-300, the Lantern drug increased overall survival from 13 months to more than 27, compared to chemotherapy alone, in female nonsmokers, in a small trial. It “targets molecular pathways that are more common in female nonsmokers than in any other group,” said Sharma, targeting the mutations EGFR, ALK, MET, and ROS1 (common in never-smokers) directly and boosting the efficacy of other drugs that attack them, such as erlotinib and crizotinib. Lantern plans a larger trial this year.

Smokers’ tumors tend to have more mutations overall, thanks to mutagen-packed cigarette smoke attacking their lungs, but scientists have developed more drugs for never-smokers’ lung tumors than for smokers’. For instance, EGFR and ALK mutations are more common in never-smokers. (Mandi Pike had the EGFR mutation, which was relatively fortunate: A drug targets it, and she has been cancer-free since November.)

STAT+:
Exclusive analysis of biopharma, health policy, and the life sciences.

The targeted drugs bollix up each mutation’s cancer-causing effects. KRAS mutations are more common in smokers’ lung tumors, and there are no KRAS drugs. (A KRAS drug for lung cancer is imminent, though, said thoracic oncologist Ben Creelan of Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla.)

According to national guidelines, lung cancer in never-smokers should be treated the same as in smokers, said Creelan. “But I think we should reconsider this,” he said.

Because never-smokers have fewer tumor mutations, it’s harder to find them. So he said clinicians should be more aggressive about looking for actionable mutations in these patients. “I keep looking for a mutation until I find something important,” he said, adding that doctors might need better biopsy material or to use a different sequencing method in never-smokers.

In a cruel twist, the breakthrough drugs that take the brakes off immune cells, which then attack the tumor, are less effective in never-smokers’ lung cancer than in smokers’. The reason seems to be that smokers’ tumors have more mutations, said Mount Sinai’s Kaufman; the mutations often cause the tumor cells to have molecules on their surface that the immune system perceives as foreign and revs up to attack. Never-smokers’ tumors have few, if any, of those “come and get me” molecules. Immune cells therefore ignore them.

“In smokers, conversely, with more mutations, there is more for the immune system to recognize as bizarre and foreign, and so to provoke” an attack, Creelan said.

In contrast, never-smokers’ tumors are more likely to respond to targeted drugs, and as a result to be in remission for a long time or even cured. That’s because with fewer mutations, never-smokers’ tumors are more likely to have an “oncogene addiction,” Heymach explained: They are propelled by only one mutation. The plethora of mutations in smokers’ tumors means that there is usually a back-up cancer driver if a targeted drug eliminates cells with only one. “When a tumor has more and more mutations, blocking one is less likely to have an impact,” Heymach said. “But in nonsmokers, it can.”

Heymach called for more funding to study lung cancer in never-smokers. It “is an area that’s underserved and deserves more investment,” Heymach said. “It should be commensurate with the public health threat it represents.”



About the Author


Sharon Begley
Senior Writer, Science and Discovery (1956-2021)
Sharon covered science and discovery.

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