It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, January 22, 2022
Police: Truck with 100 monkeys crashes, some of them missing 1 / 4 Crates holding live monkeys are scattered across the westbound lanes of state Route 54 at the junction with Interstate 80 near Danville, Pa., Friday, Jan. 21, 2022, after a pickup pulling a trailer carrying the monkeys was hit by a dump truck. They were transporting 100 monkeys and several were on the loose at the time of the photo. (Jimmy May/Bloomsburg Press Enterprise via AP)More
Fri, January 21, 2022
DANVILLE, Pa. (AP) — A truck carrying about 100 monkeys was involved in a crash Friday in Pennsylvania, state police said as authorities searched for at least three of the monkeys that appeared to have escaped the vehicle.
The truck carrying the animals crashed with a dump truck in the afternoon in Montour County, Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Andrea Pelachick told the Daily Item.
The truck had been on its way to a lab, Pelachick said.
Authorities have asked residents who might see the monkeys to call state police at 570-524-2662.
It was unclear if any people or animals were injured in the crash.
Why citizens are losing trust in democratic governments
Edelman’s Trust Barometer for 2022 revealed that the global level of trust in government and media is dropping.
An annual online survey conducted in 28 countries and reaching over 36,000 respondents found that distrust in political institutions fell in 2021 across the world.
Among the key findings of the report was the overall lower trust in world leaders and institutions around the world, with 67% of respondents saying they worry that journalists and reporters were “purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations.” The figures were 66% and 63% for government and business leaders, respectively.
These results come as the countries across the world have struggled to contain the novel coronavirus since 2020, with varying degrees of success. The Omicron variant, which was first identified in November of 2021, has spread rapidly around the world and has driven the seven day average of new cases to 3.5 million as of January 20.
A majority of survey participants believed that institutions, including businesses, governments, NGOs, and the media were not doing well on responding to health and public safety concerns of the COVID-19 pandemic. Globally, the biggest societal fears were job loss (85%), climate change (75%), and hackers and cyber attacks (71%).
Photo by: KGC-254/STAR MAX/IPx 2021 1/12/22 Protesters demonstrate against Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the 'party gate' scandal outside Parliament on 12th January 2022 in London, England, UK. Johnson is under attack from both his MPs and the public after admitting to having attended a garden party at Downing Street in May 2020 when the UK was still in lockdown.
Social divides widening
Within the United States, a clear political chasm between Democrats and Republicans exists. The Edelman Trust Index, which measures the average percent trust in NGOs, business, government and media, was 55 for Democrats and 35 for Republicans.
Although a deeply skeptical public was a consistent theme in most countries, with 59% of respondents answering that they tend to distrust information until they see evidence of trustworthiness, citizens of some countries reported lower levels of trust than others.
Democracies across the world experienced a rise in distrust in 2021. The five countries with the largest declines in their Trust Indices were Germany (-7), Australia (-6), The Netherlands (-6), South Korea (-5), and the United States (-5). Significantly, the gap in trust between high-income and low-income earners had widened to 15 points, up from 6 points in 2012.
The report noted that the cycle of distrust threatens societal stability. “Government and media feed [the] cycle of division and disinformation for votes and clicks,” the report found. This causes NGOs and business to feel pressured to “take on societal problems beyond their abilities,” leading to greater overall distrust in those institutions as well.
Opinion: Attacks on us teachers are false and frightening. I cannot stay silent.
Marieta Irwin Fri, January 21, 2022
I am a teacher. As a teacher, I have been following state Sen. Jake Chapman and his recent comments. At the opening session of the Iowa Senate this month, he said, “One doesn't have to look far to see the sinister agenda occurring right before our eyes. The attack on our children is no longer hidden. Those who wish to normalize sexually deviant behavior against our children, including pedophilia and incest, are pushing this movement more than ever before. Our children should be safe and free from this atrocious assault."
This is a direct quote. Chapman has said his comments were mischaracterized. His comment apparently originates from his desire to ban particular books from school libraries. I won’t take time to elaborate on the fact that every school library already has policies in place to decide which books are or are not on their shelves. Parents already have rights to know what students are reading in classrooms and teachers already make alternatives to required readings. I trust schools and parents to follow their protocol and arrive at a decision for that district. Chapman has also said he will introduce legislation to make it a felony for school employees to distribute obscene books. He has not explained who will get to deem a piece of literature obscene.
“Iowa has some of the best public teachers, that is why my children attend public schools. However, it is undeniable that there are some who are pushing this agenda, it is also a fact that we have had multiple teachers charged this year with sexual contact with their students. I will always stand up for what is right! I will always defend and protect our children!”
President of the Iowa Senate Jake Chapman, R-Adel, speaks before Gov. Kim Reynolds' Condition of the State address, inside the House Chamber, on Tuesday evening, Jan. 11, 2022, at the Capitol in Des Moines.
Chapman’s words about teachers are mere platitudes. He shows his real beliefs when he implies that sexual assault is common and accepted among educators. Anyone, anyone, who is accused of sexual assault, should be investigated and, if there is evidence, prosecuted. Regardless of their profession, social, economic status, or community involvement. Predators, unfortunately, can be found in many professions. Police officers, priests/ministers, judges, doctors, and politicians have been found guilty of sexual assault. But, Chapman hasn’t tried to kindle righteous indignation toward these professions or individuals. He’s targeted only teachers in an attempt to continue divisions. His comment that teachers are pushing a "sinister agenda" is untrue. The only thing educators are pushing is the science of learning, helping students build critical thinking skills, and optimizing learning for everyone.
I did not expect this school year to be easy. Teaching has never been easy. But, I did not expect it to be this hard. Chapman and others work on igniting anger toward schools and teachers but are unwilling to help. They claim that “Iowa has some of the best public teachers” and then publicly insult and debase and accuse them of abusing children.
I am a special education teacher. Because of the students that I serve, there have been times when I have been physically assaulted at school. I’ve been bitten, hit, and bruised. My worst day at school did not batter as badly as Chapman’s comments. The only difference is my students are still practicing and learning executive functioning skills. The deliberate undermining of the public education system and those that serve it is frightening.
Being a teacher in the state of Iowa is going to get much harder. So. Much. Harder.
Marieta Irwin teaches special education in northwest Iowa.
Security scanners across Europe tied to China govt, military
ERIKA KINETZ Thu, January 20, 2022
At some of the world’s most sensitive spots, authorities have installed security screening devices made by a single Chinese company with deep ties to China’s military and the highest levels of the ruling Communist Party.
The World Economic Forum in Davos. Europe’s largest ports. Airports from Amsterdam to Athens. NATO’s borders with Russia. All depend on equipment manufactured by Nuctech, which has quickly become the world’s leading company, by revenue, for cargo and vehicle scanners.
Nuctech has been frozen out of the U.S. for years due to national security concerns, but it has made deep inroads across Europe, installing its devices in 26 of 27 EU member states, according to public procurement, government and corporate records reviewed by The Associated Press.
The complexity of Nuctech’s ownership structure and its expanding global footprint have raised alarms on both sides of the Atlantic.
A growing number of Western security officials and policymakers fear that China could exploit Nuctech equipment to sabotage key transit points or get illicit access to government, industrial or personal data from the items that pass through its devices.
Nuctech’s critics allege the Chinese government has effectively subsidized the company so it can undercut competitors and give Beijing potential sway over critical infrastructure in the West as China seeks to establish itself as a global technology superpower.
“The data being processed by these devices is very sensitive. It’s personal data, military data, cargo data. It might be trade secrets at stake. You want to make sure it’s in right hands,” said Bart Groothuis, director of cybersecurity at the Dutch Ministry of Defense before becoming a member of the European Parliament. “You’re dependent on a foreign actor which is a geopolitical adversary and strategic rival.”
He and others say Europe doesn’t have tools in place to monitor and resist such potential encroachment. Different member states have taken opposing views on Nuctech’s security risks. No one has even been able to make a comprehensive public tally of where and how many Nuctech devices have been installed across the continent.
Nuctech dismisses those concerns, countering that Nuctech’s European operations comply with local laws, including strict security checks and data privacy rules.
“It’s our equipment, but it’s your data. Our customer decides what happens with the data,” said Robert Bos, deputy general manager of Nuctech in the Netherlands, where the company has a research and development center.
He said Nuctech is a victim of unfounded allegations that have cut its market share in Europe nearly in half since 2019.
“It’s quite frustrating to be honest,” Bos told AP. “In the 20 years we delivered this equipment we never had issues of breaches or data leaks. Till today we never had any proof of it.”
In addition to scanning systems for people, baggage and cargo, the company makes explosives detectors and interconnected devices capable of facial recognition, body temperature measurement and ID card or ticket identification.
Critics fear that under China’s national intelligence laws, which require Chinese companies to surrender data requested by state security agencies, Nuctech would be unable to resist calls from Beijing to hand over sensitive data about the cargo, people and devices that pass through its scanners. They say there is a risk Beijing could use Nuctech’s presence across Europe to gather big data about cross-border trade flows, pull information from local networks, like shipping manifests or passenger information, or sabotage trade flows in a conflict.
Airports in London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Athens, Florence, Pisa, Venice, Zurich, Geneva and more than a dozen across Spain have all signed deals for Nuctech equipment, procurement and government documents, and corporate announcements show.
Nuctech’s ownership structure is so complex that can be difficult for outsiders to understand the true lines of influence and accountability.
What is clear is that Nuctech, from its very origins, has been tied to Chinese government, academic and military interests.
Nuctech was founded as an offshoot of Tsinghua University, an elite public research university in Beijing. It grew with backing from the Chinese government and for years was run by the son of China’s former leader, Hu Jintao.
Datenna, a Dutch economic intelligence company focused on China, mapped the ownership structure of Nuctech and found a dozen major entities across four layers of shareholding, including four state-owned enterprises and three government entities.
Today the majority shareholder in Nuctech is Tongfang Co., which has a 71 percent stake. The largest shareholder in Tongfang, in turn, is the investment arm of the China National Nuclear Corp. (CNNC), a state-run energy and defense conglomerate controlled by China’s State Council. The U.S. Defense Department classifies CNNC as a Chinese military company because it shares advanced technologies and expertise with the People’s Liberation Army.
Xi has further blurred the lines between China’s civilian and military activities and deepened the power of the ruling Communist Party within private enterprises. One way: the creation of dozens of government-backed financing vehicles designed to speed the development of technologies that have both military and commercial applications.
In fact, one of those vehicles, the National Military-Civil Fusion Industry Investment Fund, announced in June 2020 that it wanted to take a 4.4 percent stake in Nuctech’s majority shareholder, along with the right to appoint a director to the Tongfang board. It never happened — “changes in the market environment,” Tongfeng explained in a Chinese stock exchange filing.
But there are other links between Nuctech’s ownership structure and the fusion fund.
CNNC, which has a 21 percent interest in Nuctech, holds a stake of more than 7 percent in the fund, according to Qichacha, a Chinese corporate information platform. They also share personnel: Chen Shutang, a member of CNNC’s Party Leadership Group and the company’s chief accountant serves as a director of the fund, records show.
Nuctech maintains that its operations are shaped by market forces, not politics, and says CNNC doesn’t control its corporate management or decision-making.
But Jaap van Etten, a former Dutch diplomat and CEO of Datenna, said the question was “whether or not we want to allow Nuctech, which is controlled by the Chinese state and linked to the Chinese military, to be involved in crucial parts of our border security and infrastructure.”
___
Associated Press researcher Chen Si in Shanghai and reporters Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus, Aritz Parra in Madrid, Nina Bigalke in London, Nicholas Paphitis in Athens, Justin Spike in Budapest, Liudas Dapkus in Vilnius, Lithuania, Zeynep Bilginsoy in Istanbul and Barry Hatton in Lisbon contributed to this report.
Ivermectin’s potential to treat COVID gets a serious look in Duke University study
Richard Stradling Thu, January 20, 2022
Doctors at Duke University are leading a national study to test whether three drugs will effectively treat COVID-19, including one that has generated controversy for more than a year.
Ivermectin’s potential to treat COVID-19 has been both celebrated and ridiculed. Some consider it a miracle drug that makes vaccination against the coronavirus unnecessary. But most in the medical establishment, including government regulators, say there’s not enough proof that it works and warn that self-medicating with ivermectin can make people sick in other ways.
The Duke study, launched last summer, is the kind of comprehensive assessment of ivermectin’s ability to combat COVID-19 that has been missing up to now, said Dr. Adrian Hernandez, one of the study’s leaders.
“There were some early studies that showed that it could potentially be helpful with COVID-19, but they were not large enough to be definitive,” Hernandez said in an interview. “So we want to know either way, is it potentially beneficial or not.”
“We should understand if there are any benefits,” he said. “And if not, we should be able to report that back out to the public clearly and note what shouldn’t be done.”
Ivermectin is used to kill parasites in animals, including heartworm in dogs and gastrointestinal worms in horses and cows. Since the late 1980s, it’s also been used with millions of humans to kill parasites that cause river blindness and other illnesses.
Ivermectin is not approved to treat COVID-19, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warns that using the drug, especially the kind formulated for animals, can be dangerous. The FDA says it has received multiple reports of people who needed medical attention, including hospitalization, after taking ivermectin intended for livestock. Three drugs involved in NIH-sponsored study
Ivermectin is one of three drugs that Duke is testing under ACTIV-6, one of a series of studies of potential COVID-19 treatments and vaccines launched by the National Institutes of Health. Duke was chosen for the study because of its experience leading national clinical trials, said Hernandez, a cardiologist who has led large-scale trials.
The goal is to find treatments that, in conjunction with vaccines, might render COVID-19 as manageable as seasonal flu.
Up to now, doctors have mostly relied on monoclonal antibody treatments to try to keep COVID-19 patients from becoming seriously ill. But those must be administered by IV or a series of shots in a clinic or doctor’s office, making them harder to get to patients. In addition, only one of the monoclonals appears to be effective against the omicron variant of the virus, and that drug is in short supply.
The two other drugs being tested in the ACTIV-6 study are fluvoxamine, used to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression, and fluticasone furoate, an inhaler medicine prescribed for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD.
All three drugs are already approved for use in humans and have a track record of being safe, Hernandez said. All three are also easy to use at home and rarely interact with other medications, making them candidates to treat mild to moderate cases of COVID-19.
“Just like we’re trying to do testing at home, we’re looking at how can you conveniently do treatment at home,” Hernandez said. “ACTIV-6 is really designed to do that.”
The three drugs were chosen for the study because they’ve shown some promise in treating COVID-19, through earlier studies and by what’s known about how they work in the body. Fluticasone, for example, is a steroid that reduces inflammation in the lungs that can cause breathing problems, which is also a primary symptom of COVID-19.
Earlier studies of ivermectin suggest it decreases reproduction of the coronavirus in the lab, but data from its use in humans was either inconclusive or incomplete.
Nearly 2,500 patients from across the country have taken part in the ACTIV-6 study. Some are referred by doctors at participating medical centers in 26 states, Hernandez said, while others learn about it online.
To qualify, study participants must have tested positive for the coronavirus within the previous 10 days and have at least two symptoms of COVID-19. They receive an overnight package with one of the drugs or a placebo (they can’t tell which), and report how they’re feeling each day by phone or online.
Researchers are looking for evidence that the drugs either shorten the time people feel sick or prevent them from getting worse and needing to be hospitalized.
Enrollment in ACTIV-6 picked up in recent weeks as the wave of new cases fueled by the omicron variant swept the country. Hernandez said researchers may have the data they need to release their results within a month or so.
For information about the ACTIV-6 study, go to activ6study.org/. Dr. Adrian Hernandez of Duke University Medical School
Dredgers spotted off Cambodian base where China is funding work -U.S. think tank
A sailor stands guard at the Cambodian Ream Naval Base in Sihanoukville
Fri, January 21, 2022 By David Brunnstrom
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Dredgers have been spotted off Cambodia’s Ream naval base, where China is funding construction work and deeper port facilities would be necessary for the docking of larger military ships, a U.S. think tank said on Friday.
The United States, which has sought to push back against Beijing's extensive territorial claims and military expansion in the South China Sea, reiterated its "serious concerns" about China's construction and military presence at Ream.
"These developments threaten U.S. and partner interests, regional security, and Cambodia's sovereignty," a spokesperson for the State Department said.
The report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank said the dredgers could be seen in photos released this month by the Cambodian government and in commercial satellite imagery.
"Dredging of deeper port facilities would be necessary for the docking of larger military ships at Ream, and was part of a secret agreement between China and Cambodia that U.S. officials reported seeing in 2019," the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at CSIS reported.
It cited a 2019 Wall Street Journal report that said the deal granted China military access to the base in return for funding facilities improvements.
Last June, Cambodian media quoted Defense Minister Tea Bahn as saying China would help to modernize and expand Ream, but would not be the only country given access to the facility.
AMTI said a Jan. 16 commercial satellite image showed two dredgers and barges for collecting dredged sand. It said other images showed both dredgers arriving between Jan. 13 and Jan. 15.
They were also visible in a photo posted on Tea Banh’s Facebook page following his Jan. 18 visit to Ream, it said, adding that the work "could mark a significant upgrade in the base’s capabilities."
"The shallow waters around Ream mean it is currently only able to host small patrol vessels. A deep-water port would make it far more useful to both the Cambodian and Chinese navies."
AMTI said construction work had continued onshore, with land clearing in several locations in the southwest of the base since fall 2021 and said this and the dredging "indicates that the base is being prepared for significant infrastructure upgrades."
The State Department spokesperson said the United States urged Cambodia "to be fully transparent about the intent, nature, and scope of the project at Ream and the role the PRC military is playing in its construction, raising concerns about the intended use of this naval facility."
PRC stands for the People's Republic of China.
Last year, Washington sanctioned two Cambodian officials over alleged corruption at Ream and imposed an arms embargo and export restrictions on Cambodia over what it said was the growing influence of China's military in the country, as well as over human rights and corruption.
(Reporting by David Brunnstrom in WashingtonEditing by Matthew Lewis and David Gregorio)
China to start building 5G satellite network to challenge Elon Musk's Starlink
Fri, January 21, 2022, 2:30 AM·5 min read
China will start building a network of a thousand satellites to provide 5G coverage within the next three months, according to state media reports.
The first batch of six low-cost, high-performance communication satellites have been produced, tested and arrived at an undisclosed launch site, according to a report by the state news agency Xinhua on Tuesday.
The company behind the project, Beijing-based start-up GalaxySpace, has said it wants to extend China's 5G coverage around the world and compete with Starlink, owned by Elon Musk's firm SpaceX, in the market for high-speed internet services in remote areas.
The Chinese constellation is small compared with Starlink, which already has around 2,000 satellites in orbit and plans to expand this to 42,000 when the network is complete.
Despite its smaller size, the 1,000-satellite Chinese network will be the first of its kind to use 5G technology.
Scientists involved in the project say this will ensure download speeds of more than 500 megabits per second with a low latency that will be a critical advantage in some demanding applications such as financial trading.
Starlink currently offers a download speed of about 110Mbps for civilian use and although it is using a different technology to 5G, it has the potential to offer 6G services in future.
Beyond the commercial rivalry, Beijing has identified Starlink, which has signed multimillion dollar contracts with the US military, as a threat to China's national security.
In 2020, researchers with the Chinese National University of Defence Technology estimated that it could increase the average global satellite communication bandwidth available to the US military from 5Mbps to 500Mbps.
The researchers also warned that existing anti-satellite weapons technology would find it virtually impossible to destroy a constellation the size of Starlink.
Zhu Kaiding, a space engineer from the China Academy of Space Technology, which is working with GalaxySpace on the project, said the Chinese project was struggling to keep pace with Starlink, which according to Musk is producing six satellites a day.
Zhu did not disclose how quickly China was producing satellites, but in a paper published in domestic journal Aerospace Industry Management in October last year, he said the Starlink programme had forced a satellite assembly line in China to increase its productivity by more than a third.
Zhu and colleagues have said that more than half the routine checks carried out at the launch site of high-frequency operations have been cancelled to save time.
The new satellites also use many components produced by private companies that have not previously been involved in Chinese space projects - a move that helped reduce the total hardware price of a high-speed internet satellite by more than 80 per cent.
Zhu said that the race against Starlink had put enormous pressure on China's space industry because "the technology is complex, the competition fierce, the deadlines tight and the workloads heavy".
It is likely that the number of civilian users of satellite internet service in China will be limited - most urban residents can access 5G through their phone and broadband services are available in most rural areas - so the most likely customers are overseas companies or the Chinese government and military.
In early 2020, GalaxySpace launched an experimental satellite to see if these unprecedented measures would affect the satellite's performance, using.terminals in sites that ranged from China's densely populated east coast to remote mountainous areas in the west of the country.
One of the biggest concerns was bad weather, according to Li Jiancheng, a lead communication technology scientist with GalaxySpace.
Although Starlink warned its users that rain or cloud can affect internet speeds or even cut off communications entirely, Li and colleagues found that the satellite could maintain download speeds of 80Mbps in the worst weather, they wrote in a paper published in Digital Communication World last year.
Two Chinese state-owned space contractors - the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation and China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation - have also launched their own global internet service programmes known as Hongyan and Hongyun.
Although they are smaller in scale than Starlink - the Hongyan constellation will include 324 satellites and Hongyun 156 - they will operate at different orbiting altitudes and frequencies to help China claim more of the diminishing resources in space, according to some scientists informed of these projects.
They say it is unlikely that China will launch a programme as big as the Starlink because two giant constellations in the lower orbit could significantly increase the risk of accidents.
Copyright (c) 2022. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Officials: Florida manatees eating lettuce in pilot program
Cool temperatures brought dozens of manatees to the Florida Power and Light Manatee Lagoon in Riviera Beach, Fla. Wednesday, Jan 19, 2022. Last year was devastating for the gentle creatures, with a record set for mortality. The sea cows come to the power plant discharge area to bask in the warm water. (Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP) CURT ANDERSON Fri, January 21, 2022
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Manatees at risk of starvation because native seagrass is dying due to water pollution have for the first time started eating lettuce under an experimental feeding program, Florida wildlife officials said Friday.
The test facility on the east coast's Indian River Lagoon had its first takers of romaine lettuce Thursday, leading more manatees to join in, said Ron Mezich, chief of the effort’s provisioning branch at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
“We think it's significant,” Mezich said in a remote news conference. “When the animals are there, we will continue to offer food and hope they take advantage of that.”
The program is adding cabbage and a second type of lettuce to entice the manatees, also known as sea cows. All of these are common foods given to manatees at rehabilitation facilities.
The unprecedented feeding program is a state and federal response to last year's record number of 1,101 documented manatee deaths. Many are starving to death because pollution from agricultural, urban and other sources has triggered algae blooms that have decimated seagrass beds on which manatees depend — especially during cold winter months.
About 25 to 35 manatees were seen Friday near the feeding site at a Florida Power & Light plant that discharges warm water the animals favor when water temperatures cool. Several hundred were spotted from the air in nearby areas, said Tom Reinert, south regional director for the FWC.
There are no immediate plans to expand the feeding program beyond Brevard County, officials said. It remains illegal for people to feed wild manatees on their own.
“This is a pilot program and we're trying to learn as much as we can,” Reinert said. But he added that seagrass restoration and a reduction in water pollution are the long-term answers to the starvation problem.
“We need a healthy lagoon to support the seagrass,” he said. “We can't feed all of them.”
In addition to the feeding experiment, officials are working with a number of facilities to rehabilitate distressed manatees that are found alive. These include Florida zoos, the SeaWorld theme park and marine aquariums. There were 159 rescued manatees in 2021, some of which require lengthy care and some that have been returned to the wild, officials said.
There are about 7,520 wild manatees in Florida waters currently, according to state statistics. The slow-moving, round-tailed mammals have rebounded enough to list them as a threatened species rather than endangered, although a push is on to restore the endangered tag given the starvation deaths.
A Pennsylvania woman rescued a ‘scared’ animal. No one knows what it is
Francesca Gariano Sat, January 22, 2022,
A woman in Pennsylvania has experts flummoxed by the animal she discovered outside of her home.
Christina Eyth rescued the animal earlier this week near her home in Fairfield Township after finding paw prints outside of her door. Eyth followed the tracks, assuming they had belonged to her neighbor's dog after they had gotten loose. The tracks ended up leading her to directly an unidentified animal, which Eyth said was exhibiting "scared behavior."
“I peeked outside the door and that’s whenever I noticed the animal on my left hand side and it was so scared and so cold and shivering,” Eyth recalled in an interview with NBC News. "... All I could think about is 'This animal needs help.'"
Rescuing the animal was one thing: Eyth was able to lure the animal into her basement and out of the cold. Since then, though, the animal has been a mystery.
Eyth said that first, she thought the creature might be a coyote or a dog. After calling Wildlife Works, a local rescue, and transferring the creature to their facility for care, there have only been more questions.
Morgan Barron, a certified wildlife rehabilitator at Wildlife Works, had trouble identifying what this animal could be and told NBC News she couldn’t “definitively say what it is.”
“But to err on the side of caution since they can carry rabies and since it might be a coyote, we can keep it here, get genetic testing done, and then kind of go from there," Barron explained.
Barron said that since the animal's behavior is on the timid side and it isn't exhibiting signs of aggression, she believes that the animal may be a dog. In the meantime, the animal is currently being treated for mange and is being kept in isolation.
A four-legged creature was recently rescued from freezing cold temperatures in Pennsylvania, but what exactly the animal is has left experts puzzled.
Christina Eyth said she followed paw prints to find the animal outside her basement door in Fairfield Township, WPXI reported.
Initially thinking it was a dog, she kept the animal in her basement as it was “freezing... skiddish and scared,” she said on Facebook.
TJ’s Rescue Hideaway, a local non-profit foster-based rescue organization, was called to Eyth’s home, but they weren’t sure if the animal was a dog. So Wildlife Works in Mount Pleasant was called to help identify the animal.
The organization, which specializes in deer, raccoons, mammals and rabies vector species, said it has started treatment and collected a sample to determine what the creature is. It will likely take two to four weeks before they know anything.
“What do you think I am, dog or coyote?” the organization asked on Facebook.
Morgan Barron with Wildlife Works described the animal as “very timid, very scared and not aggressive,” which leads her to believe it is a dog.
“I honestly can’t definitively say what it is, but to err on the side of caution, since they can carry rabies and since it might be a coyote ... (we will) get genetic testing done and go from there,” Barron told WPXI.
“He is eating, warm, but still scared.” Eyth said in a Facebook post. “No matter the results this animal will be helped thanks to all those involved!”
Fairfield Township is located 60 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.
The Hubble telescope just spotted a black hole giving birth to new stars
Joshua Hawkins Fri, January 21, 2022
Astronomers have finally captured a look at a black hole birthing new stars in the Henize 2-10 galaxy. The supermassive black hole in question is located roughly 34 million light-years away. Astronomers were able to take note of the black hole thanks to the Hubble telescope. The astronomers conducted a study based on their observations. The study was published in late January in the journal Nature.
Many people see black holes as a destructive force. While this has often been the case in the past, new evidence suggests black holes also play a role in the development of new stars. In fact, the black hole at the center of the Henize 2-10 galaxy is birthing new stars instead of eating them.
“Ten years ago, as a graduate student thinking I would spend my career on star formation, I looked at the data from Henize 2-10 and everything changed,” Amy Reines, the principal investigator on the new study wrote in a statement. “From the beginning I knew something unusual and special was happening in Henize 2-10.”
According to Reines, the newest capture of the galaxy provided by the Hubble telescope shows that the black hole birthing new stars is currently spewing out gas moving at around 1 million miles per hour. Because the black hole here is smaller, the outflow is moving slower than those found in larger galaxies. This, Reines and others say, is what led to the formation of new stars.
What this means for astronomers
black hole
One reason this study is important is because it will put more attention on smaller black holes. While not as large as some of their counterparts, these smaller supermassive black holes still have a very clear part to play. Reines says that black holes like the one in Henize 2-10 offer some promising possible clues. Dwarf galaxy black holes could give us an analog look at the way these space entities actually form.
Of course, there’s still a lot to break down and dig into when it comes to black holes. Seeing a black hole birthing new stars is both intriguing and inspiring.
“The era of the first black holes is not something that we have been able to see,” Reines said. “So, it really has become the big question: where did they come from? Dwarf galaxies may retain some memory of the black hole seeding scenario that has otherwise been lost to time and space.”
