Fire kills at least 17 at Indonesia fuel depot

Thousands evacuated around the facility in the capital Jakarta


 Firefighters inspect the ruins of houses destroyed in a fire in Jakarta, Indonesia, Friday, March 3, 2023. A large fire broke out at a fuel storage depot in Indonesia’s capital on Friday, killing several people, injuring dozens of others and forcing the evacuation of thousands of nearby residents after spreading to their neighborhood, officials said. 

(AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

PUBLISHED: March 3, 2023 
By Achmad Ibrahim | Associated Press

JAKARTA, Indonesia — A large fire broke out at a fuel storage depot in Indonesia’s capital on Friday, killing at least 17 people, injuring dozens of others and forcing the evacuation of thousands of nearby residents after spreading to their neighborhood, officials said.

The fuel storage station, operated by state-run oil and gas company Pertamina, is near a densely populated area in the 0Tanah Merah neighborhood in North Jakarta. It supplies 25% of Indonesia’s fuel needs.

At least 260 firefighters and 52 fire engines were struggling to contain the blaze in the nearby neighborhood, fire officials said.

Video of the fire broadcast on television showed hundreds of people in the community running in panic while thick plumes of black smoke and orange flames filled the sky and firefighters battled the blaze.

A preliminary investigation showed the fire broke out when a pipeline ruptured during heavy rain, possibly from a lightning strike, said Eko Kristiawan, Pertamina’s area manager.

He said the fire would not disrupt the country’s fuel supply.

Satriadi Gunawan, who heads Jakarta’s fire and rescue department, said people living in the residential area were still being evacuated and were being taken to a nearby village hall and a mosque.

“The fire caused several explosions and quickly spread to residential houses,” Gunawan said.

He said at least 17 people were dead, including two children, and 50 had been hospitalized, some with severe burns.

Indonesia’s minister of State-Owned Enterprises, Erick Thohir, expressed his condolences to the victims and their families and ordered Pertamina to thoroughly investigate the fire and focus on quickly assisting the community.

“There must be an operational evaluation in the future. I’ll continue to monitor this case,” Thohir said in a video statement.

Fire at Indonesian fuel storage station kills 17

MARCH 03, 2023

Firefighters try to extinguish a fire at a fuel storage station operated by Indonesia's state energy company Pertamina in Jakarta, Indonesia on March 3, 2023.
Reuters

JAKARTA — At least 17 people were killed when a fire broke out on Friday (March 3) at a fuel storage station operated by Indonesia's state energy company Pertamina in the capital Jakarta, an official at the city's main firefighting unit said.

The fire, which started after 8pm local time, burned some houses and sent nearby residents in the densely populated areas into a panic, some of whom fled with their belongings, footage from broadcasters showed.

A Pertamina spokesperson said late on Friday that the fire had been extinguished at about 10.30pm.

Fire was still seen around residents' houses after that, a firefighting station official said on the unit's Instagram account.

Two of the fatalities were children, while 50 people were injured including one child, according to Rahmat Kristanto, an official at the firefighting unit.

Most of the injured people suffered from burns and the government will pay for their medical treatment, Jakarta's acting governor Heru Budi Hartono told reporters.


Shortly after the fire started, explosions could be heard in footage shared on social media, although Reuters was not able to authenticate the clips.

Near the storage station, residents crowded the area while firefighters carried orange body bags from the fire. Jakarta's disaster-mitigation agency said residents had been evacuated into nearby mosques.

Siswandi, a 21-year-old resident, said the scene "was chaotic, as we were running away alongside injured victims who were half burned, and it caused panic among people," adding that he was taking all of his valuable documents from his house.

The call centre of Jakarta's main fire station said it had dispatched 51 units to the Plumpang area in North Jakarta, adding that the fire was huge.

Pertamina said in a statement that the cause of the incident was still being investigated and that evacuation efforts were ongoing.

The company said the fuel supply for the Jakarta area remained secure as it planned to divert supply from other terminals.

Pertamina chief executive officer Nicke Widyawati apologised for the fire and said it would "reflect internally to avoid similar incidents from ever occurring again".

The fuel station has a capacity of over 300,000 kilo-litres, according to the country's energy ministry.

Indonesian officials call for audit after Pertamina fire kills 13
Reuters

 Firefighters try to extinguish a fire at a fuel storage station operated by Indonesia's state energy company Pertamina, in Jakarta, Indonesia, March 3, 2023. REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan

JAKARTA, March 4 (Reuters) - Indonesian officials called for an investigation and an audit of state energy company Pertamina's (PERTM.UL) facilities after a fire at its storage facility killed 13.

The fire, which started at around 8 pm (0100 GMT) on Friday from a fuel pipe at Pertamina's Plumpang fuel storage depot in capital Jakarta, quickly spread to nearby houses and sent residents in the densely populated area into panic.

Authorities initially put the death toll at 17 but revised it later to 13. Dozens were injured and hundreds were evacuated.

The fire had been extinguished by early morning hours on Saturday, North Jakarta fire fighter official Abdul Wahid said.

"I have ordered Pertamina to immediately investigate this case thoroughly," State-Owned Enterprise Minister Erick Thohir said via his Instagram page.

"There must be an operational review," he added.

Sugeng Suparwoto, who heads parliament's energy committee, called for an audit of Pertamina's facilities.

"All facilities, whether refineries or storage, must be audited again," he said on KompasTV, noting that Pertamina often had fire incidents at its facilities.

In 2021, a major fire broke out at Pertamina's refineries in Balongan and Cilacap.

Sugeng also said there should be a bigger distance between Pertamina's storage facilities and residential areas. "For a facility with Plumpang's capacity, there should be at least one to two kilometres distance with residential area."

Plumpang, with a storage capacity of over 300,000 kilo litres, is one of Pertamina's biggest fuel terminals.

Dense residential area stands outside the Plumpang's outer wall, separated only by a narrow street, a Reuters witness said.

Local residents could smell the fuel around 30 minutes before the fire, Abdul Syukur, who lives nearby, told KompasTV.

"The smell was so strong there were people throwing up and some nearly fainted," he said.

CEO Nicke Widyawati said Pertamina will launch an internal review, while ensuring that Jakarta's fuel supply will remain secure as the company diverts supplies from other terminals.

Meet the thriving stray dogs of Chernobyl

Sarah Knapton

Mar 04 2023

The nuclear ghost town of Pripyat, 2 kilometres from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, in a video marking the town's 50th anniversary in 2021.

Living amid the fallout of the world’s worst nuclear disaster may not seem like a sensible lifestyle choice, but the dogs of Chernobyl may have evolved to make it work, a study suggested.

Scientists have found that strays living in the exclusion zone of the Ukrainian disaster have developed distinct DNA and behaviour from other canines.

Since the nuclear catastrophe took place in April 1986, the area surrounding the nuclear power plant has largely been abandoned by humans.

But although radioactive contamination devastated wildlife populations there, some animals survived and continued to breed – including feral dogs, some of whom may have descended from domestic pets.

The team found that the strays had formed into packs, like wild dogs and wolves, but the groups were living close together, a behaviour not seen in undomesticated animals.

The dogs have been monitored by the Chernobyl Dog Research Initiative since 2017, and a new study of blood samples taken by the project team has shown that the animals were genetically different from other canines.

Now the team are planning to study the new genetic traits to see if any of the mutations is helping them to survive in the radiation zone.

Discovering how mammals evolve to live in harsh radiation environments could bring important insights into how to predict cancer in humans, or protect astronauts in the deadly radioactive environment of space.

SEAN GALLUP/GETTY IMAGES
Some animals, including dogs, survived and continued to breed long after Chernobyl was sealed off to humans.

Dr Elaine Ostrander, a geneticist from the National Human Genome Research Institute, part of the US National Institutes of Health (Nih), said: “We don’t yet know what, if any, genetic differences might allow dogs to survive in one versus another environment.

“Looking for changes in the DNA that have helped one versus the other population survive is the long-term goal of the study and one we are working towards now.

“We think that is an important experiment because those changes, if identified, would be helpful for understanding early events in cancer, help guide using therapies for diseases that are motivated by radiation exposure, and would suggest ways in which we can better protect ourselves from both accidental and natural radiation exposure.

“For instance, we know that space is a high radiation environment, and information from this study could help scientists design ideal protection for those spending significant time in space, as space exploration continues to expand.”

DIMITAR DILKOFF/GETTY IMAGES
Scientists hope that the genetic discovery could offer insights in preventing cancer in humans.

The Chernobyl disaster began on April 26 1986 with the explosion of reactor number four at the nuclear power plant causing an updraft of radioactivity which spread across Europe.

Two people died immediately and 29 within the coming days of acute radiation syndrome, while the United Nations estimated some 4000 more died from the fallout.

Many women also aborted their babies for fear they would be affected by radiation poisoning.


Some 300,000 people were evacuated from their homes and, in the aftermath, a 1600-square kilometre exclusion zone was set up around the site.

DIMITAR DILKOFF/GETTY IMAGES
The stray dogs have been monitored by the Chernobyl Dog Research Initiative since 1997.

However, in recent years, researchers have found that closing off the land to humans has allowed wildlife to flourish, with the area now a haven for lynx, bison, brown bear, wolves, boar and deer as well as 60 rare plant species.

The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone currently represents the third-largest nature reserve in mainland Europe and is often considered an accidental experiment in rewilding.

Previous studies showed that exposure to radiation speeds up the genetic mutation rate among plants, with some species evolving new chemistry that makes them more resistant to radiation damage and protects their DNA.

Scientists have pointed out that in the past when early plants were evolving, levels of natural radiation on Earth were far higher than now, so species may be able to switch on dormant traits to survive.

However, it was unknown whether the same protective adaptations would be seen in larger animals.

The new study was based on 302 free-roaming dogs living in the exclusion zone, which were found to have different genetic make-ups depending on how much radiation they were exposed to.

The Nih team is now planning to study the genetic changes to find out whether they are helping the dogs to survive.

The research was published in the journal Science Advances

READ MORE:

* 'Our tourism is unique': The Chernobyl disaster, 35 years on

* Ukraine wants Chernobyl to be a tourist site. But there's a warning

* What it's like to stay at the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

* Nearly 30 years after the Chernobyl nuclear accident, nature is fighting back

The Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster Created Genetically Mutant Dogs


Maddie Bender
Fri, March 3, 2023

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Pixabay

Roughly 350,000 people evacuated during the 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1986, leaving their lives and belongings behind to flee the worst nuclear disaster in history. Facets of residents’ lives left behind but often unmentioned are their pets, which evacuees were forbidden to retrieve. Despite the high levels of radiation in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, many of these animals survived, and their descendants can be found in and around the region today.

Prancer, one of these dogs, got her name from a dance she does whenever she greets Tim Mousseau’s research team. Mousseau, a biology researcher at the University of South Carolina, has studied the effects of radiation on living organisms in sites like Chernobyl and Fukushima for decades. Usually, however, his subjects are a lot smaller, potentially a result of the extremely harsh conditions created by nuclear radiation.

“These are dogs. You can't help but love them and develop relationships with them,” he told The Daily Beast. “We think about bringing them home with us every time we go.”

Dog Genes Hold More Secrets About Humans Than You Think

Even in conditions that drastically limit their lifespan—Mousseau said most of the Chernobyl canines only live to three—the dogs have found a way to thrive. Locals and an increasing number of dark tourists feed the dogs resulting in a surge in the canines’ population that have driven nonprofits and researchers to regularly provide veterinary care, and spay and neuter as many dogs as they can. Over the course of three years, Mousseau has collected hundreds of blood samples from the dogs as part of these efforts.

The dogs’ blood contained an incredibly rare opportunity: a glimpse into how life prevails even under unnaturally harsh conditions. When Mousseau came to National Human Genome Research Institute geneticist Elaine Ostrander to analyze nearly 300 of these blood samples, she wasn’t about to let the chance slip by.

“I said, ‘Me, me, me, me, me,’” she told The Daily Beast. “It's such an extraordinary opportunity, and it does have implications for human health and biology.”

The Mystery of Chernobyl’s Black Frogs

Mousseau and Ostrander’s team published genetic sequencing results from the Chernobyl dogs on March 3 in the journal Science Advances. According to the authors, the study represents “the first genetic analysis of domestic dogs affected by a nuclear disaster,” providing a baseline to measure the impact of prolonged radiation exposure on an animal’s genetic health.

The radiation in Chernobyl City and near the power plant breaks the pooches’ DNA strands. Their cells try to repair it, but errors often occur. DNA gets deleted, spontaneously added, or switched around willy-nilly. Understanding how the Chernobyl dogs are able to survive in spite of this constant assault could inform a field like cancer treatment, since incorrectly repaired DNA is often found in cancer cells, Ostrander said.

“These dogs are surviving generation after generation, they’re fertile, they're carrying out all their bodily functions, and they even have behavioral relationships with people in the area—they're doing all the dog stuff they're supposed to be doing,” Ostrander said. “What's allowed them to overcome [the radiation]? From the viewpoint of someone at the National Institutes of Health, we really care about that.”

Russian Troops Left Mines and Fires Around Chernobyl in ‘Nightmare’ Scenario

During visits to the Exclusion Zone, Mousseau and others have noticed dogs living both in Chernobyl City and in and around the nuclear power plant—the latter of which is striking, given the area’s high, ongoing levels of radioactive contamination. But it was not known how closely these two populations were related, and additionally, how genetically similar they were to dogs in a nearby village.

As it turned out, both were genetically distinct—from a nearby village dog population and from each other. The next step, which the researchers are already diving into, is to start to isolate the genetic regions that make the Chernobyl dogs different. It’s all speculation at the moment, but Mousseau and Ostrandar both have theories.

For his part, Mousseau has studied an assortment of flora and fauna in radiation zones and found that some species of birds have safety mechanisms in their genes that protect them from the worst effects of the radiation. Might the dogs living near the power plant have such molecular failsafes, too?

Roving Packs of Robot Dogs Are Coming to the Moon

Now that the researchers have a baseline for these dogs, they are able to isolate genetic differences that aren’t just due to the quirks of the populations. Any disparate finding could improve the dogs’ ability to survive in their environment. For instance, if the Chernobyl dogs have genes encoding shorter fur than others nearby, it might mean they don’t hold onto as much radioactive dust in their coats. Or, if they have more genes relating to processing scents, it might mean the dogs can smell without putting their noses to the radioactive soil.

“In terms of looking at the genome, this is one of the most exciting projects ever,” Ostrander said.

But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has complicated the research efforts: The last time Mousseau visited the region, the Crimea Bridge was bombed. Currently, his team sends about 800 kilos of food to the dogs every week, and the nonprofit Clean Futures Fund supports on-the-ground care for the animals.

“We hope that this research will shine a light on the situation in Ukraine to a broader audience,” Mousseau said. “We should all be concerned about the care of animals, even if they're stuck in a place like Chernobyl, in a war zone.”

Can the dogs of Chernobyl teach us new tricks on survival?

Scientists are studying hundreds of dogs at the Chernobyl disaster site that have managed to survive in extremely harsh conditions

By LAURA UNGAR - 

AP Science Writer
Mar 3, 2023 

This photo taken by Timothy Mousseau shows dogs in the Chernobyl area of Ukraine on Oct. 3, 2022. More than 35 years after the world's worst nuclear accident, the dogs of Chernobyl roam among decaying, abandoned buildings in and around the closed plant – somehow still able to find food, breed and survive.


This photo provided by Timothy Mousseau in Feb. 2023 shows a dog in the Chernobyl area of Ukraine. More than 35 years after the world's worst nuclear accident, the dogs of Chernobyl roam among decaying, abandoned buildings in and around the closed plant – somehow still able to find food, breed and survive.

More than 35 years after the world's worst nuclear accident, the dogs of Chernobyl roam among decaying, abandoned buildings in and around the closed plant – somehow still able to find food, breed and survive.

Scientists hope that studying these dogs can teach humans new tricks about how to live in the harshest, most degraded environments, too.

They published the first of what they hope will be many genetics studies on Friday in the journal Science Advances, focusing on 302 free-roaming dogs living in an officially designated “exclusion zone” around the disaster site. They identified populations whose differing levels of radiation exposure may have made them genetically distinct from one another and other dogs worldwide.

“We've had this golden opportunity” to lay the groundwork for answering a crucial question: “How do you survive in a hostile environment like this for 15 generations?” said geneticist Elaine Ostrander of the National Human Genome Research Institute, one of the study’s many autho

Fellow author Tim Mousseau, professor of biological sciences at the University of South Carolina, said the dogs “provide an incredible tool to look at the impacts of this kind of a setting” on mammals overall.

Chernobyl’s environment is singularly brutal. On April 26, 1986, an explosion and fire at the Ukraine power plant caused radioactive fallout to spew into the atmosphere. Thirty workers were killed in the immediate aftermath while the long-term death toll from radiation poisoning is estimated to eventually number in the thousands.

Researchers say most of the dogs they are studying appear to be descendants of pets that residents were forced to leave behind when they evacuated the area.

Mousseau has been working in the Chernobyl region since the late 1990s and began collecting blood from the dogs around 2017. Some of the dogs live in the power plant, a dystopian, industrial setting. Others are about 9 miles (15 kilometers) or 28 miles (45 kilometers) away.

At first, Ostrander said, they thought the dogs might have intermingled so much over time that they’d be much the same. But through DNA, they could readily identify dogs living in areas of high, low and medium levels of radiation exposure.

“That was a huge milestone for us," said Ostrander. “And what’s surprising is we can even identify families” – about 15 different ones.

Now researchers can begin to look for alterations in the DNA.

“We can compare them and we can say: OK, what’s different, what’s changed, what’s mutated, what’s evolved, what helps you, what hurts you at the DNA level?” Ostrander said. This will involve separating non-consequential DNA changes from purposeful ones.

Scientists said the research could have wide applications, providing insights about how animals and humans can live now and in the future in regions of the world under “continuous environmental assault” – and in the high-radiation environment of space.

Dr. Kari Ekenstedt, a veterinarian who teaches at Purdue University and was not involved in the study, said it's a first step toward answering important questions about how constant exposure to higher levels of radiation affects large mammals. For example, she said, “Is it going to be changing their genomes at a rapid rate?”

Researchers have already started on the follow-up research, which will mean more time with the dogs at the site about 60 miles (100 kilometers) from Kyiv. Mousseau said he and his colleagues were there most recently last October and didn’t see any war-related activity. Mousseau said the team has grown close to some dogs, naming one Prancer because she excitedly prances around when she sees people.

“Even though they’re wild, they still very much enjoy human interaction," he said, “Especially when there’s food involved.” 

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

 

Scientist To Launch Interstellar Space Music

 March 4, 2023 

By Eurasia Review

A scientist from Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) will premiere a new piece of music at the SXSW EDU festival that has been created using data beamed back to Earth from interstellar space.

On Thursday, 9 March, Dr Domenico Vicinanza will be joined on stage in Austin, Texas, by Dr Alyssa Schwartz, Visiting Assistant Professor of Flute and Musicology at Fairmont State University, to perform music shaped by scientific readings collected by NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft.

Dr Vicinanza, a Senior Lecturer in ARU’s School of Computing and Information Science, is a leading expert in data sonification, which is a process of converting scientific measurements into sound. As well as producing music, data sonification has a range of practical uses including medical diagnostics and big data mining.

In addition to his collaborations with NASA, Dr Vicinanza has also used data sonification to produce music for the BBC, Yellowstone National Park, and CERN, the home of the Large Hadron Collider. 

His SXSW EDU event will include a world premiere of a piece for solo flute that has been created using data from the Voyager 1 spacecraft, which has a suite of antennas and instruments to record plasma waves, which are caused by particles vibrating in space, and then send the readings back to Earth.

Voyager 1 is the first manmade object to leave our solar system, and so this is the first time that interstellar plasma waves have been recorded.  Dr Vicinanza’s piece has turned this plasma data into music to chart Voyager 1’s journey from inside the solar system, across the heliopause, which is the transition region between inside and outside the Sun’s area of influence, and into interstellar space.

Dr Vicinanza, who in addition to his role at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) is also the coordinator for arts and humanities for the European network GÉANT, said: “We know that our ears are better than our eyes at detecting the most subtle changes, and that’s why listening to complex data to identify patterns and abnormalities is more effective than looking at graphs or lines of numbers.

“Data sonification has so many practical possibilities, but it is also a wonderful tool for bringing scientific data to life through music. Peaks and troughs can be translated into musical notes, and trends in the data can be turned into melodies.

“The piece we will be performing at SXSW EDU has three sections. It begins with a smooth melody line, played ‘legato’, using the low, darker register of the flute, describing the data at the border of the solar system, still inside the heliosphere.

“There is then a short transition phase, from the low to the high register of the flute, played staccato. And finally, there is a melody in the high register, that incorporates higher intervals, modulations, atonality, and played with a mix of techniques, describing the interstellar space.

“I’m honoured to be premiering this new piece of music in person at the SXSW EDU Conference and Festival, particularly as it has been produced using the same data sonification techniques that we have developed here at ARU, and that we use with our students on the MSc Data Science course.”

The SXSW EDU Conference and Festival is taking place in Austin, Texas, from 6-9 March.

Parasitic Infections Common In Kids In Low-Resource US Communities

New WashU research finds 38% of children sampled from a rural Mississippi Delta community have parasitic infections. CREDIT: Theresa Gildner

 March 4, 2023 

By Eurasia Review

Most Americans view parasitic infections as a problem of the past or one that only impacts low-income countries. However, new research from Washington University in St. Louis finds evidence that the problem is likely widespread in low-resource communities throughout southern United States where environmental conditions combined with infrastructural neglect and inadequate access to health care create the perfect breeding ground for these infections.

In a small, preliminary study published in American Journal of Human Biology, 38% of children sampled from a rural Mississippi Delta community were found to have either parasitic worms or protist infections — a single-cell parasitic organisms that can negatively impact intestinal health.

Parasitic infections are a neglected health issue in low-resource communities, according to Theresa Gildner, study co-author and assistant professor of biological anthropology in Arts & Sciences at WashU. School-age children are especially at risk for these infections due to increased exposure through play, poor hand hygiene and their still-developing immune systems.

Left untreated, the infections can lead to nutritional deficiencies and lifelong health consequences. Gildner said many of the community members they worked with during this project expressed frustration with state and federal governments that do not listen to their concerns related to these issues.

“This is a failure of all levels of government to provide basic services to vulnerable citizens. Health conditions — including parasitic and intestinal infections — linked with poor sanitation will likely worsen in coming years as climate change and associated extreme weather events further strain already weak infrastructure systems,” said Gildner, an expert on parasitic disease and health disparities.  

According to Gildner, President Biden’s infrastructure bill is a step in the right direction, but more work is needed in the near future to invest in crumbling infrastructure.“I do not know if President Biden’s infrastructure bill will directly help the communities where we have worked — we haven’t heard anything from our community partners — but I think there could be indirect benefits. For instance, drawing more attention to the immediate need for investment in failing infrastructure may lead to more localized projects that benefit these communities,” she said.  

But any efforts to address these infrastructure needs should start with direct and respectful community engagement by locally elected officials. After all, she said, “Individuals living in these communities have the best sense of what the issues are through their lived experiences and may have ideas for what is most needed to improve conditions in their specific community.”

Unique Hybrid Reefs Deployed Off Miami Beach

March 4, 2023

By Eurasia Review

The first piece of a series of concrete structures was lowered into the water off the coast of Miami Beach on Wednesday morning, a massive crane on the deck of a floating barge hoisting the unit into the air and sinking it to the seabed.

During the next six hours, crewmembers aboard the barge would repeat that process until the structures, some stacked on top of each other, were settled on the seafloor, 14 feet below the surface.

To casual observers onshore, the daylong operation might have seemed routine. But this maritime activity was hardly run-of-the-mill.

In a project that could pave the way for greater efforts to protect coastlines from sea level rise and storm surge and serve as an innovative base structure to develop thriving coral reefs, a team of researchers and scientists from the University of Miami sunk 27 interlocking concrete structures that will form two hybrid reef units 1,000 feet offshore of North Beach Oceanside Park, at the northern edge of Miami Beach.

The units are the centerpiece of a project called Engineering Coastal Resilience Through Hybrid Reef Restoration, or ECoREEF, which combines cement- and nature-based strategies to foster coastal resilience. Supported by the University’s Laboratory for Integrative Knowledge (U-LINK) and the City of Miami Beach, the project was developed at a time when coral reefs are struggling to survive. A recent study indicates that half of the world’s living coral reefs have died since the 1950s. Meanwhile, other research has shown that healthy and complex coral reefs are able to buffer up to 97 percent of the energy from waves and can also reduce flooding frequency.

“Coral reefs are disappearing at alarming rates throughout the world as a result of disease and warming oceans, so our reefs have lost a lot of the structure they need to reduce wave energy,” said ECoREEF lead investigator, Diego Lirman, an associate professor of marine biology and ecology at the University’s Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science. “By placing these [hybrid] reefs near the shoreline and planting stress-tolerant corals on them, we hope to recover some of the lost services provided by healthy reefs, such as coastal protection, and to build a habitat for organisms like fish and lobsters.”

One of the hollow structures submerged this week was shaped like a trapezoid, with rocks on its outer surface to mimic the texture of coral reefs and to attract marine life. The other unit is a series of hexagons, the iconic honeycomb-like shape that is being incorporated into more and more projects, including the powerful Webb Telescope. Perforated to allow seawater to flow through them, the hollow, hexagonal SEAHIVE structures—tubes that look like honeycomb and each weighing 2,500 pounds—are stacked in a pyramid-like shape and attached to a few solid concrete SEAHIVEs to enhance the stability of the structure.

To build the hybrid structures, researchers also used an eco-friendly concrete mixture, with composite reinforcements instead of steel, both for durability and to attract marine life.

Haus and Rhode-Barbarigos peer through a six-foot-tall perforated SEAHIVE unit, which they designed with other faculty members, on the barge that lowered dozens of the units into the ocean.

“Designing structures to dissipate wave energy while providing a hospitable environment for corals has been a challenge,” said Landolf Rhode-Barbarigos, an assistant professor in the College of Engineering, and one of the project’s lead investigators. “There are no design guidelines for nature, but hopefully this can be translated into something bigger and provide novel solutions for coastal protection.”

It was Rhode-Barbarigos, along with Lirman, marine biologist Andrew Baker, ocean scientist Brian Haus, sustainable architect Sonia Chao, and communications expert Jyotika Ramaprasad, who joined forces in 2018 to address challenges of coastal resilience. They hope the ECoREEF project will lead to a better understanding of the types of structures that can help protect South Florida’s vulnerable coastline from erosion and storm surge.

“We want to see how these two different alternatives for a hybrid, engineered structure and a natural reef compare,” Haus said. “This is a research installation, so we’ll be examining it in a variety of ways.”

Corals grown at the Rosenstiel School’s three nurseries will eventually be attached to the hybrid reefs, allowing them to thrive and replace some of the area’s many coral reefs lost to disease and bleaching that is the result of warming ocean temperatures.

“We are hoping that we can get baby corals to attach and get a community that looks similar to a natural reef developing on these structures over time,” Lirman said.

But for now, the reefs must get acclimated to their new underwater environment.

Divers and drones will help monitor the structures; and soon, researchers will install current meters and wave sensors from the U.S. Geological Survey to measure wave energy and flow on the surface of the reefs, according to Brian Haus, professor and chair of ocean sciences at the Rosenstiel School.

After two previous attempts to deploy the structures were called off because of inclement weather, ideal conditions—calm waters and little to no wind—made it possible for crews to sink the structures.

Onboard the barge which carried the hybrid reefs—after a tugboat had brought them more than 100-nautical-miles from Fort Pierce to Miami Beach—Haus and Rhode-Barbarigos helped orchestrate the deployment, directing the crane that lowered the structures into the water and making sure the reefs were positioned and stacked correctly on the seabed. A diver who patrolled the seafloor ensured the structures aligned properly.

“We got our hands a little bit dirty today, but it was worth it,” said Haus, who oversees the Rosenstiel School’s 75-foot-long, 38,000-gallon Alfred C. Glassell, Jr. SUSTAIN Laboratory wind-wave tank, which researchers used to test small-scale versions of the hybrid reefs.

Should a tropical cyclone threaten or even strike South Florida this coming hurricane season, the hybrid reefs could get their first big test, which is why the team went through a meticulous permitting process, Rhode-Barbarigos said.

A grant from U-LINK helped jump-start the project, and the group soon partnered with the City of Miami Beach. The U-LINK initiative was founded in 2018 to offer interdisciplinary faculty teams seed funding to devise novel solutions to pressing societal issues. Since then, 40 other teams have been formed, and many of them have garnered additional external funding. Last summer, Baker, Lirman, Rhode-Barbarigos and Haus, among others, received a massive grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a division of the U.S. Department of Defense, to scale up their designs and help protect military and civilian infrastructure along the coast.

“This EcoReefs project will give us a test bed for this technology, before we do a deployment of a much larger structure for the DARPA grant elsewhere in Florida,” Lirman pointed out.

While the U-LINK project was evolving, Rhode-Barbarigos was also working with Haus and College of Engineering faculty members Antonio Nanni, Esber Andiroglu, and Prannoy Suraneni to develop the SEAHIVE structure through grants from the National Comparative Highway Research Program and the Florida Department of Transportation. Initially created as an alternative to traditional seawalls because of their ability to mitigate wave energy, the honeycomb-shaped SEAHIVE units are also set to be tested at two other South Florida locations.

Miami Beach officials are eager to see how both hybrid reefs perform in the waters off North Beach Oceanside Park.

“The launch of this experimental [hybrid] reef marks a pivotal moment in our efforts to protect Miami Beach from coastal erosion and restore our coral ecosystem,” said Ricky Arriola, a Miami Beach commissioner. “Not only will this innovative solution help safeguard our shores, but it will also drive ecotourism and further establish Miami Beach as a leader in sustainable coastal management.”

Amy Knowles, the city’s chief resilience officer, agreed. “We can’t wait to see how this hybrid reef grows,” she said. “Coral reefs are an important part of marine life, and our coastal resilience to storm surge and sea level rise for Miami Beach and our broader region.”

For the faculty members who worked on the project since its inception four years ago, this deployment marked an achievement.

“It’s been a long adventure, so we’re understandably excited,” Rhode-Barbarigos said. “It’s a milestone moment because we’ll be able to learn from these units both from an engineering and ecological perspective. What we accomplished today is the end of one phase, but the beginning of another.”

 

Case Study Of Rare, Endangered Tortoise Highlights Conservation Priorities For Present, Future World Wildlife Days

 

March 4, 2023

By Eurasia Review

Though wildlife trafficking has been effectively disrupted since the first World Wildlife Day—established 50 years ago today via the 1973 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) of Wild Fauna and Flora—a newly published case study on one of the world’s rarest tortoise species, the ploughshare tortoise, highlights how much room for improvement still exists.

In a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of the Sciences, University of Maryland Associate Professor Meredith Gore and her coauthors—Babson College’s Emily Griffin, Bistra Dilkina and Aaron Ferber from the University of Southern California, Michigan State University’s Stanley E. Griffis, the University of Alabama’s Burcu B. Keskin, and John Macdonald from Colorado State University—detail a 2018 effort to map ploughshare tortoises’ location within and around Soalala, Madagascar; nearby villages; known trafficking pathways and transit routes; and the amount of trafficking risk associated with each of those areas. The group of approximately 50 stakeholders also shared more qualitative information that might play a role in poachers’ trafficking process, such as paths of cultural and spiritual significance, tides’ influence on decision-making; and where poachers met to plan their activities.

This information was drawn onto a clear, plastic sheet that was laid across a color-based map of the region. That information was then digitized into a geographic information system, creating what the researchers’ called a “mess” that nevertheless revealed novel  information for the effective targeting of those ploughshare tortoise trafficking networks. 

“Our science team used a cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral approach to think about, measure, and analyze data,” explains Gore. “Not only were we able to shift the data landscape to clarify how important water routes are to the resilience of the illicit supply chain, we were able to normalize technical spatial data with insights from traditionally marginalized voices—women.”

Gore and her co-authors argue that if a process like this were to be paired with the latest advancements in computational science, operations engineering, and supply chain management, together, researchers could dramatically disrupt wildlife trafficking networks, and thereby conserve more animals, like the ploughshare tortoise, who are already on the brink of extinction.

“As we celebrate World Wildlife Day, our recent work highlights the urgent need for interdisciplinary collaboration to address the complex global issue of wildlife trafficking,” says Bistra Dilkina, an associate professor of computer science and industrial and systems engineering at the University of Southern California. “I feel privileged to have the opportunity to work with a trans-disciplinary team to synthesize a roadmap of how our different disciplines can work together to fight illegal wildlife trafficking and trade. In particular, I am excited to think deeply about the advantages that data-driven approaches in machine learning and optimization can bring to this important endeavor.”

Looking to the future, the researchers believe that with increased interdisciplinary collaborations, conservationists may one day be able to predict which path a trafficker will take, target areas where locals could undergo trainings and be empowered to play a part in preventing wildlife trafficking, better allocate limited resources to have the greatest interventional impact, and more.  

“It’s easy to reflect on the array of conservation accomplishments that have been made since World Wildlife Day was first celebrated,” says Gore. “Our hope is that interdisciplinary science will produce additional high-return investments for the conservation sector in the future, most notably by advancing knowledge about changes and shifts in patterns of wildlife trafficking networks in a changing environment.” 

Ploughshare tortoise looking directly at the camera CREDIT: University of Maryland Associate Professor Meredith Gore

Case study of rare, endangered tortoise highlights conservation priorities for present, future World Wildlife Days

Researchers share ploughshare tortoise case study to show how wildlife trafficking networks could be better disrupted

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

 

IMAGE: PLOUGHSHARE TORTOISE LOOKING DIRECTLY AT THE CAMERA view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR MEREDITH GORE

Though wildlife trafficking has been effectively disrupted since the first World Wildlife Day—established 50 years ago today via the 1973 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) of Wild Fauna and Flora—a newly published case study on one of the world’s rarest tortoise species, the ploughshare tortoise, highlights how much room for improvement still exists.

In a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of the Sciences, University of Maryland Associate Professor Meredith Gore and her coauthors—Babson College’s Emily Griffin, Bistra Dilkina and Aaron Ferber from the University of Southern California, Michigan State University’s Stanley E. Griffis, the University of Alabama’s Burcu B. Keskin, and John Macdonald from Colorado State University—detail a 2018 effort to map ploughshare tortoises’ location within and around Soalala, Madagascar; nearby villages; known trafficking pathways and transit routes; and the amount of trafficking risk associated with each of those areas. The group of approximately 50 stakeholders also shared more qualitative information that might play a role in poachers’ trafficking process, such as paths of cultural and spiritual significance, tides’ influence on decision-making; and where poachers met to plan their activities.

This information was drawn onto a clear, plastic sheet that was laid across a color-based map of the region. That information was then digitized into a geographic information system, creating what the researchers’ called a “mess” that nevertheless revealed novel  information for the effective targeting of those ploughshare tortoise trafficking networks. 

“Our science team used a cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral approach to think about, measure, and analyze data,” explains Gore. “Not only were we able to shift the data landscape to clarify how important water routes are to the resilience of the illicit supply chain, we were able to normalize technical spatial data with insights from traditionally marginalized voices—women.”

Gore and her co-authors argue that if a process like this were to be paired with the latest advancements in computational science, operations engineering, and supply chain management, together, researchers could dramatically disrupt wildlife trafficking networks, and thereby conserve more animals, like the ploughshare tortoise, who are already on the brink of extinction.

"As we celebrate World Wildlife Day, our recent work highlights the urgent need for interdisciplinary collaboration to address the complex global issue of wildlife trafficking," says Bistra Dilkina, an associate professor of computer science and industrial and systems engineering at the University of Southern California. "I feel privileged to have the opportunity to work with a trans-disciplinary team to synthesize a roadmap of how our different disciplines can work together to fight illegal wildlife trafficking and trade. In particular, I am excited to think deeply about the advantages that data-driven approaches in machine learning and optimization can bring to this important endeavor."

Looking to the future, the researchers believe that with increased interdisciplinary collaborations, conservationists may one day be able to predict which path a trafficker will take, target areas where locals could undergo trainings and be empowered to play a part in preventing wildlife trafficking, better allocate limited resources to have the greatest interventional impact, and more.  

“It's easy to reflect on the array of conservation accomplishments that have been made since World Wildlife Day was first celebrated,” says Gore. “Our hope is that interdisciplinary science will produce additional high-return investments for the conservation sector in the future, most notably by advancing knowledge about changes and shifts in patterns of wildlife trafficking networks in a changing environment.” 

To read the researchers’ full paper, visit doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2208268120. 

To learn more about World Wildlife Day, visit wildlifeday.org/en. 

Ploughshare tortoises with numbers written on their shells

CREDIT

University of Maryland Associate Professor Meredith Gore

---

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2208268120 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Case study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Advancing interdisciplinary science for disrupting wildlife trafficking networks

Uber and Lyft drivers in California say they’ve been spontaneously fired by apps, report finds

Without much explanation, rideshare drivers surveyed — primarily people of color — say they’ve been let go, either temporarily or permanantly. Facing a complicated appeals process, they have little recourse to preserve their livelihoods, a new report says.

Two-thirds of California Uber and Lyft drivers have been "deactivated" by apps, according to recently released data. Oakland International Airport in Oakland, Calif., on Feb. 8, 2022. 

David Paul Morris / Bloomberg via Getty Images file

March 3, 2023, 
By Sakshi Venkatraman

For some Uber and Lyft drivers in California, a new fear has taken hold. One day they worry they’ll get into a car to start a shift, and their app will let them know they’ve been fired.

According to a new report, there's a reason behind that fear.

Data released this week by the Asian Law Caucus and Rideshare Drivers United, a drivers’ union, said that two-thirds of Uber and Lyft drivers in California had experienced deactivation by the app, and among those surveyed, the deactivation disproportionately affected people of color.

Thirty percent of drivers said they were given no explanation as to why they were let go. Forty two percent said the app cited customer complaints.

“This reality is that now app-based drivers can be fired, not even by a human being, but just by an app,” said Asian Law Caucus attorney Winnie Kao, who worked on the report. “That you can wake up one day and try to turn on the app to go to work, and you’re just blocked. Hearing the stories from the drivers about that was really troubling and really disturbing.”

In a statement to NBC News, an Uber spokesperson refuted that, saying its deactivation process was run by human representatives who conduct a thorough evaluation before making a decision.

“We know that drivers rely on Uber to earn, so the decision to deactivate a driver’s account is one that we do not take lightly,” the spokesperson said. “Unless there is a serious emergency or safety threat, we provide multiple warnings to drivers before permanently deactivating their account. And we provide drivers with the option to appeal eligible deactivations, including by submitting additional photo or video evidence.”

A representative for Lyft said the report was inaccurate.

“We strongly condemn discrimination of any kind and are committed to preventing it on our platform,” the representative said. “This report is flawed to its core with a predetermined conclusion not grounded in facts. Lyft takes safety reports from riders and drivers seriously and reviews and investigates them to determine the appropriate course of action. This report does not reflect the actual experiences of the majority of drivers.”

More than 800 drivers across California filled out the survey, most of them immigrants and people of color. Many reported facing discrimination, harassment and assault while they were driving. Half of drivers said they experienced racism, and 43% said they faced sexual harassment while on the job.

A common thread connecting many of these stories, the report’s authors said, was that the drivers themselves feared facing disciplinary action from customer complaints. Fifty percent of surveyed drivers who reported experiencing racism to their rideshare app said the customers who were racist also filed complaints about them.

According to the survey, drivers of color were deactivated significantly more often than white drivers. Nearly 70% of drivers of color experienced either a temporary or permanent deactivation, compared with 57% of white drivers. Some of the drivers who responded to the survey said they feared racist passengers could end their job on a whim with a false complaint.

“Customer input can have such an impact on whether the drivers can continue to use these apps or keep working and have their pay or benefits,” Kao said. “There’s so many discriminatory and biased interactions that are happening and, and that they’re completely unchecked.”

Rideshare apps using these complaints to determine whether drivers can do their jobs can be problematic, Kao said. The stories she heard exemplified how necessary elementary safeguards were in any workplace, including a rideshare car, she said.

“Drivers should have all the basic labor protections that are afforded to workers who are classified as employees,” she said. “Certain basic things, like the right to a safe and healthy workplace, the right to be free from discrimination, the right to a workplace free of retaliation and with safety net measures. I mean, that should apply to all workers, no matter what your status is.”

A vast majority of respondents who were deactivated said it took a huge toll on their lives; 86% said they experienced hardship as a direct result. Eighteen percent lost their cars; 12% lost their homes.

“These are not isolated incidents,” Kao said. “These experiences are widespread. It’s a systemic problem.”