Experiment halted in Norway after whale drowns
Agence France-Presse
June 7, 2023,


Under the project, run by the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI) each summer since 2021 minke whales are captured in the Lofoten archipelago and submitted to hearing tests before they are released into the wild again.

They are run in cooperation with the US National Marine Mammal Foundation.

The experiments, aimed at gathering knowledge in order to set limits on how much noise humans should be allowed to make in the ocean, have been criticised by animal rights defenders and scientists who consider the project dangerous.

In the night between June 2 and 3, bad weather damaged the project testing site, causing a barrier line to break free. A whale became entangled in it and died, the FFI said.

The incident occurred before the official start of this year's experiments.

The project has been put on hold indefinitely while the incident is reviewed and the site repaired.

"Our aim is to protect Minke whales and other baleens, and to protect them from harmful human-made noise," Petter Kvadsheim, chief researcher at FFI, said.

"We will continue our work on this. The health of the animals is our main priority in this experiment."

The project had been due to continue until the summer of 2024.

In an interview with AFP, Kvadsheim blamed the incident on bad weather rather than the experiment, and said he hoped the project could resume "in the next few days".

"It's never been done before and unexpected things can happen," he said, adding that it was unfolding "step by step" and "on schedule".

He said only "a handful" of whales were needed to complete the project.

One whale entered the testing site the first year, in 2021, but it quickly escaped.

In 2022, another minke was captured but it was released immediately because it showed signs of stress.

"We have warned that these cruel and pointless experiments would lead to whales being killed and it is sadly ironic that this poor minke has died even before the experiments have got underway," said a spokesman for the Whale and Dolphin Conservation, Danny Groves.

"No whales should have to face being bundled into a cage and have electrodes implanted under his or her skin. These experiments should be halted permanently," he added.


In 2021, 50 international scientists had written to the Norwegian government to protest against the experiments.

© 2023 AFP

Nearly 20% of the cultural differences between societies boil down to ecological factors – new research

The Conversation
June 7, 2023

Chinese farmers harvest rice crops using combines in Xinghua in China's eastern Jiangsu province on October 23, 2017. © AFP

In some parts of the world, the rules are strict; in others they are far more lax. In some places, people are likely to plan for the future, while in others people are more likely to live in the moment. In some societies people prefer more personal space; in others they are comfortable being in close quarters with strangers.

Why do these kinds of differences exist?

There are a number of theories about where cultural differences come from. Some social scientists point to the role of specific institutions, like the Catholic Church. Others focus on historical differences in philosophical traditions across societies, or on the kinds of crops that were historically grown in different regions.

But there’s another possible answer. In a growing number of cases, researchers have found that human culture can be shaped by key features of the environments in which people live.

Just how strong is this ecology-culture connection overall? In a new study, ourlab, the Culture and Ecology Lab at Arizona State University, set out to answer this question.
How does ecology shape culture?

Ecology includes basic physical and social characteristics of the environment – such factors as how abundant resources are, how common infectious diseases are, how densely populated a place is, and how much threat there is to human safety. Variables like temperature and the availability of water can be key ecological features.


What impact does a dry climate have on the culture of the people who live in it? 

Peter Adams/Stone via Getty Images

The three examples of cultural differences we started with illustrate how this can work. It turns out that the strength of social norms in a given culture is linked to the amount of threat, from such factors as war and disasters, a society faces. Stronger rules may help members of a society stick together and cooperate in the face of these dangers.


Places with less access to water tend to be more future-oriented. When fresh water is scarce, the thinking goes, there is more need to plan so that it doesn’t run out.

And in places with colder temperatures people feel less need for lots of personal space in public, perhaps because there tend to be fewer germs, or maybe from an impulse, on some basic level, to keep warm.

All of these examples show that cultures are shaped, at least in part, by the basic features of the environments people live in. And in fact, there are many other examples in which researchers have linked particular cultural differences to particular differences in ecology.

Quantifying the connection

For over 200 societies, we gathered comprehensive data on nine key features of ecology – such as rainfall, temperature, infectious disease and population density – and dozens of aspects of human cultural variation – including values, strength of norms, personality, motivation and institutional characteristics. With this information, we created the open-access EcoCultural Dataset.

Using this data set, we were able to generate a range of estimates for just how much of human cultural variation can be explained by ecology.

We ran a series of statistical models looking at the relationship between our ecological variables and each of the 66 cultural outcomes we tracked. For each of the cultural outcomes, we calculated the average amount of the cultural diversity across societies that was explained by this combination of nine different ecological factors. We found that nearly 20% of cultural variation was explained by the combination of these ecological features.

Importantly, our statistical estimates take into account common issues in cross-cultural research. One complicating factor is that societies that are close to each other in space will be similar in ways beyond the variables measured in any particular study. In the same way, there will likely be unmeasured similarities between societies with shared historical roots. For example, cultural similarities between southern Germany and Austria may be accounted for by their shared cultural and linguistic heritage, as well as similar climates and levels of wealth.

Twenty percent may not sound impressive, but in fact this is several times larger than the average effect in our field of social psychology, in which typically up to around 4% or 5% of the variation in an outcome is explained.

Population density is one factor that can leave its mark on a place’s culture.

  Photo Patrick Altmann/Moment via Getty Images

More left to discover

In testing over 600 relationships among features of ecology and culture, we identified a number of intriguing new relationships. For example, we found that the amount of variation over time in levels of infectious disease was linked to the strength of social norms. This link suggests that it’s not just places with high levels of threat from germs, but also places where that threat varies more over time, such as India, that have stricter social rules.

There’s also a growing body of research suggesting that as the ecology of a place changes, so too does the culture. For example, a general decline in rates of infectious disease in the U.S., up until the current pandemic, is correlated with a loosening of social norms over the past century. Similarly, increases in population density appear to be linked to declines in birth rates around the world in the past several decades.

Because the EcoCultural Dataset contains not only contemporary measures of ecology, but also information about their variability and predictability over time, we believe it will be a rich resource for other scholars to mine. We’ve made all of this data free for anyone to accessand explore.

Ecology isn’t the only reason people around the world think and behave differently. But our work suggests that, at least in part, our environments shape our cultures.

Alexandra Wormley, Ph.D. Student in Social Psychology, Arizona State University and Michael Varnum, Associate Professor of Psychology, Arizona State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

World's first vaccine against deadly swine fever nears approval in Vietnam

Reuters
June 7, 2023


By Francesco Guarascio

HANOI (Reuters) - Vaccines against African swine fever being tested in Vietnam are close to approval, global and U.S. veterinary officials said, in what would be a major breakthrough to tackle the deadly animal disease that regularly ravages pig farms worldwide.

African swine fever has for years disrupted the $250 billion global pork market. In the worst outbreak in 2018-19, about half the domestic pig population died in China, the world's biggest producer, causing losses estimated at over $100 billion.

After decades of failed attempts due to the complexity of the virus, two vaccines co-developed by U.S. scientists being tested in large pilot schemes by Vietnamese companies are showing "very promising" results, Gregorio Torres, head of the science department at the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"We have never been so close to get a vaccine that may work," Torres said, noting the two shots had "probably the highest chances to succeed" and be authorised for sale worldwide.

Both vaccines have received approval in Vietnam for pilot commercial use, now completed. The next step will be nationwide authorisation, the first ever for an African swine fever vaccine, and possible sales overseas.

U.S. agriculture secretary Thomas Vilsack said there was likely to be interest in precautionary purchases in the United States, despite the country having so far been spared from the virus.

"There will be a specific interest obviously," Vilsack said in an interview with Reuters in April, speaking about possible purchases of the Vietnamese vaccines.

The vaccines were tested in Vietnam, where swine fever is a constant threat, because they could not be developed in the U.S. as the virus is not present there.

Since 2021, swine fever, which is not deadly to humans, has been reported in nearly 50 countries and caused about 1.3 million pig deaths, WOAH said in a regular report last week.

Currently there are no major outbreaks, but agribusiness lender Rabobank warned in April that the possible spread of the disease, especially in China, remained among the top risks to the global pork industry.

NO SAFETY ISSUES

United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) researchers have reviewed the results of one of the vaccines, NAVET-ASFVAC, which they co-developed with Vietnamese company NAVETCO, a USDA spokesperson said.

After the vaccine showed a high level of efficacy and no safety risks in trials, 600,000 doses were approved for initial sales to pig farmers in Vietnam, of which the first 40,000 "have been delivered without any safety problems," USDA said.

That followed an initial hiccup when use of the vaccine was suspended after dozens of pigs died last summer following inoculations in farms that used the vaccine off-label, USDA said, administering it to hogs that were not supposed to be inoculated, such as pregnant sows.

No problems emerged after deliveries resumed with adequate veterinary monitoring, USDA said.

NAVET-ASFVAC is an attenuated live-virus vaccine, like those used in childrens' routine vaccinations around the world. Use of unlicensed live-virus vaccines in China in past years raised concerns they caused the emergence of new strains of swine fever.

Only limited data are available from China's trials on a live-virus vaccine against swine fever.

The second vaccine tested in Vietnam, AVAC ASF LIVE, which was discovered by U.S. researchers and commercialized by Vietnamese firm AVAC, has been delivered to more pigs than NAVET-ASFVAC under its pilot deployment, but USDA said it had not yet reviewed the data.

NAVETCO, AVAC and Vietnam's agriculture ministry, which is responsible for approval of veterinary vaccines, did not respond to requests for comment.

(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio; additional reporting by Phuong Nguyen and Khanh Vu in Hanoi and Dominique Patton in Beijing; editing by Sonali Paul)


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'Disturbing': 12 million Americans think violence is justified to put Trump back in the White House

Kenny Stancil, Common Dreams
June 9, 2023

Screengrab from Just Another Channel

More than two years after the deadly January 6 insurrection, 12 million people in the United States, or 4.4% of the adult population, believe the use of violence is justified to restore former President Donald Trump to power, The Guardian reported Friday.

This percentage has declined from nearly 10% in 2021, when the Chicago Project on Security & Threats (CPOST) first began conducting its Dangers to Democracy surveys of U.S. adults. But April data the University of Chicago research center shared exclusively with The Guardian reveals that a treacherous amount of support for political violence and conspiracy theories persists nationwide.

In the two and a half years since Trump's bid to overturn his 2020 loss fell short, Republican state lawmakers have launched a full-fledged assault on the franchise, enacting dozens of voter suppression and election subversion laws meant to increase their control over electoral outcomes. Due to obstruction from Republicans and corporate Democrats, Congress has failed to pass federal voting rights protections and other safeguards designed to prevent another coup attempt ahead of November 2024.

"We're heading into an extremely tumultuous election season," Robert Pape, a University of Chicago professor and CPOST director, told The Guardian. "What's happening in the United States is political violence is going from the fringe to the mainstream."

Several right-wing candidates who echoed Trump's relentless lies about President Joe Biden's 2020 victory lost in last year's midterms. But more than 210 others—including at least two who participated in the January 6 rally that escalated into an attack on the U.S. Capitol—won congressional seats and races for governor, secretary of state, and attorney general, underscoring the extent to which election denialism is now entrenched in the GOP and jeopardizes U.S. democracy for the foreseeable future.

The CPOST survey conducted in April found that 20% of U.S. adults still believe "the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president," down only slightly from the 26% who said so in 2021.

"What you're seeing is really disturbing levels of distrust in American democracy, support for dangerous conspiracy theories, and support for political violence itself," Pape told The Guardian.

According to the newspaper, Pape compared "sentiments about political violence" to "the kindling for a wildfire." While "many were unaware that the events on January 6 would turn violent, research shows that public support for violence was widespread, so the attacks themselves should not have come as a surprise."

"Once you have support for violence in the mainstream, those are the raw ingredients or the raw combustible material and then speeches, typically by politicians, can set them off," said Pape. "Or if they get going, speeches can encourage them to go further."

Pape pointed out that there was chatter among far-right groups and on online forums about potentially using force to prevent lawmakers from certifying Biden's win, but Trump's January 6 address at the White House Ellipse was the spark that ignited the mob to storm the halls of Congress.

CPOST's latest findings are based on polling completed before Trump was federally indicted Thursday night on seven criminal counts in the special counsel investigation into his handling of classified documents. The charges, including willful retention of national defense secrets, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy, could carry years in prison for the GOP's leading 2024 presidential candidate.

In response to the indictment, several Republican lawmakers rallied to Trump's defense, parroting his dismissal of the probe as a "witch hunt." Fox News personalities also denounced what they called the "weaponization" of the U.S. justice system, while commenters on Breibart opined that "this is how revolution begins."

The menacing language mirrored what was said after the FBI in early August 2022 searched Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort and removed boxes of documents as part of the federal probe into his handling of classified materials.

At the time, many anonymous and some well-known reactionaries called for "civil war" on Twitter, patriots.win, and elsewhere. Soon after, Ricky Shiffer, a Trump loyalist with suspected ties to a far-right group and an unspecified connection to the January 6 insurrection, was shot and killed by police following an hourslong standoff. Shiffer, wielding an AR-15 and a nail gun, allegedly attempted to break into the FBI's Cincinnati office and fled to a nearby field when he was unsuccessful.

Afterward, Trump continued to lie about the Mar-a-Lago search on Truth Social, sparking an "unprecedented" surge in threats against FBI personnel and facilities. In March, just before he was hit with a 34-count felony indictment in the Manhattan district attorney's investigation into alleged hush money payments made during the run-up to the 2016 election, Trump called on his supporters to "protest" and "take our nation back," though right-wing violence did not materialize in that instance.

The Guardian on Friday observed that "it's important to track public sentiment about political violence regularly," noting that CPOST plans to release data from its Dangers to Democracy survey every three months from now until the 2024 election. "The instigating event, usually a speech or comment by a person in power, is unpredictable and can set people off at any moment, but the underlying support for violence is more predictable and trackable."

The research center's most recent survey found that "almost 14%—a minority of Americans, but still a significant number—believe the use of force is justified to 'achieve political goals that I support,'" the newspaper reported. "More specifically, 12.4% believe it's justified to restore the federal right to abortion, 8.4% believe it's justified to ensure members of Congress and other government officials do the right thing, 6.3% think it's justified to preserve the rights of white Americans, and 6.1% believe it's justified to prevent the prosecution of Trump."

Citing Duke University political science professor Peter Feaver, The Guardian noted that "while public support for political violence might seem extreme, a confluence of factors is necessary for actual violence to occur—which is still rare. On January 6, there was a time-sensitive action, an already existing rally, and inciters including Trump who encouraged others to commit violence."

According to Feaver, "You needed all of that at the same time to turn what would have been latent sentiment of the sort that this survey captures into actual violence."

On top of broad support for Trump's "Big Lie," the survey found that one in ten U.S. adults think "a secret group of Satan-worshiping pedophiles is ruling the U.S. government," meaning QAnon had roughly the same percentage of adherents in April as it did in 2021. The survey also found that a quarter of U.S. adults agree that "the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World," revealing an alarming amount of ongoing support for the white nationalist "great replacement" theory.

More optimistically, the survey found that over 77% of U.S. adults want Republicans and Democrats in Congress to issue a joint statement condemning any political violence.

"There's a tremendous amount of opposition to political violence in the United States," Pape remarked, "but it is not mobilized."

Queens of the desert: drag show is oasis of glamour in rural South Africa

Agence France-Presse
June 9, 2023

Dame Leyla Lamborghini, alter ego of hotel owner Jacques Rabie, performs at South Africa's Karoo Theatrical Hotel© Michele Spatari / AFP

Deep in South Africa's semi-desert Karoo region, a glittery drag show in an old hilltop hotel brings a burst of weekly excitement to a sleepy conservative town.

Every Saturday night, Mark Hinds and Jacques Rabie, the owners of the Karoo Theatrical Hotel, amaze their guests with a night-long cabaret and drag show in the small town of Steytlerville in the Eastern Cape.

The show, called "The Steytlerville Follies", stars the couple in their flamboyant stage alter egos -- the desert diva Dame Leyla Lamborghini and the piano maestro Freddy Ferrari.

"If you tell somebody that there is a drag show happening in the middle of absolutely nowhere... every single Saturday night, that creates curiosity," Hinds told AFP as he added the final touches to the set.

A grand piano sat on the stage against the backdrop of bright pink party foil curtains, feathers and disco lights as around 20 guests took their seats in the dimly candle-lit hotel restaurant.

In his dressing room, minutes before the show began, Rabie recalled how "it was difficult" to begin with to put on the show in the region of mountains and wild expanses best known for ostrich farming.

"But after a while more people like us, more gay people... moved in and it became more acceptable in town," he said as he put on his make-up.

Welcomed by his partner on stage, Rabie, wearing a blonde bob wig, high heels and a glittery pink corset dress ripped off his pink feather tutu skirt as he broke into song and dance.

For show-goer Lara Engelbrecht-Wilbraham, the performance was "classy and beautiful". Celebrating her birthday, it was only the second time in her life that she had attended a drag show.

The 44-year-old who sells solar energy products brought her partner and two friends.

The show, which the organizers described as a rollercoaster of emotions, from outrageously funny to nostalgic, is "packed out every Saturday night", said Hinds.

"One of the biggest things that draws people here is curiosity, having heard about something that they have never heard before, that they would have never thought possible," he added.

Priscilla, Queen of the Desert Official Trailer #1 - Terence Stamp Movie (1994) HD

With bows and spears, Indigenous 'warriors' defend the Amazon

Agence France-Presse
June 9, 2023,

Members of the "Warriors of the Forest," a vigilante group from the Kanamari ethnic group, patrol along the Javari river in the northwest Amazonas state of Brazil

© Siegfried / AFP

In a remote pocket of the Brazilian Amazon under siege from illegal fishermen, poachers, loggers and drug traffickers, Indigenous people have taken it upon themselves to defend the land and its resources.

With bows, arrows and spears, young men of the Sao Luis village patrol the Javari River by motorboat in the valley of the same name.

They call themselves the "Warriors of the Forest," the self-styled heirs of Indigenous rights defender Bruno Pereira, who was murdered in the Javari Valley one year ago along with British journalist Dom Phillips.

"We must always be prepared for the worst. But we do not want violence," said Lucinho Kanamari, his face painted red, insisting the traditional weapons are merely a "precaution."

"When we spot intruders, one of us will talk to them. The others stay back, ready to react if things go wrong," he told AFP.

"We are there to teach, to act as a peaceful deterrent. We talk, we explain."

Lucinho is a member of the Kanamari Indigenous group, one of six in the Javari Valley which holds Brazil's second largest protected Indigenous reservation.

Like many others who live here, he takes his surname from his tribe which lives in a part of the rainforest the size of Portugal that contains many of the world's last uncontacted Indigenous groups.

- 'Invasions exploded' -

The patrolling warriors particularly fear the illegal fishermen in search of pirarucu -- one of the world's largest freshwater fish, its flesh considered a delicacy worth a small fortune.

Such poachers are believed to have killed Pereira and Phillips on June 5, 2022, hacking up their bodies and hiding the remains in the jungle.

For a while, the crime brought international attention to this threatened corner of the planet long-abandoned under former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro and his pro-industrial agenda.

"With Bolsonaro, and then Covid, the invasions exploded," said Varney Todah da Silva Kanamari, vice president of the Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javari Valley (Univaja).

"As the state abandoned us, we had to assume our responsibilities... We defend what belongs to us: our lakes and forests," he said.

It is not only fishermen the watchmen fear.

There are also narco groups growing coca crops on the Peruvian side of the river, and in April, loggers threatened to kill a Kanamari chief, forcing him into exile.

The warriors have built two floating wooden observation posts on the river near their village of Sao Luis. One of the structures has come under fire.

Their task is immense and dangerous, their means lacking. The team has only two motorboats and little fuel.

The "warriors" avoid violent conflict, and in tense situations, withdraw back into the forest.

- 'Under threat of death' –

With government forces absent from the area, the Sao Luis warriors work with another Indigenous group known by its acronym EVU -- a sort of commando unit attached to Univaja.

Pereira helped set up the EVU before his death.


EVU members -- about 30 in total -- are equipped with motorized barges, GPS, drones, phones and satellite internet, much of it made possible by private donors. They carry no weapons.

EVU volunteers from different Javari Valley communities undergo training by NGOs and security specialists in "how to intervene, make surveys, confiscate equipment or boats," explained EVU co-founder Cristobal Negredo Espisango, known as Tatako.

According to Univaja coordinator Bushe Matis, the EVU does not "replace the state."

"We monitor, we collect information and evidence, and we pass it on to the relevant authorities. Then let the state do its job."

EVU leader Orlando de Moraes Possuelo said a key goal is "to occupy terrain" in areas with an abundance of sought-after fish and animals.

"We arrive as soon as possible to catch the intruders in the act, before they disappear or return to Peru." Legally, they cannot detain anyone.

Many of the group's members have received threats.

"I am under threat of death. I am afraid of course, but there is no other option," said Tatako.

"The EVU is the only organization that really fights organized crime in the Javari Valley," he added.

With the return of leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to the presidency, many in the Amazon hope help will soon be coming.

This week, as Brazil marked the anniversary of the murders of Pereira and Phillips, Lula vowed that "we will not abandon this struggle for the planet."

"We are fighting to revive policies to protect Indigenous peoples and the Amazon," he said in a statement to The Guardian newspaper, to which Phillips was a contributor.

But just last week, Brazil's Congress passed bills cutting the powers of Lula's environment and Indigenous affairs ministries and dramatically curbing the protection of Indigenous lands.

Univaja's Matis fears for the future.

"There can be a tragedy at any moment. The invaders will never back down: they will always want to lay claim to the Javari," he said.

'The fight has only just begun': Greta Thunberg pledges more protests after final school strike

Common Dreams
June 9, 2023

Greta Thunberg © INA FASSBENDER / AFP

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg—who launched a global movement when she began skipping school to protest in front of the Swedish parliament nearly five years ago–carried out her last school strike on Friday.



"School strike week 251," Thunberg tweeted. "Today, I graduate from school, which means I'll no longer be able to school strike for the climate."

Thunberg, who is now 20, first made headlines at the age of 15 when she refused to attend school during the three-week lead-up to September Swedish elections in an effort to persuade politicians to take action on the climate crisis.

Instead, she sat outside the Swedish parliament with a sign reading, "School strike for climate," in Swedish.

"We young people don't have the vote, but school is obligatory," Thunberg toldThe Local at the time. "So this [is] a way to get our voices heard."

"There are probably many of us who graduate who now wonder what kind of future it is that we are stepping into, even though we did not cause this crisis."

On the day of her final school strike, Thunberg took the opportunity to reflect on the movement she helped galvanize.

"When I started striking in 2018 I could never have expected that it would lead to anything," she tweeted. "After striking every day for three weeks, we were a small group of children who decided to continue doing this every Friday. And we did, which is how Fridays For Future was formed."

The movement went global "quite suddenly," Thunberg recalled.

"During 2019, millions of youth striked from school for the climate, flooding the streets in over 180 countries," she said.

Fridays For Future found a different way to protest during the coronavirus lockdowns by launching a #digitalclimatestrike.

"In a crisis we change our behavior and adapt to the new circumstances for the greater good of society," Thunberg wrote at the time.

However, one group that hasn't changed their behavior are the world leaders Thunberg has famously excoriated in a number of high-profile speeches. A study released Thursday found that greenhouse gas emissions rose to record levels in the last decade despite the promises of the Paris agreement.

"Much has changed since we started, and yet we have much further to go," Thunberg tweeted Friday. "We are still moving in the wrong direction, where those in power are allowed to sacrifice marginalized and affected people and the planet in the name of greed, profit, and economic growth."

Thunberg has spoken up for frontline communities recently. In January, she was detained while protesting the destruction of a German village to pave the way for a coal mine expansion, and in February, she joined with Norwegian Sami activists in opposing the placement of wind turbines on Indigenous land.

While graduation is typically a joyful occasion, Thunberg reflected on how the climate crisis has altered her generation's vision of the future.

"There are probably many of us who graduate who now wonder what kind of future it is that we are stepping into, even though we did not cause this crisis," she wrote.

Whatever Thunberg's future contains, climate activism will continue to be part of it.


"We who can speak up have a duty to do so. In order to change everything, we need everyone. I'll continue to protest on Fridays, even though it's not technically 'school striking,'" she promised.

"We simply have no other option than to do everything we possibly can," Thunberg concluded. "The fight has only just begun."

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

OLIVIA ROSANE is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

Crocodile’s ‘virgin birth’ is a first for science’s history books
The Conversation
June 9, 2023

Crocodile LuckyStep/Shutterstock

The first evidence of a virgin birth in crocodiles has been reported in a captive American crocodile, Crocodylus acutus, who was housed on her own for 16 years in a zoo in Costa Rica. She laid a clutch of 14 eggs, of which seven seemed viable and were artificially incubated. The eggs failed to hatch and the contents of six of them were indiscernible. But one contained a fully formed foetus, genetically identical to its mother, showing no evidence of input from any males.

This isn’t the first case of a virgin birth in the animal kingdom. Baby lizards, snakes, sharks and birds, including the California condor, have all been documented hatching from unfertilized eggs.

How do we explain virgin births?

Species can reproduce either sexually, combining genetic material from two parents, or asexually. Our ancient ancestors were asexual and essentially made clones of themselves. Plants reproduce in a similar way, including splitting, budding and fragmenting.

However, this produces lots of organisms that are genetically identical, and a lack of genetic variation means that individuals cannot adapt to changing conditions. If the environment is bad for one member of a species, it is bad for all, and could lead to extinction.

Sexual reproduction in species such as humans needs sperm to fertilize eggs and create an embryo. In terms of evolution, sexually reproducing species are thought of as being more advanced, as their offspring are genetically diverse, with unique gene combinations from their parents.

This diversity can be important if a species needs to adapt. It also reduces adverse genetic mutations, which are often associated with inbreeding (when close relatives mate).


The virgin mother was an American crocodile like this one. 

Uwe Bergwitz/Shutterstock

Virgin births are a form of asexual reproduction as they do not require genetic information from sperm. But, unlike other forms of asexual reproduction, they need an egg. Unfertilized eggs are often produced by females – you may have had unfertilised eggs for breakfast this morning from a domestic hen – and if unfertilized eggs aren’t eaten, they eventually perish. But there’s an exception. Virgin births, known as parthenogenesis, happen when an unfertilized egg develops into an embryo.

It won’t necessarily be genetically identical to the mother though – this depends on how the egg cell develops. Parthenogenic young can be either full or half clones of the mother. Half clones are produced when embryonic cells split in half before multiplying. Full clones are created when an embryo multiples whole cells.

So half clones have even less genetic diversity than full clones. Not only do they lack the genetic diversity of organisms created in sexual reproduction but they only inherit half of their mother’s genetic diversity.

Some species, termed facultative parthenogens, alternate between sexual and asexual reproduction. They rely mainly on sexual reproduction, but can use asexual reproduction if necessary.

Virgin birth, which usually results in female offspring, is thought to be triggered in several situations. For example, when there aren’t many males around. This is often reported in captive animals, including the bonnethead shark, where animals are kept in single-sex enclosures.

Passing on genes

Even when there are males around, females may still use parthenogenesis. For example, last year a female zebra shark hatched several young with DNA that did not match any of the males in the Chicago aquarium where she lived, baffling researchers. Perhaps the female simply didn’t fancy the males she lived with.

If environmental conditions are poor, asexual reproduction involves less effort than sexual reproduction, because the female doesn’t need to waste time and energy finding a mate. For example, many cases of parthenogenesis have been discovered in geckos, snakes and lizards that live in dry and harsh climates such as high altitudes.

Female animals can also reproduce asexually to take advantage of a favorable change in conditions. The spiny-cheek crayfish is native to the US but was introduced to Europe where the climate is more moderate. It invaded many European waterways by reproducing asexually. Although many invasive species are bigger and stronger than the locals, parthenogenesis is another factor that can contribute to their success.

Genetic testing technology that can identify parthenogenesis more readily is helping researchers discover that more and more species are capable of virgin births. The revelation of parthenogenesis in the American crocodile suggests there is a common ancestral link between the archosaurs, or ruling reptiles, which include dinosaurs, pterosaurs (flying reptiles), birds and crocodiles. As parthenogenesis occurs in the birds and crocodiles, it is possible that dinosaurs had virgin births too.

The virgin mother crocodile is eerily reminiscent of a scene in Jurassic Park when scientists claim there is nothing to worry about, that they can control the park’s population by ensuring all the dinosaurs are born female, so there won’t be any young produced naturally.

But in the words of the film’s chaos theory expert, Dr Ian Malcolm (played by Jeff Goldblum): “life finds a way”.

Louise Gentle, Principal Lecturer in Wildlife Conservation, Nottingham Trent University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Alien spacecraft allegations suggest the Pentagon has approved conspiracy theories – about itself

The Conversation
June 9, 2023, 

UFO

Claims the US government has secretly retrieved crashed alien spacecraft and their non-human occupants are hardly new. They are firmly entrenched in post-war American UFO lore and conspiracy theory, inspiring the most famous narrative in ufology: the “Roswell incident”

Now, however, journalists Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal have injected fresh vigor into these aging claims – apparently with the Pentagon’s approval.

In an article for science and technology news site The Debrief, they report the US government, its allies, and defense contractors have retrieved multiple craft of non-human origin, along with the occupants’ bodies.

Additionally, they report this information has been illegally withheld from US Congress, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office established by the US Department of Defense in 2022 to look into UFOs, and the public.

What are the claims?

The primary source for the new claims is former US intelligence official David Grusch.

Grusch’s credentials, verified by Kean and Blumenthal, are impressive. He is a veteran of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office. He represented both organizations on the US government’s task force studying unidentified aerial phenomena (the official term for UFOs).


Unidentified aerial phenomena, such as this video taken by a US Navy pilot released in 2020, have been a source of renewed interest in recent years.US Navy / Wikimedia

Grusch says the retrieved materials are:

of exotic origin (non-human intelligence, whether extraterrestrial or unknown origin) based on the vehicle morphologies and material science testing and the possession of unique atomic arrangements and radiological signatures.


Grusch’s claims are supported by Jonathan Grey, who works for the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, where he focuses on analysis of unidentified aerial phenomena. Grey told Kean and Blumenthal:
The non-human intelligence phenomenon is real. We are not alone […] Retrievals of this kind are not limited to the United States.

How credible are the claims?

Kean and Blumenthal are credible and accomplished reporters on UFOs.

In 2017, writing with Helene Cooper for the New York Times, they revealed a secret US$22 million Pentagon UFO research program. That article did much to initiate a wider rethinking about UFOs, avoiding stereotypes, stigma and sensationalism.

Most of the subsequent “UFO turn” in US defense policy and public discourse has focused on images and eyewitness testimony of anomalous airborne objects. Now, Kean and Blumenthal may have brought anomalous objects themselves – and even their supposed non-human occupants – into the conversation.

David Grusch’s claims have reached the public through a multi-pronged media effort.

Shortly after the Debrief article, Australian journalist Ross Coulthart’s interview with Grusch appeared on US news network News Nation. Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, Christopher Mellon, has also published an article in Politico calling for greater transparency.

This looks a lot like an orchestrated effort to convince the public (and US Congress) something much more substantial than “things in the sky we can’t explain” is going on.

Approved by the Pentagon?

Grusch seems to have followed Pentagon protocol in publishing his information. Kean and Blumenthal write Grusch:

provided the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review at the Department of Defense with the information he intended to disclose to us. His on-the-record statements were all “cleared for open publication” on April 4 and 6, 2023, in documents provided to us.


What does that mean? A Prepublication and Security Review is how the Pentagon confirms information proposed for public release is reviewed to ensure compliance with established national and Department of Defense policies, and to determine it:

contains no classified, controlled unclassified, export-controlled, or operational security related information.

If Grusch’s information is true, it is surely both “classified” and “operational security related”. So why would the Pentagon approve its publication?

If Grusch’s information is false, it would probably not qualify as classified or operational security related. But this raises another question: why would the Pentagon approve the publication of an unfounded conspiracy theory about itself?

Doing so would likely mislead the public, journalists, and Congress. It would also undermine the Pentagon’s own attempt to understand the unidentified aerial phenomena problem: the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office.

An official denial

Indeed, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office told News Nation it:

has not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently.

Grusch has an explanation for this apparent ignorance. When it comes to unidentified aerial phenomena investigations, he says, the US government’s left hand doesn’t know what its right is doing, with:

multiple agencies nesting [unidentified aerial phenomena] activities in conventional secret access programs without appropriate reporting to various oversight authorities.

Timothy Good’s classic 1987 exploration of UFO investigations, Above Top Secret, described similar bureaucracy.

Nested activities and segregated knowledge

The notion of “nested” unidentified aerial phenomena activities, segregating knowledge within vast bureaucracies, is partly what makes Grusch’s claims both intriguing and (for now) unverifiable.

If this is the case, organisations focusing on unidentified aerial phenomena, such as the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, may operate in earnest and report transparently on the best information they have. Yet they may also be deprived of information essential to their activities.

This would make them little more than PR fronts, designed to create the impression of meaningful action.

In the absence of direct experience of unidentified aerial phenomena, most of us rely on information about them to form our beliefs. Scrutinising how this information is produced and distributed is essential.

US government activity in this area will continue. Congressman James Comer, chair of the House Oversight Committee, has said he will hold a hearing on UFOs in response to Grusch’s allegations.

Adam Dodd, Tutor, School of Communication and the Arts, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

AI statue designed by Michelangelo on show in Sweden

Agence France-Presse
June 9, 2023, 

The world's first Al sculpture "The Impossible Statue", on display at Stockholm's National Museum of Science and Technology

© Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP

A historical dream team of five master sculptors, including Michelangelo, Rodin and Takamura, have trained artificial intelligence (AI) to design a sculpture dubbed "the Impossible Statue", now on show in a Swedish museum.

"This is a true statue created by five different masters that would never have been able to collaborate in real life," said Pauliina Lunde, a spokeswoman for Swedish machine engineering group Sandvik that used three AI software programmes to create the artwork.

Shaking up traditional conceptions about creativity and art, the stainless steel statue depicts an androgynous person with the lower half of the body covered by a swath of material, holding a bronze globe in one hand.

On show at Stockholm's National Museum of Science and Technology, the statue measures 150 centimeters (4 feet 11 inches) and weighs 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds).

The idea was to create a mix of styles from five famed sculptors who each made their mark on their era: Michelangelo (Italy 1475-1564), Auguste Rodin (France 1840-1917), Kathe Kollwitz (Germany 1867-1945), Kotaro Takamura (Japan 1883-1956) and Augusta Savage (US 1892-1962).

"Something about it makes me feel like this is not made by human being," Julia Olderius, in charge of concept development at the museum, told AFP.

Visitors will note the muscular body inspired by Michelangelo, and the hand holding the globe inspired by Takamura.

Sandvik's engineers trained the AI by feeding it a slew of images of sculptures created by the five artists.

The software then proposed several images in 2D which it believed reflected key aspects from each of the artists.

"In the end we had 2D images of the sculpture in which we could see the different masters reflected.

 Then we put these 2D images into 3D modeling," Olderius said.

But is it art, or technological prowess?

"I don't think you can define what art is. It's up to every human being to see, 'this is art, this is not art'. And it's up to the audience to decide," Olderius said.

Amid debate about the role of AI in the art world, Olderius said she was optimistic.


"I don't think you have to be afraid of what AI is doing with creativity or concepts or art and design," she said.

"I just think you have to adapt to a new future where technology is a part of how we create concepts and art."

© 2023 AFP