MICHAEL JACKSON KNEW

Tel Aviv University study finds hyperbaric oxygen treatments reverse aging process

First clinical trial reverses two biological processes associated with aging in human cells

AMERICAN FRIENDS OF TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

A new study from Tel Aviv University (TAU) and the Shamir Medical Center in Israel indicates that hyperbaric oxygen treatments (HBOT) in healthy aging adults can stop the aging of blood cells and reverse the aging process. In the biological sense, the adults' blood cells actually grow younger as the treatments progress.

The researchers found that a unique protocol of treatments with high-pressure oxygen in a pressure chamber can reverse two major processes associated with aging and its illnesses: the shortening of telomeres (protective regions located at both ends of every chromosome) and the accumulation of old and malfunctioning cells in the body. Focusing on immune cells containing DNA obtained from the participants' blood, the study discovered a lengthening of up to 38% of the telomeres, as well as a decrease of up to 37% in the presence of senescent cells.

The study was led by Professor Shai Efrati of the Sackler School of Medicine and the Sagol School of Neuroscience at TAU and Founder and Director of the Sagol Center of Hyperbaric Medicine at the Shamir Medical Center; and Dr. Amir Hadanny, Chief Medical Research Officer of the Sagol Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Research at the Shamir Medical Center. The clinical trial was conducted as part of a comprehensive Israeli research program that targets aging as a reversible condition.

The paper was published in Aging on November 18, 2020.

"For many years our team has been engaged in hyperbaric research and therapy - treatments based on protocols of exposure to high-pressure oxygen at various concentrations inside a pressure chamber," Professor Efrati explains. "Our achievements over the years included the improvement of brain functions damaged by age, stroke or brain injury.

"In the current study we wished to examine the impact of HBOT on healthy and independent aging adults, and to discover whether such treatments can slow down, stop or even reverse the normal aging process at the cellular level."

The researchers exposed 35 healthy individuals aged 64 or over to a series of 60 hyperbaric sessions over a period of 90 days. Each participant provided blood samples before, during and at the end of the treatments as well as some time after the series of treatments concluded. The researchers then analyzed various immune cells in the blood and compared the results.

The findings indicated that the treatments actually reversed the aging process in two of its major aspects: The telomeres at the ends of the chromosomes grew longer instead of shorter, at a rate of 20%-38% for the different cell types; and the percentage of senescent cells in the overall cell population was reduced significantly - by 11%-37% depending on cell type.

"Today telomere shortening is considered the 'Holy Grail' of the biology of aging," Professor Efrati says. "Researchers around the world are trying to develop pharmacological and environmental interventions that enable telomere elongation. Our HBOT protocol was able to achieve this, proving that the aging process can in fact be reversed at the basic cellular-molecular level."

"Until now, interventions such as lifestyle modifications and intense exercise were shown to have some inhibiting effect on telomere shortening," Dr. Hadanny adds. "But in our study, only three months of HBOT were able to elongate telomeres at rates far beyond any currently available interventions or lifestyle modifications. With this pioneering study, we have opened a door for further research on the cellular impact of HBOT and its potential for reversing the aging process."

Analysis of the relations between Spanish civil society organizations and science

The results of the study reveal that civil society associations are seeking to become more involved in scientific production

UNIVERSITAT POMPEU FABRA - BARCELONA

Research News

Researchers at UPF have analysed the relationship between civil society organizations and the Spanish science and technology system. The study has been published in Public Understanding of Science and conducted by Carolina Llorente and Gema Revuelta, at the Science, Communication and Society Studies Centre (CCS-UPF), and Mar Carrió, of the Health Sciences Educational Research Group (GRECS).

In recent decades, various movements have emerged promoting the inclusion of society in the research process in order to build more socially relevant science. This new model of scientific production is becoming established in Europe and increasingly worldwide. "Often, social participation does not take place individually, but through civil society organizations, so our study, for the first time in Spain, explores the interactions between these organizations and science", Carolina Llorente explains. "Understanding the perspectives of these organizations is useful for proposing effective tools to help strengthen relations between science and society", she adds. The concept of organized civil society includes non-profit organizations in which citizens are generally involved on a voluntary basis: patient and consumer associations, organizations working for the environment or animal rights, humanitarian associations, groups of minorities, etc.

The analysis was based on semi-structured interviews with managers of 31 Spanish organizations. Organizations were selected taking into account their characteristics and distribution across the country. In Spain, there are three so-called unique organizations, La ONCE, the Red Cross and Cáritas, which account for over 60% of the country's volunteers. There are also groups of organizations (federations), but what really makes up the bulk of volunteers are small, decentralized associations which are highly active at local level, but generally have few financial resources.

The study results show that a large number of organizations are not involved in science and technology, or in some cases, are not aware of their involvement. The most common type of collaboration is to act as research study subjects, for example in cases where social associations whose members are interviewed. Such is the case, for example, of investigations that examine the role of certain minorities (i.e., religious or linguistic) that contact organizations dealing with such matters to interview their members. To a lesser extent, organizations, usually patient organizations, fund research through calls to tender, prizes and awards, or they carry out research within the organization. In some cases, organizations also participate as advisors or in training targeting the researchers to transfer their sectoral knowledge to the academic environment.

Regarding hindrances for participation, interviewees agree that the main one is the lack of financial resources and personnel. But they also mention the lack of mutual knowledge: scientists do not know what the organizations are doing and the latter are not aware of what they can contribute or do not know how they can engage in scientific production.

In the words of Mar Carrió: "as a strategy to improve ties, we believe there is a need to encourage researchers to know how to integrate into the organizations and vice versa, for these groups to gain greater knowledge of how science works".

As for the ideal relationship that the associations wish to have with the system of science and technology, generally speaking, civil society organizations appear to be unaware of their own potential and what they can contribute to research. Nevertheless, the results indicate that these associations are willing to engage in scientific production, for example, proposing that they should be consulted from the outset to help approach research.

"In order to promote relations between science and society, there is a need to strengthen alliances between these two worlds. This could be done through better communication between academia and civil society organizations and, therefore, researchers require solid training in this field", Gema Revuelta affirms. "But, we also have to open channels that allow formal, stable relations between institutions and align the research goals with the expectations of society", she concludes.

###

Reference article:

Llorente C, Revuelta G, Carrió M. Social participation in science: Perspectives of Spanish civil society organizations. Public Understanding of Science. September, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662520960663.

Climate change and 'atmospheric thirst' to increase fire danger and drought in NV and CA

New study shows impacts of increased levels of evaporative demand as climate grows warmer and drier

DESERT RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Research News

 

IMAGE: CLIMATE CHANGE AND A "THIRSTY ATMOSPHERE " WILL BRING MORE EXTREME WILDFIRE DANGER AND MULTI-YEAR DROUGHTS TO NEVADA AND CALIFORNIA BY THE END OF THIS CENTURY, ACCORDING TO NEW RESEARCH. view more 

CREDIT: MEGHAN COLLINS/DRI

Reno, Nev. (Nov. 19, 2020) - Climate change and a "thirsty atmosphere" will bring more extreme wildfire danger and multi-year droughts to Nevada and California by the end of this century, according to new research from the Desert Research Institute (DRI), the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, and the University of California, Merced.

In a new study published in Earth's Future, scientists looked at future projections of evaporative demand - a measure of how dry the air is - in California and Nevada through the end of the 21st century. They then examined how changes in evaporative demand would impact the frequency of extreme fire danger and three-year droughts, based on metrics from the Evaporative Demand Drought Index (EDDI) and the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI).

According to their results, climate change projections show consistent future increases in atmospheric evaporative demand (or the "atmospheric thirst") over California and Nevada. These changes were largely driven by warmer temperatures, and would likely lead to significant on-the-ground environmental impacts.

"Higher evaporative demand during summer and autumn--peak fire season in the region--means faster drying of soil moisture and vegetation, and available fuels becoming more flammable, leading to fires that can burn faster and hotter," explained lead author Dan McEvoy, Ph.D., Assistant Research Professor of Climatology at DRI.

"Increased evaporative demand with warming enables fuels to be drier for longer periods," added coauthor John Abatzoglou, Ph.D., Associate Professor with the University of California, Merced. "This is a recipe for more active fire seasons."

The research team found that days with extreme fire danger in summer and autumn are expected to increase four to 10 times by the end of the century. Their results also showed that multi-year droughts, similar to that experienced in California and Nevada during 2012-2016, were projected to increase three to 15 times by the end of the century.

"One major takeaway was that we can expect to see a lot more days in the summer and autumn with extreme fire danger related to increased temperature and evaporative demand," McEvoy said. "Another takeaway was that even in locations where precipitation may not change that much in future, droughts are going to become more severe due to higher evaporative demand."

Study authors say that the cumulative effects of increases in evaporative demand will stress native ecosystems, increase fire danger, negatively impact agriculture where water demands cannot be met, and exacerbate impacts to society during periods of prolonged dryness. Several members of the research team are part of the California-Nevada Applications Program (CNAP), and will use these study results to provide resource managers with a view of possible future scenarios.

"These results provide information to support science-based, long-term planning for fire management agencies, forest management agencies, and water resource managers," said coauthor Julie Kalansky, Ph.D., Program Manager for CNAP. "We plan to work with partners to help integrate the findings from this paper to support building climate resilience."

CAPTION

Study results show increases of 13 to 18 percent in evaporative demand during all four seasons by the end of the century.

Additional Information:

This study was funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) California-Nevada Climate Applications Program (CNAP) and the NOAA National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) California-Nevada Drought Early Warning System.

The full text of the paper, "Projected Changes in Reference Evapotranspiration in California and Nevada: Implications for Drought and Wildland Fire Danger," is available from Earth's Future: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020EF001736

CAPTION

California and Nevada on average experienced a record-setting number of "extreme fire danger" days in 2020, as indicated by the line on the graph above. Extreme fire danger days were calculated using the Evaporative Demand Drought Index (EDDI), with methods described in McEvoy et al. (2020). Data source: http://www.climatologylab.org/gridmet.html.

The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied interdisciplinary research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI's research has advanced scientific knowledge, supported Nevada's diversifying economy, provided science-based educational opportunities, and informed policy makers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Reno and Las Vegas, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit ?http://www.dri.edu.

 

Researchers create first map of bee species around the globe

CELL PRESS

Research News

 

IMAGE: THIS PHOTO SHOWS THE BEE SPECIES AMEGILLA ANDREWSI, ONE OF 20,000 SPECIES WORLDWIDE. view more 

CREDIT: ZESTIN SOH

There are over 20,000 species of bee, but accurate data about how these species are spread across the globe are sparse. However, researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology on November 19 have created a map of bee diversity by combining the most complete global checklist of known bee species with the almost 6 million additional public records of where individual species have appeared around the world. The team's findings support that there are more species of bees in the Northern Hemisphere than the Southern and more in arid and temperate environments than in the tropics.

"People think of bees as just honey bees, bumble bees, and maybe a few others, but there are more species of bees than of birds and mammals combined," says senior author John Ascher, an assistant professor of biological sciences at the National University of Singapore. "The United States has by far the most species of bees, but there are also vast areas of the African continent and the Middle East which have high levels of undiscovered diversity, more than in tropical areas."

Many plants and animals follow a pattern, known as a latitudinal gradient, where diversity increases toward the tropics and decreases toward the poles. Bees are an exception to this rule, having more species concentrated away from the poles and fewer near the equator, a pattern known as a bimodal latitudinal gradient. There are far fewer bee species in forests and jungles than in arid desert environments because trees tend to provide fewer sources of food for bees than low-lying plants and flowers.

"When it rains in the desert, there are these unpredictable mass blooms that can literally carpet the entire area," says first author Michael Orr (@mc_orr), a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. "There's a much higher turnover in the desert because of how patchy the resources are year after year. So there's a lot of potential for new species there."

To create their maps, Ascher, Orr, Hughes, and colleagues compared data about the occurrence of individual bee species with a massive checklist of over 20,000 species compiled by Dr. Ascher and accessible online at the biodiversity portal DiscoverLife.org. Cross-referencing multiple datasets with complementary coverage resulted in a much clearer picture of how the many species of bees are distributed in different geographic areas. This is an important first step in assessing the distribution and potential declines of bee populations.

"We're extremely interested in abundance of bees, but that's something that has to be done in relation to a baseline," says Ascher, "We're trying to establish that baseline. We really can't interpret abundance until we understand species richness and geographic patterns."

While some of these patterns had been hypothesized by previous researchers such as Charles Michener, they were difficult to prove because of inaccurate, incomplete, or difficult-to-access data. "Cleaning" these data was a major hurdle for the researchers.

"I was surprised how terrible most of the prior global data really was about bee diversity," says Alice Hughes (@AliceCHughes), an associate professor of conservation biology at Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences and another author on the paper. "A lot of the data were just too patchy or too concentrated on a small number of countries that have prioritized data sharing to be able to use these resources for any large-scale analysis."

While there remains a lot to learn about what drives bee diversity, the research team hopes their work will help in the conservation of bees as global pollinators.

"Many crops, especially in developing countries, rely on native bee species, not honey bees," says Hughes. "There isn't nearly enough data out there about them, and providing a sensible baseline and analyzing it in a sensible way is essential if we're going to maintain both biodiversity and also the services these species provide in the future."

The authors view this research as an important first step towards a more comprehensive understanding of global bee diversity and an important baseline for future, more detailed bee research.

CAPTION

This map shows modeled relative species richness of bees around the world and depicts the bimodal latitudinal gradient. Darker areas have more species.

This work was supported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, the Research Fund for International Young Scientists, the China-Singapore Joint Grant, and the Singapore Ministry of Education.

Current Biology, Orr et al.: "Global patterns and drivers of bee distribution" https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(20)31596-7

Current Biology (@CurrentBiology), published by Cell Press, is a bimonthly journal that features papers across all areas of biology. Current Biology strives to foster communication across fields of biology, both by publishing important findings of general interest and through highly accessible front matter for non-specialists. Visit: http://www.cell.com/current-biology. To receive Cell Press media alerts, contact press@cell.com.

CAPTION

This photo shows a bee of the species Amegilla insularis pollinating a flower.

Internalized gender-focused attitudes affect health, career prospects

From personal health in China to professional salaries in the US, gender matters.

JOHN TIMMER - 11/19/2020

Enlarge / Women in traditional Mosuo clothing.
Wikimedia Commons

In most societies, there are very easy to quantify differences between men and women. Women tend to live longer but earn less, for example. Historically, there has been a strong tendency to ascribe those differences to biology. But most societies treat women very differently, making disentangling biological and societal factors a challenge. This week, a couple of papers apply some interesting approaches to teasing the two apart.

In one, researchers looked at a matrilineal society in China to explore gender norms' impact on health. In the second, a detailed survey explored how internalized expectations can influence engineering career success in the US.
A healthier society

The work on China focused on women's health. Since women outlive men, you might expect that they're generally healthy. You'd be wrong; women tend to have a higher disease burden than men do. To get a hint as to why that might be the case, the researchers looked at an ethnic group called the Mosuo, who occupy an area near Tibet, on the border between Yunnan and Sichuan provinces. Some members of the Mosuo society have adopted patriarchal practices, with males as the head of the household. But others have women as the head of household, while their husbands continue to live with the families they grew up in. Children are raised by their mothers and remain part of her household.

This situation allowed the researchers to perform a simple experiment, checking for signs of chronic disease in the matrilineal and patrilineal households. They focused on signs of inflammation and hypertension, two disorders with significant health impacts that are known to be influenced by social factors.Advertisement


In communities that followed patrilineal practices, chronic inflammation was over twice as prevalent in women (8.3 percent vs. 3.2 percent). Thirty-three percent of women were hypertensive, compared to 26 percent of men. Testing in a matrilineal community changed the situation dramatically. There, chronic inflammation hit 6.4 percent of men but only 3.6 percent of women. Similar outcomes were seen with hypertension, which struck 28 percent of men but only 26 percent of women. The researchers note that the stats for men are largely unchanged, which they ascribe to the high levels of social support they get from living in the household they grew up in.

Overall, it's hard to escape the conclusion that, as the authors put it, "health is shaped extensively by social and cultural factors, including gender norms that impact autonomy, resource control, and social support." Being head of household might come with some stresses, but they're more than offset by having control over the household resources.

Engineering confidence

A second group of researchers decided to look at engineers in the US. For a period of three years, they tracked people coming out of engineering and computer science programs at 27 different universities, obtaining data on 559 students. Among other things, the survey participants reported their grades, starting salaries, and what field they ended up working in. But they also took a short survey that gauged what the authors term their "engineering self-efficacy," in which they were asked about their confidence in their ability to perform tasks like constructing prototype products, building mathematical models, and so on.

As is typical in these fields, the researchers found that the women who graduated from engineering programs received lower pay on average, with the gap being nearly $5,000 a year. And after taking factors like GPA and university into account, the gap shrank slightly but still persisted.Advertisement

But once people's confidence in their own skills was used to adjust the outcome, the wage gap shrank to insignificance. In other words, the factor that seemed to account for the gender-specific wage gap best was the graduates' confidence in their abilities as engineers. Put differently, female engineers are more likely to underrate their likely skills relative to what their school and GPA might suggest, and that lower confidence seems to cost them when it comes to pay.

Just to be sure, however, the researchers looked at two other explanations that have been offered for women's lower pay. One is the suggestion that money doesn't matter as much to women, but in this sample, there was no gender difference in the importance attached to salary. Another explanation that has been suggested is that women prioritize a healthier workplace culture over salary. This turned out to be true, but for both men and women, placing a high value on workplace culture was associated with higher salaries.

The fact that confidence is a major factor that separates men and women shouldn't be surprising. As the researchers note, "Prior work indicates that girls and women have lower confidence in their math and science ability than boys and men, net of actual ability in these subjects." And boys have shown themselves willing to say they've mastered fake math concepts as an outgrowth of that overconfidence. But if we want more women going into STEM careers and staying there, then we have to think about how to account for the gender gap in misplaced confidence.

More generally, the two reports drive home the huge effects that social factors can play in gender difference that have often been ascribed to innate, biological factors. That doesn't mean we know how to compensate for these factors, but it's a key first step toward realizing that there's something there that can be fixed.

PNAS, 2020. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2014403117, 10.1073/pnas.2010269117 (About DOIs).


ARS TECHNICA

LOL —
Nikola soars as clueless investors mistake month-old GM website for new

Investors mistook a month-old GM webpage for a new announcement.

TIMOTHY B. LEE - 11/19/2020

Enlarge / GM CEO Mary Barra.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Nikola stock rose 15 percent on Wednesday after confused investors apparently mistook a month-old GM website for a brand-new announcement about the companies' pending agreement. The stock is up another 7 percent as I write this on Thursday morning.

Shortly before 10am ET on Wednesday, people began sharing links to this GM page on social media.

"We signed an agreement with Nikola to engineer and manufacture the Nikola Badger," the GM page said. Nikola's stock price soared from $22.23 at 9:30am to $24.94 at 10am—a 12-percent jump in 30 minutes.

On Reddit, commenters pointed out that the page said "the transaction has not yet closed." But people shrugged that off, arguing that GM wouldn't have posted about the deal if closing wasn't imminent. One commenter took the stock price jump as further confirmation of the news.

But they were mistaken. It wasn't a new GM announcement. The page has been on GM's website since at least October 5. An archive of the page from that date includes exactly the same language about Nikola—albeit without the disclaimer about the deal not being closed yet.

GM has confirmed to Barrons and other news outlets that talks with Nikola are ongoing.

GM CEO Mary Barra is scheduled to participate in a Barclays automotive conference this afternoon. Nikola fans and investors are hoping the event will feature an announcement about Nikola. But there doesn't seem to be any reason to think it will.

It's also not clear that Nikola would benefit from closing the deal with GM. That deal requires Nikola to pay GM hundreds of millions of dollars to design and build the Badger—money Nikola may not be able to spare. Trucking is a capital-intensive business, and Nikola may need every dollar it has to get its flagship heavy trucks to market. Last month, Nikola CEO Mark Russell said that the Badger was an "interesting and exciting project" but that Nikola was "focused on heavy trucks and hydrogen infrastructure.”

ARS TECHNICA

DHL is deploying electric class 8 trucks in Los Angeles

The trucks, built by BYD, will haul cargo to and from its hub at LAX airport.

JONATHAN M. GITLIN - 11/18/2020, 6:51 AM

Enlarge / This BYD Class 8 truck, capable of hauling a combined 82,000 lbs, is yellow, but it's also green.
BYD

DHL's deliveries in the Los Angeles area are going to get a little greener in time for the holiday rush. The international courier company is deploying four Class 8 trucks to the city, built for it by BYD Motors, which it will use to haul cargo between its hub at Los Angeles International Airport and its local service centers.

"By implementing these electric trucks, we will prevent more than 300 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from entering the atmosphere per year, as we continue to grow and enhance our clean pick-up and delivery solutions," said Greg Hewitt, CEO of DHL Express US.

"The introduction of these efficient electric trucks is a huge step forward, not only toward achieving our own clean transport goals, but also California’s ambitious goals on the adoption of zero-emission vehicles," Hewitt said.

Although not every use of a heavy truck lends itself well to electrification, there's no denying that for applications that involve short-haul routes like port drayage, school buses, and garbage collection, it's a no-brainer.

Indeed, in the face of continuing inaction or even actively destructive policy at the federal level, the state is moving ahead with decarbonizing transportation within its borders. On Tuesday, the California Air Resources Board announced a new state-wide incentive called the California Clean Fuel Reward. Together with utility companies, CARB will give buyers of new battery-electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid EVs up to $1,500, separate to any other state or federal incentives.

ARS TECHNICA

TOO MUCH OF A BAD THING —
Mid-November Hurricane Iota was the latest Category 5 on record

There was only one other November Category 5, 

and it happened in 1932.

SCOTT K. JOHNSON - 11/17/2020

Enlarge / Hurricane Iota on Monday as it approached landfall.
NASA 


This year’s unrelenting hurricane season is still rolling, and Monday evening saw Hurricane Iota make landfall in Nicaragua as a Category 4 storm. Despite the official end of the Atlantic hurricane season being less than two weeks away, Iota actually became the strongest hurricane of the year when it reached Category 5 on Monday morning.

This is the first November on record to see two major (Category 3+) hurricanes, and it’s the latest any storm has hit Category 5. The only other November category 5 occurred in 1932, and that was in the first week of the month. Iota is the 30th named storm of 2020—also a record. Once the list of 21 storm names for the year is exhausted, subsequent storms are simply designated by Greek letters.

Here's how 2020 Atlantic #hurricane season ranks so far with other seasons in satellite era (since 1966) and with long-term average. Record-setting for named storms, 2nd for hurricanes & major hurricanes, 3rd for named storm days, 6th for Accumulated Cyclone Energy. #Iota pic.twitter.com/cjBlIIz5JP— Philip Klotzbach (@philklotzbach) November 17, 2020

Iota made landfall near Puerto Cabezas in Nicaragua, bringing 155 mile-per-hour winds, rain, and storm surge. Unbelievably, this was just 15 miles south of the location Hurricane Eta made landfall (also as a Category 4) on November 3. This means many people who evacuated for Eta hadn’t even returned yet, but those who had were forced to evacuate again—amidst a pandemic.

This #TimelapseTuesday, we are looking at the path #HurricaneIota took over the last 51 hours, compressed into 12 seconds. This imagery is via #GOESEast's infrared band 11. #Hurricane #Iota made landfall in #Nicaragua last night as a Cat-4 storm, and is now a tropical storm. pic.twitter.com/gNKmGBkOoG— NOAA Satellites (@NOAASatellites) November 17, 2020

Although Iota has weakened significantly over land, wind and rain are still a major concern. Up to 30 inches of rain fell nearer the coast, and NOAA’s National Hurricane Center is forecasting 10 to 20 inches in other portions of Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize through Thursday. Areas of El Salvador and Panama could see “isolated maximum totals” reaching 12 inches.Advertisement

The fact that this area was so recently soaked by Hurricane Eta is critical. The saturated soils won’t be able to absorb as much rain, turning more of it into overland runoff that can result in flooding. All this moisture also greatly raises the risk of landslides in steep terrain.

Iota is making its way westward and will reach the Pacific coast on Wednesday. As of Tuesday afternoon, Iota’s winds had weakened to about 60 miles per hour, reducing it to tropical storm status. It is forecast to further weaken to a tropical depression tonight, with wind speeds below 38 miles per hour, and it should lose even that status Wednesday.

Enlarge / The forecast as of Tuesday afternoon.
NHC

Iota’s growth was fueled by warm sea surface temperatures in the region—where there is clearly a warming trend over time. Ocean temperatures and wind patterns have been particularly conducive this year, allowing for the prolific hurricane activity we have experienced.


NOAA’s hurricane season outlooks called for above-average activity way back in spring, and expectations were bumped up further in August. The continuing storm activity late in the season has pushed beyond even those expectations, however. The August outlook included 19-25 named storms, while we’ve now reached 30. It also included 7-11 hurricanes, while Iota checks in as number 13.

If 2020 has another named storm left in it before the season ends, the next name up would be Kappa.

ARS TECHNICA

BYE BYE SO LONG 

Big dish of Arecibo observatory has reached the end of the line

With no way to safely repair it, the National Science Foundation calls it.

JOHN TIMMER - 11/19/2020 ARS TECHNICA

Enlarge / An aerial view of the Arecibo facility, showing the increasingly fragile cables supporting the instrument platform, as well as the gash caused when one of those cables failed.

University of Central Florida

Today, the National Science Foundation announced that its famed Arecibo radio observatory would be shut down. Built into a hilltop in Puerto Rico, the main dish of the observatory is over 300 meters across, and its massive size has made it a feature in popular culture ranging from James Bond movies to video games. But despite a long history of scientific contributions, the observatory has been struggling for funding for over a decade, and two cables that support it have failed this year, leaving it in a precarious state.

After engineering studies determined there was no way to repair the hardware without putting workers at risk, the NSF made the decision to shut the observatory down.

More than a big dish

While the sheer scale of the main dish at Arecibo grabbed the most attention, the dish was purely a reflector. The actual business end of the telescope, where radio waves were sensed, was an instrument platform suspended high above it by cables strung from three towers. The instrument platform held a receiver that could be moved to different locations above the disk, giving it the ability to resolve signals from more directions than its fixed dish might suggest.

Since its commissioning in the 1960s, the observatory has played a role in many discoveries, primarily in the field of pulsars, a class of radio-emitting neutron stars. It has also been involved with SETI searches, and it transmitted an image to a star cluster under the assumption that any intelligent life there might be partaking in its own SETI program. But over the last 15 years or so the NSF, Arecibo's primary means of support, has cut its funding for the observatory, which has struggled to maintain full operations over this period.

But it wasn't money that eventually doomed Arecibo; instead, it was the instrument platform. In August of this year, one of the auxiliary cables that help support the platform snapped, creating a gash in the radio-reflective dish below. While plans were being made to replace that cable and repair the dish—replacement cables were already on order—one of the 7.5cm main cables on the same tower snapped on November 6

An engineering analysis subsequently determined that this cable failure happened despite the fact that the strain on it was only about 60 percent of what should be its minimum breaking strength. This raised serious questions about the stability of the remaining cables, and thus the ability of the structure to support its instrument platform. The analysis concluded that it was unsafe to find out; the platform could collapse without warning, and any snapped cables would present a danger to any workers on the towers, as the large cables would move at very high speeds following a break. Of the three additional engineering firms consulted by NSF and the University of Central Florida, two agreed with this assessment.

"Until these assessments came in, our question was not if the observatory should be repaired but how," said the NSF's Ralph Gaume. "But in the end, a preponderance of data showed that we simply could not do this safely. And that is a line we cannot cross."

The end is near

Right now, the NSF is simply announcing that it will start planning for the decommissioning process. Work was already underway to move the data archives from the instrument onto a cloud service, and the plans for safely removing the platform will obviously involve a lot of additional engineering analyses. The NSF said that several other scientific programs associated with the site will remain open. The observatory also serves as a major focus of outreach between the scientific community and Puerto Rican society—understanding how to maintain that dynamic in the absence of an active instrument will also require further study.

It's difficult to argue with the risk analysis. And it's not difficult to imagine that more modern and flexible instruments can accomplish the science we'd expect from Arecibo at a lower cost, which explains why Arecibo has been struggling for funding for over a decade. Given both of these factors, it's clear that Arecibo's time has come.

But it's still difficult to accept the loss of an icon like this.

Adiós Arecibo Observatory: America's largest radio telescope faces explosive end after over 50 years of service

The aging structure is too hazardous to repair, engineers say

Katyanna Quach Thu 19 Nov 2020 

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The Arecibo Observatory, America’s largest radio telescope, is to be blown up after the National Science Foundation decided recent damage has left it too dangerous to repair.

“NSF prioritizes the safety of workers, Arecibo Observatory’s staff and visitors, which makes this decision necessary, although unfortunate," its director, Sethuraman Panchanathan, said in a statement on Thursday.

"For nearly six decades, the Arecibo Observatory has served as a beacon for breakthrough science and what a partnership with a community can look like. While this is a profound change, we will be looking for ways to assist the scientific community and maintain that strong relationship with the people of Puerto Rico."

In 2017 the telescope was severely damaged by Hurricane Maria but things got worse in August when a three-inch auxiliary cable, supporting a 900-ton platform above the telescope's dish, popped out of its socket and came falling down, tearing a 100-foot hole in its metal panels.

The remaining cables struggled to withstand the added strain, and disaster struck again in November after a main cable broke and damaged the dish further. Officials at the University of Central Florida (UCF), who managed the observatory in Puerto Rico, warned it was a race against time to repair the fraying structure.

All efforts to fix the issues, however, have now been abandoned. Thornton Tomasetti, one of the engineering firms hired to investigate the mishap, warned that if another main cable were to fall a catastrophic failure would be very likely.

“While this outcome is not what we had been working towards, and we are disheartened to see such an important scientific resource decommissioned, safety is our top priority," the firm said in a letter addressed to UCF and reviewed by The Register.

Now, the NSF will plan to carry out “controlled demolition” of the 305-meter telescope, following Thornton Tomasetti’s advice. “Although it saddens us to make this recommendation, we believe the structure should be demolished in a controlled way as soon as pragmatically possible," the firm said

Arecibo spared the axe: Iconic observatory vital to science lives on

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"It is therefore our recommendation to expeditiously plan for decommissioning of the observatory and execute a controlled demolition of the telescope."

Other parts of the observatory, however, like its LIDAR facility, focused on geospace research, and its visitor center and offsite Culebra facility that monitors Earth’s climate, will reopen after the telescope is decommissioned. Initially, UCF asked for extra funding from the NSF to repair the observatory and launched a formal investigation into what caused the incident.

"Leadership at Arecibo Observatory and UCF did a commendable job addressing this situation, acting quickly and pursuing every possible option to save this incredible instrument," said Ralph Gaume, director of NSF's Division of Astronomical Sciences.

"Until these assessments came in, our question was not if the observatory should be repaired but how. But in the end, a preponderance of data showed that we simply could not do this safely. And that is a line we cannot cross."

Scientists say their goodbyes to the plucky radio telescope

The striking structure has stood in the middle of a national forest in Puerto Rico for over half a century. The telescope paved the way for astronomers to discover the first binary pulsar star and exoplanet, and to analyze numerous potentially hazardous asteroids. It even helped locate the SOHO solar spacecraft, jointly operated by NASA and ESA, when it lost communication with ground control after its gyroscopes failed.

“I have extremely fond memories when I think back to 1998 and how helpful and supportive Donald Campell - who was Director [of the observatory] at that time - and all of the staff at Arecibo were,” Bernhard Fleck, a Project Scientist for the SOHO mission, told El Reg.

“I had contacted Dr Campell late Friday afternoon on July 17, 1998. Two days later on Sunday, 19 July, he was on a plane down to Puerto Rico to oversee these unique radar measurements of a lost spacecraft over 1.5 million kilometers away, I believe a first in space history.”

“The successful detection of SOHO by Arecibo Radar was the turning point in the SOHO recovery and an incredible boost to the morale of the recovery team. Arecibo Radar confirmed that SOHO was still at its predicted location and was not spinning excessively fast.”

Although the loss of America’s largest radio telescope will mean there will be no new observations at the facility, there is still plenty of backlogged data remaining to be analyzed.

“At a time when public interest and scientific curiosity about space and the skies has re-intensified, there remains much to understand about the data that has been acquired by Arecibo,” a UCF’s President Alexander Cartwright told The Register. “Despite this disappointing setback, we remain committed to the scientific mission in Arecibo and to the local community.”

“Critical work remains to be done in the area of atmospheric sciences, planetary sciences, radio astronomy and radar astronomy. UCF stands ready to utilize its experience with the observatory to join other stakeholders in pursuing the kind of commitment and funding needed to continue and build on Arecibo’s contributions to science.” ®

Facebook AI catches 95% of hate speech; company still wants mods back in office
Facebook wants butts in seats to enforce rules. Workers want not to get COVID.

KATE COX - 11/19/2020

Facebook's Menlo Park, California, headquarters as seen in 2017.

Facebook's software systems get ever better at detecting and blocking hate speech on both the Facebook and Instagram platforms, the company boasted today—but the hardest work still has to be done by people, and many of those people warn that the world's biggest social media company is putting them in unsafe working conditions.

About 95 percent of hate speech on Facebook gets caught by algorithms before anyone can report it, Facebook said in its latest community-standards enforcement report. The remaining 5 percent of the roughly 22 million flagged posts in the past quarter were reported by users.


That report is also tracking a new hate-speech metric: prevalence. Basically, to measure prevalence, Facebook takes a sample of content and then looks for how often the thing they're measuring—in this case, hate speech—gets seen as a percentage of viewed content. Between July and September of this year, the figure was between 0.10 percent and 0.11 percent, or about 10-11 views of every 10,000.

Facebook also stressed—in both its news release and in a call with press—that while its in-house AI is making strides in several categories of content enforcement, COVID-19 is having a continued effect on its ability to moderate content.

"While the COVID-19 pandemic continues to disrupt our content-review workforce, we are seeing some enforcement metrics return to pre-pandemic levels," the company said. "Even with a reduced review capacity, we still prioritize the most sensitive content for people to review, which includes areas like suicide and self-injury and child nudity."Advertisement

Secondhand workforce

The reviewers are critical, Facebook Vice President of Integrity Guy Rosen told press in a call. "People are an important part of the equation for content enforcement," he said. "These are incredibly important workers who do an incredibly important part of the job."

Full-time Facebook employees who are employed by the company itself are being told to work from home until July 2021 or perhaps even permanently.

In the call with reporters, Rosen stressed that Facebook employees who are required to come in to work physically, such as those who manage essential functions in data centers, are being brought in with strict safety precautions and personal protective equipment, such as hand sanitizer, made available.

Moderation, Rosen said, is one of those jobs that can't always be done at home. Some content is simply too sensitive to review outside of a dedicated workspace where other family members might see it, he explained, saying that some Facebook content moderators are being brought back into offices "to ensure we can have that balance of people and AI working on those areas" that need human judgement applied.

The majority of Facebook's content moderators, however, do not work for Facebook. They work for third-party contract firms worldwide, often with woefully insufficient support to do their jobs. Reporters from The Guardian, The Verge, The Washington Post, and BuzzFeed News, among others, have spoken to these contract workers around the world, who describe relentless expectations and widespread trauma at work. Earlier this year, Facebook agreed to a $52 million settlement in a class-action suit filed by former content moderators who alleged the job gave them "debilitating" post-traumatic stress disorder.Advertisement



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All of that was before COVID-19 spread around the world. In the face of the pandemic, the situation looks even worse. More than 200 moderators who are being told to go back into the office signed on to an open letter accusing Facebook of "needlessly risking moderators' lives" without even providing hazard pay for workers who are being ordered back into the office.

"Now, on top of work that is psychologically toxic, holding onto the job means walking into a hot zone," the letter reads. "In several offices, multiple COVID cases have occurred on the floor. Workers have asked Facebook leadership, and the leadership of your outsourcing firms like Accenture and CPL, to take urgent steps to protect us and value our work. You refused. We are publishing this letter because we are left with no choice."

"This raises a stark question," the letter adds. "If our work is so core to Facebook's business that you will ask us to risk our lives in the name of Facebook's community—and profit—are we not, in fact, the heart of your company?"
Scrutiny grows

Meanwhile, state and federal scrutiny of Facebook only keeps growing. This week, company CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before the Senate for the second time in just three weeks. Members of the House are also complaining that Facebook has failed to moderate content properly or safely amid rampant election-related disinformation.


Other regulatory bodies are likely coming for Facebook—and soon. Many of the antitrust investigations that began in 2019 are drawing to a conclusion, according to media reports. The Federal Trade Commission is reportedly planning to file a suit within the next two weeks, and a coalition of nearly 40 states, led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, is likely to follow in December. Those suits are likely to argue that Facebook unfairly stifles competition through its acquisition and data strategies, and it may end up trying to force the company to divest Instagram and WhatsApp.

ARS TECHNICA

KATE COXKate covers tech policy issues, including privacy, antitrust, and other shenanigans, from Washington, DC.