RITUAL (MAGIC) NOT SUPERSTITION
Superstitions keep Fernandez's dad/coach from US Open

Issued on: 11/09/2021 - 

Canada's Leylah Fernandez won't have her father/coach Jorge in the stands for her US Open final showdown with Emma Raducanu after she lost the last final he attended TIMOTHY A. CLARY AFP


New York (AFP)

Jorge Fernandez won't attend his daughter Leylah's all-teen US Open final showdown Saturday with Britain's Emma Raducanu over fears about messing with routines that are working.

Fernandez, a former footballer from Ecuador who became a tennis coach for his daughter, will watch from home in Florida as he has for two weeks when 19-year-old Fernandez meets 18-year-old qualifier Raducanu for the title.

"No, I'm not going to be there," Fernandez told US Open reporters on a conference call. "I'm extremely superstitious. My daughter is as well.

"I've been using the same shampoo on game day, kind of using the same jeans on game day, I think the same socks and underwear -- it's taken to a completely different level.

"It's nothing new. You do your shoelaces a certain way. Leylah and I have always when we figured out what's working, we don't mess with it.

"It's working, so let's not ruin it."

Raducanu is the first qualifier to ever reach a Grand Slam final while Fernandez ousted three of the world's top five to reach the final.

"You're playing another warrior in front of you. I don't think the age, who it is or the ranking should even matter," Fernandez said.

"It's a finals. Let's leave it all on the table. Let's sweat it all out. Let's make sure that no matter how it finishes, there are no regrets."

He painfully recalls the last time he watched Leylah in a final.

"It was Acapulco when she made it to the finals and she lost it," Jorge Fernandez said. "I was hating myself for a good two months afterwards. I didn't really want to talk about it.

"They say, 'C'mon, it's just a game, she made it to the finals.' But inside me it's like, 'No, I shouldn't have shown up. I shouldn't have been there.'

"It's really about superstition. She knows I'm supporting her from afar. I'm in her heart and she's in mine.

"Everybody who has seen it from the stadium, fantastic. But I'm going to look at her right across the kitchen table when we're going to have dinner and we're going to be OK."

They're also in touch often, with Leylah getting calls on a schedule, the night before a match for plans, the next morning for workout needs and for the pre-match pep talk.

"It's more based on sentiments and emotions," he said. "It's almost like a virtual hug and a kiss. 'Good luck, you know what to do.' It's more of a motivating conversation. What I say is what I'm feeling in the moment, what I'm feeling from her."

It's a final boost for the mental fortitude Fernandez shows on court.

"She's just unbelievable with her mindset right now. She shows so much fight," he said. "But she is human, and she does feel those emotions."

- Watching past champions -

The teen Fernandez has developed her toughness being a student of tennis.

"That poise has come from her watching a lot of tennis, watching some of the big names, the YouTube clips, watching the matches," her father said.

"She's constantly analyzing what happened. She's a great student of the game. I think that brings that poise that we see in her, able to do what she's doing because she has watched it so much.

"She's kind of acting with the same poise that past champions have done. She has learned how they recuperate and keep their poise. That's what we're seeing."

Both finalists have Asian heritage, Fernandez from the Philippines on her mother's side.

"Those two ladies are touching a lot of young girls. This can only be good for tennis," Jorge Fernandez said.

"They bring a flair that is very unique for them. I'm glad that they're touching the Asian community. That's a huge opportunity in the women's game just to be able to expand and have a new style."

He thanked a Filipino-Canadian group for their support of Leylah.

"I truly appreciate the Filipino community backing up Leylah," he said. "It's so beautiful. I'm glad that they've embraced her. I hope that relationship can only grow between her and her community."

WAGE THEFT, UNFAIR BARGAINING
Veteran Brazil defender Alves and Sao Paulo split over unpaid wage row

Issued on: 10/09/2021 

Alves in pay row NELSON ALMEIDA POOL/AFP/File

Sao Paulo (AFP)

Brazilian side Sao Paulo have parted company with Dani Alves after the veteran defender skipped training on Friday in protest over unpaid wages.

"We have made the decision and we have informed (manager) Hernan Crespo, that Daniel Alves will no longer be part of the team," the side's sporting director Carlos Belmonte announced on Twitter.

"Sao Paulo is bigger than one man," he insisted.

The former Barcelona, Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain player's advisers told the club his training boycott would continue until his outstanding salary was paid, Belmonte revealed.

According to reports in the local press Alves, 38, is owed 11 million reais (almost 1.8 million euros).

Sao Paulo recognises the debt and last week tabled an offer which was rejected, Belmonte added.

Relations between the side and Alves soured when he left for the Olympic Games where he captained Brazil to the gold medal for his 43rd title.

The most decorated player in history joined Sao Paulo in 2019 on a three year contract.

STATE CAPITALI$M IS STILL CAPITALI$M*

Evergrande’s collapse would have ‘profound consequences’ for China’s economy

Issued on: 10/09/2021 - 

China Evergrande Centre is seen in the Wan Chai district of Hong Kong on August 6, 2021. 

© Isaac Lawrence, AFP
Text by: Sébastian SEIBT

Investors are bracing for the increasing risk that Chinese real estate colossus Evergrande will collapse under the weight of more than $300 billion of debt. But experts say the Chinese Communist Party will have no choice but to save a company that is so emblematic of its economic growth model – and whose collapse would send shockwaves across the global economy.

Western financial institutions think Evergrande has a bleak future, if it has one at all.

JP Morgan made a whopping cut to its stock price target for the business on Friday, to 2.80 Hong Kong dollars from $HK7.20.

This came after ratings agency Fitch downgraded the firm's foreign currency credit rating from triple C plus to double C on Wednesday, saying that a form of default “looks probable”. Ratings agency Moody’s lowered Evergrande’s credit rating in the third time in three months – on the grounds that its creditors faced “weak recovery prospects” if the company defaulted.

Evergrande is the world’s most indebted real estate developer; $300 billion is roughly equivalent to the entire public debt of Portugal. Unsurprisingly, senior executives admitted in August that they might be unable to meet all of their financial obligations.

‘Debt-dependent growth model’

This poses a serious problem for the Chinese Communist Party, as Evergrande is a longstanding symbol of the country’s very economically productive urbanisation.

Also, Evergrande’s business model is representative of “China’s highly debt-dependent growth model”, Jean-François Dufour, head of French, China-focused consulting firm DCA Chine-Analyse, told FRANCE 24.

The company was founded in 1996, in the midst of the Communist Party’s Herculean endeavour of moving hundreds of millions of Chinese people from the countryside to the cities, creating a "very strong growth of the Chinese real estate sector", Frédéric Rollin, an investment strategy adviser at the multinational firm Pictet Asset Management, told FRANCE 24.

Evergrande was the main beneficiary of this boom. It pursued a very aggressive growth strategy and was dependent on banks’ goodwill as it accumulated a proliferating portfolio of real estate projects at a rapid clip.

This expansion continued over the decades, as shown by Evergrande raising $722 million in its IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2009. The firm now controls 778 real estate projects in 223 Chinese cities, directly employing nearly 200,000 people. Evergrande has claimed that it has indirectly created more than three million jobs.

Huge debt pile

But at the beginning of the 2010s, in the wake of that blockbuster IPO, Evergrande stretched its tentacles into an array of other sectors. The company was in a “race against time to diversify its activities, much more so than other Chinese real estate groups”, Dufour said. The Communist Party had “made other sectors national priorities”, he continued.

Consequently, Evergrande acquired stakes in video streaming companies, health insurers, milk farmers and pig-breeding co-operatives. It also bought Guangzhou FC, a football club in the Guangdong region where it is based, and built amusement parks. Evergrande’s latest diversification project was an attempt in 2019 to start manufacturing electric cars – despite a lack of any experience in this field.

Evergrande got its fingers into so many pies because it wanted a presence in “a sufficient number of priority sectors so that the state would be more inclined to support it financially when the weight of its debt became too heavy to bear”, Dufour explained.

The debt is very heavy indeed. Evergrande is due to pay $15 billion to creditors by the end of 2021; but, as of late June, it had only $13 billion to its name. At the same time, the banks have become much more reluctant to lend it money. “It’s become more complicated because of the restrictive monetary policy the government is currently pursuing,” Rollin said.

Economic contagion risk

Evergrande has entered a downward spiral in which the banks no longer want to give it the funds to finish its real estate projects, depriving the company of new properties to sell and therefore of fresh funds to repay creditors and reassure the banks.

“In a normal market economy, Evergrande would have gone bankrupt a long time ago,” Dufour said. But the Chinese model of capitalism has long encouraged the model of private debt.

“The rule was that as long as a company looked like it was moving forward – with plenty of projects in the pipeline – the banks gave it credit on the understanding that the strength of Chinese economic growth would always deliver profits,” he continued.

This way of thinking meant that “in 2020, Chinese companies’ debt represented 160 percent of GDP, compared to just 85 percent in the US and 115 percent in the eurozone”, Rollin pointed out.

Companies like Evergrande find themselves in a tricky situation now that Beijing has pushed heavily indebted countries to deleverage over the past year.

But the Communist Party also faces a dilemma, as it needs to prevent Evergrande from going under, to avoid the “profound consequences it would have for the Chinese economy”, Dufour said.

If Evergrande went bankrupt, “at least one bank would go under”, Dufour continued. “That may well push other banks to be more reluctant to end to highly leveraged countries – and that would herald the end of China’s debt-fuelled growth model.”

The real estate behemoth’s collapse would sent shockwaves far beyond China. As the Financial Times noted: “Evergrande counts big international companies among its investors, including Allianz, Ashmore and BlackRock. A default is likely to have spillover effects on global markets, where many investors have historically anticipated Chinese government support at times of distress.”

Given Evergrande’s importance to the Chinese economy, “it’s highly probable that the state will sort out a debt restructuring programme for it”, Rollin said. In other words, Beijing will force creditors’ hands while organising the sale of Evergrande’s non-core assets.

“This will likely mean putting the company under the state’s control while it finds a buyer; an approach the Chinese government has adopted before,” Dufour said.

But cleaning up a mess as big as a $300 billion debt pile will not happen overnight.

This article was translated from the original in French.

* WHAT GOES UP MUST COME DOWN, IS BOTH A WALL ST. TRUISM AND A LAW OF PHYSICS

Prehistoric winged lizard unearthed in Chile
Issued on: 10/09/2021 - 

Fossils confirmed to be of a rhamphorhynchine pterosaur -- the first such creature to be found in Gondwana, the prehistoric supercontinent that later formed the southern hemisphere landmasses - Universidad de Chile/AFP

Santiago (AFP)

Chilean scientists have announced the discovery of the first-ever southern hemisphere remains of a type of Jurassic-era "winged lizard" known as a pterosaur.

Fossils of the dinosaur which lived some 160 million years ago in what is today the Atacama desert, were unearthed in 2009.

They have now been confirmed to be of a rhamphorhynchine pterosaur -- the first such creature to be found in Gondwana, the prehistoric supercontinent that later formed the southern hemisphere landmasses.

Researcher Jhonatan Alarcon of the University of Chile said the creatures had a wingspan of up to two meters, a long tail, and pointed snout.

"We show that the distribution of animals in this group was wider than known to date," he added.

The discovery was also "the oldest known pterosaur found in Chile," the scientists reported in the scientific journal Acta Paleontologica Polonic.

© 2021 AFP

Mars rocks collected by Perseverance boost case for ancient life

Issued on: 10/09/2021 - 

A Martian rock dubbed "Rochette" that provided NASA's Perseverance rover its first two samples Handout NASA/AFP


Washington (AFP)

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has now collected two rock samples, with signs that they were in contact with water for a long period of time boosting the case for ancient life on the Red Planet.

"It looks like our first rocks reveal a potentially habitable sustained environment," said Ken Farley, project scientist for the mission, in a statement Friday. "It's a big deal that the water was there for a long time."

The six-wheeled robot collected its first sample, dubbed "Montdenier" on September 6, and its second, "Montagnac" from the same rock on September 8.

Both samples, slightly wider than a pencil in diameter and about six centimeters long, are now stored in sealed tubes in the rover's interior.

A first attempt at collecting a sample in early August failed after the rock proved too crumbly to withstand Perseverance's drill.

The rover has been operating in a region known as the Jezero Crater, just north of the equator and home to a lake 3.5 billion years ago, when conditions on Mars were much warmer and wetter than today.

The rock that provided the first samples was found to be basaltic in composition and likely the product of lava flows.

Volcanic rocks contain crystalline minerals that are helpful in radiometric dating.

This in turn could help scientists build up a picture of the area's geological history, such as when the crater formed, when the lake appeared and disappeared, and how climate changed over time.

"An interesting thing about these rocks as well is that they show signs for sustained interaction with groundwater," NASA geologist Katie Stack Morgan told a press conference.

The scientists already knew the crater was home to a lake, but couldn't rule out the possibility that it had been a "flash in the pan" with floodwaters filling up the crater for as little as 50 years.

Now they are more certain groundwater was present for much longer.

"If these rocks experienced water for long periods of time, there may be habitable niches within these rocks that could have supported ancient microbial life," added Stack Morgan.

The salt minerals in the rock cores may have trapped tiny bubbles of ancient Martian water.

"Salts are great minerals for preserving signs of ancient life here on Earth, and we expect the same may be true for rocks on Mars," added Stack Morgan.

NASA is hoping to return the samples to Earth for in depth lab analysis in a joint mission with the European Space Agency sometime in the 2030s.

© 2021 AFP

Sao Paulo art fest gives voice to resistance in times of darkness

Issued on: 11/09/2021 -

A work by Brazilian artist Jaider Esbell at the 34th Sao Paulo Biennale, which this year has the theme of tackling environmental crises and the rise of the far right in Brazil 

NELSON ALMEIDA AFP
3 min
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Sao Paulo (AFP)

A meteorite salvaged from a 2018 fire at Rio de Janeiro's National Museum symbolizes resistance to the destruction of culture in times of darkness -- a spirit at the heart of this year's Sao Paulo Biennial of Contemporary Art.

Marking its 70th anniversary the exhibition, one of the most important of its kind in the world, reflects a reaction to the extreme right embodied in Brazil by President Jair Bolsonaro, as well as to the environmental crisis and the pandemic.

"Faz escuro mas eu canto" ("It's dark but I sing"): the curators salvaged this verse by Thiago de Mello, a message of hope written during Brazil's military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985, to summarize this Biennial of more than a thousand works by 91 Brazilian and foreign artists, including indigenous creators.


The darkness has become more tangible with "new fires, hate speech (...), acts of explicit racism, signs of institutional fragility and finally the pandemic," said Paulo Miyada, one of the curators, at the launch.

"The voices of artists become more important in states of emergency like the one we are living in," he added.

Cuban artist Belkis Ayon exhibited at the Sao Paulo Bienal 

NELSON ALMEIDA AFP

After coming to power in 2019, Bolsonaro eliminated the Ministry of Culture and reduced it to a secretariat within the tourism portfolio, with a slashed budget and complaints about alleged censorship.

Since then, the art world has resisted. "The way to respond ... to dark political times of far-right movements was with a political approach," Italian guest curator Francesco Stocchi told AFP.

- Past and present -

So the Biennial proposed a concept of a circular history that goes back to the country's colonization and addresses the present from a historical perspective, establishing certain parallels.

There is "a clear awareness of the seriousness of some current situations," said curator general Jacopo Crivelli Visconti.

By way of example, he cited the work of Brazilian Regina Silveira, who depicts disproportionate shadows as symbols of the dictatorship, such as an army tank similar to those recently used in Brasilia in an unprecedented military parade in which Bolsonaro, a former army captain, participated.

Her compatriot Carmela Gross exhibits a large silhouette covered with a canvas, a sculpture she already exhibited at the 1969 Biennial during the military junta, a context that the organizers say "permeates her with a sense of threat and danger."

An exhibit by Brazilian artist Lygia Pape at the Sao Paulo contemporary art fest 

NELSON ALMEIDA AFP

That perception was bolstered by marches last Tuesday in which many "Bolsonaristas" called for a military intervention to stop the judiciary from investigating Bolsonaro for, among other things, spreading fake news.

A phrase by the philosopher Antonio Gramsci, embodied in another of the exhibited works, invites the visitor to reflect: "The old world dies. The new takes time to appear. And in that chiaroscuro the monsters arise".

- Ecological emergency -

Outside, two inflatable snake-shaped sculptures on a lake in Ibirapuera Park grab the attention of visitors.

But Jaider Esbell, an indigenous Makuxi and author of the work called "Entities", says that his participation in the Biennial goes beyond that and other of his exhibited works.

"My best work is politics, not those colorful drawings, or the cobra in the lake; those are elements to grab attention and spark discussion on issues such as global warming and ecological urgency," Esbell told AFP.

A work by German artist Silke Otto-Knapp on display 34th Biennale of Sao Paulo, at Ibirapuera park, in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

 NELSON ALMEIDA AFP

"It is a key moment because everyone is fighting, but nobody is fighting for the ecological emergency," said the artist from the Raposa Serra do Sol indigenous reserve in the northern state of Roraima, a land marked by territorial conflicts and threatened by illegal mining.

Under the Bolsonaro administration, deforestation and forest fires have set records in the Amazon, a vital component for stabilizing the global climate, and home to many indigenous peoples.

The exhibition, which opened on September 4, will continue until December 5 and aims to attract, as in previous years, around one million visitors.

© 2021 AFP

Unions split on vaccine mandates, complicating Biden push

BIGGEST PUSH BACK IS FROM POLICE UNIONS

By NICHOLAS RICCARD

President Joe Biden speaks in the State Dining Room at the White House, Thursday, Sept. 9, 2021, in Washington. Labor unions are divided over vaccine mandates. The split has become more significant after Biden announced his plan to require federal workers get inoculated and private companies with more than 100 employees get vaccinated. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)


The National Nurses Union applauded President Joe Biden’s proposal to require that companies with more than 100 employees vaccinate their work force. The American Federation of Teachers once said vaccine mandates weren’t necessary, but now embraces them. In Oregon, police and firefighter unions are suing to block a mask mandate for state workers.

The labor movement is torn over vaccine requirements — much like the country as a whole — wanting to both support its political ally in Biden and protect its members against infection but also not wanting to trample their workers’ rights.

“Labor unions are a microcosm of the society we live in,” said Patricia Campos-Medina, executive director of Cornell University’s The Worker Institute. “The same political divide we have right now exists within the rank and file of unions.”

That divide complicates matters for Biden as he tries to get the delta variant under control. Unions are a key part of the Democratic Party, and Biden has embraced them to burnish his blue-collar, middle-class image. Dissent in Biden’s own coalition may make it especially hard for him to implement new vaccination requirements. Some unions representing federal workers already objected to his push for inoculation among the U.S. government workforce, saying such matters involving new workplace requirements and discipline need to be negotiated at the bargaining table.

In a sign of the importance of the issue to the Biden administration, the White House reached out to union presidents before Biden announced his new policy Thursday and will continue to check in with labor leaders, said an administration official, who insisted on anonymity to discuss forthcoming plans.

Biden will require companies with more than 100 workers to give their employees shots or test them weekly. He will also mandate shots for executive branch workers and federal contractors with no testing opt-out. The new requirements could cover 100 million Americans.

Momentum seems to be on the side of mandates. The AFL-CIO, the umbrella organization over much of the country’s unions, praised mandates and Biden’s plan in a statement released Friday. “The resurgence of COVID-19 requires swift and immediate action, and we commend President Biden for taking additional steps to help put an end to this crisis. Everyone should be vaccinated — as one step in stopping the pandemic,” the organization’s president, Liz Shuler, said in the statement.

The AFT two weeks ago mandated that its employees in its offices be vaccinated and has become a strong advocate of workplaces requiring vaccinations. “Safety and health have been our north star since the beginning of the pandemic,” said Randi Weingarten, the union’s president. The union’s support for mandates, she added, “creates great cheer among two-thirds of our people and will create agita in one-third of the people.”

Still, many labor leaders are hesitant to wade into the mandate issue. Many of the employers of the workers of the Laborer’s District Council of Western Pennsylvania, like hospitals, have begun requiring vaccinations. Whenever members complain, the council’s business manager, Phillip Ameris, tells them it’s not the union’s call.

“What we have said is, ‘we encourage our members to the get the vaccine,’ but what we’re telling everyone to do is to go to your physician,” Ameris said. “We’re trying to keep it nonpolitical. ... Go to your doctor and ask your doctor what is best for you.”

THESE ARE NOT UNIONS, THEY ARE WHITE FRATERNAL ORDERS.
Some of the most heated opposition has come from law enforcement unions. In Newark on Thursday, police and fire unions from across New Jersey protested against the mayor’s vaccine mandate outside city hall. Police unions from Chicago to Richmond have pushed back against mandates in their cities. In Portland, Oregon, the local police union got its members exempted from the city’s vaccine order and a group of police and firefighter unions are suing Gov. Kate Brown to block the state’s vaccine requirement for its workers.

Simon Haeder, a political scientist who studies vaccine mandates at Penn State University, said it makes sense that the strongest resistance has come from police and firefighters. “The more conservative side of the labor movement, in terms of politics, are going to be the police and firefighter unions,” he said, noting that response to the coronavirus has become highly polarized. “Yes, you’re a union person and yes, you want the workplace to get back to normal, but the identity of being a Republican outweighs a lot of those things.”

Bill Johnson, executive director of the National Association of Police Organizations, said police officers are reacting like most Americans. “You’ve got, like in the rest of the country, really strong feelings on both sides,” Johnson said.

Still, police unions can see the writing on the wall — and want any mandates to be negotiated through the collective bargaining process, Johnson said. “There’s a sense from the union perspective that vaccination policy is pretty much going to be mandated,” he said. “We want a place at the table when we discuss implementation.”

Campos-Medina said mandatory vaccination is such an obviously important public health policy that she expects unions to ultimately accept it. She compared it to bans on indoor smoking, which rankled some unions years ago but is a subject which hardly ever comes up at the bargaining table today. “We will get there,” she said.

Weingarten’s union had initially, like Biden, opposed vaccine mandates and said persuading workers to get their shots was a better approach. But after the delta variant kicked caseloads higher this summer and filled up hospital beds, AFT reconsidered.

She, too, thinks unions will almost all ultimately coalesce behind a pro-mandate position. But, she notes, it will take time.

“The leadership in unions I talk to know that vaccines are really important,” Weingarten said. “What they’re trying to do is balance between all these different services and responsibilities we have to our members.”

__

Associated Press writers Josh Boak in Washington and Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report.

 BEYOND FOSSIL FUELS 

 NO SUCH THING AS SUSTAINABLE MINING

Arizona State legislature approves $4 million in ongoing yearly funding for school of mining and mineral resources

The funding is geared to building a highly educated workforce prepared to meet some of the world’s most pressing technological needs around mineral resources.

Business Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

 

IMAGE: STUDENTS WILL PREPARE FOR THE WORKFORCE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA SCHOOL OF MINING AND MINERAL RESOURCES. view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

About 45,000 jobs in Arizona are connected to mining in some way. Further, many top industries, such as aerospace, manufacturing, technology, health care and renewable energy rely on Arizona’s minerals, particularly copper. Copper is used everywhere, from electronics and electric vehicles to building materials, and it is constantly in high demand worldwide. That makes Arizona, which produces three-fourths of the nation’s copper and is the sixth-largest producer in the world, a key player in the global economy.

It also makes the University of Arizona one of the primary pipelines to employment in the state’s mining sector. That’s one big reason the colleges of Engineering and Science established the School of Mining and Mineral Resources in 2021. The school is poised to advance sustainable practices, safety and automation, and boost Arizona’s economy. The 2022 Arizona state budget allocates $4 million in yearly ongoing funding for the school. The funding is part of the New Economy Initiative, which targets high-value workforce development at the state’s three public universities

“This investment was one of the most important issues to me this session,” said David Gowan, senate appropriations chair and sponsor of the school’s appropriation bill. “Mining is one of Arizona’s main industries that contributes to our state’s and country’s rapid population growth and economic prosperity. Mined resources are required to create roads, hospitals, vehicles, houses and computers; to generate power; and to offer the many other goods and services that consumers need in today’s technological world.”

Just as the demand for minerals stretches across many sectors, the knowledge required to do mining comes from a number of areas. Thus, the school will take an interdisciplinary approach, drawing from expertise not just in engineering and science, but also in law, business, social sciences, public health and other disciplines.

“Funding for the school will establish the University of Arizona as a world leader in training the next generation of mining and mineral resource professionals,” said Carmala Garzione, dean of the College of Science. “The school will bring together researchers and practitioners from a wide range of related disciplines to solve challenging and timely societal issues related to resource limitations and sustainable mineral resource practices.”

The funding will go toward hiring faculty and staff as well as recruiting and retaining students. It also will help improve laboratories and facilities, including the student-run Henry G. “Hank” Grundstedt San Xavier Underground Mining Laboratory, the only underground mining laboratory in the United States with a working vertical shaft.

“This funding is critical to fulfilling our vision of establishing southern Arizona as the Silicon Valley of mining,” said David W. Hahn, the Craig M. Berge Dean of the College of Engineering. “With its globally recognized teaching and research enterprise, and through close collaborations with government and industry, the University of Arizona will be leading the way on a school that impacts every facet of the mining industry. It was very satisfying to see the close cooperation between legislators, UArizona leadership, and the state’s mining industry to make this support a reality.”

In addition to the state funding, the university has received $6.5 million in donations for the school, and there is broad support from industry.

“Society’s future ability to address climate, technological advancements and overall demand begins with mining,” said Steve Trussell, executive director of the Arizona Rock Products Association and the Arizona Mining Association. “Our ability to extract minerals and materials responsibly for the economy of the future is contingent upon a highly trained and competent workforce. The state’s investment in future workforce for the industry will further elevate the ability of UArizona – a world leader in engineering, environment, geoscience, and health and safety – to address the increasing need for production of critical minerals and materials.”

UArizona’s mining engineering program is one of only 13 in the nation sanctioned by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology Inc., and U.S. News & World Report ranks the university's geosciences graduate program as third in the United States among geology graduate programs. The university is also home to the Lowell Institute for Mineral Resources, which advances scientific, technological and educational aspects of mineral discovery, extraction and processing.

“We are very grateful to Governor Ducey and the Arizona legislature for their support of this school, and ultimately for one of the top industries in Arizona,” said University of Arizona President Robert C. Robbins. “The University of Arizona’s combination of faculty expertise, highly regarded programs, motivated students and geographic location mean it is perfectly positioned to educate a workforce for the mining industry of the future.”

Because mined materials contribute in so many ways to day-to-day living, a modern mining workforce goes beyond reinforcing the foundations of our economy. This workforce will efficiently and sustainably harvest the materials needed to build those technological foundations.

“My hope is that the school will develop new talent and generate high-skilled individuals who will contribute to further innovation of the industry in our state,” said Gowan. “This is a major step in providing opportunities for students who will set Arizona apart from the rest and make us stay competitive in this job market. I am looking forward to seeing the success of the School of Mining and Mineral Resources at the University of Arizona."

 ELIMINATE THE INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE!

Catalyst study advances carbon-dioxide-to-ethanol conversion

Combination of theory and experiment shows how a three-part catalyst helps transform excess CO2 into useable ethanol

Peer-Reviewed Publication

DOE/BROOKHAVEN NATIONAL LABORATORY

 

IMAGE: (FROM LEFT TO RIGHT) BROOKHAVEN LAB RESEARCHERS PING LIU, JOSE RODRIGUEZ, AND XUELONG WANG WITH WENJIE LIAO FROM STONY BROOK UNIVERSITY IN FRONT OF BROOKHAVEN'S CHEMISTRY BUILDING. PEDRO RAMIREZ FROM UNIVERSIDAD CENTRAL DE VENEZUELA ALSO WORKED ON THE STUDY (NOT PICTURED). view more 

CREDIT: BROOKHAVEN NATIONAL LABORATORY

UPTON, NY – An international collaboration of scientists has taken a significant step toward the realization of a nearly “green” zero-net-carbon technology that will efficiently convert carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, and hydrogen into ethanol, which is useful as a fuel and has many other chemical applications. The study reports a “roadmap” for successfully navigating this challenging reaction and provides a picture of the full reaction sequence using theoretical modeling and experimental characterization.

Led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, the group determined that bringing cesium, copper, and zinc oxide together into a close-contact configuration catalyzes a reaction pathway that transforms carbon dioxide (CO2) into ethanol (C2H6O). They also discovered why this three-part interface is successful. The study, which is described in a paper in the July 23 online edition of the Journal of the American Chemical Society and is featured on the publication’s cover, will drive further research into how to develop a practical industrial catalyst for selectively converting CO2 into ethanol. Such processes will lead to technologies that are able to recycle CO2 emitted from combustion and convert it into usable chemicals or fuels.

None of the three components examined in the study is able to individually catalyze the CO2-to-ethanol conversion, nor can they in pairs. But when the trio is brought together in a certain configuration, the region where they meet opens a new route for the carbon-carbon bond formation that makes the conversion of CO2 to ethanol possible. The key to this is the well-tuned interplay between the cesium, copper, and zinc oxide sites.

“There has been much work on carbon dioxide conversion to methanol, yet ethanol has many advantages over methanol. As a fuel, ethanol is safer and more potent. But its synthesis is very challenging due to the complexity of the reaction and the difficulty of controlling C-C bond formation,” said the study’s corresponding researcher, Brookhaven chemist Ping Liu. “We now know what kind of configuration is necessary to make the transformation, and the roles that each component plays during the reaction. It is a big breakthrough.”

The interface is formed by depositing tiny amounts of copper and cesium onto a surface of zinc oxide. To study the regions where the three materials meet, the group turned to an x-ray technique called in x-ray photoemission spectroscopy, which showed a likely change in the reaction mechanism for CO2 hydrogenation when cesium was added. More details were revealed using two widely used theoretical approaches: “density functional theory” calculations, a computational modelling method to investigate the structures of materials, and “kinetic Monte Carlo simulation,” computer simulation to simulate the reaction kinetics. For this work, the group utilized the computing resources of Brookhaven’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, both DOE Office of Science User Facilities.

One of the things they learned from the modeling is that the cesium is a vital component of the active system. Without its presence, ethanol cannot be made. In addition, good coordination with copper and zinc oxide is also important. But there is much more to learn.

“There are many challenges to overcome before arriving at an industrial process that can turn carbon dioxide into usable ethanol,” said Brookhaven chemist José Rodriguez, who participated in the work. “For example, there needs to be a clear way to improve the selectivity towards ethanol production. A key issue is to understand the link between the nature of the catalyst and the reaction mechanism; this study is on the front lines of that effort. We are aiming for a fundamental understanding of the process.”

Another goal of this area of research is to find an ideal catalyst for CO2 conversion to “higher” alcohols, which have two or more carbon atoms (ethanol has two) and are, therefore, more useful and desirable for industrial applications and the production of commodity goods. The catalyst studied in this work is advantageous because copper and zinc oxide-based catalysts are already widespread in the chemical industry and utilized in catalytic processes such as methanol synthesis from CO2.

The researchers have planned follow-up studies at Brookhaven’s National Synchrotron Light Source II, also a DOE Office of Science User Facility, which offers a unique suite of tools and techniques for the characterization of catalysts under working conditions. There, they will investigate in more detail the Cu-Cs-ZnO system and catalysts with a different composition.

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This study was performed by scientists from Brookhaven National Laboratory (Xuelong Wang, Jose Rodriguez, Ping Liu), the Universidad Central de Venezuela (Pedro Ramirez), and Stony Brook University (Wenjie Liao).

Brookhaven National Laboratory is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://www.energy.gov/science/.

Follow @BrookhavenLab on Twitter or find us on Facebook.

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JOURNAL

Journal of the American Chemical Society

DOI

10.1021/jacs.1c03940 

ARTICLE TITLE

Cesium-Induced Active Sites for C–C Coupling and Ethanol Synthesis from CO2 Hydrogenation on Cu/ZnO(0001̅) Surfaces

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

23-Jul-2021

 

World Trade Center firefighters 13% more likely to develop cancer than those not working at site of 9/11 attacks

And they are younger, on average, when diagnosed with the disease

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BMJ

Firefighters who worked at the World Trade Center following the 9/11 attacks in 2001 are 13% more likely than colleagues who didn’t work at the site to develop cancer, particularly prostate and thyroid cancer, finds research published online in the journal Occupational & Environmental Medicine.

They are also around 4 years younger, on average, when diagnosed, the findings indicate.

Firefighters are routinely exposed to various cancer causing agents during the course of their work, but whether they are consequently at heightened risk of developing the disease isn’t entirely clear, say the researchers. 

To complicate matters, the environment at the World Trade Center site was especially toxic, exposing firefighters to noxious substances, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), asbestos, sulfuric acid, benzene and arsenic.

To try and quantify firefighters’ risk level, the researchers compared new cases of cancer among 10,786 New York City firefighters, who worked at the World Trade Center site following the 9/11 attacks, with cases arising in 8,813 firefighters who hadn’t done so, and who were part of the Career Firefighter Health Study (CFHS). 

The World Trade Center firefighters were categorised by their exposure level to harmful toxins: the morning of 9/11, 1741 (16%), representing the highest risk; the afternoon of 9/11, 5683 (53%); following day, 1873 (17.5%); period between 13 and 24 September, 1315 (12%); and any time after 24 September 2001, 174 (1.5%), representing the lowest risk.

The firefighters’ health was monitored until death or 31 December 2016, whichever came first, and cancer incidence among them was then compared with that of US men in the general population.

Some 915 cancers were diagnosed in 841 of the World Trade Center firefighters; 1002 cases were diagnosed in 909 of the other firefighters. 

After accounting for potentially influential factors, including smoking and previous involvement in military combat, the World Trade Center firefighters were 13% more likely to develop cancer than colleagues who didn’t work at the site. 

Specifically, their risk of prostate cancer was 39% higher while that of thyroid cancer was more than twice as high.

On average, the World Trade Center firefighters were also around 4 years younger when they were diagnosed and they tended to have early stage disease that hadn’t yet spread. 

When cancer incidence was compared with that of US men in the general population, both groups of firefighters had higher rates of both prostate and skin (melanoma) cancers.

But these differences were weakened after factoring in ‘surveillance bias’, meaning that more cases of cancer might have been picked up among firefighters because their health would have been more closely monitored.

“Some proportion of the excess prostate cancer risk may be due to [World Trade Center] exposure on top of usual firefighting risks, as some chemicals, like PCBs, commonly found at building sites, including the [World Trade Center], are known endocrine disruptors, interfering with androgen metabolism,” note the researchers.

“Alternatively, high rates of some cancers, including thyroid and prostate cancers, could have resulted from non-biological factors like enrolment in screening programmes, especially [World Trade Center]-related health programmes,” they add.

This is an observational study, and as such, can’t establish cause. And the researchers conclude: “Two decades post-9/11, clearer understanding of [World Trade Center]-related risk requires extended follow-up and modelling studies (laboratory or animal based) to identify workplace exposures in all firefighters.”

[Ends]

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JOURNAL

Occupational and Environmental Medicine

DOI

10.1136/oemed-2021-107570 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Cancer incidence in World Trade Center-exposed and non-exposed male firefighters, as compared with the US adult male population: 2001–2016

Prostate cancer risk 24% higher among 9/11 rescue/recovery workers after World Trade Center attacks

Greatest risk seems to be among earliest responders on day of attack

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Latency period much shorter than in studies involving men not involved in 9/11

The risk of prostate cancer was 24% higher among 9/11 rescue and recovery workers after the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001, with the highest risk among the earliest responders, finds research published online in the journal Occupational & Environmental Medicine.

The findings indicate a shorter latency period from occupational exposure to disease development than that reported in other studies of men not involved in 9/11 recovery/rescue work, although the impact of screening practice can’t be ruled out, say the researchers.

The World Trade Center attacks on 11 September 2001 created a hazardous environment with known and suspected cancer causing agents. Previous studies have indicated a heightened risk of prostate cancer among responders at the scene compared with men in the general population.

But the length of time between exposure to the toxins at the disaster site and a cancer diagnosis isn’t known.

The researchers therefore wanted to know if there were specific time periods after the attacks during which prostate cancer risk might be significantly higher.

They tracked the health of 69,102 rescue/recovery workers from three groups of World Trade Center responders: the New York City Fire Department; the General Responder Cohort; and participants from the World Trade Center Health Registry.

Responders included firefighters, emergency medical services, police, construction and communication workers, volunteers and those involved in the clean-up.

Exposure levels to cancer causing agents, such as asbestos, sulfuric acid, benzo(a)pyrene, benzene, and arsenic, were estimated by time of arrival at the World Trade Center site: on the day of the attacks or being caught in the dust cloud resulting from the collapse of the twin towers; on the following day; any other time from 13 September 2001 to 30 June 2002. 

Cancer diagnoses were tracked via linkage with 13 state cancer registries across the US up to the end of the study period in 2015.

The final analysis included 54,394 men, 1120 of whom were diagnosed with prostate cancer between 12 March 2002 and 31 December 2015. The average age at diagnosis was 60.

Compared with the responders who didn’t develop prostate cancer, those who did were more likely to be current or former smokers. They were also more likely to have another type of cancer diagnosed within the study period. 

More than 3 out of 4 prostate cancer cases (867; 77%) were early stage and localised; just over 15% (171) had spread locally; and 2.5% (28) had spread to other parts of the body.

The average latency period from exposure to diagnosis was 9.4 years, with two thirds of cases (734) diagnosed between 2009 and 2015, but starting in 2006, just five years after the attacks.

This is shorter than that reported in other studies, not involving World Trade Center responders, and may reflect the type of exposure experienced at the site, say the researchers.

The World Trade Center cases were compared with those among men in New York State during the same period, and using the same inclusion criteria, but who weren’t involved in rescue/recovery work at the World Trade Center following the 9/11 attacks.

Relative to rates among these men, 207,252 of whom developed prostate cancer, the risk of the disease among World Trade Center rescue/recovery workers was 24% higher, from 2007 through to the end of 2015, after accounting for potentially influential factors, such as smoking.

Further analysis revealed a dose–response trend in both the early (2002–06) and later (2007–15) periods of monitoring, with the largest risk estimated in the early period. 

“The increased hazard among those who responded to the disaster earliest or were caught in the dust cloud suggests that a high intensity of exposure may have played some role in premature oncogenesis,” explain the researchers.

“Relative to [the New York State group], however, a lower relative risk was observed in the initial period, particularly among those responders who arrived at the [World Trade Center] disaster site latest.”

Certain jobs may pose an additional risk of prostate cancer, irrespective of World Trade Center exposure, say the researchers, by way of a possible explanation for the heightened risk observed in the later period.

This is an observational study, and as such, can’t establish cause. Higher than average screening for prostate cancer among the World Trade Center responders may also have influenced the findings, point out the researchers.

Nor were they able to determine the extent to which other behavioural, occupational, and environmental exposures other than cigarette smoking might have contributed to prostate cancer risk.

Nevertheless, their “evidence suggests a relationship between [World Trade Center] exposure and prostate cancer not fully explained by random or systematic error,” they write.

“Our findings support the need for continued research evaluating the burden of prostate cancer in [World Trade Center] responders,” they conclude.

 

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JOURNAL

Occupational and Environmental Medicine

DOI

10.1136/oemed-2021-107405 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Temporal association of prostate cancer incidence with World Trade Center rescue/recovery work

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Sep-2021

$25M tech grant lets Illinois researchers ‘talk’ to plants

Grant and Award Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL, CONSUMER AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

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IMAGE: RESEARCHERS FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS (PICTURED), ALONG WITH CORNELL UNIVERSITY, THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA, AND THE BOYCE THOMPSON INSTITUTE WILL USE A $25M NSF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY CENTER GRANT TO ESTABLISH THE CENTER FOR RESEARCH ON PROGRAMMABLE PLANT SYSTEMS (CROPPS). THEY AIM TO DEVELOP TOOLS TO LISTEN AND TALK TO PLANTS AND THEIR ASSOCIATED ORGANISMS TO HELP PLANTS BETTER COPE WITH CHALLENGING ENVIRONMENTS. FROM LEFT: STEPHEN MOOSE, CABRAL BIGMAN-GALIMORE, VIKRAM ADVE, GERMAN BOLLERO, AND ANTHONY STUDER. view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

URBANA, Ill. – The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced today an investment of $25 million to launch the Center for Research on Programmable Plant Systems (CROPPS). The center, a partnership among the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Cornell University, the Boyce Thompson Institute, and the University of Arizona, aims to develop tools to listen and talk to plants and their associated organisms.

“CROPPS will create systems where plants communicate their hidden biology to sensors, optimizing plant growth to the local environment. This Internet of Living Things (IoLT) will enable breakthrough discoveries, offer new educational opportunities, and open transformative opportunities for productive, sustainable, and profitable management of crops,” says Steve Moose, the grant’s principal investigator at Illinois. Moose is a genomics professor in the Department of Crop Sciences, part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES). 

As an example of what’s possible, CROPPS scientists could deploy armies of autonomous rovers to monitor and modify crop growth in real time. The researchers created leaf sensors to report on belowground processes in roots. This combination of machine and living sensors will enable completely new ways of decoding the language of plants, allowing researchers to teach plants how to better handle environmental challenges. 

“Right now, we’re working to program a circuit that responds to low-nitrogen stress, where the plant growth rate is ‘slowed down’ to give farmers more time to apply fertilizer during the window that is the most efficient at increasing yield,” Moose explains.

With 150+ years of global leadership in crop sciences and agricultural engineering, along with newer transdisciplinary research units such as the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and the Center for Digital Agriculture (CDA), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is uniquely positioned to take on the technical challenges associated with CROPPS.

But U of I scientists aren’t working alone. For years, they’ve collaborated with partner institutions to conceptualize the future of digital agriculture and bring it into reality. For example, researchers at Illinois’ CDA and Cornell’s Initiative for Digital Agriculture jointly proposed the first IoLT for agriculture, laying the foundation for CROPPS.

“CROPPS represents a significant win from having worked closely with our partners at Cornell and other institutions. We’re thrilled to move forward with our colleagues to shift paradigms in agriculture,” says Vikram Adve, Donald B. Gillies Professor in computer science at Illinois and co-director of the CDA.

CROPPS research may sound futuristic, and that’s the point.

The researchers say new tools are needed to make crops productive, flexible, and sustainable enough to feed our growing global population under a changing climate. Many of the tools under development – biotransducers small enough to fit between soil particles, dexterous and highly autonomous field robots, field-applied gene editing nanoparticles, IoLT clouds, and more – have been studied in the proof-of-concept phase, and are ready to be scaled up.

“One of the most exciting goals of CROPPS is to apply recent advances in sensing and data analytics to understand the rules of life, where plants have much to teach us. What we learn will bring a stronger biological dimension to the next phase of digital agriculture,” Moose says. 

CROPPS will also foster innovations in STEM education through programs that involve students at all levels, and each partner institution will share courses in digital agriculture topics. CROPPS also aims to engage professionals in digital agriculture at any career stage, and learn how the public views innovations in this emerging technology area.

“Along with cutting-edge research, CROPPS coordinated educational programs will address the future of work in plant sciences and agriculture,” says Germán Bollero, associate dean for research in the College of ACES.

CROPPS is one of NSF’s Science and Technology Centers (STC). This program supports exceptionally innovative, complex research and education projects that focus on sparking new scientific paradigms through transformative technologies. NSF funded just six STCs this year, and CROPPS is the first to focus on plant biology and digital agriculture.  

Additional Illinois faculty participating in CROPPS include Cabral Bigman-Galimore, Department of Communication; Romit Roy Choudhury, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Girish Chowdhary, Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering; Matt Hudson, Department of Crop Sciences; Meghan Lang, National Center for Supercomputing Applications; Amy Marshall-Colon, Department of Plant Biology; Tony Studer, Department of Crop Sciences; and Lav Varshney, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

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