GLOBALIZATION IN THE PANDEMIC AGE

Vietnam's lockdown ensares world's clothing giants

Issued on: 29/09/2021

The pandemic has hit Vietnam's textile industry and is threatening global coffee supplies 

NHAC NGUYEN AFP

Hanoi (AFP)

From shoes and sweaters to car parts and coffee, Vietnam's strict and lengthy coronavirus lockdown has sparked product shortages among worldwide brands such as Nike and Gap which have grown increasingly dependent on the Southeast Asian nation's manufacturers.

The snarl-ups at Vietnam's factories are part of a broader crisis around the planet that is sending inflation surging and raising concerns about the pace of recovery in the global economy.

At a fabric mill east of Hanoi, Claudia Anselmi -- the Italian director of Hung Yen Knitting & Dyeing, a key cog in the supply chain of several European and US clothing giants -- worries daily if the factory can keep the lights on.

Its output plunged by 50 percent when Vietnam's latest devastating virus wave first struck in spring, and it faces perpetual problems securing the yarn it needs for its synthetic material.

"At first we were lacking people (to work) because everyone was stuck at home," said Anselmi, whose company's fabric is later used in swimwear and sportswear for customers including Nike, Adidas and Gap.

The snarl-ups at Vietnam's factories are part of a global crisis that is sending inflation surging and raising concerns about the pandemic recovery

 Nhac NGUYEN AFP

Now, "travel restrictions have jeopardised all logistics in and out... this has created long, long delays," she told AFP. "We only survive if we have the stock."

While lockdowns are gradually loosening across the country as infections steadily decline, millions of Vietnamese have been under stay-at-home orders for months.

And a complex web of checkpoints and confusing travel permit regulations have made life impossible for truck drivers and businesses trying to move goods across, as well and in and out of, the country.

Hamza Harti, managing director at FM Logistic Vietnam, said several drivers in the Mekong Delta had been forced to wait three days and nights in their vehicle to enter the city of Can Tho.

"They were without food, without anything," he told a French Chamber of Commerce panel discussion in Hanoi.

- Shifting production -

The delays and restrictions are a major headache for foreign businesses, many of which have pivoted to Southeast Asia from China in recent years -- a trend accelerated by the bruising trade war between Washington and Beijing.

In the south -- the epicentre of Vietnam's fight against Covid-19 -- up to 90 percent of supply chains in the garment sector were broken, the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (Vitas) said in August, according to state media.

Nike -- which warned last week it was struggling with shortages of its athletic gear and cut its sales forecasts -- pointed the finger at Vietnam, among others, saying 80 percent of its factories in the south and nearly half of its apparel plants in the country had shut their doors.

The deputy general director of Maxport Vietnam told AFP the firm had "been very worried" about clients withdrawing orders

 Nhac NGUYEN AFP

The sports colossus sources around half of its footwear from the communist country.

Although some factories were able to set up a system where staff could eat, work and sleep on site to get around lockdown restrictions, Vitas said that the cost was prohibitive for many.

Japan's Fast retailing, which owns the popular Uniqlo brand, also blamed the situation in Vietnam for hold-ups on sweaters, sweatpants, hoodies and dresses, while Adidas said supply chain issues -- including in the country -- could cost it as much as 500 million euros ($585 million) in sales by the end of the year.

Even with the prospect of lockdowns easing, many are fretting over the long-term impact on Vietnamese manufacturing, with Nike and Adidas admitting they were looking to temporarily produce elsewhere.

In a letter to Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, leading business associations representing the United States, the European Union, South Korea and Southeast Asian nations sounded the alarm over production shifting away from Vietnam, warning 20 percent of its manufacturing members had already left.

Lockdowns are gradually loosening across Vietnam as infections steadily decline 

MANAN VATSYAYANA AFP/File

"Once production shifts, it is difficult to return," they wrote.

Nguyen Thi Anh Tuyet, deputy general director of Maxport Vietnam, whose 6,000 workers churn out activewear for the likes of Lululemon, Asics and Nike, told AFP the firm had "been very worried" about clients withdrawing orders -- even though it was one of the lucky few to have navigated recent brutal months largely unscathed.

Without foreign customers "our workers would become jobless", she said.

- Coffee, cars -

The pandemic has not only hit the country's textile industry but is also threatening global coffee supplies, with Vietnam the world's largest producer of robusta beans -- the variety used in instant coffee. Prices for the commodity are now sitting at a four-year high.

Car companies have not escaped either -- Toyota slashed production for September and October owing partly to virus issues, telling AFP "the impact has been big in Vietnam", as well as Malaysia.

The pandemic has not only hit Vietnam's textile industry but is also threatening car companies 

Manan VATSYAYANA AFP/File

Shortages have been made worse by a rise in demand in the West after a virus-induced slump.

Back at her textile mill near Hanoi, Anselmi believes companies will stick with Vietnam if it can return to some kind of normality in October.

"If we can allow the factories to work then I think the trust (in Vietnam) is still there."

© 2021 AFP

In Covid's shadow, HIV on march in Eastern Europe

Issued on: 29/09/2021 - 

Three times a week, the Romanian anti-AIDS Association (ARAS) goes to the tougher parts of the city to hand out syringes and bandages to injecting drug users 

Daniel MIHAILESCU AFP

Bucharest (AFP)

In a Bucharest back street, drug addicts rush towards an ambulance handing out free syringes. While the eyes of the world focus on the Covid-19 pandemic, the fight against HIV has slowed down in Eastern Europe.

Three times a week, Alina Schiau and colleagues from the Romanian anti-AIDS Association (ARAS) go out to the rougher parts of the city to hand out syringes and bandages to injecting drug users, and condoms to sex workers.

But their funds are running low and stocks dwindling. Come November, their ambulance might have to stay in the garage.

"What's cheaper? To buy a syringe and thus focus on prevention? Or to treat a patient for years?" says social worker Ada Luca, indignant at government inaction.

Bulgaria and Romania are both former Eastern bloc countries, and in 2019, 76 percent of AIDS cases diagnosed in Europe were in the East, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

"It is obvious that the number of contaminations has increased since the start of the pandemic", Schiau told AFP.

As coronavirus took hold, hospitals closed to non-Covid patients, says Davron Mukhamadiev, Regional Health and Care Coordinator for Red Cross Europe (IFRC).

Volunteers sort HIV medication pills but funds are running low and stocks dwindling Daniel MIHAILESCU AFP

Quarantine requirements, travel restrictions and reduced access to rapid testing and diagnostic services all undermined efforts to roll back HIV/AIDS, he said.

- 'We are abandoned' -

UNAIDS data shows 140,000 new infections in Eastern Europe and Central Asia in 2020, compared with 170,000 in 2019, which experts attribute to a dramatic slowdown in screening, not a drop in cases.

In 2020, for example, Romania managed to screen only 234,420 people for HIV/AIDS -- down nearly a third from 334,410 the previous year.

It is a similar story in neighbouring Bulgaria.

Regional health centres were "overwhelmed and hardly ever did any HIV testing during Covid," said Alexander Milanov, programme director at the country's National Patients' Organisation.

The pandemic has disrupted supply chains and the transport of medicines, exacerbating historic shortages in countries such as Romania despite huge scientific strides that have dramatically improved outcomes for HIV patients in rich nations.

Alexandru Tantu, a 28-year-old, HIV positive IT specialist, has seen first-hand how other European countries treat patients better, and how in Romania, it is a daily struggle to get the required drugs.

'We came to realise we are abandoned,' says Alexandru Tantu, an HIV positive IT specialist 

Daniel MIHAILESCU AFP

"We came to realise that we are abandoned," he told AFP. "Hence all the anger and the fear that tomorrow we might not have our treatment."

Still, with his stable job, he regards himself as relatively "privileged". In his advocacy work, he says, he receives calls from patients who are considering suicide.

- 'Fear in the stomach' -

The HIV/AIDS crisis in Romania dates back to the communist years.

Around 11,000 children born in the 1980s under the communist regime of Nicolae Ceausescu were infected as a result of contaminated or unsterilised syringes or transfusions with untested blood.

Today, several doctors told AFP that hospitals have yet to receive funds from the health ministry following a budgetary correction -- and in Romania, patients can only get the medication they need from hospitals, not pharmacies.

Romania's health ministry did not respond to an AFP request for a comment.

A drug user shows an infected injection site on his body to obtain free syringes on the streets Daniel MIHAILESCU AFP

Volunteers do everything they can to fill the gaps in care.

Alina Dumitriu and her "Sens Pozitiv" campaign group have been helping patients for 16 years, relying on donations.

Between phone calls and texts from desperate patients, Dumitriu sorts out HIV pills, worth thousands of euros, from a red plastic bag.

"There are months when I help up to 30 patients, while also sending some tablets to hospitals," she explains.

"These patients still live with fear in their stomachs, not knowing if the next day they will still have medication," she says.

© 2021 AFP

China infrastructure drive traps poor nations with $385 bn 'hidden debt': study

Issued on: 29/09/2021

The Morodok Techo National Stadium in Phnom Penh was funded by grant aid under China's Belt and Road Initiative, which critics say has saddled poor nations with heavy debts 

TANG CHHIN Sothy POOL/AFP/File


Beijing (AFP)

China's ambitious foreign infrastructure push has saddled poor nations with "hidden debt" worth $385 billion, and more than a third of the projects have been hit by alleged corruption scandals and protests, a study said Wednesday.

Research from international development research lab AidData said that opaque deals with state banks and companies under President Xi Jinping's flagship investment drive -- the Belt and Road Initiative -- has left dozens of lower income governments strapped with debt that isn't on their balance sheets.

China has invested more than $843 billion to build roads, bridges, ports and hospitals in some 163 nations since the programme was announced in 2013, including many countries across Africa and Central Asia.

Nearly 70 percent of this money has been lent to state banks or joint ventures between Chinese businesses and local partners in countries that were already deeply indebted to Beijing, AidData executive director Brad Parks told AFP.

"Many poor governments could not take on any more loans," Parks said. "So (China) got creative."

He said loans were given to a "constellation of actors other than central governments" but often backed by a government guarantee to pay up if the other party couldn't.

"The contracts are murky, and governments themselves don't know the exact monetary values they owe to China," he said.

These under-reported debts are worth about $385 billion, the study found.

AidData, which is based at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, listed 45 lower and middle income countries which now have levels of debt exposure to China higher than 10 percent of their national gross domestic product.

Resentment has been fuelled about high levels of Chinese money flowing into places such as Balochistan in southwest Pakistan, where locals say they get little benefit and militants have launched a string of attacks aimed at undermining Chinese investment.

"What we're seeing right now with the Belt and Road Initiative is buyers' remorse," Parks said.

"Many foreign leaders who were initially eager to jump on the BRI bandwagon are now suspending or cancelling Chinese infrastructure projects because of debt sustainability concerns."

Beijing's lending spree has slowed over the past two years due to pushback from borrowers, the study said.

The Group of Seven wealthy nations also announced a rival scheme to counter Beijing's dominance in global lending this year.

Beijing's loans demanded higher interest rates with shorter repayment periods, AidData found.

Parks said their research concluded the BRI was "not a grand scheme to build alliances", as is sometimes portrayed by Beijing, but rather China "hunting for the most profitable project."

© 2021 AFP

Bukharin on State Capitalism and Imperialism | Leftcom

https://www.leftcom.org/.../bukharin-on-state-capitalism-and-imperialism

2020-08-21 · Bukharin’s views on the nature of state capitalism were the product of serious work. His 1915 book Imperialism and World Economy (4) laid the …

• Estimated Reading Time: 14 mins

 

Consequences of significant decrease in cardiac procedures during the pandemic: Canadian study

In the Ontario healthcare system fewer patients were referred for heart disease procedures, and wait list mortality increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers report in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology

Peer-Reviewed Publication

ELSEVIER

Philadelphia, September 29, 2021 – An analysis of healthcare data in Ontario, Canada found a significant decline in referrals and procedures performed for common cardiac interventions after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Patients awaiting coronary bypass surgery or stenting were at higher risk of dying while waiting for their procedure compared to before the pandemic, although wait times were not longer. The study underscores the importance of timely recognition of symptoms and treatment in patients at high risk for cardiovascular disease, researchers observed in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology, published by Elsevier. 

“In the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, we kept hearing stories from patients and other doctors that there were delays in care for patients with heart disease,” explained lead investigator Harindra C. Wijeysundera, MD, PhD, Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto; ICES; and Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Schulich Heart Program, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. “We decided to look into these claims using the Ontario database that keeps track of wait lists and wait times for individuals with heart disease who require a procedure or surgery.”

Wait lists for procedures are not unusual in publicly funded healthcare systems. Canadian provinces routinely monitor and publish waiting times for cardiac care. The researchers were able to link multiple population-based administrative data sources and clinical registries housed at ICES, Canada’s largest health services research institute. The study looked at patients over the age of 18 who were referred for four commonly performed cardiac procedures: percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI); isolated coronary bypass grafting (CABG); valve surgery (aortic, mitral, or tricuspid); or transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) from January 1, 2014 to September 30, 2020. For the purposes of the study, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic was defined as March 15, 2020, when Ontario health authorities issued a directive that cancelled elective surgical procedures. Outcomes were defined as death while awaiting procedure and hospitalization while waiting for procedure.

A total of 584,341 patients were identified, of whom 37,718 were referred during the pandemic. As expected, a decline in referrals was observed at the outset of the pandemic, although those numbers steadily increased throughout the pandemic period. Similarly, researchers observed an initial decline in the number of procedures performed. Individuals waiting for coronary bypass surgery or stenting were at higher risk of dying while waiting for their procedure compared to before the pandemic. Surprisingly, mortality rates increased even though wait times did not during the pandemic, suggesting patients may have delayed in presenting to their doctors with symptoms.

“We found that the increase in wait list mortality was consistent across patients with stable coronary artery disease, acute coronary syndrome, or emergency referral,” said Dr. Wijeysundera. “Coupled with reduced referrals, this raises concerns of a care deficit due to delays in diagnosis and wait list referral.”

The researchers suggest a number of potential explanations for the decline in referrals during the pandemic, from patient factors such as fear of contracting COVID-19 in the hospital or concerns about missing work, to system factors including delays in testing and hospital bed and staffing pressures.

In an accompanying editorial, Michelle M. Graham, MD, and Christopher S. Simpson, MD, Division of Cardiology and Department of Medicine, University of Alberta and Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute (MMG), and the Division of Cardiology and Department of Medicine, Queen’s University (CS), Edmonton, and Kingston, Canada, stressed that moving outpatients on a wait list system should not be dependent on patient self-reporting a change in symptoms. In contrast, patients in hospital are continuously monitored and evaluated, allowing deterioration to be detected in a timelier way.

“When patients are at home,” they said, “nobody is watching. ‘The Missing Patient’ must be recognized now by policy makers, decision makers, and health system funders.”

This research suggests that any reduction in cardiac procedural capacity to accommodate critically ill COVID-19 patients must be balanced against the real risk for wait list mortality observed in this study. “We believe this is highly relevant to the recovery phase of the pandemic,” commented Dr. Wijeysundera. “Efforts must target not only increasing capacity to treat patients on the wait lists, but also efforts must be made to identify upstream barriers that have prevented patients from getting on the wait list.”

 

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JOURNAL

Canadian Journal of Cardiology

DOI

10.1016/j.cjca.2021.05.008 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Cardiac Procedure Wait List Mortality in Ontario, Canada

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

29-Sep-2021

Zeroing in on the origins of Earth’s “single most important evolutionary innovation”

A new study shows oxygenic photosynthesis likely evolved between 3.4 and 2.9 billion years ago.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Some time in Earth’s early history, the planet took a turn toward habitability when a group of enterprising microbes known as cyanobacteria evolved oxygenic photosynthesis — the ability to turn light and water into energy, releasing oxygen in the process.

This evolutionary moment made it possible for oxygen to eventually accumulate in the atmosphere and oceans, setting off a domino effect of diversification and shaping the uniquely habitable planet we know today.  

Now, MIT scientists have a precise estimate for when cyanobacteria, and oxygenic photosynthesis, first originated. Their results appear in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

They developed a new gene-analyzing technique that shows that all the species of cyanobacteria living today can be traced back to a common ancestor that evolved around 2.9 billion years ago. They also found that the ancestors of cyanobacteria branched off from other bacteria around 3.4 billion years ago, with oxygenic photosynthesis likely evolving during the intervening half-billion years, during the Archean Eon.

Interestingly, this estimate places the appearance of oxygenic photosynthesis at least 400 million years before the Great Oxidation Event, a period in which the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans first experienced a rise in oxygen. This suggests that cyanobacteria may have evolved the ability to produce oxygen early on, but that it took a while for this oxygen to really take hold in the environment.

“In evolution, things always start small,” says lead author Greg Fournier, associate professor of geobiology in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. “Even though there’s evidence for early oxygenic photosynthesis — which is the single most important and really amazing evolutionary innovation on Earth — it still took hundreds of millions of years for it to take off.”

Fournier’s MIT co-authors include Kelsey Moore, Luiz Thiberio Rangel, Jack Payette, Lily Momper, and Tanja Bosak.

Slow fuse, or wildfire?

Estimates for the origin of oxygenic photosynthesis vary widely, along with the methods to trace its evolution.

For instance, scientists can use geochemical tools to look for traces of oxidized elements in ancient rocks. These methods have found hints that oxygen was present as early as 3.5 billion years ago — a sign that oxygenic photosynthesis may have been the source, although other sources are also possible.

Researchers have also used molecular clock dating, which uses the genetic sequences of microbes today to trace back changes in genes through evolutionary history. Based on these sequences, researchers then use models to estimate the rate at which genetic changes occur, to trace when groups of organisms first evolved. But molecular clock dating is limited by the quality of ancient fossils, and the chosen rate model, which can produce different age estimates, depending on the rate that is assumed.

Fournier says different age estimates can imply conflicting evolutionary narratives. For instance, some analyses suggest oxygenic photosynthesis evolved very early on and progressed “like a slow fuse,” while others indicate it appeared much later and then “took off like wildfire” to trigger the Great Oxidation Event and the accumulation of oxygen in the biosphere.

“In order for us to understand the history of habitability on Earth, it’s important for us to distinguish between these hypotheses,” he says.

Horizontal genes

To precisely date the origin of cyanobacteria and oxygenic photosynthesis, Fournier and his colleagues paired molecular clock dating with horizontal gene transfer — an independent method that doesn’t rely entirely on fossils or rate assumptions.

Normally, an organism inherits a gene “vertically,” when it is passed down from the organism’s parent. In rare instances, a gene can also jump from one species to another, distantly related species. For instance, one cell may eat another, and in the process incorporate some new genes into its genome.

When such a horizontal gene transfer history is found, it’s clear that the group of organisms that acquired the gene is evolutionarily younger than the group from which the gene originated. Fournier reasoned that such instances could be used to determine the relative ages between certain bacterial groups. The ages for these groups could then be compared with the ages that various molecular clock models predict. The model that comes closest would likely be the most accurate, and could then be used to precisely estimate the age of other bacterial species — specifically, cyanobacteria.

Following this reasoning, the team looked for instances of horizontal gene transfer across the genomes of thousands of bacterial species, including cyanobacteria. They also used new cultures of modern cyanobacteria taken by Bosak and Moore, to more precisely use fossil cyanobacteria as calibrations. In the end, they identified 34 clear instances of horizontal gene transfer. They then found that one out of six molecular clock models consistently matched the relative ages identified in the team’s horizontal gene transfer analysis.

Fournier ran this model to estimate the age of the “crown” group of cyanobacteria, which encompasses all the species living today and known to exhibit oxygenic photosynthesis. They found that, during the Archean eon, the crown group originated around 2.9 billion years ago, while cyanobacteria as a whole branched off from other bacteria around 3.4 billion years ago. This strongly suggests that oxygenic photosynthesis was already happening 500 million years before the Great Oxidation Event (GOE), and that cyanobacteria were producing oxygen for quite a long time before it accumulated in the atmosphere.

The analysis also revealed that, shortly before the GOE, around 2.4 billion years ago, cyanobacteria experienced a burst of diversification. This implies that a rapid expansion of cyanobacteria may have tipped the Earth into the GOE and launched oxygen into the atmosphere.

Fournier plans to apply horizontal gene transfer beyond cyanobacteria to pin down the origins of other elusive species.

“This work shows that molecular clocks incorporating horizontal gene transfers (HGTs) promise to reliably provide the ages of groups across the entire tree of life, even for ancient microbes that have left no fossil record … something that was previously impossible,” Fournier says. 

 

This research was supported, in part, by the Simons Foundation and the National Science Foundation.

 

###

 

Written by Jennifer Chu, MIT News Office

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ARTICLE TITLE

“The Archean origin of oxygenic photosynthesis and extant cyanobacterial lineages”

Cruise ships must be effectively regulated to minimise serious environment and health impact

The cruise ship industry should be subject to global monitoring and effective legislation because of its continuous increasing impact on both the environment and human health and wellbeing, according to new research.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF EXETER

The cruise ship industry should be subject to global monitoring and effective legislation because of its continuous increasing impact on both the environment and human health and wellbeing, according to new research.

An international research team led the most comprehensive research review ever conducted on what was one of the fastest growing industries in tourism before the pandemic.

The review, published in Marine Pollution Bulletin, finds that cruising is a major source of environmental pollution and degradation, with air, water, soil, fragile habitats and areas and wildlife affected.

The research also finds that the cruise ship industry is a potential source of physical and mental human health risks, to passengers, staff and land-based residents who live near ports or work in shipyards. Risks to specific groups include the spread of infectious diseases, including COVID-19 outbreaks widely reported on some cruise ships. The review also found evidence of the impacts of noise and air pollution on health, and difficult working environments for boat and shipyard staff potentially resulting in injury and mental health issues.

The review combines evidence from more than 200 research papers on the health of people and the environment in different oceans and seas around the world. The research was conducted by a collaboration spanning Spain, Croatia and the UK.

First author Dr Josep Lloret, of the University of Girona, said: “Our paper highlights that cruising is a prime example of how the fates of our health and our environments are intertwined. Up until now, most studies have looked at aspects of this in isolation. Our review is the most comprehensive to date to combine these research fields and take a holistic view of how cruising damage our environments and our health. We now need global legislation to minimise damage on both our oceans and our health.”

Professor Lora Fleming, of the University of Exeter, an author of the review, said: “Cruise tourism is a was rapidly expanding pre COVID-19,  and our research shows it causes major impacts on the environment and on human health and wellbeing. We need much better monitoring to generate more robust data for the true picture of these impacts. Without new and strictly enforced national and international standardised rules, the cruise industry is likely to continue causing these serious health and environmental hazards.”

The review combined research papers on a range of factors which have environmental or health impacts, or both. In one example, they synthesised six papers on carbon dioxide emissions, which have significant impacts on both human and environmental health, through contributing to global warming. Available research suggest that a large cruise ship can have a carbon footprint greater than 12,000 cars. Passengers on an Antarctic cruise can produce as much CO2 emissions while on an average seven day voyage as the average European in an entire year. Within the Mediterranean, cruise and ferry ship CO2 emissions are estimated to be up to 10 per cent of all ship emissions.

A 2007 study found that emissions factors for cruise ships journeying to New Zealand were at least three times higher than emissions factors relating to international aviation. Energy use for stating overnight on a cruise vessels was 12 times larger than the value for a land-based hotel.

The paper also includes research on solid waste as example of an activity from cruise ships which impacts both health and environment. Reducing plastics and marine littler are major global challenges, and a total amount of rubbish produced by a cruise ship carrying 2,700 passengers can exceed a ton per day. While cruise vessels make up only a small percentage of the global shipping industry, it is estimated that around 24 per cent of all waste produced by shipping comes from this sector. Figures calculated for cruise ship visits to Southampton during August 2005 indicated that 75 per cent of garbage being generated by passengers on board was incinerated and disposed of at sea, with a number of reports of illegal waste disposal reported in the Southern Ocean.

Co-author Dr Hrvoje Carić, of the Institute for Tourism in Croatia, said: “When environmental standards between cruisers and land-based polluters are compared, it becomes clear that there is a lot of room for improvement. We’ve long known that cruise ships cause damage to the environment, however it’s hugely important to incorporate the impact on human health into that picture. We hope that research like this will prompt action to help cruise industry become more environmentally sustainable.”

The article is " Environmental and Human Health Impacts of Cruise Tourism: a Review"," by Josep Lloret, Arnau Carreño Hrvoje Carić, Joan San, Lora E. Fleming,  (10.1016/j.marpolbul.2021.112979). It appears in Marine Pollution Bulletin, Volume 173, (September 2021), published by Elsevier. 

 

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JOURNAL

Marine Pollution Bulletin

DOI

10.1016/j.marpolbul.2021.112979 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Literature review

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Environmental and Human Health Impacts of Cruise Tourism: a Review

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

28-Sep-2021

Fast-forward breeding and rapid delivery systems for food security

Peer-Reviewed Publication

INTERNATIONAL CROPS RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR THE SEMI-ARID TROPICS (ICRISAT)

The University of Western Australia’s Institute of Agriculture has collaborated with international researchers to develop a roadmap to fast-forward breeding for accelerated crop improvement and rapid delivery systems, which will lead to a food-secure world.

Two papers, recently published in Trends in Genetics and Nature Biotechnology, were the result of a Perth-based workshop organised by The UWA Institute of Agriculture and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), and attended by research institutions from Australia, India, Austria, China, Mexico and the United Kingdom.

The current world population of 7.8 billion is predicted to reach 10 billion by 2057. Future access to affordable and healthy food will be challenging, with malnutrition already affecting one in three people worldwide. The papers recognized that global crop production systems need to expand their outputs sustainably to feed this rapidly growing human population.

The fast-forward breeding framework provided a strategy for integrating advanced technology in crop genome sequencing, phenotyping and systems biology, together with efficient trait mapping procedures and genomic prediction (including machine learning and artificial intelligence).

This would lead to establishing rapid delivery systems into global farming practices, which is required to achieve sustainable food security in the developing world.

Hackett Professor Kadambot Siddique, the Director of UWA Institute of Agriculture, worked with ICRISAT’s Accelerated Crop Improvement Research Program Director and Adjunct Professor from UWA and Murdoch University, Rajeev Varshney, to develop the strategy and opinion papers.

“Realizing desired productivity gains in the field is imperative for securing an adequate future food supply for 10 billion people,” Professor Siddique said.

“We need to establish and deploy rapid delivery systems to ensure farmers can access high quality seeds and appropriate agronomy packages.”

Professor Varshney said increasing adoption of machine learning algorithms would provide valuable data about the genetic basis and molecular mechanisms of crops.

“This improved understanding is crucial to develop varieties faster,” he said.

The fast-forward breeding framework demonstrated that emerging breeding approaches, such as optimal contribution selection (alone or in combination with genomic selection), would enhance the genetic base of breeding programs while accelerating genetic gains.

“Integrating speed breeding with new-age genomic breeding technologies could relieve the long-standing bottleneck of lengthy crop breeding cycles and contribute sustainable food security,” Professor Varshney said.

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Reducing salt in bread without sacrificing taste

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL, CONSUMER AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

 

IMAGE: IN A NEW STUDY, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS FOOD SCIENCE PROFESSOR SOO-YEUN LEE (LEFT), AND GRADUATE STUDENT AUBREY DUNTEMAN EXPLORE WAYS TO REDUCE SODIUM IN BREAD WITHOUT SACRIFICING TASTE AND FUNCTIONALITY. view more 

CREDIT: COLLEGE OF ACES, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

URBANA, Ill. – Most people in the U.S. consume too much salt; adult Americans typically eat twice the daily amount recommended by dietary guidelines. Bread may not seem like an obvious culprit; however, due to high consumption and relatively high salt content, baked goods are a major source of sodium in the diet. A new study from the University of Illinois explores ways to reduce sodium in bread without sacrificing taste and leavening ability.

“Bread is one of the staple foods in a lot of people's diets, and people generally don't stick to just one serving of bread,” says Aubrey Dunteman, graduate student in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at U of I, and lead author on the paper.

“About 70% of sodium in the U.S. food supply comes from packaged and processed foods. And the top source is actually baked goods, so reducing salt in that particular category would help to reduce sodium consumption tremendously,” adds study co-author Soo-Yeun Lee, professor of food science at U of I. 

We can’t completely eliminate salt from our diet, but we can reduce it to a healthier level.

“Salt is an essential nutrient, and this is why we crave it. However, we consume more than we should, just like sugar and fat. Salt is related with hypertension and other cardiovascular diseases, but it’s the amount that is the problem, not the salt itself,” Lee notes. 

Salt is also an essential ingredient in bread making; it contributes to the structure and flavor of the bread, and is necessary for the yeast to work properly.

Dunteman and Lee conducted an extensive review of academic literature on sodium reduction in bread. They identified four main categories: Salt reduction without any further mitigation, physical modification, sodium replacements, and flavor enhancers. They discuss each of these methods in their paper, published in the International Journal of Food Science and Technology.

“The most basic method is just reducing the amount of salt in the product,” Dunteman says. “That can be good to a point, depending on the original level of salt and equivalent in the recipe. There's always going to be a minimum amount of salt you need just to have the bread function and the yeast do its job. So it’s a limited method, but it can help to reduce high levels of sodium intake.”

Another method is physical modification, which involves uneven distribution of salt in the product.

“Sensory adaptation occurs when you have constant stimulus. If the salt is evenly distributed in a slice of bread, as you take more bites, it's going to taste less salty, because you're already adapted to the first few bites. But if you have different distribution of salt, alternating between densely and lightly salted layers, people will perceive it as more salty. So you can obtain the same taste effect with less salt,” Lee explains.  

A third method involves replacement of sodium with other substances, such as magnesium chloride, calcium chloride, or potassium chloride. “This is one of the most commonly used methods in industry, but it can only be used up to a certain point, before you get a bit of a metallic taste from these compounds,” Dunteman points out.   

The fourth method involves flavor modification with taste enhancers such as herbs and spices, or even monosodium glutamate (MSG). The researchers note multi-grain bread also allows for more salt reduction than white bread, because it has more flavor on its own.

Dunteman and Lee conclude the best approach to sodium reduction in bread will be a combination of methods.

“One of the four categories, salt reduction, is technically involved in all of them,” Dunteman notes. “Another category, salt replacement, is already heavily studied. We recommend more research into physical modification methods, as well as flavor enhancement types, and how to combine each of these methods with salt reduction.”

Finally, the researchers have some advice for home bakers looking to reduce sodium in their creations.

“If you're interested in using less salt in your home-baked bread, you could try to reduce the amount to 50%, if you're using standard recipes that are widely available,” Lee says. “You’d be surprised that the dough would still rise, though the bread would taste a little different. You can also use flavor enhancers to provide the salty, savory, satiating sensation you lose when you reduce the salt. But that wouldn’t help with the rise, so you cannot remove salt 100%.”

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The research was supported by the Institute for the Advancement of Food and Nutrition Sciences (IAFNS) through an ILSI North America Sodium Committee grant. IAFNS is a non-profit science organization that pools funding from industry collaborators and advances science through the in-kind and financial contributions from public and private sector participants. IAFNS had no role in the design, analysis, interpretation, or presentation of the data and results.

The Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition is in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois.

The paper, “Sodium reduction technologies applied to bread products and their impact on sensory properties: a review” is published in International Journal of Food Science and Technology. [https://doi.org/10.1111/ijfs.15231]. Authors are Aubrey Dunteman, Ying Yang, Elle McKenzie, Youngsoo Lee, and Soo-Yeun Lee.

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JOURNAL

International Journal of Food Science & Technology

DOI

10.1111/ijfs.15231 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Literature review

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Sodium reduction technologies applied to bread products and their impact on sensory properties: a review

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

30-Jun-2021

 

Galactic panspermia: How far could life spread naturally in a galaxy like the Milky Way?

by Evan Gough, Universe Today

Here it is, the simulated galaxy called g15784. Two spheroidal galaxies are seen in the

 image, one above the galactic plane and one below. Credit: Gobat et al 2021.

Can life spread throughout a galaxy like the Milky Way without technological intervention? That question is largely unanswered. A new study is taking a swing at that question by using a simulated galaxy that's similar to the Milky Way. Then they investigated that model to see how organic compounds might move between its star systems.

The central question in science is probably "How did life begin?" There's no larger question, and there's no answer, so far. A secondary question is more approachable: "Can life spread from star to star?" That's the theory of panspermia, in a nutshell.

Earth's history poses an important question when it comes to panspermia. Scientists think there wasn't enough time between when the Earth cooled enough to become habitable and the appearance of life. Not all scientists think that, of course. There's a range of thoughts on the matter. But the question remains: Was there enough time for DNA-based life to get going independently on Earth, or did panspermia play a role?

While much of the talk around panspermia concerns simple lifeforms somehow moving between stars, more serious talk concerns the movement of organic compounds necessary for life. Scientists have found some of those compounds on comets and elsewhere out in space. We now know they're not necessarily rare. So can those compounds move around from solar system to solar system?

The new study is titled "Panspermia in a Milky Way-like Galaxy." The lead author is Raphael Gobat, from Instituto de Física, Valparaíso, Chile. The paper is available on the pre-print site arxiv.org.

So is panspermia a thing? Inside a solar system like ours, it seems possible. Meteorites from Mars have landed on Earth, which is pretty solid evidence. If rocks can make the trip, why not chemicals in or on those rocks? Could spores make the interstellar trip between star systems?

The team of researchers set out to answer that question. They worked with a simulated galaxy from MUGS, the McMaster Unbiased Galaxy Simulations. MUGS is a set of 16 simulated galaxies created by researchers in the early 2000s. In 2016, Gobat et al added a modified galactic habitability model, called GH16.

Credit: Universe Today

Their chosen galaxy is g15784. It's a little more massive than the Milky Way and has a history of quiescent mergers. It hasn't merged with anything very massive in a long time, and it's orbited by several spherical galaxies.

The team computed a level of habitability for each star particle in the galaxy. In this case, that means the number of main sequence low-mass stars with terrestrial planets within their habitable zones. They followed GH16 to do that. GH16 takes into account stellar metallicity, minimum and maximum mass, formation history, and the inner and outer ranges of its habitability zone (HZ.)

They also considered the effect of supernovae explosions on habitability. The galactic core is the most densely populated part of the galaxy. So even though there are more potentially habitable planets there, there are also more deadly supernovae. The higher density of stars in the core means each habitable planet has a higher chance of being rendered uninhabitable by a supernova. The higher metallicity in the core also reduces habitability, according to the authors. That makes the central region a tough place for panspermia.

The group also looked at the spiral arms of g15784. While star density is also high there, and so are supernova rates (SNR), they didn't affect habitability the same as in the bulge. They also looked at the galactic disk and halo.

The study shows that panspermia is at least possible, though there's no simple answer to the question. They found that while median habitability increases with galactocentric radius, while the probability for panspermia is inverse. That's because of the higher star density in the galactic bulge.

But panspermia probability is low in the central disk. That's because of higher supernova rates and a lower escape fraction due to higher metallicity. Natural habitability doesn't vary much throughout the galaxy, whereas panspermia probability varies widely, by several orders of magnitude.

The team found no correlation between the probability of panspermia and the habitability of the receiving particle. (In this study, particle refers to a high number of stars, due to the simulation's low resolution.)

A three-panel figure from the paper showing a projected column at z = 0 and in a

 1 kpc-wide slice passing through the center of g15784. The top shows the median value

 for natural habitability, the middle shows the fraction of possible cradles in the simulated galaxy, and the bottom shows the fraction of possible colonization targets. The magenta star shows where the sun would be if this were the Milky Way. Image Credit: Gobat et al 2021.

Lastly, they found that panspermia is less effective than in-situ prebiotic evolution, although they say that they can't quantify that precisely.

In their conclusion, the authors point out several caveats for the work. "… first, it includes several factors that we have regarded as unknown constants (e.g., the capture fraction of spores by target planets, the relation between habitability and the presence of life, the typical speed of interstellar objects, and the absolute value of escape fraction of the interstellar organic compounds from source planets)." As a result, they consider their results to be "… naturally more qualitative than quantitative."

They also caution that while a real galaxy like the Milky way is dynamic and changing, their simulated galaxy is just a snapshot. "As such, these results only apply if the typical timescale for panspermia is much shorter than the dynamical timescale of a galaxy."

There are other differences between the simulated galaxy and the Milky Way. "For example, our mock galaxy has a larger value of bulge-to-disk light ratio than the actual Milky Way, and the galactic bulge has been suggested to be well-suited for panspermia." Finally, they point out that MUGS is a low-resolution simulation, and a higher-resolution simulation could produce some differences in the results.

We've recently been visited by two interstellar objects: "Oumuamua and comet 2L/Borisov. So we know that objects are traveling between star systems. There've probably been many more interstellar visitors that we weren't technologically capable of seeing. And we know that organic building blocks are present out in space.

That doesn't prove that organic building blocks can travel between stars, but it seems possible. Thanks to this research, we might know a little more about how likely it is, and where in a galaxy it might take place.Cold planets exist throughout the galaxy, even in the galactic bulge

More information: Raphael Gobat et al, Panspermia in a Milky Way-like Galaxy. arXiv:2109.08926v1 [astro-ph.GA], arxiv.org/abs/2109.08926

Source Universe Today