'I will always honour her': Husband files lawsuit in Ontario animal activist's death



Every Monday, Mark Powell drives to the Burlington, Ont., pork plant where his wife died to give water to pigs on their way to slaughter.

It's what Regan Russelldid every week, until one day in June 2020 when a transport truck driver drove over her and killed her.

Police charged the driver with careless driving causing death – a non-criminal provincial offence – because investigators said he did not have criminal intent.

Two years later, with the case languishing in court and no trial date yet set, Powell says he has lost faith in the probe and is turning to civil court to try to get answers about his wife's death.

"I want to know what happened to my person," Powell said.

Last week, he filed a $5-million lawsuit over her death. The truck driver, Andrew Blake, the trucking company, Brussels Transport, and Sofina Foods, the company that owns Fearmans Pork processing plant, are among those named in the suit.

The unproven claim alleges negligence on their parts led to the death of Russell.

The claim alleges the driver failed to keep a proper lookout and made an unsafe and improper turn. It also alleges Brussels Transport failed to take steps to ensure the driver was competent and that Sofina failed to provide safety for pedestrians around Fearmans.

"Given that this matter is currently before the courts, we are not able to make a comment at this time other than to say that the allegations contained in the statement of claim against Sofina are unproven and Sofina will vigorously defend this matter," Sofina said in an email.

Neither the truck driver's lawyer, nor Brussels Transport, responded to requests for comment.

Russell, a 65-year-old activist, was demonstrating outside the slaughterhouse westof Toronto, on June 19, 2020, as she had done every week for years. She and some friends, as part of the activist groupToronto Pig Save, protested controversial provincial legislation that had just passed that hiked fines for trespassing on farms and food-processing facilities.

The bill also made it illegal to obstruct trucks carrying farm animals. The bill appeared, in part, to target Toronto Pig Save, whose advocates for years had filmed and given water to pigs inside transport trucks as they neared slaughter. They call it "bearing witness."

Since his wife's death, Powell has lived with anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

He wasn't there at the time, but Russell's friends have described how she died under a wheel of the truck. He's seen video of the aftermath.

"I see it every night when my head hits the pillow," he said.

His friends wonder how he copes.

"I've had some practice," he said, his voice trailing off.

In 2014, Powell lost his 29-year-old son, Zachary. He can still see the paramedics pounding on his boy's chest as he was wheeled on a gurney into an ambulance. Zachary's heart had given out.

Powell is using the strength of his family to move forward after the losses.

He credits his other son, Joshua, for holding him up when he was down, and helping him pick up the decades-long animal rights fight his wife undertook.

Last week on Father's Day, he and Joshua donated a bench at an animal sanctuary north of Toronto to honour Russell. It reminds Powell of a bench in Zachary's name in a Hamilton park.

He and Joshua have also launched the Regan Russell Foundation, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to keeping her voice alive by funding and supporting the battle against the bill she had been fighting.

The foundation is trying to intervene in a constitutional challenge to the laws by Animal Justice.

"It gives us a vehicle to fight bad legislation," he said.

"I have hope and strength, hope that something like that foundation puts a voice for animals on the floor of government and strength knowing that Regan's voice is being heard."

Every week, activists gather to protest outside Fearmans Pork. But now they stand on the median where the trucks stop at the lights – away from the spot where Russell died – to give water to the pigs.

"I will always honour her and I will stand for what she stood for until I die," Powell said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 25, 2022.

Liam Casey, The Canadian Press

Indigenous farewell for expert killed in Amazon

AFP - Yesterday

© BRENDA ALCANTARA

Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips went missing on June 5 in a remote part of the Amazon rife with illegal mining, fishing and logging, as well as drug trafficking

Bruno Pereira, the Brazilian Indigenous expert murdered in the Amazon with British journalist Dom Phillips, was given a moving sendoff Friday by members of one of the tribes he had spent his life and work defending.


© BRENDA ALCANTARA 

Pereira was married and had three children

Dressed in straw and feather loincloths and headgear, members of the Xukuru Indigenous group chanted funeral hymns and mourned at a solemn ceremony near Recife, where Pereira was born, in the northeastern Pernambuco state.


© BRENDA ALCANTARA

Pereira's body was to be cremated after the Indigenous ceremony

A photograph of 41-year-old Pereira was perched on his coffin, also draped with the flag of his favorite football team, Sport Recife.

"It is a great loss not only for us but for all of Brazil, for those who fight to defend Mother Nature, which is to defend life," chief Marcos Xukuru told AFP.

Pereira and veteran correspondent Phillips, 57, went missing on June 5 in a remote part of the rainforest rife with illegal mining, fishing and logging, as well as drug trafficking.

- 'Destroyers of the forest' -

Philips was the author of dozens of articles on the Amazon and a long-time contributor to The Guardian newspaper and other major news organizations.

He was traveling to the Javari Valley as part of research for a book with Pereira as his guide, when they were ambushed.

Police say the men were shot, Indigenous groups claim in retaliation for exposing illegal fishers in the region.

Pereira, an expert at Brazil's indigenous affairs agency FUNAI, had received multiple threats from criminals with their eye on isolated Indigenous resources.

The men's bodies were handed over to their families on Thursday.

"Today, the land where he was born welcomes him. His body finds the clay, the roots of plants, the water and the heat of the soil," the Observatory for Human Rights of Isolated Indigenous Peoples, with whom Pereira had worked, said in a statement.

Pereira was killed, it added "by the destroyers of the forest."

"This crime is the tip of the iceberg of the critical situation in Brazil today, caused by the way the state treats indigenous issues," Vania Fialho, a 56-year-old anthropologist who attended the wake, told AFP.

Pereira was married and had three children.

His body was to be cremated after Friday's ceremony, while Phillips' family will hold a wake and cremation on Sunday in Niteroi, near Rio de Janeiro.

Four people have been arrested for the crime to date.

str-lg/jb/mr/mlr/bgs

Witchcraft Documentary ‘Heart, Don’t Be Afraid’ Conjured Up – C&E Europe News
Alexander Gabelia - Yesterday 

© Courtesy of Avtandil Khorava

Georgian director Ana Kvichidze is in production with her first feature documentary, the Georgian/French coproduction “Heart, Don’t Be Afraid.” The film is supported by the Georgian National Film Center and France’s CNC, Film New Europe reports.

Vardo lives alone and unlike the witches from the fairytales, she is a kind character. She was a popular “magician” years ago, but now her livelihood is mainly pension money and food brought by neighbors. With the help of her spells, the film examines the lives of everyone in the village and witnesses their plight, from young women who have reproductive problems to families who are losing the last of their livelihood.

“I fell in love with witchcraft because of my grandmother, who was a spellcaster in our village. People came for spells and healing to her. I inherited spells and recipes from her,” Ana Kvichidze told FNE. “I want to relate the style of the film to magical realism. The magic of Vardo is not visible, but it can be felt through the visuals and colors. I would also like to illustrate the various rituals performed by her, which are both absurd and mystical.”

The location of the film covers the Lechkhumi region. Filming began in November 2021. “About half of the film has already been shot and the production process is planned to be completed in October/November 2022. We have distributor candidates, but we have not made the final decision in this regard and we are open to all offers and interest (distributor, sales agent or coproducer),” Kvichidze said.

The film is produced by Mariam Bitsadze and Ana Kvichidze through 17/07 Productions in Georgia and coproduced by Stéphane Jourdain through La Huit in France.

“Heart, Don’t Be Afraid” is the winner of the Georgian National Film Center’s 2020 Project

 Development Competition and the 2021 Documentary Film Funding Competition (20,000 Euros/60,000 GEL). It is also supported by the French CNC with 40,000 Euros.

The total budget is 100,000 Euros/300,000 GEL.

“This is a special project for me. The idea and storytelling are unique and I consider the involvement of the director as a main asset; she knows exactly what to shoot and how to achieve her goals as a documentary filmmaker. This is a wonderful story, which actually describes the hard social life of the village and its inhabitants. Our main goal is to bring this story to the audience, who will come up with their own conclusions,” Bitsadze told FNE.

Kvichidze studied feature film directing at the Shota Rustaveli theater and film department of the Georgia State University. She has worked on films and TV shows as a script supervisor, casting director and assistant director. Her first short fiction film “Downpour” was inspired by Georgian folk tales and mythology. She has also directed two short documentaries, “Magic Recipes of Deniza” and “Madona and Upside-down Moon,” which is inspired by charmers and legends from the mountains of Georgia.

Macedonian TV Series ‘Clear Water’ in Production

Director Jani Bojadzi is filming the drama thriller TV series “Clear Water” (Bistra voda) at several locations in Skopje, North Macedonia. The shoot started June 2 and runs to July 31. The 12 episode series is produced by Macedonian Cinnamon Media Factory in coproduction with Macedonian Alfa TV.

“Clear Water” unravels the secret intrigues of business, crime and high politics, presented through the prism of two families and a 45-year-old conflict.

The project was started 12 years ago as an idea of the late Ljupcho Todorovski Upa, Moni Damevski, Jani Bojadzi and Vladimir Karpuzovski, and it has been developed and prepared in the last few years. Dejan Milosevski is the executive producer.

The main characters are played by Dejan Lilic, Jelena Zugic, Vasil Zafircev, Aleksandar Mikic, Robert Veljanovski and Zoran Ljutkov, and the cast consists of more than 100 actors.

The series will be filmed on more than 50 locations in Skopje, but also throughout the country.

“Clear Water” will start airing in mid-September 2022 on Alfa TV.

Multi-national TV Series ‘Estonia’ Shoots in Belgium

The TV drama series “Estonia,” a coproduction between Finland, Estonia, Belgium and Sweden, is shooting in Belgium.

“Estonia” tells the story of the tragic events of Sept. 28, 1994, when the MS Estonia ferry sank in the Baltic Sea, taking 852 lives. The series is budgeted at 13 million Euros and is set to be broadcast as eight 45-minute episodes or four 90-minute episodes.

The showrunner is Miikko Oikonen from Finland, and Swedish Måns Månsson and Finnish Juuso Syrjä are directing.

The series is produced by Fisher King Oy from Finland in coproduction with Estonia’s Amrion, Belgium’s Panache Productions and Kärnfilm from Sweden. The producers are Tarja Ahava (Finland), Lina Ehrenpreis (Sweden) and Elina Litvinova (Estonia). Matti Halonen (Finland), Johannes Lassila (Finland), Martina Stöhr (Sweden), Petra Jönsson (Sweden), Riina Sildos (Estonia) and André Logie (Belgium) are executive producers.

MTV/CMore and the Scandinavian, Finnish and Belgian national film funds are supporting the project.

Estonia is prominently represented in the creative aspects of the series, with Andris Feldmanis and Livia Ulman involved as screenwriters, Jaanus Vahtra as costume designer, Kaire Hendrikson as make-up designer, Matis Mäesalu and Eva Maria Gramakovski as set designers, as well as several actors like Gert Raudsep, Priit Pius and Juhan Ulfsak in key roles.

The shoot started in Belgium on May 30, 2022. The production is planned to continue until Oct. 30, 2022 with locations in Belgium, Turkey, Estonia, Finland and Sweden. The Estonian parts will be filmed from Aug. 10 to Sept. 9.

Germany’s Beta Film is handling the sales.

This article is published in partnership with online news service Film New Europe, which covers film and TV industry news from across Central and Eastern Europe.

Trans Mountain Expansion a Money Loser for Taxpayers

Independent parliamentary budget officer warns soaring costs means Trudeau’s 2018 purchase of the pipeline has gone wrong.

David Climenhaga 

23 Jun 2022

Alberta Politics

‘Trans Mountain no longer continues to be a profitable undertaking,’ the parliamentary budget officer reported Wednesday.

 Photo via Trans Mountain.

The soaring cost of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion has pushed the uncompleted megaproject Ottawa bought to satisfy Alberta further into the red, says a report released Wednesday by the parliamentary budget officer.

We’re partnering with Hummingbird and Journalists for Human Rights to offer two paid fellowships. Applications are open.

This quickly earned the project the uncomplimentary sobriquet “boondoggle” from Environmental Defence’s national climate program manager Julia Levin.

The Trudeau government decided in 2018 to buy the 70-year-old pipeline that runs 1,150 kilometres from Alberta to Burnaby, B.C., from Kinder Morgan Canada Ltd. It also took on the cost of tripling the pipeline’s capacity, which the company had first proposed in 2013.

It’s the only pipeline carrying Alberta’s petroleum products to the Pacific Coast, and Ottawa was clearly responding at the time both to pressure from the NDP provincial government of then-premier Rachel Notley and threats by Kinder Morgan Canada Ltd. to pull the plug on the project in the face of environmental and political opposition in British Columbia.

The charming belief prevalent then and now in Alberta was that, never mind the law of supply and demand, the expanded line would miraculously increase the price fetched by oilsands bitumen by getting it to new markets in Asia via pipeline and ocean tanker, an idea that inflamed the debate in B.C.

At the time of the federal decision to take over the project, the cost of the purchase was said to be $4.5 billion.

The short analysis report published Wednesday by the Office of Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux said the estimated cost of the massive construction budget for the project has surged from $12.6 billion when the office last looked at the project in 2020 to $21.4 billion now.

When Ottawa made the decision in 2018 to buy, expand, run and eventually sell off the pipeline to the private sector, the expansion project’s cost was estimated to be about $7.5 billion.

As a result of the soaring costs, the parliamentary budget office report by analysts Jason Stanton and Kaitlyn Vanderwees said, “Trans Mountain no longer continues to be a profitable undertaking” and will result in a net loss for the federal government.

A chart in the report shows the current value of the pipeline system is now estimated at negative $600 million.

What’s more, the report said, if Ottawa were to pull the plug on the TMX project at the end of this month and suspend it indefinitely, the Canadian government would have to write off more than $14 billion in assets.

“The net impact would result in a significant financial loss for the Government and would lead to the Trans Mountain Corp. no longer being a going concern,” the report said. The company is a subsidiary of Crown-owned Canada Development Investment Corp. that has operated the pipeline since Kinder Morgan was paid off and got the hell outta Dodge.

Well, no surprise there, really. The business plan on which the expansion project and subsequent federal purchase was based always seemed more than a little iffy, especially since it depended in large part on the notion that expanding the supply of diluted Alberta oilsands bitumen to Asia would cause the price fetched by the stuff to increase.

That’s not actually how the law of supply and demand, normally thought to be pretty ironclad, is supposed to work. Indeed, one would have thought that, as earth scientist David Hughes has been predicting since 2016, increasing supply might just do the opposite.

More than a little ironically, world oil prices are now way up — for the moment, at least — not because the Government of Canada has been building pipelines, but because Canada and other western nations have been trying to force Russia to shut pipelines down in response to its invasion of Ukraine.

This is another indication that the law of supply and demand still operates just as explained in economics textbooks.

Long-term contractual agreements with shippers that mean most of the growing costs of the expansion can’t be passed on to oil companies also impact the viability of the project.


All this said, the report does not present information that non-expert readers would need to reach their own conclusion about what Ottawa should do next.

“PBO requested updated projected future cash flows for the Trans Mountain Pipeline system from the Canada Development Investment Corp., the Crown corporation holding the Trans Mountain assets,” the report explains.

The Crown corporation, it said, “provided all requested information to PBO, but the information was classified as commercially confidential. The data’s confidentiality did not inhibit PBO’s work to model the data, assess the value of the Trans Mountain assets, or publish the analytical results in this report.”

In other words, we’ll just have to trust the PBO — a situation that provides the grounds for a lot of mischief by supporters of pipelines, no matter what.

As a result, the report requires a certain amount of reading between the lines to try to figure out which course of action — pumping or dumping — makes more sense in the long run.

Notwithstanding the PBO’s stated mission of helping Parliament “by providing economic and financial analysis for the purposes of raising the quality of parliamentary debate and promoting greater budget transparency and accountability,” nowhere in Wednesday’s report does it say explicitly that a write-off would be a more prudent course of action than continuing to operate what may well turn out to be a white elephant.

Without the data not available to the public, it’s hard to argue with Levin’s conclusion that “the Trans Mountain pipeline has become a financially dangerous boondoggle.”

“The government has often justified the pipeline by promising that its eventual profits will fund clean energy projects; this is flimsy logic given the disastrous climate and environmental impacts of the project,” she said in a news release. “The PBO update shows this argument doesn’t hold water: there will be no profits, only financial losses for Canadians and more carbon emissions for the planet.”


Why the TMX Will Endlessly Spill Taxpayers’ Money

READ MORE

“As the costs of the project keep ballooning, the government should cut its losses and cancel construction of the expansion pipeline,” she concluded, “before even more of our dollars are wasted; public dollars that could be instead invested in developing sustainable energy systems.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should have noticed by now that the only thing likely to earn him more abuse from Albertans than not giving them what they want is giving them what they want. But there’s still not much chance of his government killing the project.

Both the federal and Alberta governments signalled their determination Wednesday to keep working on the expansion project.

“The Trans Mountain Expansion project is in the national interest and will make Canada and the Canadian economy more sovereign and more resilient,” Adrienne Vaupshas, federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s press secretary, told the Canadian Press.

“This project is necessary for Alberta and Canada’s energy sectors,” Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage advised CBC News.

 

David J. Climenhaga is an award-winning journalist, author, post-secondary teacher, poet and trade union communicator. He blogs at AlbertaPolitics.ca. Follow him on Twitter at @djclimenhaga.

Canada's business case for Trans Mountain assumes 100 years of operation. The PBO is not so sure

Canada's National Observer
Yesterday 

Secret reports the federal government is relying on to argue the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is commercially viable are based on the unrealistic assumption the pipeline will operate for 100 years, Canada’s financial watchdog told Canada’s National Observer.

For months, Finance Canada has refused to share any information about the financial reports produced by TD Securities and BMO Capital Markets, which Finance Canada says prove TMX is still commercially viable despite ballooning construction costs.

“We believe that's probably too long of a time horizon, to assume that the pipeline will be operating for at least another century ... let alone to take into consideration revenues that will be generated over such a long period of time,” Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux told Canada’s National Observer.

“Also, because of the various commitments to net-zero or to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, we didn't think that using a 100-year time horizon was appropriate.”

Giroux said his office did not view the TD and BMO reports directly, but did talk to Finance Canada officials about the findings and methodology to inform its independent analysis.

Finance Canada did not return requests for comment by deadline.

In its most recent report, the PBO used a much shorter 40-year time frame to analyze the profitability of the Trans Mountain pipeline and expansion project. Giroux’s report confirms what was already clear: TMX is no longer a profitable investment.

The main difference between the PBO’s report and the TD and BMO ones is the time frame, which explains why the government believes Trans Mountain is profitable, said Giroux. “We don't have the same view.”

For the first time, the PBO also modelled a scenario where the project is cancelled immediately and found the government would have to write off an estimated $14.4 billion worth of assets. A cancellation would bankrupt the Trans Mountain Corporation, the report says. The federal government has shown no signs it intends to cancel the project.

Considering how much has already been spent on construction, it's probably better at this point to complete the project so it can start generating revenue, said Giroux.

The PBO just looks at the net present value of the project, or the value of its potential investment opportunity — other economic costs or benefits were not included in the analysis.

From Ottawa’s vantage point, it doesn’t matter if TMX is a money loser because it will incentivize investment, create jobs and increase income tax and royalty revenues, said Rory Johnston, a market economist at investment firm Price Street. Because it supports those aims, it makes sense as government policy when it wouldn't necessarily as a commercial, private decision, said Johnston.

For example, when the pipeline is in operation, there's an expectation Canadian oil from western provinces, notably Alberta, will be able to sell at a higher price than it currently does, which would generate benefits for the Canadian economy, said Giroux.


The PBO’s new analysis was prompted by questions from MPs like NDP environment critic Laurel Collins, who requested an updated cost analysis of the pipeline and expansion project after costs soared in February. The price tag currently sits at $21.4 billion — up 174 per cent from an estimated $7.8 billion when the government first bought the pipeline from Kinder Morgan in 2018.

To keep the planet from reaching dangerous levels of warming, the world must rapidly move away from fossil fuels, which would render a lot of the industry’s infrastructure worthless. A study recently published in the journal Nature Climate Change found Canadians stand to lose $100 billion based on oilfields and production equipment alone — not including pipelines or refineries.

Canada’s Energy Regulator has yet to model a net-zero by 2050 scenario despite the fact that limiting global warming to 1.5 C requires the entire world to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 and achieve net-zero emissions in 2050. In December, Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson asked the regulator to include Canada’s net-zero by 2050 goal in its 2022 report.

The PBO’s calculations don’t account for the risk of TMX becoming a stranded asset during the global energy transition.

“That's a potential impact that would negatively weigh on the price of the pipeline and its long-term profitability,” said Giroux, adding it’s part of why his office doesn’t think TD and BMO’s century-long lifetime assumption is realistic.

There are many problems with using a 100-year time frame, said Omar Mawji, energy finance analyst for Canada for the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

“Either the people doing the analysis don't quite understand the dynamics of a pipeline and a supply source. Or, you know, they're doing it because … they're trying to look for a way to make it profitable,” Mawji told Canada’s National Observer.

He said a pipeline’s lifetime is typically 40 years, and the life of most oilsands projects is 40 to 50 years. If TD and BMO’s 100-year lifetime analysis is any indicator, there would have to be new oilsands projects approved in the near future and then again in 2050 or 2060, said Mawji.

The federal government says Canada’s current climate plan will reduce greenhouse gas emissions 40 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. If the government wants to hit that target, Mawji said it's “very hard to assume” it will approve more oilsands projects.

“On one hand, they're saying, ‘Our objective is to reduce CO2 emissions in the oil and gas sector by this much,’” he said. “But on the other hand, ‘We want to build a pipeline that, for it to be economic, would require additional oilsands production.’”

Ongoing investments in fossil fuel infrastructure are undermining the massive reduction in emissions needed to meet the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to well below 2 C (preferably 1.5 C), according to the most recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The panel also found emissions from existing fossil fuel infrastructure could single-handedly exhaust the world’s remaining carbon budget, meaning there is no place for new infrastructure in a climate-safe future.

Roughly halfway through its life, the project will also need “major reconstruction” to stay in use, and at that point, if there’s not enough oil passing through the pipeline, an operator could decide it's not worth reinvesting in, said Mawji.

Last month, the federal government greenlit a $10-billion guarantee on a loan for the Trans Mountain Corporation that was quietly financed by Canada’s six biggest banks, including BMO and TD. The loan guarantee assures investors that if the Crown corporation can’t repay the loan, the public will pick up the tab. This is a win-win for the banks because even if the project isn’t completed, they are guaranteed their money back, said Mawji. As underwriters of the debt, TD and BMO are “going to give the government a report that shows that it's worth it,” he said.

While a case can be made for the economic benefits of building TMX, Mawji said it's also important to consider what the benefits would have been if those billions had instead been spent to incentivize investment in renewable energy.

“It's a frustrating thing for the taxpayer … especially if you voted based on climate change,” said Mawji.

Natasha Bulowski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Canada's National Observer

CTHULHU STUDIES

The octopus’ brain and the human brain share the same “jumping genes”

A new study has identified an important molecular analogy that could explain the remarkable intelligence of these invertebrates

Peer-Reviewed Publication

SCUOLA INTERNAZIONALE SUPERIORE DI STUDI AVANZATI

 

IMAGE: DRAWING OF AN OCTOPUS view more 

CREDIT: GLORIA ROS

The octopus is an exceptional organism with an extremely complex brain and cognitive abilities that are unique among invertebrates. So much so that in some ways it has more in common with vertebrates than with invertebrates. The neural and cognitive complexity of these animals could originate from a molecular analogy with the human brain, as discovered by a research paper recently published in BMC Biology and coordinated by Remo Sanges from SISSA of Trieste and by Graziano Fiorito from Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn of Naples. The research shows that the same 'jumping genes' are active both in the human brain and in the brain of two species, Octopus vulgaris, the common octopus, and Octopus bimaculoides, the Californian octopus. A discovery that could help us understand the secret of the intelligence of these fascinating organisms.

Sequencing the human genome revealed as early as 2001 that over 45% of it is composed by sequences called transposons, so-called 'jumping genes' that, through molecular copy-and-paste or cut-and-paste mechanisms, can 'move' from one point to another of an individual’s genome, shuffling or duplicating. In most cases, these mobile elements remain silent: they have no visible effects and have lost their ability to move. Some are inactive because they have, over generations, accumulated mutations; others are intact, but blocked by cellular defense mechanisms. From an evolutionary point of view even these fragments and broken copies of transposons can still be useful, as 'raw matter' that evolution can sculpt.

Among these mobile elements, the most relevant are those belonging to the so-called LINE (Long Interspersed Nuclear Elements) family, found in a hundred copies in the human genome and still potentially active. It has been traditionally though that LINEs’ activity was just a vestige of the past, a remnant of the evolutionary processes that involved these mobile elements, but in recent years new evidence emerged showing that their activity is finely regulated in the brain. There are many scientists who believe that LINE transposons are associated with cognitive abilities such as learning and memory: they are particularly active in the hippocampus, the most important structure of our brain for the neural control of learning processes.

The octopus’ genome, like ours, is rich in 'jumping genes', most of which are inactive. Focusing on the transposons still capable of copy-and-paste, the researchers identified an element of the LINE family in parts of the brain crucial for the cognitive abilities of these animals. The discovery, the result of the collaboration between Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn and Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, was made possible thanks to next generation sequencing techniques, which were used to analyze the molecular composition of the genes active in the nervous system of the octopus.

“The discovery of an element of the LINE family, active in the brain of the two octopuses species, is very significant because it adds support to the idea that these elements have a specific function that goes beyond copy-and-paste,” explains Remo Sanges, director of the Computational Genomics laboratory at SISSA, who started working at this project when he was a researcher at Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn of Naples. The study, published in BMC Biology, was carried out by an international team with more than twenty researchers from all over the world.

“I literally jumped on the chair when, under the microscope, I saw a very strong signal of activity of this element in the vertical lobe, the structure of the brain which in the octopus is the seat of learning and cognitive abilities, just like thehippocampus in humans,” tells Giovanna Ponte from Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn.

According to Giuseppe Petrosino from Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn and Stefano Gustincich from Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia “This similarity between man and octopus that shows the activity of a LINE element in the seat of cognitive abilities could be explained as a fascinating example of convergent evolution, a phenomenon for which, in two genetically distant species, the same molecular process develops independently, in response to similar needs.”

“The brain of the octopus is functionally analogous in many of its characteristics to that of mammals,” says Graziano Fiorito, director of the Department of Biology and Evolution of Marine Organisms of the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn. “For this reason, also, the identified LINE element represents a very interesting candidate to study to improve our knowledge on the evolution of intelligence.”

---

JOURNAL

BMC Biology

DOI

10.1186/s12915-022-01303-5 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Identification of LINE retrotransposons and long non-coding RNAs expressed in the octopus brain

This Ancient Vampire of The Deep Ocean Really Sucked

MICHELLE STARR
23 JUNE 2022

Artist's impression of Vampyronassa rhodanica. (A. Lethiers, CR2P-SU)

A fearsome 'vampire' predator that lurked in Earth's oceans more than 160 million years ago probably did actually suck its prey, at least in a sense.

A new analysis of exceptionally well-preserved fossils of a small cephalopod named Vampyronassa rhodanica, related to modern vampire squids (neither actually vampires, nor squids), reveals the presence of muscular suckers that the beastie likely used for snaring and manipulating prey.

In other words, it was an active predator, hunting the pelagic depths for tasty morsels.

This is in direct contrast to the animal's present relatives, Vampyroteuthis infernalis, whose suckers seem largely non-functional, and which collect drifting flakes of organic material using sticky cells on a pair of specialized, thread-like appendages.

"The contrast in trophic niches between the two taxa is consistent with the hypothesis that these forms diversified in continental shelf environments prior to the appearance of adaptations in the Oligocene leading to their modern deep-sea mode of life," writes a team of researchers led by paleontologist Alison Rowe of Sorbonne University in France.

Mushy animals like cephalopods are pretty scarce in the fossil record. Soft tissues don't fossilize as readily or well as bones, which makes fossils, especially good fossils, very rare.

Rare doesn't mean nonexistent, however, and Rowe and her colleagues were able to study three V. rhodanica fossils from a lagerstätte (sedimentary deposit) dating back to over 160 million years ago in La Voulte-sur-Rhône in France. This is a type of very fine sedimentary fossil bed that is exceptionally good at preserving fossils, including soft tissue.

Even soft tissue preserved in this way isn't always easy to parse. To understand the anatomy of V. rhodanica, Rowe and her team took the fossils to the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in France to undergo non-invasive 3D imaging.

One of the exceptional fossils of V. rhodanica. (P. Loubry, CR2P)

"The fossils are on small slabs, which are very difficult to scan," Rowe explains.

"On top of that, soft tissues are preserved but we needed phase contrast imaging to visualize the faint density variation in the data. The coherence of ESRF beamline ID19 was therefore very important to perform propagation phase-contrast computed-tomography and track all the minute details, such as the suckers and small fleshy extensions, called cirri."

The scans revealed some interesting differences between V. rhodanica and V. infernalis, which is now the only living member of the Vampyromorph order.

Both are relatively small (the former just 10 centimeters or 4 inches in length), with oval bodies flanked by two small fins. Both also have small, fleshy projections called cirri emerging from their arms.

Yet there were no signs of the thread-like food snares on any of the V. rhodanica fossils – instead an extended pair of arms with a unique arrangement of suckers.

On the tips of these two specialized dorsal arms, it sports more robust, muscular cirri and suckers. V. infernalis has smaller cirri, and its suckers appear only on the ends of their arms farthest from their bodies. What's more, they appear to be passive; it doesn't use them for grasping prey.

"We believe that the morphology and placement of V. rhodanica suckers and cirri in the differentiated arm crown allowed V. rhodanica increased suction and sensory potential over the modern form, and helped them to manipulate and retain prey," Rowe says.

In other words, V. rhodanica has the equipment to be an active predator in the pelagic seas, with more sensitive sensory organs and the ability to grasp prey. V. infernalis is more peaceful and opportunistic.

Although related, the two species occupy different ecological niches... neither of which is actually anything to do with vampirism. Oh well.

By the Oligocene, about 30 million years ago, vampire squids were already in the depths, lurking about, waiting for organic debris to rain down into their hungry arms.

Sometime in the intervening millions of years, vampire squids made a significant lifestyle change. How and why this happened will need to be the subject of future research… if the fossils can be found.

The team's research has been published in Scientific Reports.

X-rays reveal the strange appendage this ancient vampire squid used to hunt

New technology makes it possible to glean a lot more information from rare fossils.


By Grant Currin

Jun 24, 2022

The modern vampire squid is a cryptic creature. It lives a slow life deep in the ocean — far from shore — where it makes a living by scavenging on whatever dead things happen to sink past it on their journey to the ocean floor. 

Was life always this way? That's a hard question to answer for animals like squid, octopuses, and cuttlefish because those creatures (a group of evolutionary cousins called "coleoids") are defined by what they don't have: a hard shell. That means they don't have body parts that lend themselves to becoming a fossil. Conditions have to be just right for a coleoid's soft body to make it into the fossil record.

That's why a new paper, published Thursday in the peer-reviewed journal Scientific Reports, is a big deal. Paleontologist Alison Rowe and her team used 3D imaging to analyze rare fossilized remains of an extinct relative of the vampire squid. Their findings suggest that Vampyronassa rhodanica may have been a bit more, well, vigorous. Their results point to a fearsome eight-armed hunter that likely captured prey with a pair of powerful suction cups.

Interesting Engineering sat down with Rowe to discuss the study, what they learned about Vampyronassa rhodanica, and what that new information reveals about the ancient oceans. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Interesting Engineering: How did you and your co-authors carry out this study?

Alison Rowe: In this study, we utilized powerful X-ray imaging techniques to scan fossil and modern specimens. This allowed us to observe previously unseen internal structures of the fossils, as well as view the external soft tissue anatomy with much better resolution.

From the comparative analysis between the fossil and extant form, we can show for the first time that there was a combination of anatomical characters in V. rhodanica that aren’t seen today. This research provides a small window on the diversity of character combinations that occurred in the Jurassic that are now lost.

IE: In the paper, you compare V. rhodanica to the modern-day vampire squid. For context, can you give us a crash course on the vampire squid and its relatives? 

Rowe: The vampire squid is actually not a squid. It is closer to octopuses than to squids.  Like the octopus, it has 8 arms, but also two filaments that are developmentally homologous to arms, which makes it somewhat comparable to squid or cuttlefish (Decabrachia) that have 10 arms. It has cirri on the arms like the incirrates [a suborder of the order Octopoda]. It has its own characteristics such as its type of sucker attachment, and its gladius, which is a kind of internal organic shell.

It is uniquely adapted to living in the deep sea, often in areas of low oxygen, and is an opportunistic detritivore, feeding on organic material falling through the water column.

IE: What samples did you use for this study?

Rowe: We reanalyzed 3 fossil specimens of Vampyronassa rhodanica and 2 extant samples of V. infernalis [the modern-day vampire squid] from the collections at the American Museum of Natural History and the Yale Peabody Museum. We also compared these specimens with other fossils from the literature.

The V. rhodanica fossils were collected from a Lagerstätte in the Ardèche region of France called La Voulte-sur-Rhône. Most lagerstätte preserve fossils as impressions, but at La Voulte-sur-Rhône, specimens are often preserved in 3D. 

IE: In the paper, you describe a reanalysis of the fossils using modern techniques. When was the original analysis and what did those investigators find?

Rowe:  The initial description of V. rhodanica was by Fischer & Riou in their 2002 paper. At the time of publication, the authors had to rely on observations of the external form for their anatomical descriptions. They were able to describe many external features, and based on this they positioned this species as the oldest likely relative of the modern-day vampire squid (V. infernalis).

IE: What new tools did you use to analyze these fossils two decades later?

Rowe: We chose to reanalyze some of the Vampyronassa rhodanica specimens described in the 2002 paper using powerful X-ray-based imaging techniques at both the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle in Paris and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility Synchrotron (ESRF, ID 19 beamline, Grenoble, France). We used these same X-ray techniques at the American Museum of Natural History on the two modern vampire squid. 

Using these data, we were able to identify the boundaries of anatomical structures and reconstruct them in 3D.

IE: What did that analysis reveal?

Rowe:  The results were exciting. For example, the kind of resolution we were able to get on the suckers of V. rhodanica was completely unknown before the acquisition of this data. We were able to determine that the sucker attachment of V. rhodanica is the same type seen only in modern V. infernalis, though the overall shape is of the sucker itself and reflects those of octopuses.

IE: What do those findings suggest about V. rhodanica's life and behavior?

Rowe: Though we obviously can’t observe how V. rhodanica used their suckers. By comparing preserved anatomical features with that of coleoids today – suckers and cirri for example – and knowing how they function now, we can infer how the same features may have been used by the Jurassic V. rhodanica. Based on functional comparisons with modern coleoids, the combination of characteristics observed in the arm crown of V. rhodanica, as well as their streamlined, muscular mantle, suggest they were adapted to a pelagic, predatory lifestyle.

IE: Were you surprised? Were your findings consistent with the original analysis?

Rowe: The soft tissues of modern coleoids hold a lot of information about their lifestyle, though this is rarely preserved in fossils. Based on previous work we had a sense of the external characters that had been preserved, though the resolution with which we could see the detail of these tissues in the scans was fantastic.

IE: How do your findings change what experts know about V. rhodanica? Do they offer clues about its broader environment or ecology?

Rowe: The lifestyle of V. rhodanica is in contrast with that of the modern vampire squid. It is unclear when the adaptation to the deep-sea lifestyle occurred in the lineage, though recent work has described a fossil species of this family inhabiting this environment in the Oligocene, around 33.9 to 23 million years ago. The initial shift from shallower to deeper waters was possibly driven by competition in onshore environments. The mosaic of characters found in the coleoid taxa at La Voulte-sur-Rhône (V. rhodanica and other species), suggests that Mesozoic coleoids co-occurred in different ecological niches during the mid-Jurassic.