Booker blasts Vilsack’s food justice efforts

• Hans Nichols, author of Axios Sneak Peek

Sen. Cory Booker. Photo: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) had a tense back-and-forth with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack during a closed-door lunch last Thursday over the Biden administration’s efforts to address nutrition in minority communities, people familiar with the matter tell Axios.

Why it matters: The heated exchange, which left some senators stunned, is an indication Booker — who, like Joe Biden, ran for president in 2020 — isn’t going to be shy about challenging Biden officials on issues about which he feels strongly.

• The confrontation also reflects a level of frustration some Democrats have with the administration's efforts to address food deserts and the prevalence of junk food in inner cities, tribal lands and rural America.
• "Sen. Booker appreciated the opportunity for a robust discussion with Secretary Vilsack and looks forward to continuing his work with the administration on these critical issues,” Maya Krishna-Rogers, Booker's press secretary, told Axios.
• “Sen. Booker believes that access to affordable, nutritious food should not be dictated by your race, income or ZIP Code," she said. "He also knows that corporate agriculture consolidation is driving small farmers and ranchers out of business while pushing prices up for American families."
• A Vilsack spokesperson didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Driving the news: Vilsack, a close Biden confidant and former Iowa governor, was invited to the weekly Democratic Policy and Communications Committee lunch.

The discussion was largely focused on corporate consolidation in the agriculture industry and how Democrats can improve their appeal in rural communities.

• Booker, a passionate vegan, appeared to catch Vilsack off-guard when he questioned what the department was doing to reform agribusiness and help provide healthier food to poorer Americans.
• Vilsack responded, in part, that consumers sometimes prefer unhealthier foods — triggering an even stronger response from Booker.
• Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), who chairs the DPCC, tried to calm the tensions, but the meeting ended without Booker and Vilsack resolving their differences.

Go deeper: Booker, who chairs the Agriculture Subcommittee on Food and Nutrition, Specialty Crops, Organics and Research, has made access to quality food a signature issue.

• “Too many Americans are overfed but undernourished,” he said during a subcommittee hearing last November.
• “Despite being the wealthiest nation in the world, we have created a food system that relentlessly encourages the overeating of empty calories.”
• “The risk of diabetes, for example, is 77% higher for Black people in America,” he said. “And, we are twice as likely to die from diabetes.”

Anger at remarks
Sports writers body ‘sorry’ after women’s walk-out

By a Daily Business reporter | May 9, 2022

Eilidh Barbour: felt unwelcome

An organisation representing sports writers in Scotland has apologised after a number of females walked out of an awards evening complaining they felt distressed by sexist, racist and homophobic remarks at the event.

Following their reaction, the Scottish Football Writers’ Association has pledged to review the format of its annual dinner.

Eilidh Barbour, who reports for Sky Sports News and BBC Sport, took to Twitter to say that she had “never felt so unwelcome in the industry I work in than sitting at the Scottish Football Writers Awards (SFWA).

“A huge reminder there is still so much to do in making our game an equal place #callitout #equalgame.”

Her comments did not identify the source of her discomfort but others, including Gabriella Bennett, co-chair of Women In Journalism Scotland (WIJS), complained of jokes in poor taste.

Ms Bennett told the Daily Record: “After the first couple of jokes I leant over to the person I was there with and said, ‘I really don’t like this.’ It wasn’t even funny. Just really poor taste.

“It’s passed off as banter, or we’re told it’s only a joke, and a lot of people were laughing last night, which was disappointing.

“My table stood up to leave, and I saw Eilidh Barbour and people on her table start to leave.”

In a joint statement, anti-racism group Kick It Out and Women in Football condemned the SFWA.

They said: “We have been made aware of sexist, racist and homophobic remarks made at the Scottish Football Writers’ Awards last night, during an after-dinner speech.

“Events that celebrate talent in our game should be a time to focus on the positives and all the people who have played their part in pushing football forward.

“It should not be used as a platform to share derogatory and discriminatory comments and make groups and communities feel excluded and insulted.

“We expect better and we demand better.”

In a statement, the SFWA said: “The Scottish Football Writers’ Association apologises to anyone offended or upset by material from one of our after-dinner speakers at last night’s annual awards dinner.

“We have agreed unanimously that this will act as a catalyst to review and improve the format of our future events to make it an enjoyable and inspirational event for all.”

A Women in Journalism Scotland spokesperson said: “Women in Journalism Scotland (WiJS) stands with all those who walked out in the middle of an offensive after-dinner speech at the Scottish Football Writers’ Association awards dinner last night.

“It is a matter of great concern to us that it is still deemed acceptable to behave and speak in such a disparaging manner towards women. This is not banter for the minority groups who are the butt of the jokes.

“Sports journalism appears to be among the last bastions of misogyny within journalism.

“In a recent survey carried out at the end of last year, WiJS discovered that of around 95 sports desk staff jobs at Scottish newspapers, just three were filled by women.

“There are no female sports editors, which shows the lack of career path available to women in this sector, especially when you consider that many of our current newspaper editors rose through the ranks via sports desks.

“Dark corners of our industry still exist, where outdated attitudes – which wouldn’t be acceptable elsewhere – are still condoned.

“Members tell us about derisory attitudes towards women who report on sport, all-male voices in morning news conferences, sexist jokes in actual and virtual rooms, an intimidating atmosphere in the football press box and more.

“Disturbingly, we also hear stories that when women are offered jobs writing about sport, it is often on lower salaries than male counterparts, with fewer promotions offered and little flexibility.

“As a result, fewer women are attracted to the sector and those who do go into it, leave because of what they find.

“It’s time to call time on the sexist shame of the beautiful game.”

6-year-old finds megalodon tooth on UK beach

The rare megalodon tooth was 4 inches long.

By Patrick Pester 

published about 5 hours ago

A computer-generated image of a megalodon with its mouth open. (Image credit: Gil Cohiba/Shutterstock)

A 6-year-old boy was looking for shells and fossils with his father on a U.K. beach when he picked up a rare tooth belonging to a megalodon — the biggest shark that has ever lived.

Sammy Shelton discovered the megalodon tooth on Bawdsey Beach in Suffolk on the east coast of England, as first reported by the Great Yarmouth Mercury, a news outlet covering Great Yarmouth in the neighboring county of Norfolk, where the boy is from. The tooth measured 4 inches (10 centimeters) long, according to The Mirror, a British news website.

"We knew what it was but not how rare it was," Peter Shelton, the boy's father, told the Great Yarmouth Mercury.

The beach is a popular site for fossil hunters, who told the Sheltons that finding a megalodon tooth there is rare.

Megalodon teeth are quite common in some places, including off the East Coast of North America and off the coast of Morocco. However, they are "extremely rare" in the U.K., according to the Natural History Museum in London.

Related: The megalodon spent tens of millions of years honing its lethal, knife-like teeth

Megalodon (Otodus megalodon) ruled the oceans at the top of the food chain, chomping down large prey such as whales and dolphins, until it disappeared from the fossil record by the end of the Pliocene epoch about 2.6 million years ago. Scientists are still debating megalodon's exact size, but the giant sharks likely reached at least 49 feet (15 meters) long and may have been as big as 65 feet (20 m) long, Live Science previously reported.

The largest megalodon teeth can reach more than 7 inches (17.8 cm) in length, which is more than twice as long as the teeth of the biggest great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias), according to the Kentucky Geological Survey at the University of Kentucky.

Sharks shed and grow new teeth throughout their lifetimes, so shark teeth are continuously falling to the seafloor where they may become fossilized. The sheer number of shark teeth that have been shed throughout their history helps increase the chances that some are preserved and found by humans after millions of years.

The 2018 sci-fi movie "The Meg" pits a massive megalodon against actor Jason Statham, who coincidentally lived in Great Yarmouth when he was young, according to The Guardian

Originally published on Live Science.

8,500-year-old stone houses are the oldest known structures in the UAE

The remains of Neolithic buildings were found on the island of Ghagha.

By Emily Staniforth 

published 1 day ago

The remains of the Neolithic stone structures (Image credit: DCT Abu Dhabi)

Archaeologists have discovered the oldest structure ever found in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — the remains of a building that may be 8,500 years old.

The structure, which dates to the Neolithic period, was found by archaeologists on on the island of Ghagha off Abu Dhabi.

An analysis of carbon isotopes, or versions of carbon, within charcoal fragments from the site show that the structure is 500 years older than any structures found before in the UAE, according to a February statement from the Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi). Previously, the oldest structure found was on the island of Marawah.

The Neolithic stone structures on the island of Ghagha (Image credit: DCT Abu Dhabi)

"These archaeological finds have shown that people were settling and building homes here 8,500 years ago," Mohamed Al Mubarak, the chairman of DCT Abu Dhabi, said in the statement.

The find highlights the historical connection between the people of the UAE and the sea. Before this discovery it was believed that people settled in the area which is now the UAE later in the Neolithic period as people expanded long-distance maritime trade routes, Al Mubarak said.

However, the new discovery shows that Neolithic settlements existed before the evolution of trade in the area.

The structures found on Ghagha are believed to have been houses for a small community who lived on the island year-round. The rounded rooms have stone walls, the remains of which measure 3 feet (1 meter) high. Archaeologists also found artifacts, such as stone arrowheads, at the site. These would likely have been used for hunting, with the inhabitants of the island also relying on the sea for resources.

The stone arrowheads found at the site on Ghagha. (Image credit: DCT Abu Dhabi)

Archaeologists don't know exactly how long the settlement was inhabited, but the burial of a person at the site 5,000 years ago, after the settlement was abandoned, illustrates that the structure was an important cultural and historical aspect of the island. Burials from this period are a rare find on the Abu Dhabi islands, according to the statement.

When Neolithic people lived on Ghagha and Marawah, these islands weren't "arid and inhospitable," but a "fertile coast," according to the statement. "This evidence recasts Abu Dhabi's islands within the cultural history of the broader region."

Originally published on Live Science.

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CTHULU STUDIES

'Mind-boggling' scrambled genome found in octopus and squid. It could explain their smarts.

Cephalopods have been breaking the rules with their genomes.

By Stephanie Pappas 

A Caribbean reef octopus (Octopus briareus) hunting at night at a coral reef in Curaçao. (Image credit: Wild Horizons/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Squid, octopus and cuttlefish have scrambled-up genomes that may help explain how these cephalopods evolved the most complicated nervous systems of any invertebrate.

New genetic sequencing reveals that these animals' genes are mixed up, arranged in strange orders not seen in other, non-cephalopod species. This DNA mixing and matching may have given evolution a new sandbox to play in, study co-author Caroline Albertin, a biologist at the University of Chicago Marine Biological Laboratory, told Live Science.

"A hypothesis is that these new gene arrangements resulted in new expression patterns and that means these genes could be used in a new place or in a new way," Albertin said, referring to the process of a gene being "expressed" or activated to create proteins that do some type of work in the body.

Those new opportunities, in turn, could explain some of squid and octopuses' incredible abilities, such as advanced vision or arms that have their own "brains."

Scientists have long suspected that strange things are going on in the cephalopod genome. In 2015, when Albertin and her colleagues sequenced the first octopus genome, they expected to see a pattern of genetic evolution similar to many vertebrates: duplication. During the long history of life on Earth, all vertebrates with jaws have copied their genomes twice, meaning that mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and sharks have all accumulated four copies of the original genome. Some of those copied genes have since been lost, but many have been borrowed by evolution to take on new roles.

"It opens up a whole genomic playground for evolution to act on," Albertin said. "[M]aybe one of those four genes can go off and start to do something else."

It stood to reason that cephalopod evolution involved the same duplication process. But when they started to dig into the octopus genome,, Albertin and her colleagues found no evidence that cephalopods had done this genetic copy-paste. Now, the team has gone deeper, using next-generation sequencing technologies to piece together chromosome-level readouts of two squids — the Hawaiian bobtail squid (Euprymna scolopes) and the longfin inshore squid (Doryteuthis pealeii) — and one octopus — the California two-spot octopus (Octopus biamaculoides).

In papers published in the journal Nature Communications on April 21 and May 4, the researchers used three different genome sequencing methods to decode the genomes, including state-of-the-art long-read sequencing that can read out thousands of DNA base-pairs at one time. (The rungs of the ladder-like molecule of DNA are made up of pairs of nitrogen bases.) If the genome were a book, or, more accurately, a very long series of books — the Hawaiian bobtail squid has 5.5 billion base-pairs in its genome — long-read sequencing lets scientists read pages instead of paragraphs, Albertin said.

Mixed up genes, complex brains?

The results showed that cephalopods' genomes have been churned and scrambled. Albertin's study co-authors ​Hannah Schmidbaur and Oleg Simakov of the University of Vienna and their colleagues compared the cephalopod genes to thousands of similar genes found across a wide array of animal species. They found 505 blocks of three or more genes that co-occurred in the squids and octopus but were not found together in other animals. If genes A, B and C are typically found close together on Chromosome 5 in snails and fish and fruit flies, for example, they'll often be scattered across three separate chromosomes in cephalopods.

The finding is "mind-boggling," Albertin said, because gene order usually stays the same, even among species that are far apart on the evolutionary tree.

"That, to evolutionary biologists, suggests there is a reason you keep that gene order," she said. "And cephalopods seem to be breaking these rules."

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It's not clear how the cephalopods pulled off this genetic disobedience. The gene-scrambling took place over many generations of cephalopods and hundreds of millions of years, Albertin said, and it may have relied on "jumping genes," also known as transposable elements, which are DNA sequences that can hop around the genome.

The researchers examined which genes were active in cephalopod tissues and found that many of the unique cephalopod gene groupings were busy in the nervous tissue, hinting that these special sequences could have played a role in the evolution of cephalopod smarts.

"This is really pointing to an exciting new perspective on how novel features arise in evolution," Albertin said.


Originally published on Live Science

 

Satellite Tracking Reveals Threat To Biggest Fish In Sea

Tuesday, 10 May 2022, 9:55 am
Press Release: University of Auckland

Lethal collisions of whale sharks with large ships may be vastly underestimated, potentially helping to explain why the biggest fish in the sea is in decline, according to new research.

“Collision risk with marine vessel traffic is only starting to be recognised as a serious threat that may require mitigation efforts, and it’s important that New Zealand take this seriously,” says Dr Mark Erdmann, of the University of Auckland and Conservation International, who was a co-author of the study led out of the UK. “There are plans to start a whale shark tagging program to better understand this endangered species’ movements in Aotearoa’s coastal waters.”

Whale sharks are slow-moving ocean giants which feed on microscopic animals called zooplankton. Their numbers have been declining around the world.

Scientists from international research institutions and universities tracked 348 satellite-tagged whale sharks in research led by the Marine Biologicial Association of the UK and the University of Southampton in the UK.

Tags recorded cases of whale sharks moving into shipping lanes and then sinking slowly to the seafloor hundreds of metres below, the ’smoking gun’ of a lethal ship strike.

“Our results point to potential high levels of undetected or unreported ship strikes, which may explain why whale shark populations continue to decline despite protection and low fishing-induced mortality,” the researchers wrote in the paper. “Collision mitigations in high-collision-risk areas appear necessary to help conserve this iconic species.”

New Zealand’s whale sharks couldn’t feature in the study because none were satellite tagged, said Dr Erdmann. (Dr Erdmann’s team from Conservation International, a nonprofit environmental organisation, contributed tracking data on more than 20 whale sharks tagged in South-East Asia.)

“We really know almost nothing about where New Zealand’s whale sharks move or spend most of their time.

“Based on sightings from fishers and boaties, we know that there is a population of whale sharks off the eastern coast of the North Island, from Bay of Plenty to North Cape.

Slowing ships would cut the threat of lethal collisions, reduce sound pollution that harms underwater creatures, and lessen greenhouse gas emissions, according to the paper’s authors.

The journal article, entitled “Global collision-risk hotspots of marine traffic and the world’s largest fish, the whale shark,” is being published in the journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences).
 

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Prehistoric Earthquakes And Snail Shells May Give Future Insights

Monday, 9 May 2022, 10:25 am
Press Release: University of Canterbury

New research led by University of Canterbury paleoseismologist Dr Tim Stahl is providing insights into prehistoric surface rupturing earthquakes in the Republic of Georgia to understand what future earthquakes could do.

Along with a multi-disciplinary research team, trenching on a fault line in the Greater Caucasus Mountain range in Georgia has provided invaluable data and insights into significant earthquakes over the last 40,000 years.

“What we found was a minimum of three significant surface-rupturing earthquakes in the last 40,000 years on that fault,” Dr Stahl says. “And we have a fair idea that the surface-rupturing earthquakes are large ones, approximately magnitude 7 and above.”

Paleoseismology is the study of prehistoric earthquakes, a bit like archaeology but for earthquakes says Dr Stahl.

“Key information we’re after is the magnitude of past earthquakes and the frequency of the largest earthquakes. So, while we’re studying prehistoric earthquakes, it’s with the aim of understanding and characterising future earthquakes.”

Dr Stahl says the research has highlighted how little information we have about active faults, and fault networks, in Georgia. He hopes this research will act as a template for other research taking place in neighbouring countries.

As well as developing seismic hazard models from studying individual faults, information is also gained on how mountain ranges and tectonic plates develop over time. The Eurasian-Arabian plate collision, which is how the Greater Caucasus’ have formed, is part of one of the longest plate boundaries in the world.

“GPS stations in Georgia indicate that the trench study was conducted in an area where the plates are coming together and really concentrating their force. However, the activity we found at the fault was not nearly enough to account for the whole plate motion budget. From this we know there are several other faults in the area that we don’t know about and might not be able to trench across.”

To date seismic events, the research team used radiocarbon dating of terrestrial land snails because they are found in modern surface soil and in old soil and deposits.

“Snails are complex in that, while they are alive, they eat old carbonaceous material and incorporate that into their shell. When the shell is dated you can get an age that’s a lot older than the snail. It can be problematic so to get around this we took modern snail shells from the same species and dated their shells, enabling us to get a more accurate age of the snail shells we found in the trench.”

The research team led by Dr Stahl included Professor Eric Cowgill and Dylan Vasey (PhD student), from the University of California, and Giorgi Boichenko (PhD student) and Professor Tea Godoladze of Ilia State University. The multi-disciplinary team brought expertise in structural geology, geophysics, paleoseismology and seismology to the project as well as extensive local knowledge and contacts.

The research is already receiving interest from industry in the area with infrastructure linking the Black and Caspian Seas. The team’s research paper, ‘Recent Surface Rupturing Earthquakes along the South Flank of the Greater Caucasus near Tbilisi, Georgia’, was recently published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.

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Afghanistan: Nearly 20 Million Going Hungry

Tuesday, 10 May 2022
Press Release: UN News

Nearly 20 million people in Afghanistan – almost half the population – are facing acute hunger, humanitarians warned in a UN-backed report, published on Monday.

The latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis for the country also revealed a pocket of “catastrophic” levels of food insecurity in the northeast, affecting thousands.

The analysis was conducted in January and February by partners who include the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), sister agency the World Food Programme (WFP), and many non-governmental organizations.

Averting a catastrophe

Although humanitarian assistance helped avert a food security catastrophe over the harsh winter in Afghanistan, hunger still persists at unprecedented levels, according to the report.

Richard Trenchard, FAO Representative in the country, described the food security situation as dire.

“Humanitarian assistance remains desperately important, as do the needs to rebuild shattered agricultural livelihoods and re-connect farmers and rural communities to struggling rural and urban markets across the country. Unless these happen, there will be no way out of this crisis,” he said.

The IPC was developed in 2004 to determine the severity and magnitude of food insecurity and acute malnutrition situations in a country.

Slight improvement expected

The report predicts there will be a slight improvement in food security in Afghanistan from June through November, with the number of people facing acute food insecurity dropping to 18.9 million.

This is partly due to the coming wheat harvest, which runs from May to August, as well as the scale-up in food assistance this year and increased support to agriculture.

“Food assistance and emergency livelihood support are the lifeline for the people of Afghanistan. We mounted the world’s largest humanitarian food operation in a matter of months, reaching more than 16 million people since August 2021,” said Mary-Ellen McGroarty, WFP’s Country Director and Representative in Afghanistan.

A ‘catastrophic’ first

However, the report warned that any gains will be limited, as lingering drought and the economic crisis continue to threaten the lives and livelihoods of millions across the country.

The partners were particularly concerned that a small pocket of “catastrophic” levels of food insecurity – IPC 5, the highest phase on the scale – has been detected, marking a first since the scale was introduced in Afghanistan in 2011.

More than 20,000 people in Ghor province, located in the northeast, are facing catastrophic levels of hunger resulting from a long period of harsh winter and disastrous agricultural conditions.

Ukraine war pressures

The report said that although the upcoming harvest will bring some relief for millions, that relief will only be short-term for many.

Fallout from the war in Ukraine continues to put pressure on Afghanistan’s wheat supply, food commodities, agricultural inputs, and fuel prices.

Furthermore, access to seeds, fertilizer and water for irrigation is limited, labour opportunities are scarce, and people have incurred enormous debts to buy food over the past few months.

Supporting people and agriculture

FAO and WFP continue to scale up their programmes across Afghanistan.

“We are working with farmers, millers, and bakeries, training women and creating jobs to support the local economy. Because the people of Afghanistan would much prefer jobs; women want to be able to work; and all girls deserve to go to school,” said Ms. McGroarty of WFP.

“Allowing the economy to function normally is the surest way out of the crisis, otherwise suffering will grow where crops cannot,” she added.

WFP has reached more than 16 million people in Afghanistan so far this year with emergency food assistance, while also supporting local markets, and working with retailers and local suppliers.

The agency also continues to invest in skills training and climate adaption projects so that families can cultivate their land and grow their own food.

Meanwhile, FAO continues to ramp up assistance to farmers and herders in rural areas in Afghanistan.

The UN agency will assist more than nine million people this year through a range of interventions that include support for crop, livestock and vegetable production; cash transfers, and the rehabilitation of vital irrigation infrastructure and systems.

In more news from Afghanistan:

Escalating restrictions on women

The head of UN Women has expressed grave concern over the latest announcement by the country’s de facto authorities.

This weekend the Taliban ordered that all women must cover their faces in public and should only leave their homes in cases of necessity. Any violations will result in their male relatives being punished.

“The latest directive by the Taliban is a further escalation of restrictions on women and girls, including impeded return to work and inability to pursue their education,” said Sima Bahous, Executive Director of UN Women.

Freedom of movement is a fundamental human right, she stated.

“It is an absolute prerequisite for women’s ability to exercise the full range of their rights and to be active participants in society. Where women’s rights are constrained, everyone is diminished.”

High price to pay

Ms. Bahous recalled that earlier this year, the UN Secretary-General had noted the de facto authorities’ decision to deny education to girls above the sixth grade.

She was further alarmed by reports about women being unable to drive, take public transport, or simply move from place to place.

“Such constraints increasingly limit women’s ability to earn a living, access health care and education, seek protection, escape situations of violence, exercise their individual and collective rights, and act with agency.” she said.

Ms. Bahous added that these accelerating violations of women and girls’ rights are costing Afghanistan dearly and are impacting on social and economic growth.

It is estimated that current restrictions on women’s employment have resulted in up to $1 billion in immediate economic losses, she said, or up to five per cent of the country’s economic output.

With more than half the population requiring humanitarian assistance, amid food insecurity and malnutrition, “the latest restrictions make attempts at recovery harder, if not impossible,” she said.

“We urgently call on the de facto authorities to respect their obligations under human rights law and the full human rights of women and girls, including the immediate restoration of women’s and girls’ independent freedom of movement, and their rights to work and to education to the highest level.”

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