A HUNDRED & SEVENTY YEARS AFTER THE FACT

Evolution is now accepted by a majority of Americans

by University of Michigan

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

The level of public acceptance of evolution in the United States is now solidly above the halfway mark, according to a new study based on a series of national public opinion surveys conducted over the last 35 years.\

"From 1985 to 2010, there was a statistical dead heat between acceptance and rejection of evolution," said lead researcher Jon D. Miller of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. "But acceptance then surged, becoming the majority position in 2016."

Examining data over 35 years, the study consistently identified aspects of education—civic science literacy, taking college courses in science and having a college degree—as the strongest factors leading to the acceptance of evolution.

"Almost twice as many Americans held a college degree in 2018 as in 1988," said co-author Mark Ackerman, a researcher at Michigan Engineering, the U-M School of Information and Michigan Medicine. "It's hard to earn a college degree without acquiring at least a little respect for the success of science."

The researchers analyzed a collection of biennial surveys from the National Science Board, several national surveys funded by units of the National Science Foundations, and a series focused on adult civic literacy funded by NASA. Beginning in 1985, these national samples of U.S. adults were asked to agree or disagree with this statement: "Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals."

The series of surveys showed that Americans were evenly divided on the question of evolution from 1985 to 2007. According to a 2005 study of the acceptance of evolution in 34 developed nations, led by Miller, only Turkey, at 27%, scored lower than the United States. But over the last decade, until 2019, the percentage of American adults who agreed with this statement increased from 40% to 54%.

The current study consistently identified religious fundamentalism as the strongest factor leading to the rejection of evolution. While their numbers declined slightly in the last decade, approximately 30% of Americans continue to be religious fundamentalists as defined in the study. But even those who scored highest on the scale of religious fundamentalism shifted toward acceptance of evolution, rising from 8% in 1988 to 32% in 2019.

Miller predicted that religious fundamentalism would continue to impede the public acceptance of evolution. 

"Such beliefs are not only tenacious but also, increasingly, politicized," he said, citing a widening gap between Republican and Democratic acceptance of evolution. 

As of 2019, 34% of conservative Republicans accepted evolution compared to 83% of liberal Democrats.

The study is published in the journal Public Understanding of Science.

Exploring evolution acceptance for better science education

More information: Jon D. Miller et al, Public acceptance of evolution in the United States, 1985–2020, Public Understanding of Science (2021). DOI: 10.1177/09636625211035919

Journal information: Public Understanding of Science 

Provided by University of Michigan 

 

Scientists Detect Tens of Thousands of Different Molecules in Beer – 80% Not Yet Described in Chemical Databases

TOPICS:BeerFood ScienceFrontiersOrganic Chemistry

By FRONTIERS AUGUST 21, 2021

Study used modern high resolution analytics to reveal enormous metabolic complexity of beer.

The tradition of beer brewing dates back to at least 7000 BCE and maybe even to the invention of agriculture, considering that most cereals can spontaneously ferment if exposed to airborne yeasts. The code of the Babylonian king Hammurabi (rule 1792 to 1750 BCE), whose laws 108 through 111 regulate beer sales, shows that people have been anxious to safeguard the quality of beer through legislation for millennia. For example, the Bavarian ‘Reinheitsgebot’ (‘Purity Law’) of 1516, often considered the world’s oldest still functional – with modifications – food regulation, allows only barley, water, and hops as ingredients for brewing beer (with confiscation of the barrels as penalty for transgression).

Now, in a recent study in Frontiers in Chemistry, the science of beer is taken to a new level. Scientists from Germany use state-of-the-art analytical methods to reveal the metabolic complexity – tens of thousands of different molecules – of commercial beers from around the world.

Enormous chemical complexity

“Beer is an example of enormous chemical complexity. And thanks to recent improvements in analytical chemistry, comparable in power to the ongoing revolution in the technology of video displays with ever-increasing resolution, we can reveal this complexity in unprecedented detail. Today it’s easy to trace tiny variations in chemistry throughout the food production process, to safeguard quality or to detect hidden adulterations,” said corresponding author Prof Philippe Schmitt-Kopplin, head of the Comprehensive Foodomics Platform at the Technical University of Munich and of the Analytical BioGeoChemistry research unit at the Helmholtz Center in Munich.

Schmitt-Kopplin and colleagues used two powerful methods – direct infusion Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (DI-FTICR MS) and ultra-performance liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-ToF-MS) – to reveal the full range of metabolites in 467 types of beer brewed in the US, Latin America, Europe, Africa and East Asia. These included lagers, craft and abbey beers, top-fermented beers, and gueuzes brewed from barley as the only source of starch for fermentation, or barley plus either wheat, rice, and corn (maize).

The methods have complementary strengths. DI-FTICR-MS directly revealed the chemical diversity across all beers and predicted chemical formulas for the metabolite ions in them. The authors then used UPLC-ToF-MS on a subset of 100 beers to analyze the results with resolution on the possible isomers. UPLC-ToF-MS uses chromatography to first separate ions with identical masses and fragmentation of the mass ions to daughter ions, making it possible to predict the exact molecular structure.

The authors placed these metabolites in relation within the ‘chemical space’, each linked to one or more others through a single reaction, for example the addition of a methoxy-, hydroxyl-, sulfate-, or sugar-group to the molecular backbone, or turning an unsaturated bond into a saturated bond. This yielded a reconstruction of a metabolite network leading to the final product, consisting of nearly a hundred steps with a starting point in molecules from the original cereals, synthesized from the amino acid tryptophan. Derived from these are secondary metabolites, unique to each cereal.

Powerful method for quality control

“Our mass spectrometry method, which takes only 10 minutes per sample, should be very powerful for quality control in food industry and set the basis of novel molecular markers and non-targeted metabolite profiles needed in foodstuff inspection,” said Schmitt-Kopplin.

The authors found approximately 7700 ions with unique masses and formulas, including lipids, peptides, nucleotides, phenolics, organic acids, phosphates, and carbohydrates, of which around 80% aren’t yet described in chemical databases. Because each formula may in some cases cover up to 25 different molecular structures, this translates into tens of thousands of unique metabolites.

“Here we reveal an enormous chemical diversity across beers, with tens of thousands of unique molecules. We show that this diversity originates in the variety of raw materials, processing, and fermentation. The molecular complexity is then amplified by the so-called ‘Maillard reaction’ between amino acids and sugars which also gives bread, meat steaks, and toasted marshmallow their ‘roasty’ flavor. This complex reaction network is an exciting focus of our research, given its importance for food quality, flavor, and also the development of novel bioactive molecules of interest for health,” concluded first author Stefan Pieczonka, a PhD student at the Technical University of Munich.

Reference: “On the Trail of the German Purity Law: Distinguishing the Metabolic Signatures of Wheat, Corn and Rice in Beer” by Stefan A. Pieczonka, Sophia Paravicini, Michael Rychlik and Philippe Schmitt-Kopplin, 20 July 2021, Frontiers in Chemistry.
DOI: 10.3389/fchem.2021.715372

 

Historical Timeline Is Inaccurate: Advanced Radiocarbon Dating Reveals Machu Picchu Is Older Than Expected

TOPICS:ArchaeologyGeographyRadiocarbon DatingYale University

By MIKE CUMMINGS, YALE UNIVERSITY AUGUST 22, 2021

Machu Picchu, Peru.

Machu Picchu, the famous 15^th-century Inca site in southern Peru, is up to several decades older than previously thought, according to a new study led by Yale archaeologist Richard Burger.

Burger and researchers from several U.S. institutions used accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) — an advanced form of radiocarbon dating — to date human remains recovered during the early 20^th century at the monumental complex and onetime country estate of Inca Emperor Pachacuti located on the eastern face of the Andes Mountains.

Their findings, published in the journal Antiquity, reveal that Machu Picchu was in use from about A.D. 1420 to A.D. 1530 — ending around the time of the Spanish conquest — making the site at least 20 years older than the accepted historical record suggests and raising questions about our understanding of Inca chronology.

Historical sources dating from the Spanish invasion of the Inca Empire indicate that Pachacuti seized power in A.D. 1438 and subsequently conquered the lower Urubamba Valley where Machu Picchu is located. Based on those records, scholars have estimated that the site was built after A.D. 1440, and perhaps as late as A.D. 1450, depending on how long it took Pachacuti to subdue the region and construct the stone palace.

The AMS testing indicates that the historical timeline is inaccurate.

“Until now, estimates of Machu Picchu’s antiquity and the length of its occupation were based on contradictory historical accounts written by Spaniards in the period following the Spanish conquest,” said Burger, the Charles J. MacCurdy Professor of Anthropology in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. “This is the first study based on scientific evidence to provide an estimate for the founding of Machu Picchu and the length of its occupation, giving us a clearer picture of the site’s origins and history.”

The finding suggests that Pachacuti, whose reign set the Inca on the path to becoming pre-Columbian America’s largest and most powerful empire, gained power and began his conquests decades earlier than textual sources indicate. As such, it has implications for people’s wider understanding of Inca history, Burger said.

Credit: Photo courtesy Yale University

“The results suggest that the discussion of the development of the Inca empire based primarily on colonial records needs revision,” he said. “Modern radiocarbon methods provide a better foundation than the historical records for understanding Inca chronology.”

The AMS technique can date bones and teeth that contain even small amounts of organic material, expanding the pool of remains suitable for scientific analysis. For this study, the researchers used it to analyze human samples from 26 individuals that were recovered from four cemeteries at Machu Picchu in 1912 during excavations led by Yale professor Hiram Bingham III, who had “rediscovered” the site the previous year.

The bones and teeth used in the analysis likely belonged to retainers, or attendants, who were assigned to the royal estate, the study states. The remains show little evidence of involvement in heavy physical labor, such as construction, meaning that they likely were from the period when the site functioned as a country palace, not when it was being built, the researchers said.

On November 30, 2010, Yale University and the Peruvian government reached an accord for the return to Peru of the archaeological materials Bingham excavated at Machu Picchu. On February 11, 2011, Yale signed an agreement with the Universidad Nacional de San Antonio Abad del Cusco establishing the International Center for the Study of Machu Picchu and Inca Culture, which is dedicated to the display, conservation, and study of the archaeological collections from Bingham’s 1912 excavations. All human remains and other archaeological materials from Machu Picchu have subsequently been returned to Cusco, the former capital city of the Inca Empire, where they are conserved at the Museo Machu Picchu.

Reference: “New AMS dates for Machu Picchu: results and implications” by Richard L. Burger, Lucy C. Salazar, Jason Nesbitt, Eden Washburn and Lars Fehren-Schmitz, 4 August 2021, Antiquity.
DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2021.99

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Dryden Flight Research Center (now Armstrong) hosted the Star Trek crew in 1976 for the rollout of space shuttle Enterprise. In front, from left: NASA Administrator James Fletcher, and the show’s stars DeForest Kelley, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, Leonard Nimoy, show creator Gene Roddenberry, and Walter Koenig. Credit: NASA

Star Trek and NASA: Celebrating the Connection

Gene Roddenberry would have been 100 years old on August 19, 2021, and we at NASA celebrate his legacy. As creator of the legendary Star Trek saga, Roddenberry’s vision continues to resonate.

In the documentary “NASA on the Edge of Forever: Science in Space,” host NASA astronaut Victor Glover stated, “Science and Star Trek go hand-in-hand.” The film explores how for the past 55 years, Star Trek has influenced scientists, engineers, and even astronauts to reach beyond. While the International Space Station doesn’t speed through the galaxy like the Starship Enterprise, much of the research conducted aboard the orbiting facility is making the fiction of Star Trek come a little closer to reality.

In this image, the then Dryden Flight Research Center (now Armstrong) hosted the Star Trek crew in 1976 for the rollout of space shuttle Enterprise. In front, from left: NASA Administrator James Fletcher, and the show’s stars DeForest Kelley, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, Leonard Nimoy, show creator Gene Roddenberry, and Walter Koenig.

Organic and conservation agriculture promote ecosystem multifunctionality


See all authors and affiliations
Science Advances 20 Aug 2021:
Vol. 7, no. 34, eabg6995
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abg6995

Article

Abstract

Ecosystems provide multiple services to humans. However, agricultural systems are usually evaluated on their productivity and economic performance, and a systematic and quantitative assessment of the multifunctionality of agroecosystems including environmental services is missing. Using a long-term farming system experiment, we evaluated and compared the agronomic, economic, and ecological performance of the most widespread arable cropping systems in Europe: organic, conservation, and conventional agriculture. We analyzed 43 agroecosystem properties and determined overall agroecosystem multifunctionality. We show that organic and conservation agriculture promoted ecosystem multifunctionality, especially by enhancing regulating and supporting services, including biodiversity preservation, soil and water quality, and climate mitigation. In contrast, conventional cropping showed reduced multifunctionality but delivered highest yield. Organic production resulted in higher economic performance, thanks to higher product prices and additional support payments. Our results demonstrate that different cropping systems provide opposing services, enforcing the productivity–environmental protection dilemma for agroecosystem functioning.

INTRODUCTION

Global food production has more than doubled in the past 60 years. This has been achieved through land use change and use of mineral fertilizers, pesticides, breeding of new crop varieties, and other technologies of the “Green Revolution” (1, 2). However, increased use of agrochemicals, land conversion, farm expansion, and farm specialization have a negative impact on the environment and have caused habitat and biodiversity loss, pollution, and eutrophication of water bodies, increasing greenhouse gases emissions and reduced soil quality (1, 3, 4). Thus, one of the main challenges for the future of agriculture is to produce sufficient amounts of food with minimal environmental impact (1). However, to date, there is lack of appropriate methods and tools to evaluate, design, and track the multifunctionality and sustainability of agricultural production.

For agronomists, the focus of agricultural systems is dedicated to productivity, while ecologists and environmental researchers focus on the environmental impact of agriculture. Ideally, agricultural systems should provide the desired balance of provisioning services (e.g., food production), regulating services (e.g., soil, water, and climate protection), and supporting services (e.g., biodiversity and soil quality conservation) within viable socioeconomic boundaries (e.g., ensured income and suitable working conditions). However, systemic evaluations of the diverse services and trade-offs provided by different agricultural practices are scarce, and this has been viewed as a major research gap (5, 6).

In the past 15 years, there have been considerable efforts to conceptualize ecosystem services (ESs), defining their contribution to human well-being and bring it into policy and planning. Examples such as the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) (7), The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (8), or the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service (9) are global initiatives that are integrated in national monitoring programs such as the U.K. National Ecosystem Assessment (UKNEA) framework (10). Even if these concepts and framework are increasingly recognized, there is a lack of implementation in practice due to difficulties to appropriately measure and value ES and to institutionalize outcomes (11).

One of the key approaches to measure and appropriately manage agroecosystems is to gain a solid understanding of how farming practices influence a wide range of ecosystem functions and services and to summarize these effects in a meaningful way (12, 13). The “ability of ecosystems to simultaneously provide multiple functions and services” can be assessed by calculating ecosystem multifunctionality (EMF), an approach widely used in ecology (14, 15). Here, we define ecosystem functions as the biotic and abiotic processes that make up or contribute to ESs either directly or indirectly.

A range of studies has assessed how different drivers including biodiversity and land use intensity affect individual functions and EMF (16–19). However, this approach is still poorly developed for agroecosystems (15), where anthropogenic management plays a key role in determining ecosystem functioning (i.e., specific crop management practices like tillage intensity and chemical and organic input sources and amounts). Moreover, the number of ecosystem functions used to assess EMF varies greatly among studies, and there is often little explanation of why certain variables are included (15). Thus, a next frontier is to investigate how major cropping systems (e.g., conventional, organic, and conservation agriculture) influence different ecosystem functions and EMF and embed such analyses in a broader conceptual ES framework supporting producer and policy decisions.

The main objective of this study is to assess the overall performance of important cropping systems within an adapted ES framework using the EMF methodology applied in ecology. To do this, we use a 6-year dataset from the long-term FArming System and Tillage (FAST) experiment (fig. S1) where we compare the agronomical, ecological, and economic impacts of four arable cropping systems [conventional intensive tillage (C-IT), conventional no tillage (C-NT), organic intensive tillage (O-IT), and organic reduced tillage (O-RT); see Materials and Methods and tables S1 to S3 for detailed management description]. We focus on these specific management strategies since conservation and organic agriculture are two main alternatives to conventional management and are often promoted as more environmentally friendly practices. Organic agriculture prohibits the use of synthetic inputs (e.g., pesticides and fertilizers), and a range of studies show that organic farming enhances biodiversity and reduces environmental impacts but results in lower productivity (4, 5, 20, 21). Conservation agriculture, in turn, is based on three main pillars: minimum mechanical soil disturbance, permanent soil cover, and species diversification, which are applicable in many different farming contexts (22). Several studies indicate that conservation agriculture has positive effects on soil quality and protection, water regulation, energy use, and production costs (23), but productivity increases are minimal or even negative (24) and often dependent on herbicide use (25). In our study, C-NT and O-RT systems are considered to reflect conservation agriculture as the three defined pillars of conservation agriculture are largely fulfilled (minimum tillage, 6-year crop rotation, and permanent soil cover with crop residues and cover crops).

We assessed 43 variables in each cropping system, from which 38 were classified into nine agroecosystem goods and four ecosystem categories using an adapted ES framework and five were used as agronomic co-variables. We based our classification on the MEA and UKNEA frameworks (7, 10) and grouped our variables into proxies for ecosystem functions representing ecosystem processes and services and we finally valued them as ecosystem goods. Ecosystem functions, services, and goods were attributed to supporting, regulating, and provisioning ES categories. In addition, we added socioeconomic proxies and an economic category to the classical ES framework (Fig. 1 and tables S4 and S5). We did this because agroecosystems also have a socioeconomic dimension for producers and policy makers. The following nine final agroecosystem goods were used for multifunctionality assessments: biodiversity conservation, soil health preservation, erosion control, water and air pollution control, food production, income, work efficiency, and financial autonomy.

READ ON: Organic and conservation agriculture promote ecosystem multifunctionality | Science Advances (sciencemag.org)

The Wuhan lab leak theory is more about politics than science

Whatever this week’s Biden review finds, the cause of the pandemic lies in the destruction of animal habitats

Wuhan’s virology institute has been at the centre of the investigation into the origins of Covid-19. Photograph: Roman Pilipey/EPA


Robin McKie Science editor
Sun 22 Aug 2021 09.30 BST

If Joe Biden’s security staff are up to the mark, a new report on the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic will be placed on the president’s desk this week. His team was given 90 days in May to review the virus’s origins after several US scientists indicated they were no longer certain about the source of Sars-CoV-2.

It will be intriguing to learn how Biden’s team answers the critically important questions that still surround the origins of Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. Did it emerge because of natural viral spillovers from bats to another animal and then into humans? Or did it leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology? And, if so, had it been enhanced to make it especially virulent?

These are important questions – to say the least. If we want to prevent another pandemic, it would be very useful to know how this one started. However, given the paucity of new information Biden’s team will have unearthed over the past three months – while the Chinese authorities have continued to provide little extra data – it is unlikely hard answers will be provided this week.

Although allegations of a leak from the Wuhan institute had been aired by Donald Trump, and rejected flatly by the Chinese, little credence was given to the claim until May, when 18 leading scientists sent a letter to the journal Science in which they claimed both spillover and leak theories were equally plausible. They also accused a recent World Health Organization investigation at Wuhan of not giving a balanced consideration to both scenarios.

News that the lab leak theory was being taken seriously by the new US administration triggered an onslaught from commentators, who have since alleged that the scientific establishment has been covering up for Chinese scientists’ errors. Among these accusations was one from Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of MI6, who claimed that “some scientific journals absolutely refused to publish anything that disagreed with the Chinese view”.

The main evidence to support a lab leak rests on the failure of scientists to pinpoint the intermediate animal that picked up the virus from bats and passed it to humans. In addition, the Wuhan institute is home to a laboratory that is headed by the virologist Shi Zhengli, who tracked down the bat origins of the last coronavirus Sars epidemic.

Her team specialises in collecting coronaviruses. Thus, one of the world’s coronavirus research centres was situated in the city where Covid-19 first materialised – a coincidence that some conspiracy advocates find too much to accept.

Shi has rejected claims she had been working on enhancing a new virus to make it more virulent or that she or her staff had been infected with a new coronavirus that they had collected, a view supported by a recent review by scientists in the journal Cell: “Despite extensive contact tracing of early cases during the Covid-19 pandemic, there have been no reported cases related to any laboratory staff at the WIV [Wuhan Institute of Virology] and all staff in the laboratory of Dr Shi Zhengli were said to be seronegative for Sars-CoV-2 when tested in March 2020,” it states.

The fact that Sars-CoV-2 is highly transmissible among humans has also raised suspicions that it had been genetically enhanced. This notion is dismissed by Professor David Robertson, of Glasgow University’s centre for virus research.
Fiddling with viruses in laboratories is not the dangerous activity. The real threat comes from the wildlife trade

“Yes, the virus is spread by asymptomatic carriers and that is perfect for human transmission. So how does a natural virus like that come into existence? It is so good at infecting humans, after all. But it is not just a human virus. We find it in pangolins. It goes from humans to mink very easily and it has infected deer in the US. It isn’t a human- adapted virus. It is what we call a generalist or promiscuous virus.”

However, the prospect that Covid-19 emerged from a lab leak was taken very seriously by some senior scientists, including Sir Jeremy Farrar, head of the Wellcome Trust. As he makes clear in his recent book, Spike: The Virus v the People, his initial – horrified – reaction to the emergence of Covid-19 was that it could have escaped from a virus research centre. Only intense consultations with other researchers caused him to change his mind.

“As things currently stand, the evidence strongly suggests that Covid-19 arose after a natural spillover event, but nobody is yet in a position to rule out an alternative,” he said.

This point is backed by Professor James Wood, of Cambridge University. “I think there is very strong evidence for this being caused by natural spillovers but that argument simply does not suit some political groups. They promote the idea that Covid-19 was caused by a lab leak because such a claim deflects attention from increasing evidence that indicates biodiversity loss, deforestation and wildlife trade – which increase the dangers of natural spillovers – are the real dangers that we face from pandemics.”

In other words, fiddling with viruses in laboratories is not the dangerous activity. The real threat comes from the wildlife trade, bulldozing rainforests and clearing wildernesses to provide land for farms and to gain access to mines. As vegetation and wildlife are destroyed, countless species of viruses and the bacteria they host are set loose to seek new hosts, such as humans and domestic livestock. This has happened with HIV, Sars and very probably Covid-19.

And that, for many scientists, is the real lesson of Covid-19.

This article was amended on 22 August 2021 to refer to Shi Zhengli at second mention as “Shi”, that being her surname.

The Science of Recurring Dreams Is More Fascinating Than We Ever Imagined

(Mischa Keijser/Getty Images)
HUMANS

CLAUDIA PICARD-DELAND & TORE NIELSEN, THE CONVERSATION

20 AUGUST 2021

Having the same dream again and again is a well-known phenomenon — nearly two-thirds of the population report having recurring dreams. Being chased, finding yourself naked in a public place or in the middle of a natural disaster, losing your teeth or forgetting to go to class for an entire semester are typical recurring scenarios in these dreams.

But where does the phenomenon come from? The science of dreams shows that recurring dreams may reflect unresolved conflicts in the dreamer's life.

Recurring dreams often occur during times of stress, or over long periods of time, sometimes several years or even a lifetime. Not only do these dreams have the same themes, they can also repeat the same narrative night after night.

Although the exact content of recurring dreams is unique to every individual, there are common themes among individuals and even among cultures and in different periods. For example, being chased, falling, being unprepared for an exam, arriving late or trying to do something repeatedly are among the most prevalent scenarios.

The majority of recurring dreams have negative content involving emotions such as fear, sadness, anger and guilt. More than half of recurring dreams involve a situation where the dreamer is in danger. But some recurring themes can also be positive, even euphoric, such as dreams where we discover new rooms in our house, erotic dreams or where we fly.

In some cases, recurring dreams that begin in childhood can persist into adulthood. These dreams may disappear for a few years, reappear in the presence of a new source of stress and then disappear again when the situation is over.

Unresolved conflicts

Why does our brain play the same dreams over and over again? Studies suggest that dreams, in general, help us regulate our emotions and adapt to stressful events. Incorporating emotional material into dreams may allow the dreamer to process a painful or difficult event.

In the case of recurrent dreams, repetitive content could represent an unsuccessful attempt to integrate these difficult experiences. Many theories agree that recurring dreams are related to unresolved difficulties or conflicts in the dreamer's life.

The presence of recurrent dreams has also been associated with lower levels of psychological wellbeing and the presence of symptoms of anxiety and depression. These dreams tend to recur during stressful situations and cease when the person has resolved their personal conflict, which indicates improved wellbeing.

Recurrent dreams often metaphorically reflect the emotional concerns of the dreamers. For example, dreaming about a tsunami is common following trauma or abuse. This is a typical example of a metaphor that can represent emotions of helplessness, panic or fear experienced in waking life.

Similarly, being inappropriately dressed in one's dream, being naked or not being able to find a toilet can all represent scenarios of embarrassment or modesty.

These themes can be thought of as scripts or ready-to-dream scenarios that provide us with a space where we can digest our conflicting emotions. The same script can be reused in different situations where we experience similar emotions.

This is why some people, when faced with a stressful situation or a new challenge, may dream they're showing up unprepared for a math exam, even years after they have set foot in a school. Although the circumstances are different, a similar feeling of stress or desire to excel can trigger the same dream scenario again.

A continuum of repetition

William Domhoff, an American researcher and psychologist, proposes the concept of a continuum of repetition in dreams. At the extreme end, traumatic nightmares directly reproduce a lived trauma — one of the main symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Then there are recurring dreams where the same dream content is replayed in part or in its entirety. Unlike traumatic dreams, recurring dreams rarely replay an event or conflict directly but reflect it metaphorically through a central emotion.

Further along the continuum are the recurring themes in dreams. These dreams tend to replay a similar situation, such as being late, being chased or being lost, but the exact content of the dream differs from one time to the next, such as being late for a train rather than for an exam.

Finally, at the other end of the continuum, we find certain dream elements recurring in the dreams of one individual, such as characters, actions or objects. All these dreams would reflect, at different levels, an attempt to resolve certain emotional concerns.

Moving from an intense level to a lower level on the continuum of repetition is often a sign that a person's psychological state is improving. For example, in the content of traumatic nightmares progressive and positive changes are often observed in people who have experienced trauma as they gradually overcome their difficulties.

Physiological phenomena

Why do the themes tend to be the same from person to person? One possible explanation is that some of these scripts have been preserved in humans due to the evolutionary advantage they bring. By simulating a threatening situation, the dream of being chased, for example, provides a space for a person to practise perceiving and escaping predators in their sleep.

Some common themes may also be explained, in part, by physiological phenomena that take place during sleep. A 2018 study by a research team in Israel found that dreaming of losing one's teeth was not particularly linked to symptoms of anxiety but rather associated to teeth clenching during sleep or dental discomfort upon waking.

When we sleep, our brain is not completely cut off from the outside world. It continues to perceive external stimuli, such as sounds or smells, or internal body sensations. That means that other themes, such as not being able to find a toilet or being naked in a public space, could actually be spurred by the need to urinate during the night or by wearing loose pyjamas in bed.

Some physical phenomena specific to REM sleep, the stage of sleep when we dream the most, could also be at play. In REM sleep, our muscles are paralyzed, which could provoke dreams of having heavy legs or being paralyzed in bed.

Similarly, some authors have proposed that dreams of falling or flying are caused by our vestibular system, which contributes to balance and can reactivate spontaneously during REM sleep. Of course, these sensations are not sufficient to explain the recurrence of these dreams in some people and their sudden occurrence in times of stress, but they probably play a significant role in the construction of our most typical dreams.

Breaking the cycle

People who experience a recurring nightmare have in some ways become stuck in a particular way of responding to the dream scenario and anticipating it. Therapies have been developed to try to resolve this recurrence and break the vicious cycle of nightmares.

One technique is to visualize the nightmare while awake and then rewrite it, that is, to modify the narrative by changing one aspect, for example, the end of the dream to something more positive. Lucid dreaming may also be a solution.

In lucid dreams we become aware that we are dreaming and can sometimes influence the content of the dream. Becoming lucid in a recurring dream might allow us to think or react differently to the dream and thereby alter the repetitive nature of it.

However, not all recurring dreams are bad in themselves. They can even be helpful insofar as they are informing us about our personal conflicts. Paying attention to the repetitive elements of dreams could be a way to better understand and resolve our greatest desires and torments.

Claudia Picard-Deland, Candidate au doctorat en neurosciences, Université de Montréal and Tore Nielsen, Professor of Psychiatry, Université de Montréal.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

SRI LANKA
Gota’s Lockdown Decision Hinges On Gnanakka: Soothsayer Says Covid-19 Deaths Are Sacrifices To Kāli

President Nandasena Gotabaya Rajapaksa may not impose a lockdown to stop the spread of Covid-19‘s deadly Delta variant because he has been advised against such a move before the Kandy Perahera is properly concluded by his trusted Soothsayer from Anuradhapura, Colombo Telegraph learns.

Gotabaya and Gnakka

Gnanakka, a famous astrologer in Anuradhapura has been President Gotabaya’s trusted confidant ever since he took power in 2019. The President travels to Anuradhapura nearly every other weekend for advice and poojas to ward off evil spirits, highly placed sources told Colombo Telegraph. The special relationship with this soothsayer has strongly influenced policy decisions made by the GR administration, including the early decision to ban the import of turmeric into the island, the sources said. Based on the advice of the astrologer lady President Gotabaya Rajapaksa refers to as “ඥාණ මැණියෝ” (Mother Gnana), the President made the short-sighted decision to hold the Kandy Perahera against all medical advice. No spectators are allowed at the pageant, but the event includes some 5000 performers and support staff, and media teams are present for the live broadcast.

Sources close to the Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa said even he had been shocked by his younger brother’s exhortations during a recent high level discussion on shutting down the country to stop the spike in infections. Present at the meeting were also senior medical officers fiercely loyal to the administration who were strongly urging a strict lockdown and curfew for a minimum of two weeks, to spare the healthcare system which was being strained to its limit.

“We don’t make decisions lightly,” President Gotabaya is reported to have said at the meeting, the sources said. “It’s not like with other countries, the (Kandy) Perahera must be held with public participation according to Sri Lanka’s horoscope, says Gnana Maaniyo. The Perahera is going well so far. It is said that if the Perahera is not held, the “vas” (evil spirits) will impact me, as the leader of the country, I will become the sacrifice. Because of the Perahera, all the coronavirus deaths will be considered as sacrifices to the Goddess Kāli (Kā iAmma). They are sacrificing themselves for the future wellbeing and prosperity of the country,” the President reportedly claimed.

This was the true reason for the delay to lockdown the country against the virus, sources close to the PM said.

Main hospitals in Karapitiya, Negombo, Anuradhapura, Chilaw and Matara are fast running short of life-saving oxygen as doctors report an unending line of Covid-19 patients, most of whom require breathing support. Sri Lanka is inching closer to the tragic milestone of 200 deaths per day from Covid-19, with the country now ranked ninth in the world for the highest deaths to population ratio. 181 people perished from the virus on Wednesday (18). 10 powerful political parties aligned with the Government wrote to President Rajapaksa yesterday, begging him to impose a lockdown to prevent further loss of life.

The Rajapaksa family have long been associated with specific soothsayers and witch-doctors who grow in influence when the Brothers are in power. As rulers who govern by the sword, the family has a particular fear of their own mortality, and often obtain charms to ward off danger from trusted occult practitioners. During his presidency, Mahinda Rajapaksa clutched a golden sceptre believed to protect him from enemies and an untimely death.

Mahinda Rajapaka – PM

Special security has been provided to the soothsayer’s residence in Anuradhapura, Colombo Telegraph learns. Village residents have reported heightened activity around the astrologer’s home, with Presidential Security Teams often arriving ahead of the President’s visit for a consultation. Sources close to the Palace have long insisted that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s dependency on Gnanakka is particularly acute, with the soothsayer fast becoming the most powerful woman in Sri Lanka. With the Perahera nearing its closure, it is likely that the Government will soon announce a temporary lockdown, the sources told Colombo Telegraph, provided the decision is green-lit by the President’s astrologer in Anuradhapura beforehand. (Nimal Ratnaweera)

The View from England: Europe’s galactic mining goals

Chris Hinde - The Northern Miner | August 18, 2021

Credit: iStock/adventtr

An asteroid is heading towards Earth, but it is good news for miners and Luxembourg stands ready to help.


On August 11, NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office provided an update on the potentially hazardous asteroid Bennu. Scientists in the Near-Earth Object Observations Program confirmed that Bennu will make a close approach to Earth next century, although the probability of impact is only 1 in 2,700.

Another asteroid has been in the news this month. On August 5, NASA announced it is launching a mission next year to study Psyche 16. This asteroid is estimated to contain metal worth more than US$10,000 quadrillion (or ten billion billion), which is enough to make everyone on Earth a dollar billionaire.

First spotted by an Italian astronomer in 1852, Psyche 16 is a 220 km-wide asteroid comprised mostly of iron and nickel (unlike the igneous rock and ice of most other asteroids). It will take NASA’s space probe four years to reach the asteroid, which is nestled between Mars and Jupiter.

Europe in general, and Luxembourg in particular, stands ready to play a role in the mining of these metal deposits in space.

The Grand Duchy has long had ambitions to exploit asteroids, albeit the near-Earth ones (orbiting between Earth and Mars), rather than those in the Asteroid belt beyond Mars. Over five years ago, in February 2016, the then Deputy Prime Minister of Luxembourg, Etienne Schneider, announced plans to mine asteroids in collaboration with U.S.-based Deep Space Industries and Planetary Resources Inc.

LUXEMBOURG ESTABLISHED A DEDICATED SPACE LAW IN 2017 THAT PROVIDED A HIGH LEVEL OF PROTECTION FOR INVESTORS, EXPLORERS AND MINERS

Luxembourg has a long-standing space industry and was instrumental in developing satellite communications a generation ago. The former head of the European Space Agency, Jean-Jacques Dordain, told the Financial Times at the time that he was “convinced there is great scientific and economic potential in Luxembourg’s vision.” Although it sounded futuristic at the time, Dordain was adamant that the basic technology already existed.

Luxembourg was the first country in Europe to offer a legal framework for the exploration and use of space resources. It established a dedicated space law in 2017 that provided a high level of protection for investors, explorers and miners. Moreover, the Luxembourg Space Agency offers access to financial solutions and supports academic research.

There was renewed debate in 2020 over governance of the heavens after a flurry of outer-space activities. These included NASA’s announcement in October that water had been found on the Moon, which raised expectations that it may be used as a base for space exploration.

The United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space sets the standard for the development of international space law, and various treaties have provided a basic set of rules. These treaties remain untested, however, regarding who would own the rights to minerals found in outer space. For commercial space projects, including mining, to be viable, explorers and investors will need to be certain of their rights to extract the materials they discover.

There is an analogy between these emerging space laws and the rules governing the high seas. It is possible to explore, and mine, marine resources without appropriating the ocean. Although the UN’s Outer Space Treaty defines and forbids the appropriation of the Moon, or any other celestial bodies, it does not prevent the appropriation of resources in outer space.

Quite apart from their potential as orbiting lumps of iron and nickel, asteroids can contain some very unearthly material. Minerals discovered that are not known to occur naturally on earth include panguite and edscottite. The former is a type of titanium oxide that was discovered in 2012 from the Allende meteorite that had landed in Mexico 43 years earlier. Edscottite (an iron carbide) was found in the Wedderburn meteorite that impacted Australia during 1951.

Miners will need to extend their lexicon. Asteroids and comets (which are mainly comprised of ice) are renamed meteors if they enter the Earth’s atmosphere, and meteorites if they land on the surface. Any recovered material is called a ‘meteorite fall’ if the descent had been observed, and a ‘find’ if it wasn’t seen. In geology, a bolide is a meteorite large enough to create an impact crater, whereas in astronomy it is simply a brighter-than-usual meteor.

Meteorites are not especially rare, with a total of some 60,000 rocks from space having been found on earth. Around 500 meteorites are observed annually but barely 2% of these are recovered (rarely much more than ten per year), with material from a total of only 1,500 meteorite ‘falls’ being recorded historically. Because most of the meteorite burns up in the Earth’s atmosphere, less than 5% of the initial weight actually lands.

Meanwhile, NASA researchers have identified September 24, 2182, as the most likely date for Bennu to impact Earth. Better make a note in your diary, it’s rocket science.

(This article first appeared in The Northern Miner)

Nuclear plant in Alabama now uses 3D-printed components

MINING.COM Staff Writer | August 19, 2021 | 

Browns Ferry nuclear power plant. 

(Image by Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Wikimedia Commons).

The Tennessee Valley Authority’s Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant Unit 2 in Alabama has become one of the first plants in the world to use 3D-printed fuel assembly brackets.


In detail, the plant is employing four of these first-of-a-kind devices produced at the US Department of Energy’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee.

To create the brackets, ORNL researchers additively manufactured channel fasteners using a micro-welding process. They took 316 metal powder – an austenitic chromium-nickel stainless steel containing deliberate amounts of molybdenum – and they put it into a system to create a three-dimensional geometry.

To characterize the brackets, they used computer tomography and ran CT scans to create a 3D representation of the material so that it was possible to look at the entire component or zoom in and explore specific critical areas. Then, the material was polished to look at the metallurgy using a combination of optical and scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy, which allowed the researchers to see the material on its atomic scale.

Part of the 3D printing process.

 (Image courtesy of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory).

All the data that emerged from the microscopy processes were spatially tracked to understand the new material’s performance compared to conventionally processed materials.

The fasteners – which are critical safety components – were then installed in a Framatome boiling water reactor fuel assembly at the Browns Ferry nuclear plant, during a scheduled refuelling outage. They will remain in the reactor for six years, with inspections planned during outages and after use.

“Deploying 3D-printed components in a reactor application is a great milestone,” said Ben Betzler, a researcher at the ORNL and director of the Transformational Challenge Reactor or TCR program, which is part of the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy.

“It shows that it is possible to deliver qualified components in a highly regulated environment. This program bridges basic and applied science and technology to deliver tangible solutions that show how advanced manufacturing can transform reactor technology and components,” Betzler said.

The project is considered a foundational step that will lead to designing and manufacturing a variety of 3D-printed parts to support other clean energy applications.

“TVA is actively engaged in developing new nuclear technology for tomorrow,” said Dan Stout, director of Nuclear Technology Innovation at the Tennessee Valley Authority.

“Partnering with ORNL and Framatome in this innovative manufacturing approach could pave the path for use across the existing nuclear fleet and also in advanced reactors and small modular reactors.”