Transplants can save dying coral reefs, but genetically diverse donors are key, say researchers

Scientists aiming to save failing reefs by transplanting healthy coral reveal that success lies with genetic diversity — and not a single, coveted “super coral.”

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

 

IMAGE: A TRANSPLANTED STAGHORN CORAL (ACROPORA CERVICORNIS) COLONY GROWS ON A REEF. view more 

CREDIT: WYATT MILLION/USC DORNSIFE COLLEGE OF LETTERS, ARTS AND SCIENCES

Key points:

• Climate change is decimating the worlds’ reefs.
• Transplanting healthy coral onto dying reefs may save them.
• Some transplanted corals seem to thrive while others fail, but researchers weren’t sure why.
• A new study led by USC Dornsife scientists solves the mystery, revealing a path to successful transplants and rejuvenated reefs.

 

As the health of coral reefs continues to decline under the stress of climate change, researchers aim to rejuvenate failing reefs by transplanting healthy coral. Unfortunately, they’ve found mixed results, as some transplanted coral wither and die while others take root and thrive.

Why some transplanted coral, called “outplants,” flourish and others struggle or perish has remained a mystery, until now. A new study led by researchers at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals the key to successful coral transplantation.

Solving the mystery is critical to restoring dying reefs with transplanted coral, says Carly Kenkel, Gabilan Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences at USC Dornsife and a corresponding author on the study. And saving reefs remains a global imperative.

According to a 2021 study, Earth has lost half of its coral reefs since 1950. This global devastation holds tragic potential: A billion people benefit from reef ecosystems, and the U.S. economy alone gains $3.4 billion per year from them through industries like fishing and tourism, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Is it the one or the many?

Kenkel’s transplant research centers on the critically endangered Caribbean staghorn coral, Acropora cervicornis.

Before the current study, scientists used different individual staghorn coral at various transplant sites and found some outplants fared better at some locations than others. But because they used different coral at different sites, they were unable to narrow down the reason for success or failure: Was it the environment, the coral or a combination of both?

“We didn’t know if the coral were performing poorly at some sites because the environment was poor, because the individual coral were poor performers, or because those individual coral just happened to be poor performers in that particular environment,” said Kenkel.

To find the answer, Kenkel and Wyatt Million, formerly a PhD student in Kenkel’s lab at USC Dornsife and first author on the study, reduced the number of variables involved. They used clones of just 10 staghorn individuals and transplanted specimens of each at nine well-understood reef sites in the Florida Keys. They then tracked the outplants’ survival, growth, shape and size at each location.

They found that both the coral and the environment mattered. No single clone proved strong across all environments; each site saw a different clone step up and adapt for success.

“This is very important information for reef restoration,” said Kenkel. “It means that the genetic diversity of coral transplants is going to be important for hedging our bets.” As researchers aim to restore reefs, they’ll want to use a variety of individuals to ensure at least one can adapt to the new home.

She likened the idea to investing: “Diversifying your portfolio is safer than betting big on one particular company because even if some companies lose money, others will win.”

Maximizing genetic diversity — rather than looking for one standout coral to save the day, as has been the trend among researchers — is a wiser approach, she said.

“On these reefs, diversifying coral outplants is safer than betting on one ’super coral’ to succeed. There will be winners and losers in every environment. And reefs are really dynamic; each environment can be really different from a coral’s perspective, and they’re going to be even more different as the climate continues to change.”

“Plastic coral”

The findings also mean scientists will want to focus on how adaptable individual coral can be to various environments, meaning how much an individual can change its shape, size and other characteristics in response to changing environmental factors on the reef.

This “plasticity” could affect the chances of long-term success of outplants over many generations as climate change continues.

“We found that some coral were more plastic than others, and the most plastic coral — those that were able to grow biggest when it made sense to be big at a particular site or stay smallest when that was a benefit — were actually the ones who survived the best on average,” Kenkel said.

Study first author Wyatt Million — formerly a PhD student in Kenkel’s lab and now a postdoc at Germany’s Justus Liebig University Giessen — warns that coral plasticity isn’t a substitute for addressing climate change at its roots, however.

“I’d like to emphasize that adaptive plasticity is not a magic bullet for coral and cannot replace the goal of reversing the effects of climate change if we hope to ensure the ultimate persistence of coral,” he said.

What’s next?

Kenkel’s team now aims to dig deeper into what gives coral its plasticity and how it might affect future transplant efforts.

“We’re going to be asking questions like, ‘Are there any downsides to a coral being more plastic?’ Maybe it doesn’t show up in their lifetime — maybe it affects their offspring or their ability to produce offspring,” Kenkel said.

They’ll also study how coral plasticity impacts the function of the whole reef as well as what’s happening at a cellular and molecular level to enable the coral to grow, an avenue Million finds particularly interesting.

“Perhaps the most pertinent next steps include identifying the genetic basis of this plasticity and whether it belongs to the animal host or the algal symbiont,” he said.

Coral have microscopic algae living within them in a relationship known as “symbiosis.” The algae provide the coral with food and other benefits in exchange for nutrients and a safe place to live.

Understanding the genetics of both organisms will help scientists predict how a coral’s plasticity might evolve over generations with changing climate conditions.

About the study

In addition to Kenkel and Million, researchers on the study include Maria Ruggeri and Sibelle O’Donnell of USC Dornsife; Erich Bartels of Mote Marine Laboratory; Trinity Conn of The Pennsylvania State University; and Cory Krediet of Eckerd College.

This research was supported by NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program grant NA17NOS4820084 and private funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Rose Hills Foundation.

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JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2203925119 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Evidence for adaptive morphological plasticity in the Caribbean coral, Acropora cervicornis

Report provides guide to funding for coral reef restoration projects

Multi-agency working group’s report supports communities seeking funding for projects to reduce flood risks by restoring coral reefs for storm hazard mitigation and climate adaptation

Reports and Proceedings

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SANTA CRUZ

 

IMAGE: THE NEW REPORT PROVIDES GUIDANCE ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CORAL REEF RESTORATION PROPOSALS FOR FEDERAL HAZARD MITIGATION FUNDING. view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO CREDIT: CURT STORLAZZI, USGS

UC Santa Cruz played a leading role in a multi-agency group working for the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force to provide guidance on the development of coral reef restoration proposals for federal hazard mitigation funding.

UCSC scientists worked with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on the project, which was approved and published by the Task Force in December.

Austen Stovall, the report's lead author, worked on the project as a graduate student in the Coastal Science and Policy Program at UC Santa Cruz.

“We developed this guide to help local project champions to apply for funding from FEMA and USACE to reduce coastal flooding by restoring coral reefs,” Stovall said.

Research Professor Michael Beck, who holds the AXA Chair in Coastal Resilience and directs the Center for Coastal Climate Resilience at UC Santa Cruz, noted that billions of dollars in federal funding are available for hazard mitigation and disaster recovery projects.

“Under the Biden administration, FEMA wants to fund nature-based projects. Unfortunately, communities have not had the tools to be successful in winning funds for habitat restoration for coastal protection; we are solving that problem with this report,” Beck said.

Coral reef restoration for risk reduction (CR4) projects are different from solely ecological coral restoration projects in that CR4 projects aim to meet two different management objectives—environmental conservation and hazard mitigation. They often will require more specific placement and planning, detailed hydrodynamic analyses, and larger project scales to meet both objectives.

FEMA provides billions of dollars in hazard mitigation assistance to communities each year to reduce or eliminate long-term disaster risks. For example, in July 2022, President Biden announced that $2.3 billion would be available in the current fiscal year for pre-disaster hazard mitigation projects through FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) Program. According to Stovall, this large amount of funding available through federal hazard mitigation sources could significantly increase the scale at which coral restoration can be implemented, as long as projects also meet hazard mitigation objectives.

Because this is a relatively new approach, many stakeholders, including community leaders, natural resource managers, and government entities, may not know when and where it can be used for flood risk reduction nor how to apply for funding for CR4 projects from agencies that provide funds for hazard mitigation or disaster recovery.

Beck's Coastal Resilience Lab at UCSC is involved in a variety of projects related to coral reef restoration, including work with the USGS and the Nature Conservancy to advance CR4 efforts in the U.S. Virgin Islands, with funding from FEMA. His group is also part of a collaborative coral reef restoration project focused on protecting vulnerable coastal regions in Florida and the Caribbean and funded by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as part of its nationwide Reefense research program.

Coral reefs are highly diverse and biologically complex ecosystems that provide a range of key ecosystem services for people. The total economic value of coral reefs in the United States—based on their contributions to tourism, fisheries, and coastal protection—is estimated at $3.4 billion.

Coral reefs offer coastal protection by reducing flooding and erosion through wave breaking and friction. On average, coral reefs dissipate 97% of wave energy before it reaches coastlines. According to Stovall, coral reefs protect from flooding more than 18,000 people, $825 million in coastal infrastructure, and $700 million in economic activity annually in the United States.

Beck's group has been at the forefront of making the case for the value of nature-based solutions in coastal protection and adaptation to climate change. He and his team have worked with federal agencies and the insurance industry on a variety of projects to demonstrate the value of coastal wetlands, coral reefs, and mangroves for coastal defense.

Beck noted that the approaches outlined in the CR4 guidance document can also be used to support many other nature-based projects and proposals beyond reef restoration for federal hazard mitigation funding.

The United States Coral Reef Task Force (USCRTF) was established in 1998 by Presidential Executive Order to lead U.S. efforts to preserve and protect coral reef ecosystems. The USCRTF includes leaders of Federal agencies, U.S. States, territories, commonwealths, and Freely Associated States. The USCRTF helps build partnerships, strategies, and support for on-the-ground action to conserve coral reefs.

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DOI

10.5281/zenodo.7268962 

Earth’s inner core may be oxygen-rich

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CENTER FOR HIGH PRESSURE SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY ADVANCED RESEARCH

 

IMAGE: IRON-RICH FE–O COMPOUNDS AT EARTH’S CORE PRESSURES view more 

CREDIT: JIN LIU

Oxygen is the key substance for life and one of the most abundant elements in the Earth. However, it’s still unknown whether oxygen is present and in which form in the inner core with extreme high pressure and temperature conditions, and almost composed of pure iron. Scientists co-led by Dr. Jin Liu from HPSTAR (the Center for High Pressure Science &Technology Advanced Research) and Dr. Yang Sun from Columbia University reveal that Fe-rich Fe-O alloys are stable at extreme pressures of nearly 300 GPa and high temperatures of more than 3,000 K. The results published in the journal of The Innovation prove that oxygen can exist in the solid inner core, which provides key constraints for further understanding of the formation process and evolution history of the Earth's core.

The Earth’s solid inner core, as one of the most mysterious places on the planet, is in the most extreme temperature and pressure environment on Earth, with a pressure of more than 3 million atmospheres and a temperature close to the surface of the Sun, about 6000 K. Because the inner core is far beyond the reach of humans, we can only infer its density and chemical composition from the seismic signals generated by earthquakes. At present, it is believed that light elements exist in the inner core, but the type and content are still debated. Cosmochemical and geochemical evidence suggests that it should contain sulfur, silicon, carbon, and hydrogen. Experiments and calculations also confirmed that these elements mix with pure iron to form various Fe alloys under high temperatures and high-pressure conditions of the deep Earth.

However, oxygen, which is closely related to us, is usually excluded from the inner core. This is mainly because Fe-O alloys with iron-rich compositions have never been found in the surface or mantle environments. The oxygen content in all known iron oxides is greater than or equal to 50 atomic percent. Although people have been trying to synthesize iron oxide compounds with iron-rich compositions, such substances have never been found yet. Is the Earth's inner core so "anoxic"? To answer this question, a series of experiments and theoretical calculations were carried out in this study.

To be close to the temperature and pressure of Earth's core, pure iron and iron oxide were placed on the tips of two diamond anvils and heated with a high-energy laser beam. After many attempts, it was found that a chemical reaction between iron and iron oxide occurs above 220-260 GPa and 3000 K. The XRD results reveal that the reaction product is different from the common high-temperature and high-pressure structure of pure iron and iron oxide. Theoretical crystal structure search using a genetic algorithm proved that the iron-rich Fe-O alloy could exist stably at approximately 200 GPa. Under such conditions, the new Fe-rich Fe-O alloys form a hexagonal close-packed structure, where the oxygen layers are arranged in between Fe layers to stabilize the structure. Such a mechanism produces many close-packed arrangements forming a large family of Fe-rich Fe-O compounds with large configurational entropy. Based on this theoretical information, an atomic configuration of Fe28O14 was found to match the experimentally measured XRD pattern. Further calculations showed that Fe-rich Fe-O phases are metallic, in contrast with common iron oxides at low pressures. The electronic structure depends on O concentration and the Fe and O layer arrangements. The mechanical properties and thermal properties of the alloy need to be further studied in the future.

More information:" Iron-rich Fe–O compounds at Earth’s core pressures" Liu et al., The Innovation 4(1): 100354 (2023). https://www.cell.com/the-innovation/fulltext/S2666-6758(22)00150-3

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JOURNAL

The Innovation

DOI

10.1016/j.xinn.2022.100354 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

ARTICLE TITLE

Iron-rich Fe–O compounds at Earth’s core pressures

Ryugu: Asteroid samples continue to shed light on solar system history

Peer-Reviewed Publication

INSTITUT DE PHYSIQUE DU GLOBE DE PARIS

 

IMAGE: SAMPLES OF ASTEROID RYUGU ANALYSED AT IPGP view more 

CREDIT: © IPGP

Nearly two years after Japanese mission Hayabusa2 returned to Earth, samples from asteroid Ryugu continue to reveal valuable information about the history of the early solar system. A study by scientists from the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Université Paris Cité and CNRS1, as part of an international consortium, reveals the isotopic composition of zinc and copper of asteroid Ryugu. The isotopic signatures show that Ryugu’s composition is close to Ivuna-like carbonaceous chondrites, and that Ryugu-like material from the outer solar system accounts for ~5-6% of Earth's mass. These results are published on 12 December 2022 in the journal Nature Astronomy.  

Meteorites found on Earth give scientists access to samples representing the first moments of the solar system. However, the return to Earth in December 2020 of the Hayabusa2 mission, operated by the Japanese space agency JAXA and bringing back 5 grams of fragments from the asteroid Ryugu, marks a major step forward by offering the possibility of analyzing samples unaltered by their arrival and stay on Earth. The first analyses, carried out by an international team, including researchers from the Institut de physique du globe de Paris, Université Paris Cité and the CNRS, have shown that the composition of the asteroid Ryugu is close to that of Ivuna-like carbonaceous chondrites (CI) - the most chemically primitive meteorites, and considered to have the composition closest to the Sun. However, some isotopic signatures (e.g., titanium and chromium) overlap with other groups of carbonaceous chondrites, so the details of the link between Ryugu and CI chondrites are not yet fully understood.

Zinc and copper are two moderately volatile elements, and are key elements to study the processes of accretion of volatiles during the formation of telluric planets. The different groups of carbonaceous chondrites show distinct zinc and copper isotopic compositions, with the CI chondrites being the more enriched in volatile elements. By carrying out additional analyzes of the zinc and copper isotopic composition of Ryugu, the scientists had access to a crucial tool for studying the origin of the asteroid.

The international team showed, in a study published on December 12th, 2022 in the journal Nature Astronomy and led by Marine Paquet and Frédéric Moynier, cosmochemists at the IPGP, that the isotopic ratios of copper and zinc in the samples from Ryugu were identical to CI chondrites but different from all other types of meteorites. By finally confirming the similarity between Ryugu and CI chondrites, this study establishes that these primitive samples from Ryugu represent the best estimate of the solar composition to date for copper and zinc.

Finally, the zinc isotopic composition of Ryugu can also be used to study the accretional history of moderately volatile elements on Earth, which are essential for the development of planetary habitability. The study also demonstrates that the contribution of Ryugu-like material represents about 5% of the Earth’s mass.

> Contribution of Ryugu-like material to Earth’s volatile inventory by Cu and Zn isotopic analysis, Marine Paquet, Frederic Moynier, Tetsuya Yokoyama et al., Nature Astronomy, 2022, DOI : 10.1038/s41550-022-01846-1

 

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JOURNAL

Nature Astronomy

DOI

10.1038/s41550-022-01846-1 

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Contribution of Ryugu-like material to Earth’s volatile inventory by Cu and Zn isotopic analysis

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

12-Dec-2022

Disclaimer: AAAS and Eu

Why some Black women won’t or can’t quit hair relaxers – even as the dangers become clearer

An 11-year study found women using chemical straighteners had double the risk of uterine cancer faced by those who didn’t use the products.

 Photograph: Vystekimages/Getty Images/Photononstop RF

Studies show the products may double the risk of uterine cancer, but tradition, societal pressure and personal taste create obstacles to change


Deborah Douglas

THE GUARDIAN

Mon 12 Dec 2022 


Jeanet Stephenson stacks two boxes of hair relaxer on her bathroom sink. She shakes out her long hair before leaning down to reveal wavy roots at her middle part to the camera – straightening this patch of her hair is the purpose of her TikTok video Come Get a Relaxer With Me, Pt 2. A remix of SZA plays in the background as she slicks her hair down with the white chemical concoction from one of the boxes. By the end of the demo clip she is smiling into the camera, glossy-lipped, with an air of satisfaction and shiny, straight, blown-out tresses falling past her shoulders.

The 22-year-old nursing student in Montgomery, Alabama, occasionally gets pushback for posting videos of chemically straightening her hair. Commenters will respond, “Relaxers are damaging, so I don’t see how it’s healthy at all,” or “It’s literally chemicals that make ur hair permanently straight. It doesn’t matter how professionally you do it, it’s still damaging.”

Now more than ever before, the risks of wearing relaxers has been clearly laid out. 

Photograph: PermaStrate

But for Stephenson, “a lot of stuff in the world isn’t safe”. She says her tresses are healthy and more manageable, and refuses to give relaxers up.

Whether it’s personal preference, tradition, or response to external pressure to have straight hair, relaxers are a habit many Black women just won’t, or can’t, quit. Michelle Obama recently spoke to the pressure to conform to a certain aesthetic while serving as first lady. During an appearance in Washington DC to promote her new book she said, wearing long braids on stage: “As Black women, we deal with it, the whole thing about do you show up with your natural hair? As first lady, I did not wear braids. I thought about it … nope, nope, they’re not ready.”

The problem is that now more than ever, the risks of wearing relaxers has been clearly laid out. In groundbreaking research released in October, a National Institutes of Health study of about 34,000 women ages 35-74 conducted over almost 11 years found the women who reported using chemical straighteners had double the risk of uterine cancer faced by women who didn’t use these products.


Frequent use of hair-straightening products may raise uterine cancer risk, study says

“Because Black women use hair-straightening or relaxer products more frequently and tend to initiate use at earlier ages than other races and ethnicities, these findings may be even more relevant for them,” Dr Che-Jung Chang, a co-author of the study, said in a statement.

Just days after the study was released, a 32-year-old Black woman from Missouri, Jenny Mitchell, filed a lawsuit against L’Oréal, Strength of Nature, SoftSheen Carson, Dabur International, and Namaste Laboratories – all makers of chemical straighteners and hair relaxers. She got her first relaxer around age eight, amid social norms about having “sleek, nice, laid hair”, Mitchell said. Now, as a uterine cancer survivor who has undergone a hysterectomy and premature menopause, Mitchell cites relaxers as the reason she will never be able to bear children.

Mitchell learned about her cancer while seeking fertility treatments to fulfill her dream of becoming a mother. “That’s always something that I wanted,” says Mitchell, who has 14 nieces and nephews. “I always wanted my great-aunt to see my kids, see my child. It was a dream that I’ve always had that was just snatched away from me.”

Over the past decade, chemical relaxer sales to hair professionals and salons declined, from $71m in 2011 to $30m in 2021, according to the market research firm the Kline Group; Mitchell is one of many Black women who have foregone relaxers and she wears her hair naturally, cut closely to her head.

The defendants have not yet filed an answer to the lawsuit, according to Mitchell’s attorney, Diandra “Fu” Debrosse Zimmermann. Mitchell’s legal team said they expected many more women to file additional lawsuits against the defendants and would ask for all of them to be handled under one federal judge.

“If Jenny prevails, it will be no less significant than the first case where we discovered that smoking caused cancer and that there had to be repercussions,” says Noliwe Rooks, chair of Africana studies at Brown University, who weaves the story of hair into courses she teaches about Black women because it is a crucial element of the Black experience in America. And, if Mitchell prevails, Black women could be faced with a different kind of conversation about hair and adornment – that of adverse and unequal health consequences.

An advertisement for hair relaxer from 1966. Photograph: Granger/Shutterstock

In addition to the October study, a 2021 Oxford University Carcinogenesis Journal study found that frequent, long-term use of lye-based relaxers could have serious health effects, including breast cancer. And Dr Tamarra James-Todd at Harvard University’s Chan School of Public Health has found hormone-disrupting chemicals in half of hair products marketed to Black women, compared with 7% for white women.

“Estrogen levels are involved in breast cancer, for example, and ovarian cancer, as well as uterine cancer,” James-Todd says. “I don’t want anything that’s sitting on the shelf of a store to up-regulate or down-regulate my hormone levels.”

Weighing the risks of using these products has largely been left to consumers because relaxers and hair straighteners are considered cosmetic products, the US Food and Drug Administration said in an emailed statement. “Cosmetic products and ingredients, other than color additives, do not need FDA approval before they go on the market,” according to an agency spokesperson. If a product has been adulterated or misbranded, consumers can report it to the FDA.

Tatiana Smith, a 29-year-old New Jersey-based accountant and bodybuilder, works out almost daily. She tried natural hairstyles for a year, but sweating at the gym and damp weather made for less-than ideal results. “I go out one way from home, and get to the office and I looked different,” she says. “I always know what I’m getting with a relaxer.” She adds: “We know there is a chance for all types of things, cancer included, but I think we’ve heard it before. You really can pick your poison in this country.”

As much as Smith’s decision is personal, what Black women choose to do with their hair has always lived in tension with self- and cultural expression, and the quest for inclusion in American society.

Relaxers, or perms (as they are sometimes called in the Black community because they are meant to be semi-permanent), became a staple in the 1940s, when top Black entertainers sported sleek, processed waves, suggesting sophistication as well as belonging. Before then, all kinds of products purported to straighten Black hair, but it wasn’t until the 40s that women could begin to trust over-the-counter formulations “a little bit”, according to Rooks.

In the 60s, young people embraced Black pride and began wearing naturals, “which was all kinds of horrifying for people”, Rooks says, referring to a lack of acceptance of short afros both from segments of the older Black generation and from various races in professional settings. During this era, relaxers largely went out of style.

“Beauty companies come along and say, ‘Well, let’s kind of split the difference. You don’t necessarily have to have hair that is speaking to Black pride as much as an aesthetic of an afro, but that’s looser and wavy,’” Rooks says. “And those blowout kits actually sort of revived the sale of relaxers, [which] had taken a little bit of a dip in the heart of the Black Power period.” Next came Jheri curls in the 80s, followed by weaves, says Rooks, noting that in the 90s, stories about Black women being fired for wearing natural hairstyles were emerging. The 2000s ushered in a generational change as young people prioritized versatility, she says, so if they wanted to wear straight hair one day and a pink wig or locs the next, everything was fair game.

But with more discussion of self-care as well as self-acceptance in the last decade or so, use of relaxers has dipped significantly. “To a certain extent, you have in the last 10 years started to have more conversations about hair relaxers and health, so you hear about alopecia perhaps having something to do with relaxers,” says Rooks, who sports an above-the-shoulder twist-out style for her salt-and-pepper hair.

As the modern natural hair movement took off, however, Rooks began noticing Black women talking about undergoing “the big chop” to get rid of relaxed hair and make room for new, naturally curly hair to take its place, using words like “self-care” and moving towards self-acceptance.

A 1968 advertisement. In the 60s, relaxers largely went out of style. 

Photograph: Granger/Shutterstock

Many had learned to “distrust and dislike” their natural hair from parents and grandparents, probably responding to generations of external pressure to conform. Then, she says, society reinforces internalized messages about acceptability, by suggesting, “We want you to look a certain kind of way if you’re going to work for our airline, for our hotels, if you’re going to make it into corporate boardrooms.” When Black women tease out what that certain kind of way is, Rooks says, “it’s not the hair like it looks, how it’s grown out your head”.

With more Black women having serious conversations about connections between haircare products and health conditions, Rooks can find “no murmurs of, no hints” of concern by the government or among companies about the safety of these formulations.

A lot of “girlfriend conversations” have involved rethinking the idea of putting formulations with lye, an ingredient used in plumbing, on their heads, though there are plenty of no-lye options on the market.

Black women have reconsidered scalp-level issues, such as relaxer burns, scabbing, and hair loss, says Rooks, who is among the featured guests on Hulu’s The Hair Tales, Tracee Ellis Ross’s recent exploration of Black women’s notions of beauty and identity. Other guests include Oprah Winfrey, Chloe Bailey and the Massachusetts congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, among others.

“We hear about fibroids having something to do with relaxers,” Rooks says of the benign pelvic tumors Black women are two to three times more likely to suffer than white women. Fibroids are also the main reason women get hysterectomies, according to the Black Women’s Health Imperative. “So that has put the brakes on it as well.”

But Black women will continue to wrestle with the pressure to use relaxers to feel socially accepted, according to Alice Gresham, a Philadelphia-based clinical director for outpatient mental health. The Hair Tales makes “it clear the kind of trauma that we’ve been experiencing around a physical attribute secondary to our skin, which of course is still trauma, and it’s double trauma or complicated trauma,” Gresham tells TikTok viewers in a video responding to the Hulu series.

She says in professional settings, including at their jobs, Black women are subject to both hypervisibility – being scrutinized about everything from the work they do to how they look when doing it – and invisibility in being rewarded for good work. This duality produces “a psychosis in Black women in the workplace” trying to fit into corporate structures with the “right” look.

Gresham says she is incensed it is taking so long to make a federal law out of the Crown Act, which would make discrimination based on a person’s texture or style of hair illegal. The bill was co-sponsored by the Democratic representatives Ilhan Omar and Pressley, two Black women, and passed the House but stalled in the Senate. The Democratic New Jersey senator Cory Booker is expected to reintroduce the bill in the next Congress.

“The message is basically, it might be OK for you to do something different with your hair or be natural with your hair,” according to Gresham, who says trauma sets in when non-Black people “say the most ridiculous ignorant things to you about it, including trying to touch it or making comments in front of other people, asking you ‘Is that real?’ or ‘Your hair is so interesting how you have it in a different way each and every day.’”

Gresham says she has mentored women who struggle with thinning and brittle hair after years of relaxer use when the social acceptance they have been chasing hasn’t worked out the way they thought it would. “I believe there’s a bit of an attachment there, like ‘decent’ is relaxing, making it straight,” Greshman says. “We’re still struggling with natural hair in its natural way.”

‘Cultural appropriation’: discussion builds over western yoga industry

Practitioners fear Indian culture has been ‘suppressed by colonisation’ while some question accessibility

In 2019, the global yoga industry was worth an estimated $37.46bn.

 Photograph: Thomas Barwick/Getty Images

Nadia Khomami
@nadiakhomami

Mon 12 Dec 2022 

Yoga has been a big part of Nadia Gilani’s life since she was introduced to the practice by her mother at the age of 16. A few years ago, after various personal struggles, she became a full-time yoga teacher.

But almost immediately, she realised not only were most yoga teachers and students in the UK white, but the accompanying wellness narrative has divorced yoga from its 5,000-year-old roots.

“The lack of people of colour in the industry is a massive problem,” Gilani said. “There is a big issue with diversity, in terms of both teachers and those who practice it. What especially annoys me is when Sanskrit words like ‘namaste’ get emblazoned on T-shirts, images of Hindu gods are turned into tattoos, or ‘om’ symbols are printed on yoga mats. It’s cultural appropriation and it’s offensive.”

If her mother had not introduced her to yoga, Gilani wonders if she would have found it at all. “Flashy studios, costing up to £20 a class. It’s gatekeeping, in a way.”

This week, practitioners in India have once again sought to draw attention to what they see as cultural appropriation of yoga, amid allegations it has been whitewashed. Vikram Jeet Singh, a yoga instructor in Goa, told This Week in Asia that “his own culture” has been “wiped out and suppressed by colonisation”.

In the west, he added, yoga has “become synonymous with a workout session stripped of any kind of cultural background, where you have to show up with $100 Lululemon leggings and an equally expensive mat. That is not right”.

Yoga has developed from an underground practice to a multibillion-pound industry driven by celebrity fans such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Aniston. In 2019, the global yoga industry was worth an estimated $37.46bn (£30.53bn).


‘Skinny, bendy and blonde’: women of colour challenge racism in UK yoga

Teachers of South Asian heritage in the UK, such as Nikita Desai, have posted videos claiming yoga has become “colonised” and inaccessible to many, the Times has reported. Online teacher Cat Meffan said she had to learn about issues around appropriation, which was not taught when she studied to be a teacher in 2014.

In her book The Yoga Manifesto: How Yoga Helped Me and Why it Needs to Save Itself, Gilani writes at length about the problems in the industry. But she said she did not like words such as “colonised” to describe the spread of the yogic practice.

“I don’t think claiming yoga back as an Indian practice for only Indians is the way,” she said. “These conversations have to be nuanced. It’s not as simple as saying ‘the west has nicked yoga’.

“I was born in the west, I’ve got a western practice and I’ve got a western modern life, which is why I think the call to ‘decolonise’ doesn’t quite work. I need my practice to fit with my modern life. Of course, I’m more sensitive because I had to deal with growing up as a person of colour in the west. But this isn’t about bashing white people – everyone has to be sensitive. I could easily make a mistake too, and what’s important is having those discussions afterwards.”

‘Like an oilwell in your back yard’: Irish people turn to cutting peat to save on energy bills

Curbs to protect Ireland’s bogs have gone up in smoke amid soaring costs – theft of trees and woodpiles in Germany also rising

Ireland’s bogs are important carbon sinks and sources of biodiversity.

 Photograph: Patrick Bolger/the Guardian

Rory Carroll Ireland correspondent

 and Kate Connolly in Berlin

The Guardian

Mon 12 Dec 2022

This was supposed to be the year Ireland got serious about protecting its bogs but some of those hopes are wafting up in smoke as households burn peat to save on energy bills.

The soaring cost of oil and gas has reinvigorated the ancient practice of cutting and burning turf, a fuel that hurts the environment but can save a family thousands of euros, especially as temperatures drop to freezing.


‘We’re being left with nothing’: Ireland’s turf wars expose rural grievances

Earlier this year the government introduced curbs to peat cutting to protect Ireland’s bogs – which are important carbon sinks and sources of biodiversity – but Europe’s energy crisis has boosted what is supposed to be an anachronism. It costs approximately €500 to heat a household with peat for a year versus several thousand euros for more climate-friendly sources of energy.

“People are glad to have turf. It’s like having an oilwell in your own back yard,” said Michael Fitzmaurice, an independent member of parliament and chair of the Turf Cutters and Contractors Association. An average household that relies on peat consumes 10 to 12 tonnes per year, he said. “It’s security of energy.”

Niall Ó Brolcháin, a researcher at the Insight Centre for Data Analytics at the National University of Ireland, said consumers faced a pinch point. “The financial factor is a much stronger motivation than saving the planet. People are facing an immediate crisis.”

People in rural areas traditionally cut peat sods in spring and burn them in winter. Photograph: PhilAugustavo/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Meanwhile people across Europe are turning to solid fuels, with Germany experiencing a wave of thefts of trees and woodpiles in forests.

In Ireland, anecdotal evidence suggests there has been a sizeable increase in the use of so-called turbary rights which allow people to cut peat, said Ó Brolcháin, a former mayor of Galway city. “In many cases turbary rights had lapsed but people are using them again all of a sudden. There is plenty of evidence of people selling peat door to door. It’s quite understandable, given the economics.”

People in rural areas traditionally cut peat sods in spring and burn them in winter. There are no official statistics about how much was cut or stockpiled. Ó Brolcháin estimates an increase from last year ranging from 30% to 200%. “Last year I drove around Connemara looking for piles of turf and it was hard to find them. This year it was really easy.”

Marc Ó Cathasaigh, a member of parliament with the Green party, which is part of the ruling coalition, also cited anecdotal evidence of increased turf cutting. Though hard to quantify it represented a “step backwards”, he said. “Our bogs are important for carbon sequestration, water management and biodiversity. They are much more valuable to us as bogs rather than as fuel.”

Ó Cathasaigh said fuel allowances and energy credits had cushioned households but some still relied on peat, coal and wood, adding to chimney smoke. “Air quality affects health, one follows the other.”

Ireland’s rural inhabitants survived for centuries by draining bogs and using peat as fuel. A semi-state company, Bord na Móna, cut turf on an industrial scale. Storytelling by a blazing hearth embodied the national identity.

Attitudes began to change in the 1990s. Burning smoky fuels was banned in Dublin and in 2018, Bord na Móna announced the phasing out of its commercial turf cutting. The government banned the sale of turf, smoky coal, and wet wood in shops or online in October.

But fearing a rural backlash, it allowed families living near remaining bogs to continue cutting turf for domestic use. Almost 14% of households do so, including 4% for whom it is a primary source of heating, according to an Environmental Protection Agency study. The European Commission has threatened to impose sanctions on Ireland unless it curbs peat cutting in special areas of conservation.

Fitzmaurice hopes families can continue cutting and burning turf, saying it bolsters Ireland’s energy security. “If you have something in your own country you should use it rather than be bringing in something from Saudi Arabia or Canada.”

John Dore, a spokesperson for the Kildare Turf Cutters Association, said he felt sorry for households facing big energy bills. “I wouldn’t like to be a tight-budgeted person paying for oil and gas. It won’t make any difference to me because I’ve got the turf.”

Sacks of firewood are stacked at a business in Berlin, Germany, where a shortage of Russian gas has reignited enthusiasm for the method of heating private homes. Photograph: Carsten Koall/AFP/Getty Images

People in Germany, meanwhile, have turned to wood. The Consortium of German Forest Owners Associations says more people are collecting wood – and that professional thieves are stealing it for firewood and building materials, with losses in recent months amounting to millions of euros.

Typically, thieves drive heavy vehicles into forests at night and filch felled trees that are awaiting collection. In one case, criminals near Königs Wusterhausen, outside Berlin, cut down and removed 100 trees. Forest walkers have been urged to report suspicious activity. Some forest owners have put GPS devices on trees.

For some there is an upside: Germany’s 21,000 chimney sweeps have reported a boom in business – a quadrupling in some areas - as householders install and rehabilitate fireplaces.

The Fed needs to stop raising interest rates

Robert Reich

Interest rate hikes mean that workers and consumers take the hit. Here are other tools to address inflation

‘The government should use other means to tame inflation. Like what? Windfall taxes.’

 Photograph: Brendan McDermid/Reuters

Mon 12 Dec 2022 

The Fed is meeting on Tuesday. This week, presumably, it will announce that it’s raising interest rates once again in its continuing attempt to stem inflation by slowing the economy.

But shouldn’t it be obvious by now that higher interest rates aren’t doing the trick?

Despite seven straight increases in just nine months, totaling a whopping 4.25 percentage points – a pace not seen since the Fed’s inflation fight in the 1980s – prices have barely slowed. (We’ll know more today when November’s Consumer Price Index is released.)

The Fed’s failure is partly due to events outside the United States – Putin’s war in Ukraine, China’s lockdown and post-Covid demand worldwide exceeding worldwide supplies of all sorts of materials and components.

But it’s also because domestic inflation is being driven by profits, not wages. And interest rate hikes don’t reduce profit-driven inflation – at least not directly. Instead, workers and consumers take the hit.

The labor department reported that labor costs increased 5.3% over the past year. But prices rose 7.1%. This means the real purchasing power of American workers continues to drop.

Forget the 1970s wage-price spiral when real average earnings continued to rise for much of the decade. Now, workers are taking it on the chin.

Profits have grown faster than labor costs for seven of the past eight quarters. As Paul Donovan, chief economist for UBS’s Global Wealth Management, wrote last week, “today’s price inflation is more a product of profits than wages.”

Corporate profits surged to a record high of $2.08tn in the third quarter of this year, even as inflation continued to squeeze workers and consumers. Over the last two years, quarterly profits have ballooned more than an 80%, from around $1.2tn to more than $2tn.

Executives of big companies across America continue to tell Wall Street they can keep prices high or raise them even higher. As Pepsi Co’s financial chief, Hugh Johnston, said on his company’s third quarter earnings call, we’re “capable of taking whatever pricing we need”.

Not every business is raking it in, to be sure. Most small businesses aren’t sharing in the profit bonanza because everything they need for putting stuff on the shelves has gone up in price.

But the big ones have never done as well.

In fact, rather than slowing corporate price increases, the Fed’s rate hikes seem to be having the opposite effect.

It’s not hard to see why. If I run a big corporation, I’m not going to lower my prices and profits in the face of a pending economic slowdown. I’ll do everything I can to keep them as high as possible for as long as I can.

I’ll reduce my prices and profits only when the Fed’s higher rates begin hurting consumers enough that they stop buying stuff at my high prices because they can find better deals elsewhere.

Yet if I have a monopoly or near-monopoly – as is increasingly the case with big American corporations – my consumers won’t have much choice. If they want and need my stuff, they’ll continue to buy at the higher prices.

Of course, I’ll keep telling them I have no choice but to keep raising my prices because my costs keep increasing – even though that’s bunk because I’m increasing my profit margins.

Eventually, the Fed could raise interest rates so high that the cost of borrowing makes it impossible for consumers – whose wages, remember, are already dropping, adjusted for inflation – to afford what I’m selling, thereby forcing me to stop raising my prices.

But by this time, people will be hurting. Many will have lost economic ground. Some will have become impoverished. A large number of jobs will have been lost.

The Fed should stop believing it can easily stop profit-price inflation by hiking interest rates. It should pause interest-rate hikes long enough to see – and allow the nation to see – they’re harming workers and consumers more than corporations that continue to rake in record profits.

The government should use other means to tame inflation. Like what?

Like windfall profits taxes – as California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, has proposed for oil companies there, and Representative Ro Khanna and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse have proposed nationally (taxing the difference between the current price of oil per barrel and the average cost between 2015 and 2019).

Like tough antitrust enforcement aimed at reducing the pricing power of big corporations (as Lina Kahn is attempting at the Federal Trade Commission and Jonathan Kanter is trying at the antitrust division of the justice department).

Like a new antitrust law that allows enforcers to bust up big corporations (and prevent them from buying other businesses) when they’re powerful enough to continue raising their prices higher than their costs are rising. (Could Republicans in Congress be coaxed into supporting this? I believe so.)

It’s important that Americans know the truth. Seven Fed rate hikes in just nine months have not dented corporate power to raise prices and profit margins.

Which is why the Fed is putting the onus of fighting inflation on workers and consumers rather than on the corporations responsible for it.

This is wrong. It’s bad economics. It’s insane politics. And it’s profoundly unfair.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com

Freed Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout joins ultranationalist party

Bout, who was released in prisoner exchange, could seek a seat in parliament, and has spoken of ‘pride’ in Putin

01:45

Freed Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout joins far-right party – video report


Pjotr Sauer

Mon 12 Dec 2022

The Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who returned home last week in a prisoner exchange for the American basketball star Brittney Griner, has joined the pro-Kremlin far-right Liberal Democratic party (LDPR), in a move that could see him seek a seat in the Russian parliament.

In a video posted on telegram, LDPR’s leader, Leonid Slutsky, who was standing next to Bout, said: “I want to thank Viktor Anatolievich [Bout] for the decision he has made and welcome him into the ranks of the best political party in today’s Russia.”

Despite its name, the Liberal Democratic party has, since its foundation in 1991, propagandised an ultranationalist and xenophobic ideology, urging Russia to invade the countries of the former Soviet Union.

The party has also served as a springboard for unsavoury characters into Russian politics. In 2007, Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB agent who is accused by Britain of murdering the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko, gained a seat in the Russian Duma for the party.

Bout, whose release has been presented as a major PR win by Moscow, on Monday told Russian media that he had no immediate plans to participate in “any elections”.

Prominent Russian figures close to the Kremlin welcomed Bout’s entry to the LDPR.

“Viktor Bout is not a person, he is an example of firmness,” said Yevgeny Prigozhin, a powerful Russian businessman and close ally of Vladimir Putin behind the Wagner mercenary group.

“Bout will certainly be good at the head of any existing party and any movement,” Prigozhin added in a statement posted by his catering company, Concord.

The moment he landed in Moscow last week, Bout was on a Kremlin-organised media tour in which he has praised Vladimir Putin and backed Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

01:11Brittney Griner and Viktor Bout exchanged on UAE airport tarmac – video

His first interview in Russia was with the state-backed television channel RT and conducted by Maria Butina, who herself spent more than a year in prison in the US for being an unregistered agent of Russia.

“I am proud that I am a Russian person, and our president is Putin,” Bout told Butina, adding that he kept a picture of Putin in his US prison cell.

Commenting on Russia’s war in Ukraine, Bout told RT: “I know that we will win.”

The former Soviet air force pilot, who allegedly has ties to the Russian intelligence services, claimed that he would have volunteered to go to the frontline if he had the “opportunity and necessary skills”.

“Why did we not do it earlier?” Bout said, referring to Putin’s decision to launch the invasion.

Parroting much of Putin’s recent statements that blasted liberalism, he also predicted the end of western civilisation.

“What is happening in the west is simply the suicide of civilisation … And it may be happening in all areas, with drugs and LGBT+ among them,” said Bout.