Mining companies partner on lithium


Mon, January 30, 2023 

BURGEO — From Matador Mining and the Cape Ray Gold Project to Atlantic Minerals Ltd. and the Lower Cove Mine on the West Coast, the mining industry has been growing in Newfoundland and Labrador, and it appears that trend will continue. A joint venture near Burgeo has uncovered another significant mineral outcropping – lithium.

Andrew Parsons, Minister of Industry, Energy and Technology, said there are two companies presently involved in the discovery.

“One of them being Sokoman (Minerals Corp.) and Benton (Resources Inc.). It’s a joint play and they have what is called the Golden Hope Project. They are just west of the Burgeo highway and just north of Burgeo, and they’ve actually made an initial discovery, and they are very excited about what they’ve found, but it’s really early on,” said Parsons. “Since that time I’ve been made aware of another company called MLK Gold who are looking for the same thing in the same vicinity.”

Timothy Froude, President, CEO and Director of Sokoman Minerals Corp. said the companies are equal partners on the project.

“It’s a very large property and we staked it in the spring of 2021. It covers about 750 square kilometres and it straddles the Burgeo Highway. It doesn’t quite go down to Burgeo,” said Froude via phone interview. “It covers a pretty big swath of ground and it’s going to take us a little bit of time to get our heads around it.”

While the project, which consists of over 3,000 claims, was initially staked for gold with the Hope Brook Mine in the same area, prospectors happened to discover lithium.

“We were prospecting for gold when we discovered a series of lithium bearing dykes (the Kraken Prospect) about 12 kms west of the Burgeo Highway, 30 kms or so north of the town of Burgeo. In late 2022, we discovered a dyke (named Hydra) which is highly enriched in cesium, along with significant lithium, rubidium and tantalum, 12 kms to the northeast of the Kraken."

These dykes, called pegmatite dykes, are an igneous rock type that carry significant levels of obscure minerals like lithium, cesium, and tantalum.

“We’ve moved up to the next level and put a camp in. There is a camp there now, but we’re not occupying the camp because winter is a difficult time to explore down there with the windy conditions and white outs. It’s not very safe, so field work will probably start again down there around April. The snow won’t all be gone, but the days will be longer and it will be warmer.”

These minerals are a critical aspect of the greener economy the country and province are currently focused on.

“This is still really early on. At the end of the day, mining is a boom and bust industry and it very much depends on factors that are out of our control, such as the price of the commodity, and it comes down to demand. But right now, these are minerals that are very much in demand for what they call the ‘green economy,’” said Parsons.

Even though the resources themselves are non-renewable, the impact they have on the economy is significant.

“When you’re talking about a non-renewable resource, you have to ensure you get the best value for it that you can because once you take it, it’s gone,” explained Parsons. “No different than producing oil. The thing is that it has a value. It’s a resource that belongs to the people, and it’s these resources that pay for our social systems that we rely heavily on, our healthcare system, education, all these other things that we’ve grown to rely on, and it’s got to be paid for somehow. Resources are what pay for it.”

As with any large undertaking, environmental impacts are always a concern.

“Anything they do still goes through an environmental process, same as any other natural resource development, so there’s nothing that I’ve been made aware of that’s any different from any other extraction or natural resource processes,” said Parsons. “Anybody who wants to do anything in this province has to go through an environmental application process and, depending on what you’re trying to do, there are different levels to that. If anything, given the need for lithium as a critical mineral, I think you’re going to see more of it, not just in Newfoundland and Labrador, but worldwide.”

Froude said the project is still considered a grass roots project and is a low-impact exploration.

To date there have not been any formal Indigenous consultations, but both companies employ Indigenous workers, including Benton Resources, whose President and CEO, Steve Stares, is a Qalipu member.

“Yes, there will be local ground disturbances for the camp and drill setups, but we reclaim and backfill sites we feel are low potential as we go. We also operate under a series of guidelines and requirements that are mandated each year in our work permits that have to be renewed each year,” said Froude. “We don’t do things unchecked.”

The project, which are actually two separate entities – the gold project and the lithium (and other critical minerals) project – will remain under the same umbrella, and the hope is for multiple strike sites.

“We already have two prospects 12 kms apart (Kraken and Hydra) so the potential is high for others,” said Froude.

Currently the camp in place is a 10-person camp, but there is much indirect and contract work that contribute to the necessary manpower, which would undoubtedly increase if and when a mine is put in place.

“We are a long way from a mine yet, many years in fact. The results of the work this year will go a long way towards giving us the information we need to determine whether or not the project has a chance,” said Froude.

The project will also carry a hefty budget.

“We are budgeting between $3 and $5 million this year for the project, of which nearly all will go to NL-based workers and businesses. This will include businesses in Burgeo, Springdale, Clarenville, Stephenville, with employees coming from all over the island.”

Froud said they source locally whenever possible, which means significant benefits to the surrounding communities.

“We also have a joint venture project with Benton just north of the tiny village of Grey River, where we’ve been drilling for gold there for a couple of years, and we’re part of the family down there now I think,” said Froude.

“We’ve grown attached to the place and for the past two Christmases, in fact, we’ve bought a turkey for every household in Grey River just to ease the burden. Anything we can do to help out, and right now I’m in the process of trying to scratch up some funds because we got a request from the principal of the school in Grey River to help fix up the playground for the kids who are there. So we’ll be donating to that and helping out as much as we can. We do try to help out and we will continue to do that. It’s part of our corporate responsibility as a good corporate citizen.”

Even though the company itself is primarily a gold company, Froude said they are also an exploration company.

“We don’t throw stuff away that we’re not looking for. It’s part of my mission and mandate as CEO to evaluate any and all possible commodities to the benefit of the local community first and the shareholders second, so I’m really excited,” said Froude. “I’ve worked in these types of rocks before, a long time ago up in Ontario, and I never considered Newfoundland as a go-to spot for these sort of things, but Newfoundland is obviously full of surprises. We’re one of the busiest gold exploration areas in the country right now and there’s a lot more gold out there then people realize, I think. We are also trying to prove to the world that Newfoundland and Labrador is a destination of choice, not just for copper, zinc, iron ore, and nickel, but things like lithium and cesium that I’m still learning about."

Jaymie White, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Wreckhouse Weekly News

Burgeo

Burgeo is a town in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is located mainly on Grandy Island, on the south coast of the island of Newfoundland. It is an outport community. Wikipedia

SPACE

The moon is shrinking, causing landslides and instability in lunar south pole

New paper identifies potential landing sites for Artemis mission that are particularly vulnerable to quakes and landslides.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

 

VIDEO: 

SIMULATED GROUND MOTION GENERATED BY A SHALLOW MOONQUAKE LOCATED BY THE LUNAR SOUTH POLE. STRONG TO MODERATE GROUND SHAKING IS PREDICTED AT A DISTANCE OF AT LEAST ~40KM FROM THE SOURCE.

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CREDIT: NICHOLAS SCHMERR, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

Earth’s moon shrank more than 150 feet in circumference as its core gradually cooled over the last few hundred million years. In much the same way a grape wrinkles when it shrinks down to a raisin, the moon also develops creases as it shrinks. But unlike the flexible skin on a grape, the moon’s surface is brittle, causing faults to form where sections of crust push against one another.

A team of scientists discovered evidence that this continuing shrinkage of the moon led to notable surface warping in its south polar region—including areas that NASA proposed for crewed Artemis III landings. Because fault formation caused by the moon’s shrinking is often accompanied by seismic activity like moonquakes, locations near or within such fault zones could pose dangers to future human exploration efforts.

In a new paper published in The Planetary Science Journal, the team linked a group of faults located in the moon’s south polar region to one of the most powerful moonquakes recorded by Apollo seismometers over 50 years ago. Using models to simulate the stability of surface slopes in the region, the team found that some areas were particularly vulnerable to landslides from seismic shaking.

“Our modeling suggests that shallow moonquakes capable of producing strong ground shaking in the south polar region are possible from slip events on existing faults or the formation of new thrust faults,” said the study’s lead author Thomas R. Watters, a senior scientist emeritus in the National Air and Space Museum’s Center for Earth and Planetary Studies. “The global distribution of young thrust faults, their potential to be active and the potential to form new thrust faults from ongoing global contraction should be considered when planning the location and stability of permanent outposts on the moon.”

Shallow moonquakes occur near the surface of the moon, just a hundred or so miles deep into the crust. Similar to earthquakes, shallow moonquakes are caused by faults in the moon’s interior and can be strong enough to damage buildings, equipment and other human-made structures. But unlike earthquakes, which tend to last only a few seconds or minutes, shallow moonquakes can last for hours and even a whole afternoon—like the magnitude 5 moonquake recorded by the Apollo Passive Seismic Network in the 1970s, which the research team connected to a group of faults detected by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter more recently.  

According to Nicholas Schmerr, a co-author of the paper and an associate professor of geology at the University of Maryland, this means that shallow moonquakes can devastate hypothetical human settlements on the moon.

“You can think of the moon’s surface as being dry, grounded gravel and dust. Over billions of years, the surface has been hit by asteroids and comets, with the resulting angular fragments constantly getting ejected from the impacts,” Schmerr explained. “As a result, the reworked surface material can be micron-sized to boulder-sized, but all very loosely consolidated. Loose sediments make it very possible for shaking and landslides to occur.”

The researchers continue to map out the moon and its seismic activity, hoping to identify more locations that may be dangerous for human exploration. NASA’s Artemis missions, which are set to launch their first crewed flight in late 2024, ultimately hope to establish a long-term presence on the moon and eventually learn to live and work on another world through moon-based observatories, outposts and settlements.

“As we get closer to the crewed Artemis mission’s launch date, it’s important to keep our astronauts, our equipment and infrastructure as safe as possible,” Schmerr said. “This work is helping us prepare for what awaits us on the moon—whether that’s engineering structures that can better withstand lunar seismic activity or protecting people from really dangerous zones.”

The epicenter of one of the strongest moonquakes recorded by the Apollo Passive Seismic Experiment was located in the lunar south polar region. However, the exact location of the epicenter could not be accurately determined. A cloud of possible locations (magenta dots and light blue polygon) of the strong shallow moonquake using a relocation algorithm specifically adapted for very sparse seismic networks are distributed near the pole. Blue boxes show the locations of proposed Artemis III landing regions. Lobate thrust fault scarps are shown by small red lines. The cloud of epicenter locations encompasses a number of lobate scarps and many of the Artemis III landing regions.

CREDIT

Credit: NASA/LRO/LROC/ASU/Smithsonian Institution

JOURNAL

The Planetary Science Journal

DOI

10.3847/PSJ/ad1332 

ARTICLE TITLE

Tectonics and Seismicity of the Lunar South Polar Region

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

25-Jan-2024

New satellite capable of measuring Earth precipitation from space

Peer-Reviewed Publication

JOURNAL OF REMOTE SENSING

 

IMAGE: 

VERTICAL AND SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF PRECIPITATION WELL CAPTURED BY FY-3G PMR

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CREDIT: DR. PENG ZHANG, NATIONAL SATELLITE METEOROLOGICAL CENTER

Measuring the amount of precipitation that falls in a specific location is simple if that location has a device designed to accurately record and transmit precipitation data. In contrast, measuring the amount and type of precipitation that falls to Earth in every location is logistically quite difficult. Importantly, this information could provide a wealth of data for characterizing and predicting Earth’s water, energy and biogeochemical cycles. Researchers from China recently deployed a satellite, FengYun 3G (FY-3G), that is successfully collecting Earth precipitation data from space.

 

Scientists from the China Meteorological Administration developed and launched a satellite created to measure Earth precipitation with radar while orbiting in space. This is the first of two precipitation missions planned by the team to accurately measure the occurrence, type and intensity of any precipitation across the world, including over oceans and complex terrain. Specifically, the FY-3G satellite is designed to assess the 3-dimensional (3D) form of rainfall and other precipitation for weather systems at Earth’s middle and lower latitudes.

 

The team published their results in the 19 December 2023 issue of the Journal of Remote Sensing.

 

“The first active precipitation measurement satellite in China (FY-3G) was developed and successfully launched, and the commission test of the satellite platform and the instruments [was] completed, illustrating excellent performance. The active and passive microwave instruments combined with optical imaging instruments… obtain high-precision observation data of global precipitation. The satellite can also cooperate with the on-orbit Global Position Measurement (GPM) satellite to enhance the ability of scientists to study the structure and mechanism of global precipitation as well as carry out water cycle research,” said Peng Zhang, first author of the review paper and leading scientist of the FY-3 polar orbiting meteorological satellite program at the National Satellite Meteorological Center in Beijing, China.

 

FY-3G marks the first rainfall satellite mission from China and the third such mission in the world. The satellite can measure clouds, precipitation and atmospheric profiles with the complement of remote sensing instruments built into the satellite.

 

Specifically, the active remote sensing precipitation measurement radar (PMR) works in tandem with a passive microwave imager MWRI-RM, which has been optimized to improve the detection of weaker precipitation over land and solid forms of precipitation. An optical imaging instrument, the MERSI-RM, assists other microwave instruments in measuring clouds and precipitation to facilitate low-orbit precipitation measurement and high-orbit infrared precipitation estimation.

 

The GNOS-II instrument, also included on the satellite, uses variations in global navigation satellite system (GNSS) data to accurately measure temperature, humidity and sea surface speed from space. The FY-3G also houses an short-wave infrared polarized multi-angle imager (PMAI) and high radiometric accuracy on-board calibrator (HAOC).

 

As a precipitation measurement device, the primary instrument of the FY-3G satellite is the active precipitation measurement radar PMR, which creates a 3D rendering of falling precipitation. Data collected by the instrument can then be used to calculate precipitation intensity and type, improving the accuracy of measurements taken from space.

 

“China has successfully launched a precipitation measurement satellite [FY-3G], and the commission test results show that its measurement performance is superior, and high-precision 3D precipitation measurement information can be obtained. FY-3G and GPM can form a virtual constellation in orbit, which greatly enhances the ability to measure and study global precipitation. FY-3G global observation data are [freely available] to… worldwide users through the Fengyun Satellite Data Center,” said Zhang.

 

Importantly, FY-3G has improved our understanding of global precipitation, which will help scientists better interpret and predict our planet’s water and energy cycles. This data will be used to enhance forecasting of extreme weather events and inform the development of the program’s next generation precipitation satellite, FY-5.

 

The team is encouraged by the data they have received from FY-3G, but more data processing work is required to fully grasp the satellite’s capacity and future applications. “Next, we will accelerate the development of precipitation event database and precipitation data set based on FY-3G satellite data. We also plan to improve the quantitative inversion accuracy of active radar precipitation and strengthen the global data service of the FY-3G satellite. We will also continue to promote the follow-up satellite development plan to ensure continuous precipitation observation,” said Zhang.

 

Other contributors include Songyan Gu, Lin Chen, Jian Shang, Manyun Lin, Aijun Zhu, Honggang Yin, Qiong Wu, Yixuan Shou, Fenglin Sun, Hanlie Xu, Guanglin Yang, Haofei Wang, Lu Li, Sijie Chen and Naimeng Lu from the Key Laboratory of Radiometric Calibration and Validation for Environmental Satellites at the National Satellite Meteorological Center (National Center for Space Weather) from the China Meteorological Administration in Beijing, China and  the Innovation Center for FengYun Meteorological Satellite in Beijing, China; and HongWei Zhang from the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology in Shanghai, China.

 

This work was supported by the FY3-03 meteorological satellite project ground application system and the International Space Water Cycle Observation Constellation Program (grant no. 183311KYSB20200015).

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JOURNAL

Journal of Remote Sensing

DOI

10.34133/remotesensing.0097 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

ARTICLE TITLE

FY-3G Satellite Instruments and Precipitation Products: First Report of China’s Fengyun Rainfall Mission In-Orbit

UTSA researchers reveal faint features in galaxy NGC 5728 though JWST image techniques

NEWS RELEASE 25-JAN-2024

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT SAN ANTONIO

 

IMAGE: 

JWST OBSERVED NGC 5728 AT FIVE DISTINCT WAVELENGTHS. IN THESE OBSERVATIONS, A FAINT EXTENDED FEATURE WAS SEEN IN ONLY ONE WAVELENGTH. AS LEIST DECONVOLVED THE DATA, THE FAINT EXTENDED EMISSION FEATURE WAS REVEALED IN ALL WAVELENGTHS, DEMONSTRATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF KRAKEN DECONVOLUTION TO IMPROVE JWST IMAGE QUALITY AND ENHANCE FAINT EXTENDED EMISSION FEATURES.

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CREDIT: THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT SAN ANTONIO

(SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS) — Mason Leist is working remotely—127 million light-years from Earth—on images of a supermassive black hole in his office at the UTSA Department of Physics and Astronomy.

The UTSA Graduate Research Assistant led a study, published in The Astronomical Journal, on the best method to improve images obtained by the James Webb Science Telescope (JWST) using a mathematical approach called deconvolution. He was tasked by the Galactic Activity, Torus, and Outflow Survey (GATOS), an international team of scientists, to enhance JWST observations of the galaxy NGC 5728.

The GATOS team, co-led by UTSA Professor and Leist’s doctoral advisor Chris Packham, was awarded time on the JWST for its research on black holes.

“It’s incredibly humbling,” Leist said. “Not just working with JWST data, which is a great opportunity and a crazy amount of science, but working with our collaborators. It’s a very incredible experience to collaborate with other members of the GATOS on this. I like to tell people that this work represents the efforts of 35 individuals from institutes in 14 countries.”

Leist deconvolved simulated and observed images of an active galactic nucleus (AGN), a region at the center of the galaxy NGC 5728. The central engine of an active galactic nucleus, comprised of a hot and turbulent accretion disk orbiting a central supermassive black hole enshrouded by a thick torus of gas and dust, plays a key role in feedback between the AGN, host galaxy and intergalactic medium.

He tested five deconvolution algorithms over two years on simulated observations of an AGN. Of the five methods tested, the Kraken algorithm improved the simulated AGN model image quality the most and was therefore applied to JWST observations of NGC 5728. Kraken is a high-performance multi-frame deconvolution algorithm developed by a team of researchers led by Douglas Hope and Stuart Jefferies at Georgia State University.

JWST observed NGC 5728 at five distinct wavelengths. In these observations, a faint extended feature was seen in only one wavelength. As Leist deconvolved the data, the faint extended emission feature was revealed in all wavelengths, demonstrating the effectiveness of Kraken deconvolution to improve JWST image quality and enhance faint extended emission features.

“We believe the extension could be part of an outflow from a supermassive black hole that could be interacting with the host galaxy. There’s a lot more science that needs to be done,” Leist said. “It is difficult to distinguish the extended structure in all of the JWST images, but by using deconvolution techniques, we reduced the image data to reveal the hidden faint emission feature.”

The process was also a collaboration with Willie Schaefer, UTSA’s Adobe Creative Cloud support specialist, who helped create a scientifically accurate set of color images for the study.

Leist’s work demonstrates deconvolution is an efficient and accurate tool for image processing. Similar methods, he and Packham said, can be applied to broader science cases using JWST observations. The approach has garnered significant interest from fellow scientists working on JWST image processing.

“We’re doing important work using JWST data,” Packham said. “But it’s important because we can improve on the raw data and get better image quality to see those fainter details by using this approach. It shows the strength of collaboration within the GATOS, which is co-led from UTSA.”

Leist’s work to enhance the JWST observations of the galaxy NGC 5728 is a new piece in the puzzle that further demystifies the origins of the universe. The full scope of the deconvolved images and other astrophysical results will be described in forthcoming studies currently underway by the GATOS.

“It goes back to the generation of galaxies shortly after the Big Bang,” Packham explained. “If we really want to understand our place within our own galaxy, within our own solar system and within the universe in general, we have to understand what’s going on within black holes in our galaxy and, indeed, other galaxies. We can understand the formation of our galaxy, our solar system, the earth and life on earth. It’s really part of that big picture question.”

Explore Further

Discover the UTSA Department of Physics and Astronomy and the UTSA College of Sciences.

Read about previous JWST work at UTSA.

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JOURNAL

The Astronomical Journal

ARTICLE TITLE

Deconvolution of JWST/MIRI Images: Applications to an AGN Model and GATOS Observations of NGC 5728

Scientists Fear ‘Catastrophic’ COVID Combination With Another Virus

David Axe
Sun, April 2, 2023 

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast

The SARS-CoV-2 virus is highly contagious but the current dominant strains are not very lethal. Its much rarer cousin in the betacoronavirus family of pathogens, MERS-CoV, is highly lethal but not very contagious. Now imagine a blend of the two—a respiratory virus with the most dangerous qualities of both. Contagious and lethal.

It’s a real risk, according to a new study from China. And it’s a strong argument for a new, more widely effective vaccine.

Different viruses from the closely related families can combine through a process called “recombination” and produce hybrids called “recombinants.” This recombination requires the viruses to share an infection mechanism. For the first time, a team of scientists in China has identified the mechanism by which SARS and MERS could combine—by entering human cells via colocated receptors. Basically, the cells’ entry points for external molecules.

If a single person ever catches SARS and MERS at the same time through neighboring receptors and the two viruses combine, we could have a whole new pandemic on our hands—one that could be far worse than the current COVID-19 pandemic.

The recombination risk is one driver of a global effort to develop new vaccines that could prevent, or reduce the severity of, infection by a variety of SARS viruses, MERS, and any hybrid of them. A universal vaccine for a whole family of viruses.

Good news: Universal vaccines are in development. Bad news: They’re still a long way from large-scale human trials—and an even longer way from regulatory approval and widespread availability. Years, perhaps.

A team led by Qiao Wang, a virologist at the Shanghai Institute of Infectious Disease and Biosecurity, part of Fudan University in Shanghai, highlighted the SARS-MERS recombination risk in a peer-reviewed study that first appeared in the journal Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy on March 15.

SARS-CoV-2 tends to favor a receptor called ACE2, while MERS-CoV tends to favor the DPP4 receptor, Wang and their coauthors explained. Our cells tend to have one or the other, not both. In the very unlikely chance someone catches both SARS and MERS at the same time, the viruses should stay safely in their separate cells.

But Wang and company identified a few cell types, in the lungs and intestines, that have both ACE2 and DPP4 receptors, thus “providing an opportunity for coinfection by both SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV.” Wang and a teammate did not respond to a request for comment.

This hypothetical coinfection—SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV mixing and mutating in the same cells—“may result in the emergence of recombined [betacoronavirus],” Wang and their coauthors wrote. Call it “SARS-CoV-3” or “MERS-CoV-2.”

Either way, this new virus “may bear high SARS-CoV-2-like transmissibility along with a high MERS-CoV-like case-fatality rate, which would have catastrophic repercussions,” Wang and their teammates wrote.

Did AI Just Help Us Discover a Universal COVID Vaccine?

How bad could it be? The most contagious forms of SARS-CoV-2, the XBB subvariants—a.k.a., “Kraken”—is by far the most transmissible respiratory virus anyone has ever observed. It’s not for no reason that XBB subvariants quickly outcompeted rival subvariants in order to become globally dominant in just a few weeks early this year.

But Kraken is less severe—that is, less likely to kill—than earlier forms of SARS-CoV-2. Vaccines and natural immunity help a lot, but there are also signs that the novel-coronavirus is slowly evolving toward higher transmissibility but lower severity. At its worst in 2021, COVID killed nearly 5 percent of infected persons in the worst-hit countries such as Peru and Mexico. Today, the global fatality rate is around 0.9 percent.

MERS, by contrast, spreads much more slowly. It mostly affects camels. When it infects people, it’s usually when those people are in close contact with the animals. Human-to-human transmission is extremely rare. “Only a few such transmissions have been found among family members living in the same household,” the World Health Organization noted.

In 27 small outbreaks since 2012, fewer than 900 people have died of MERS. Compare that to the 6.9 million people who have died of SARS-CoV-2 since late 2019. The problem, with MERS, is that those 900 or so deaths represent a third of infections. That is to say, MERS is at least six times more lethal, on a case-by-case basis, than SARS was at its worst.

So if a SARS-MERS recombinant inherited the former’s transmissibility and the latter’s lethality, it could quickly kill millions. That’s why Wang and their coauthors are, in their own words, “calling for the development of pan-CoV vaccine.”

Don’t panic. Epidemiologists who weren’t involved in Wang and company’s study didn’t necessarily agree with the Chinese authors’ sense of possible imminent doom. “The lifecycle of a virus is delicate and recombination between different viruses is typically uncommon,” Lihong Liu, a Columbia University COVID researcher, told The Daily Beast. “We have not seen any recombination between SARS-CoV-2 and MERS during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite the millions of SARS-CoV-2 infections worldwide. Therefore, it is expected that such an event is unlikely to occur in the future.”

Michael Letko, a Washington State University virologist, told The Daily Beast that Wang’s team is actually half-right. Yes, there’s huge risk from a possible recombinant. But not necessarily a SARS-MERS recombinant. It’s more likely the novel-coronavirus will recombine with a Russian bat virus called Khosta-2, Letko said.

Khosta-2 is even more closely related to SARS-CoV-2 than MERS is, Letko pointed out. Not only is Khosta-2 fond of the same ACE2 receptor that the novel coronavirus prefers, the two viruses also replicate roughly the same way. “The machinery the viruses use to copy their genetic material can get confused, leading to mixing and matching of the genomes,” Letko said of SARS-CoV-2 and Khosta-2. That raises the recombination risk.
Prevention plan

JANUARY 2020 CHINA RELEASED THIS GENETIC CODE FOR COVID

But exactly which cousin virus might combine with SARS-CoV-2 is beside the point. Barton Haynes, an immunologist with Duke’s Human Vaccine Institute, told The Daily Beast. There are dozens of betacoronaviruses. We should develop a vaccine that works against all of them. “If a vaccine could do all this, then one would also likely be able to protect against any … recombinant virus, as well,” Haynes said. SARS-MERS. SARS-Khosta-2. MERS-Khosta-2. Whatever.

There are around two dozen pan-coronavirus vaccine projects underway all over the world. Haynes and his colleagues at Duke have been working on one since 2020—and it could be among the first to produce a deployable vaccine. Animal testing and small-scale human trials are already underway. But if history is any guide, it could be years before the Duke vaccine or any other pan-CoV jab is ready for widespread deployment.

The wait is worth it, Haynes said. “The current goal of pan-coronavirus vaccines that are currently being tested in monkeys and humans is to make vaccines that both prevent infection by any new COVID variant that might arise, to make vaccines that will prevent any new CoV-2-like CoV outbreak that may arise from bats or other animals as well to protect against any MERS-like virus that may arise.”

That should cover all the bases, at least when it comes to betacoronaviruses including SARS-CoV-2, MERS-CoV and Khosta-2. If our luck holds and we dodge a dangerous SARS recombinant for a few more years, we just might have a universal vaccine—Duke’s or another—that could prevent mass death in the event that hybrid finally appears.

Of course, that “universal” vaccine wouldn’t be truly universal. It wouldn’t save us from RSV, monkeypox, polio or—perhaps most worryingly—bird flu. For those viruses, we need totally different jabs.

CTHULHU KRAKEN STUDIES

Giant Squids Washed Ashore Give Scientists New Clues

Giant squids washed ashore on the Sea of Japan coast are providing researchers with new insights into how this mysterious marine animal mates and reproduces.

on October 6, 2022
By Saki Maehara

JAPAN FORWARD

Children observing giant squid specimen at San-in Kaigan Geopark Sea and Earth Nature Museum in Iwami Town, Tottori Prefecture, February 2, 2016.

The giant squid is one of the world's largest invertebrates that lives in the deep sea. It is believed to be the origin of the legend of "Kraken," a monster feared by sailors in the age of sea exploration.

Although the animal remains shrouded in mystery, recent research analyzing individuals that have drifted ashore on the Sea of Japan coast has revealed a unique reproductive method that differs from that of other squids.

There is still much to learn about this giant creature that lurks in the depths of the sea.
Giants Washing Ashore

In April of this year, a local fisherman discovered a large red squid drifting in the sea at Ugu Beach in Obama City of Fukui Prefecture.

A city official who rushed to the site upon hearing the news found a giant squid measuring 3.35 meters in length. It had washed ashore, but its arms were still flapping.

One resident among those gathered on the beach remarked in awe, "It was huge." Another noted, "It's rare to see one alive." Later, at the Echizen Matsushima Aquarium (Sakai City, Fukui Prefecture), children were able to see the squid on display.

Giant squid are often found washed ashore on the coasts of Japan. With their two long tentacles extended, they can reach up to 18 meters in length.

Another aspect of the mysterious giant squid is revealed.

The deep sea is broadly defined as depths over 200 meters. But according to Tsunemi Kubodera, 71, a marine biologist and honorary researcher at the National Museum of Nature and Science, giant squid mainly live in middle layers of the ocean between 600 to 1,000 meters.

Read the rest of this article here to find out more on the biology of the giant squid. And find more great articles on the environment and the challenges of achieving the SDGs, on our new website Japan 2 Earth, sparking a transition on the environment and SDGs.

Factbox-From BlockFi to Genesis, crypto firms reel from exposure to FTX


Thu, January 5, 2023 

(Reuters) - After the collapse of major cryptocurrency exchange FTX, the industry has felt a ripple effect due to the exposure of many companies to FTX and its affiliated trading firm Alameda Research. FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried on Jan. 3 pleaded not guilty to criminal charges that he cheated investors and caused billions of dollars in losses.

Here are some firms that have given information about their exposure to FTX.

BLOCKFI

BlockFi filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 28, weeks after the crypto lender said it was pausing client withdrawals. In July, FTX had signed a deal with an option to buy BlockFi for up to $240 million.

GENESIS

Genesis is working to preserve client assets and strengthen liquidity, it said in a letter to clients in December, adding that it would take "weeks rather than days" to form a plan.

The crypto lending arm of U.S. digital asset broker Genesis Trading suspended customer redemptions last month, citing the sudden failure of FTX.

Genesis said in a tweet on Nov. 10 that its derivatives business has approximately $175 million in locked funds on FTX.

However, Genesis had no material exposure to FTX's native token FTT, or any other tokens issued by centralized exchanges, the firm said in a tweet on Nov. 9.

BINANCE

Binance Chief Executive Changpeng Zhao sparked concerns among investors on Nov. 6 when he said in a tweet that the crypto exchange would sell its holdings of FTT.

Zhao told a Twitter spaces event that Binance had previously held $580 million worth of FTT, of which "we only sold quite a small portion, we still hold a large bag."

Binance said on Nov. 13 that it had stopped accepting deposits of FTX's FTT token on its platform, urging other rival exchanges to do the same.

CELSIUS NETWORK

New York's attorney general filed a civil lawsuit accusing Celsius Network founder Alex Mashinsky of scheming to defraud hundreds of thousands of investors by inducing them to deposit billions of dollars in digital assets with his cryptocurrency company.

Between 2020 and 2022, under Mashinsky’s watch, Celsius made loans totaling roughly a billion dollars to Alameda Research, according to a filing.

COINBASE

Coinbase Global Inc said in a blog post on Nov. 8 that it had $15 million worth of deposits on FTX. It said it had no exposure to FTT or Alameda Research and no loans to FTX.

COINSHARES

Crypto asset manager CoinShares has $30.3 million worth of exposure to crypto exchange FTX, it said in a statement on Nov. 10.

CoinShares CEO Jean-Marie Mognetti said the group's financial health remains "strong."

CRYPTO.COM

Singapore-based crypto exchange Crypto.com said on Nov. 14 it had moved about $1 billion to FTX over the course of a year, but most of it was recovered and exposure at the time of FTX's collapse was less than $10 million.

CEO Kris Marszalek said the firm would prove wrong all naysayers who thought the platform was in trouble, adding it had a robust balance sheet and took no risks.

GALAXY DIGITAL

Crypto financial services company Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd said in its third-quarter earnings statement on Nov. 9 - the day after FTX froze withdrawals - that it had $76.8 million worth of exposure to FTX, of which $47.5 million was "in the withdrawal process."

GALOIS CAPITAL

Hedge fund Galois Capital had half its assets trapped on FTX, co-founder Kevin Zhou told investors in a recent letter, the Financial Times reported on Nov. 11, estimating the amount to be around $100 million.

The firm on Nov. 13 confirmed that it had up to $45 million in exposure to the now collapsed FTX cryptocurrency exchange, Bloomberg News reported.

KRAKEN

Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken said on Nov. 10 that it held about 9,000 FTT tokens on the FTX exchange and was not affected "in any material way".

SILVERGATE CAPITAL CORP

Silvergate Capital Corp reported a sharp drop in fourth-quarter crypto-related deposits as investors spooked by FTX's collapse pulled out more than $8 billion in deposits.

The company said on Nov. 11 FTX represented less than 10% of $11.9 billion in deposits from all digital asset customers as of Sept. 30.

The financial solutions provider to digital assets also said Silvergate has no outstanding loans or investments in FTX.

VOYAGER DIGITAL

Bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital, which was set to sell its assets to FTX after a $1.42 billion deal bid by the exchange in September, had a balance of approximately $3 million at FTX.

GRAYSCALE

Crypto asset manager Grayscale, whose flagship Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) is the world's largest bitcoin fund, told investors that the recent market events have had no impact on its product operations or the security of the holdings in its funds.

(Reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft in London, Mehnaz Yasmin, Medha Singh Niket Nishant, and Manya Saini in Bengaluru and Hannah Lang in Washington; Editing by Jan Harvey and Matthew Lewis)

U.S. prosecutors launch website for Bankman-Fried alleged fraud victims

Fri, January 6, 2023 
By Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. government plans to launch a website for victims of FTX cryptocurrency exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried's alleged fraud to communicate with law enforcement.

In court papers filed on Friday, federal prosecutors in Manhattan asked U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan for permission to use the website to notify victims, rather than contacting each individually.

FTX could owe money to more than 1 million people, making it "impracticable" to contact each, the papers said.

Federal law requires prosecutors to contact possible crime victims to inform them of their rights, including the rights to obtain restitution, be heard in court and be protected from defendants.

Kaplan has yet to rule on the request, but the website had gone live by Friday afternoon.

"If you believe that you may have been a victim of fraud by Samuel Bankman-Fried, A/K/A/ 'SBF,' please contact the victim/witness coordinator at the United States Attorney's office," the website read.

The U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Bankman-Fried, 30, has pleaded not guilty to eight counts of wire fraud and conspiracy over November's collapse of FTX.

Prosecutors have said he stole billions in FTX customer deposits to pay debts for his hedge fund, Alameda Research, and lied to investors about FTX's financial condition.

The onetime billionaire has acknowledged risk management shortcomings, but said he did not consider himself criminally liable.

Bankman-Fried's lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York Editing by Leslie Adler)

Extremists have their fingerprints all over the GOP

Opinion by Julian Zelizer, CNN Political Analyst
 Fri March 25, 2022

Julian Zelizer, a CNN political analyst, is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University and author of the forthcoming book "The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: A First Historical Assessment." Follow him on Twitter @julianzelizer. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.

(CNN)It was quite a week for the Republican Party. If anyone was still holding out hope that the GOP would shift away from its Trumpian pull, the last few days should serve as a powerful wake-up call.

Julian Zelizer

During the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, a number of conservative Republican senators who appear to have an eye on 2024 raised the specter of conspiracy theories in an attempt to sidetrack a well-qualified and highly respected nominee.

Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, for example, went after Jackson by trying to paint a misleading picture that she had been particularly lenient toward sex offenders.

While the "soft on crime" line of attack might seem like a predictable extension of a decades-long Republican "law and order" strategy, commentators have pointed out that the senators may have been trying to appeal to those who follow QAnon and believe the conspiracy theory that President Donald Trump is locked in a battle against a group of elites who run a child sex ring.

Others fell back on another Republican bogeyman: critical race theory. Sen. Ted Cruz's version of "gotcha" was to hold up books that had been assigned or recommended at a private school in Washington where Jackson is a board member, trying to make the case that they covered radical concepts unfit for children.

Throughout the confirmation hearings, Republicans tried to score cheap political points by delving into bizarre lines of argument -- all of which revealed how fringe talking points had become mainstream. Top elected officials were espousing claims that in earlier eras would have been considered too far off base to focus on during a televised proceeding.

And then news broke that the January 6 committee had text messages sent by Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, to Mark Meadows, Trump's chief of staff at the end of his presidency.

Since New Yorker journalist Jane Mayer first broke the story about the ethical clash between Virginia Thomas' high-level participation in right-wing organizations and the cases her husband participates in, more troubling details have emerged.

Thomas, who has ties to right-wing activists who have brought forth issues before the very court on which her husband sits, texted Meadows 29 times between the 2020 election and January 2021, urging him to continue the fight to overturn the election results.

The racist, sexist mudslinging at Ketanji Brown Jackson is disgraceful

"Release the Kraken and save us from the left taking America down," she wrote on November 19, 2020. In other texts, she made references to Trump's often-repeated lie that the election was stolen and called Biden's victory "the greatest Heist of our History."

"Release the Kraken," a catchphrase from the 1981 movie "Clash of the Titans," had been repurposed by conservatives to refer to sprawling claims of voter fraud. Virginia Thomas' use of this kind of rhetoric is one thing -- even more troubling is her involvement in an anti-democratic campaign by the incumbent President and his allies to stifle the decision of the electorate.

The way in which the far right has influenced the mainstream Republican Party has been one of the pivotal stories in American politics in recent years. This radicalization has created a situation in Washington where one party has shifted further from center than the other. Norms of restraint, civility and governance have taken a back seat to raw partisanship. Lawmakers are increasingly performative and eager to throw red meat to their followers without any concern for the consequences. Indeed, January 6 was a product of this mentality, as Republicans repeated Trump's dangerous lies and those of his allies about a "stolen election."

The hearings this week were another case in point, showing how even familiar arguments like the appeal to law and order (itself a tool of partisanship from past eras that now seem quaint by comparison) have morphed into a world of extremism once reserved for the far reaches of the internet. Now, the logic seems to be that if you want to run for the Republican presidential nomination, you don't play to the center but court the conspiracists.

Unless Republican leaders pull back, they will never be able to move in the direction that some more moderate GOP members, such as former Texas Congressman Will Hurd, have championed. In his new book, "American Reboot: An Idealists Guide to Getting Big Things Done," Hurd urges his fellow party members to shed the conspiracy thinking and attempt to broaden their electoral coalition. The GOP, he writes, "must stop peddling conspiracy theories like those that led to the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021."
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While Hurd's vision would offer the best bet for the Republican Party to strengthen its future and safeguard our democracy, party members continue to move the GOP in a very different direction, as we saw this week. And the closer we get to the 2022 midterms, the more likely it is for prominent Republicans to double down on extremist ideas rather than internal reform. It could be that Hurd is the voice of the future, but right now, that future is far off.