Showing posts sorted by date for query CANADA HISTORY. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query CANADA HISTORY. Sort by relevance Show all posts

Thursday, October 15, 2026

 

Early tetrapods had surprisingly little ability to move their necks




Uppsala University
Tetrapod and sturgeon

image: 

An artist’s interpretation of the study. 

view more 

Credit: Vic Putinski






A new model has made it possible to estimate how the backbones of some of the first animals on land could and could not move using sturgeon as a material analogue. These results disprove a long-standing hypothesis that changes in early tetrapod anatomy as they moved onto land gave them improved neck mobility. The study, led by a researcher at Uppsala University, formerly of Carleton University in Canada, has been published in the journal Nature.

Researchers have overturned a long-standing hypothesis that our ancestors, the early tetrapods, gained increased neck mobility early on in their transition to land. In fish, the shoulder blades are attached to the skull. In the early tetrapods, however, the shoulders became detached sometime in the Devonian Period and we acquired a new region of neck vertebrae separating these two parts of the skeleton. It has been reasonably assumed for decades that this separation must have allowed the head to move more freely, so the hypothesis that neck mobility was an evolutionary driver for this change in the tetrapod body plan has prevailed.

But the structure of early tetrapods’ backbones is very unusual compared to most vertebrates today, making it hard to model how they moved. They keep a long rod of tissue called the notochord for their whole lives that runs through the whole vertebral column, so their actual vertebrae are small and arranged around a large tube of soft tissue. Because this soft tissue behaves differently from joints between vertebrae that are typical today, scientists have not been able to test the neck mobility hypothesis. In this new study, though, researchers came up with a way of modeling early tetrapod neck mobility using a distantly related fish, the sturgeon, that has the same kind of backbone. By applying the material properties of sturgeon notochordal backbones to fossil animals, researchers have found that early tetrapod necks were surprisingly stiff and, even free of surrounding bones, they would not have allowed much mobility.

“We know that tetrapods did eventually gain higher neck mobility so these results push that gain-of-function forward in time and up the evolutionary tree from where we previously thought it occurred. Clearly it was advantageous eventually, but it was not an advantage available to these early tetrapods yet because of the limitations of their anatomy,” says lead author Dana Korneisel. 

To figure this out, the researchers first had to dissect out the backbones of sturgeon to bend and twist them on a Universal Testing Machine. They spent three days testing batches of three or four at a time, cutting out first the whole backbone and then sections of the notochord to test both tissues. From these test data, they calculated the material stiffness of the sturgeon tissues and then applied this stiffness to extinct animals.

“If you can measure the size and shape of both the thing you are testing and the part of the animal you want to model mobility of, it all comes down to dividing out the sturgeon number and multiplying by the fossil number,” says Korneisel.

“I undertook this study to find out how big of a difference this change in anatomy made for these animals” she continues, referring to the separation of the head from the shoulders, “even while performing the dissections on sturgeon and handling their vertebral columns, which are built a lot like those of early tetrapods, I felt that the tissue wasn’t terribly stiff. So, after doing the math, the lack of significant head mobility for almost all of these animals was a huge surprise”.

Korneisel emphasizes that all of these estimates are based on just the backbone, so actual mobility will have been less than the estimates presented here because of all of the tissues that surround the backbone like muscles, skin, and for many of these animals, bones embedded in the skin. And what about looking up or turning the head?

 “Head elevation in these animals was no more than what you would expect in fish, and sometimes even less. We found that the kind of head twisting that we can do when we shake our heads was not feasible in any of these animals.”

Where might this go in the future? Notochordal vertebral columns are rare today, but they were very common throughout life’s history on earth. The researchers also collected data on the whole vertebral column of sturgeon, not just the front-most part, so mobility could be estimated for other parts of the body of early tetrapods or for a number of other extinct groups provided a good enough reconstruction of the skeleton can be made from the known fossils.


Dana Korniesel dissecting a sturgeon. 

Credit

Hillary Maddin

Trump Announces $80 Billion Taiwan - Alaska LNG Deal

  • Trump announces a potential $70–80 billion Taiwan LNG deal, covering 30% of Alaska LNG's planned output over 20 years.

  • South Korea disputes its proposed $50–54 billion investment, insisting participation depends on commercial viability.

  • Alaska LNG offers a route around Hormuz, but enormous development costs and unfinalized agreements threaten the project's future.

President Donald Trump has announced a massive new energy agreement with Taiwan, claiming the island will purchase between $70 billion and $80 billion worth of liquefied natural gas from Alaska over the next two decades, as Asian importers scramble to secure supplies beyond the increasingly dangerous Strait of Hormuz.

In a Truth Social post on Wednesday, Trump said Taiwan had committed to purchasing 30% of the planned Alaska LNG project's output for 20 years, alongside a $4.4 billion equity investment.

The president described the arrangement as the largest LNG offtake agreement in history, arguing that the commitments would guarantee the project's success.

Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs subsequently confirmed plans to purchase approximately 6 million metric tons of LNG annually and invest up to $4.4 billion in the development.

However, Taipei stopped short of confirming a binding agreement, emphasizing that investment arrangements, ownership stakes and commercial terms remain subject to further negotiations.

Deliveries could begin as early as 2032, provided construction proceeds as planned.

The proposed Alaska LNG project, led by Glenfarne Group, would transport natural gas from Alaska's North Slope through an approximately 800-mile pipeline to a liquefaction terminal on the state's southern coast, with planned export capacity of 20 million metric tons annually.

Its geographical advantage has become increasingly attractive following the Iran war, which has severely disrupted LNG shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. Alaska offers Asian buyers a direct Pacific shipping route that avoids the Middle Eastern chokepoint entirely.

As Oilprice.com previously reported, the conflict has revived interest in the long-delayed project, with Asian importers increasingly prioritizing supply security over cost.

However, Alaska’s costly pipeline and difficult terrain threaten to outweigh its shipping advantage, with capital costs approaching $2.7 billion per million tonnes of annual LNG capacity. An October 7 article from Oilprice.com's Natalia Katona concludes that geographical challenges may erode the project's competitiveness in a world where LNG supply is expected to grow throughout the late 2020s and early 2030s.

Earlier this month, Trump announced that South Korea would invest approximately $50 billion to $54 billion in Alaska LNG as part of a broader bilateral investment agreement.

Seoul has since challenged that characterization.

South Korea's industry minister, Kim Jung-kwan, said the country had not committed to the investment, stressing that participation would depend on commercial viability and compliance with domestic procedures, according to Reuters.

The uncertainty is significant given the project's estimated $44 billion to $55 billion price tag.

Oilprice.com Tsvetana Paraskova highlighted earlier this month that Alaska LNG's development costs could exceed those of competing U.S. Gulf Coast projects by more than twofold on a capacity-adjusted basis.

For Taiwan and South Korea, the attraction of bypassing Hormuz is undeniable. Whether that geopolitical advantage justifies tens of billions in additional investment remains the central question.

For now, Trump's ambitious Alaska LNG vision has growing political momentum, but its commercial future still hinges on binding supply agreements, committed financing and final investment decisions.

By Tom Kool for Oilprice.com


Taiwan Plans to Invest $4.4B in Alaska LNG, Subject to Negotiations

The proposed Alaska LNG liquefaction plant on Cook Inlet (Alaska LNG)
The proposed Alaska LNG liquefaction plant on Cook Inlet (Alaska LNG)

On Wednesday, Taiwan's government confirmed that it currently plans to buy six million tonnes per annum of LNG from the Alaska LNG megaproject, and it intends to make a $4.4 billion investment in the construction of the system, subject to further negotiations. 

In a statement on his social media platform on Wednesday, President Donald Trump confirmed that Taiwan had agreed to an "offtake commitment" equaling 30 percent of the plant's output "because this is now a U.S. federal government project." New York-based investment company Glenfarne Group and the state-owned Alaska Gasline Development Corporation are the project's sole owners, holding equity stakes of 75 percent and 25 percent respectively.

Taiwan's energy ministry couched its commitment in terms of an ongoing negotiating process, pledging "an estimated maximum" investment amount only after further study and budgeting. "Specific investment arrangements, shareholding ratios, and related conditions will be handled according to subsequent negotiations and commercial contract procedures," the ministry said. 

Alaska LNG is a longstanding proposal for an infrastructure network to pipe abundant North Slope gas resources across the state to Cook Inlet for liquefaction and export. It would require construction of an 800-mile line connecting gas fields on the Artic tundra to an LNG plant rated at 20 million tonnes per annum. 

At one time, Alaska LNG had support from BP, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips and was advancing steadily as a private-sector venture. All three oil majors backed out in 2016 following an independent assessment of the project's economics. At present, a New York-based investment company and the state-owned Alaska Gasline Development Corporation own the equity in Alaska LNG.

With the need to construct a $9 billion gas treatment plant at the Arctic northern side, then build an 800-mile overland supply pipeline through rugged wilderness, the megaproject is expected to cost $45-55 billion for 20 mtpa of capacity. This works out to as much as $2.7 billion per mtpa, much higher than the $1.6 billion per mtpa capex cost for the LNG Canada Phase 2 project in Kitimat, British Columbia. About 900 nautical miles apart, the two sites are natural competitors: they target the same East Asian market, and at similar scale. Two weeks ago, LNG Canada got the green light from private investors for its $23 billion Phase 2 expansion, which will double its capacity to 28 mtpa. 

The Trump administration has been asking Asian allies to make comparable investments in Alaska LNG, and President Donald Trump announced a $50 billion South Korean commitment to the project last week. South Korea's energy ministry responded that a complete commercial feasibility study would have to be done before any final investment decision. 

Tuesday, October 13, 2026

 

Aspens 'remember' past drought in their leaves



Utah researchers uncover how chemical compounds that protect aspens from insects and pathogens rise and fall in response to drought



University of Utah
Common garden

image: 

Biology students tend to aspens growing in a "common garden" plot at the University of Utah's Biology Research Experimental Garden. 

view more 

Credit: Allie Perkins, University of Utah





Drought is written into trees, appearing as narrow bands in their annual growth rings. But aspen may go farther, creating “functional memories” of previous dry years reflected in the chemistry of their leaves, according to new research by University of Utah biologists.

In a three-year “common garden” experiment with quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides), researchers documented how trees’ drought history influenced the chemical defenses in their newly produced leaves. It was also associated with changes in the microbial fungi living on those leaves.

In subsequent years after exposure to experimentally induced drought conditions, aspen leaves exhibited higher levels of chemicals known as salicinoid phenolic glycosides, which deter herbivores, the insects and animals that eat plants, according to Talia Karasov, an assistant professor of biology and co-author.

A crucial tree species in trouble

A signature tree species in the West’s mountains and Utah’s state tree, quaking aspen are in decline as a result of insects and pathogens, as well as historic fire suppression and grazing by livestock and wildlife, which have enabled conifers to displace aspen. The mountain West’s only dominant deciduous tree species, aspens grow in clonal stands where all the individuals are genetically identical. Their range also covers parts of Canada, the Upper Midwest and New England.

Reversing aspen decline is important to the ecological health of Western forests, but gaps persist in scientists’ understanding of the causes and solutions to the problem.

“We wanted to understand drought not simply as an acute stress, but as an event that may reshape how trees interact with their biotic environment long after soils have rewetted,” said Karasov, who specializes in the study of plant-microbe interactions. “Because drought-year conditions alone do not explain all of the delayed mortality observed in forests, we asked whether prior water limitation leaves a persistent signature in aspen leaf chemistry—and, in turn, alters interactions with herbivores and the fungal communities that inhabit leaves.”

Chemical defenses against microbes and insects

To further this work, the team sought to understand how drought influences the ways aspens interact with herbivores and potentially pathogenic microbes, which are exerting a great deal of pressure on these trees.

Karasov co-led the new study with biology professor William Anderegg, a forest ecologist interested in how trees respond to climate change, and graduate student Aubrey Hawks. Their results appear in the journal New Phytologist.

The team also found that levels of another chemical defense, condensed tannins, which help trees ward off microbes, went down in the drought-exposed trees. The researchers hypothesized that the surprising changes in leaf chemistry the year after drought exposure could reflect an adaptation to dry conditions.

The results also suggest that the effects of drought can persist through subsequent growing seasons, potentially influencing how aspens recover and how vulnerable they are to pests and pathogens, Karasov said. The study shows that drought and leaf chemistry can filter microbial communities, but it does not yet establish whether those changes ultimately help or harm aspen recovery.

“Defenses against pests and pathogens likely matter a lot for aspen to be able to survive droughts and also normal conditions,” Anderegg said. “And this study fills a key gap in understanding how drought and defense production change both during and after the initial droughts themselves.”

The ‘common garden’ research model

The common garden model used by the researchers brings together plants from geographically divergent populations to grow in a single location under shared conditions. The aspen research was conducted at the university’s Biology Research Experimental Garden, along the Wasatch foothills east of the Salt Lake City campus.

In 2021, Anderegg’s lab established the experimental aspen plot at the site where they planted rootstock they gathered from mountain sites in five national forests in Utah and Colorado. The original sites were about 9,000 feet above sea level on south-facing aspects.

Two other studies about aspen drought response have been published by Anderegg and his graduate students based on data produced at the research garden with more on the way.

For the latest study, the team manipulated how much water the trees received to replicate varying levels of drought from 2021 through 2023. Leaves were harvested in late August and subjected to chemical analysis to determine levels of certain compounds that concentrate in aspen leaves as defense mechanisms against plant-eating insects and wildlife, as well as disease-causing microbes.

The increased levels of phenolic glycosides the team documented were associated with reduced canopy damage, while other changes observed in leaf chemistry were associated with shifts in the fungi inhabiting the leaves. Prior research has shown that increasing phenolic glycoside levels by just a little can reduce herbivory by up to 25%.

 “It can basically be the difference between a plant being totally defoliated or not because the insects don't like these phenol glycosides,” Karasov said. “In a dried leaf, the percentage of its mass that's composed of these compounds that they make for fending off herbivores or microbes can be up to 20%. It's incredible. So they're putting so much of their resources into defending themselves.

Yet the team found no evidence the trees’ increased investment in production of phenolic glycosides came at the expense of tree growth.

#####

The study was published Sept. 13 in the journal New Phytologist under the title “Functional memory of drought affects leaf chemical defenses and microbial interactions in aspen.” Co-authors include Utah biology students Jaycie Fickle, Kelly Kerr, Dale Forrister, Allison Perkins, Efthymia Symeonidi, Madelyn Allen, Cannon Fehrenbach, and Hsiao-Nung Chen of the Department of Chemistry.

Funding was provided by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, with additional support from the Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy, a Phyllis Coley and Thomas A. Kursar Field Research Award, the David and Lucille Packard Foundation and an Alan T. Waterman Award.

Biology students Cannon Fehrenbach, Aubrey Hawks and Allie Perkins, left to right, conduct field research on aspens in Colorado’s White River National Forest in July 2023. The team was collecting data regarding the trees’ chemical defenses and interactions with microbes

Credit

Allie Perkins, University of Utah

Aspen leaves turn color in Utah's Big Cottonwood Canyon.

Credit

William Anderegg, University of Utah.

 

French Navy Boards Russia-Linked Tanker in the Indian Ocean

Marine Nationale
Courtesy Marine Nationale

The French military has boarded the sanctioned shadow fleet tanker DF Peak on the high seas of the Indian Ocean, hundreds of miles from land. It is perhaps the most remote, far-removed interdiction of a Russia-linked tanker since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. 

French President Emmanuel Macron announced Monday that the Marine Nationale had boarded the tanker at a position about 450 nautical miles to the south of the department of Réunion, the French island territory east of Madagascar. Macron said that the ship was suspected of flying a false flag and conducting "illicit fuel transportation activities."

"This action, carried out in accordance with international maritime law, demonstrates our determination to uphold the rule of law and combat all illicit trafficking, wherever it occurs," Macron said in a statement. 

DF Peak has a long history in Russian service. Built in 2006, the 110,000 dwt tanker served in the state-owned Sovcomflot fleet as the NS Captain until 2024, when it was renamed Kaliningrad. It took on its current name in 2025. It became part of the SCF-linked, Dubai-based Sun Ship fleet in early 2022, and is currently managed by a company in Hong Kong. 

The vessel's Equasis record suggests that it is falsely flagged in Benin, a national register once known as a haven for the Russia-linked shadow fleet. Benin has taken steps to deregister noncompliant tonnage and push back against the fraudulent, unauthorized use of its flag, a persistent pattern for sanctioned vessels. 

The DF Peak was sanctioned by the U.S. government in 2024, then subsequently by the EU, Switzerland, Canada, the United Kingdom and Ukraine. The Ukrainian government has also sanctioned one of the vessel's former captains. 

Catherine Vautrin, France's defense minister, said that the DF Peak is now under escort and that the inspection continues. The vessel is far outside of French territorial seas, but Vautrin said that the legal authority for command of the boarding fell under the regional prefect of Reunion. 

"International law is not optional. Our armed forces are fully mobilized to enforce it and combat illicit activities at sea," Vautrin said. 

The boarding fell just days after the White House opted to pause sanctions on Russian diesel exports, an attempt to ease fuel prices ahead of the U.S. midterm elections in November. The Trump administration hopes to boost Russian distillate sales on the global market, the opposite of European sanctions policy towards Moscow. 

Monday, October 12, 2026

Reckoning With the Children Buried in ‘Secret Cemeteries’ Across the US

There are more than 1,000 graves of children who died in state custody that are slowly being identified, forcing the nation to confront legacies of racism and child exploitation.



Cinder block markers mark the graves of children buried at the Maryland House of Reformation & Instruction for Colored Children Burial Site.
(Photo by Marc Schindler)

Emma Cieslik
Oct 12, 2026
Common Dreams

Last year, Georgetown University’s Center for Youth Justice, broke the news that 230 or more incarcerated Black children died at the Maryland House of Reformation & Instruction for Colored Children. These children died and were buried between 1877-1939 in nearby unmarked graves. Last month, the Center released research finding that there are 40 similar “secret” burial sites in 29 states where over 1,000 children were buried after they died while under the care of youth institutions. The news went viral when shared in a Washington Post piece.

Georgetown University’s Center for Youth Justice undertook this research as part of the Forgotten Children Initiative launched back in February 2026. Back in 2023, the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services started to document and report how the department has functioned, including reckoning with histories of physical and emotional abuse, exploitative labor practices, and racial discrimination. The House of Reformation and Instruction for Colored Children, which was open and operational from 1870-1937, is just one example.

Georgetown University’s report indicates that House of Reformation served as the first reform school for delinquent Black children in the American South. The house was originally created by the Maryland General Assembly because Black children were sent to adult jails and state prisons for criminal offenses, some as light as running away from home. Maryland children were sent to the House of Reformation for many reasons—sometimes because they were orphaned or had lost a parent or did not have a parent deemed “fit” to care for them, because they lived in poverty or were unhoused or because they were accused of minor offenses.

This latest report reveals a devastating but not entirely unknown truth—that children continue to be exploited, killed, and buried in secrecy under the “protection” of the state and federal government.

Nineteenth century prison reformers argued that children should be placed in facilities that offered religious, vocational, and personal education, but despite this arguably white saviorist goal that these institutions not be places of punishment, reform schools like Maryland’s House of Reformation became places where children were pushed into overcrowded facilities without proper food and medical care. Many children were then forced to labor without pay (often solely to enrich the institutions rather than to teach them vocational skills), to live and work in isolation, or were subject to corporal punishment.

As Georgetown University’s report indicates, a child’s reform school experience was largely based on their race, class, and age. Black and white children were placed in segregated facilities, often also separated by gender. Young Black girls specifically were especially subject to sexual violence and assault in these facilities. As expected, reform schools—later called training schools, industrial schools, juvenile reformatories, and eventually juvenile detention centers—were radically different based on whether Black or white children were living and working there.

Because of the horrific working conditions; a systemic lack of medical care; and physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, hundreds of children died at these schools. Approximately 230 Black boys died at the Maryland House of Reform & Instruction while it was operational, and when they died, they were buried in hidden or unidentified graves, likely to cover up the rampant child abuse and death that occurred under the state’s watch. In fact, the secret cemetery was only discovered through a former Maryland Department of Juvenile Services staff member, and while the first section of the cemetery dating to the 19th century included headstones with the names of the boys buried at the site, the second section (dated from the early 20th century) only has rows of cinder blocks with no name or other identifiable information.

The Department of Juvenile Services is working to identify living relatives of the boys buried on site, restore and maintain the site to an official cemetery, and erect historical markers that acknowledge how children were exploited at the site. As the Forgotten Children Initiative report reads, “The overall goal was to properly honor the youth who died or were killed at the House of Reformation and are buried at the site, and provide a more holistic and accurate understanding of the racial inequities that we see today and help with efforts to reduce these inequities moving forward.” This is key because the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services runs the Cheltenham Youth Detention Center, a successor to the House of Reformation where almost 250 boys died and were buried in unmarked graves.

But as Georgetown University undertook this study, the researchers realized this was a much more widespread problem. More “secret cemeteries” have come to light, specifically at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Florida and the New York House of Refuge in New York. These are just three of hundreds of reform schools and institutions that received federal funding to effectively abuse children for decades. At its core, these reform schools were racist institutions meant to police, mold, and erase children of color across the country.

These patterns of child death and secretive burial are also deeply connected to Native American boarding schools throughout the United States and Canada. As Georgetown University’s latest report notes, there are more than 1,000 graves of children who died in state custody that are slowly being identified. The Forgotten Children Initiative questions how many more “secret cemeteries” will be discovered and how many will still be hidden to protect the state that literally enabled their deaths.

This research is part of a global reckoning about the outright murder and covert burial of children in state and religious-run youth institutions. This summer, survivors of Ireland’s Mother and Baby Homes and their allies rallied in downtown Cork against the impending development on the lands of the Bessborough Mother and Baby Institute where hundreds of infants and children are believed to be buried. These institutions, strikingly similar to those in the United States in the 1960s during the “Baby Scoop” era, were homes for unwed mothers who would have their babies in these facilities. Their children would then be adopted out to neighboring families or would be put into a religious-run institution where abuse and neglect were rampant.

To be clear, this still exists to this day with the Liberty Godparent Home where young, single, pregnant women are coerced into giving up their children to be adopted by affluent Christian families in exchange for a full tuition scholarship to Liberty University.

This violence is also indicative of a much larger history of the Prison Industrial Complex in the United States, where people whose bodies are not claimed or whose families cannot cover the expenses to prepare and bury their loved one, are buried in prison cemeteries with simple concrete slabs or metal markers with the incarcerated individual’s name rather than traditional headstones, or their bodies might be cremated and stored or scattered according to The Marshall Project. It’s one final denial of an incarcerated person’s humanity and dignity reminiscent of what the young Black boys at the House of Reformation experienced.

The children who died (or more accurately who were killed due to abuse and neglect in state-run institutions) are the direct ancestors of the modern Prison Industrial Complex. The Prison Industrial Complex tethers together histories of slavery and sharecropping with modern prison systems where prisoners are forced or coerced to work for subminimum wages, with no employee protection. Like modern juvenile detention centers and even group homes, the House of Reformation and other reform schools served as pipelines to prisons, keeping people of color incarcerated in systems of exploited labor for their entire lives.

It’s worth noting that the House of Reformation admitted its first occupants in 1873, only six years after Maryland had abolished slavery, so at least some of the first children admitted into the House of Reformation were formerly enslaved. During a time when courts were still segregated and Black Americans were systematically denied due process, any criminal accusation against a Black child (in the time before Emmett Till’s horrific lynching) would be difficult to fight. Even before (and after) Maryland outlawed slavery, free Black individuals could be easily declared unsuitable to raise their children under discriminatory statutes, forcing minors into unpaid indentured servitude under white masters and later these reform institutions.

This latest report reveals a devastating but not entirely unknown truth—that children continue to be exploited, killed, and buried in secrecy under the “protection” of the state and federal government. It will take decades if not centuries to locate or recover the remains of children, especially children of color, whose lives and deaths were erased by the state to cleanse itself of systemic violence, if all of these children can be found at all. But as more information comes to light, this news is indicative of a much longer, and darker American history of exploiting children, especially children of color, and how this violence continues in the modern juvenile detention and prison systems.


Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Emma Cieslik
Emma Cieslik is a museum worker and public historian based in Washington, DC.
Full Bio >