It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Cat 793 XE Early Learner battery-electric haul trucks at the Jimblebar mine. (Image courtesy of BHP.)
BHP (ASX: BHP) and Rio Tinto (ASX, LON: RIO) have begun testing two battery electric haul trucks at BHP’s Jimblebar iron ore mine in Australia’s Pilbara region as the miners look for ways to curb diesel use and cut emissions.
The units, supplied through a partnership with Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT), mark the first phase of a joint trial meant to gauge whether battery technology can support large-scale iron ore operations.
Each miner will decide on next steps after the joint testing period, including whether to move toward broader trials or fleet integration.
BHP said the work aims to confirm the performance of battery systems, charging infrastructure and supporting supply chains.
“Replacing diesel isn’t just about changing energy sources, it’s about reimagining how we operate and creating the technologies, infrastructure and supply chains to transform mining operations,” BHP’s Western Australia iron ore president Tim Day said.
Day added these trials will help the companies understand how “all the pieces of the puzzle fit together.”
Net zero by 2050
Rio Tinto iron ore Pilbara Mines MD Andrew Wilson said decarbonizing the company’s truck fleet across 18 mines remains a major challenge.
“By exploring solutions like this to reduce emissions, we hope that, over time, we will be able to move away from diesel,” he said, noting that “no single company can achieve zero emissions haulage on its own.”
Caterpillar senior vice president Marc Cameron said the collaboration was key to “accelerating innovation and shaping the next generation of mining technology.”
The companies said the effort supports their shared ambition to reach net zero operational emissions by 2050.
Vale to boost autonomous truck fleet in deal with Caterpillar
Brazilian miner Vale has signed an agreement with Caterpillar and Sotreq to quintuple its autonomous off-road truck fleet by 2028 at its Northern System area, executive vice president of operations Carlos Medeiros told Reuters.
“This contract is another step toward a larger plan we have, which is the adoption of these trucks on a large scale,” Medeiros said.
Vale’s fleet would reach 90 units, up from 18 at the end of this year, according to Medeiros.
The initiative will reduce emissions, improve safety and boost productivity at Vale’s Northern System, its largest iron ore- and copper-producing area, he said.
The bulk of the expansion will come from converting conventional vehicles already in use.
Large-scale adoption
Vale operates some 130-140 off-road trucks in the Northern System, including both autonomous and conventional vehicles.
Autonomous trucks in operation carry up to 320 metric tons, but the fresh deal includes 400-ton models.
Financial details were not disclosed, but Vale’s total investment in autonomous trucks reached about $210 million through 2024.
Vale’s autonomous truck program began in 2018 at the Brucutu mine in Minas Gerais, a state where it also plans to expand its fleet.
(By Marta Nogueira and Gabriel Araujo; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
Friday, December 05, 2025
America doesn’t have enough hospital beds. This could help.
Michigan Medicine's data-driven command center had the effect of adding beds by reducing emergency department boarding and length of stay while boosting patient transfers
Views of areas of the command center at Michigan Medicine, the academic medical center of the University of Michigan. The center, known as M2C2, is the hub for determining the flow of patients into and out of the three Ann Arbor hospitals of U-M Health.
Every day, across the nation, patients wait hours or days in emergency departments until a bed opens up for them in the hospital.
Patients in smaller hospitals wait to get transferred to larger ones that can handle their complex health needs.
And patients ready to leave the hospital often wait hours before they’re released, tying up beds that others need.
The problem will only get worse, experts project, due to a collision of the aging population, changes in health policy and insurance coverage that impact hospital finances, and shortages of clinical staff.
Published in the New England Journal of Medicine Catalyst, it details the impact of the command center M2C2, short for Michigan Medicine Command Center, that U-M opened three years ago, to coordinate inpatient bed use across the three Ann Arbor hospitals of University of Michigan Health.
In its first two years, the authors report, the command center and other operational changes increased bed use efficiency so much that it was as if U-M Health had opened 63 more adult inpatient beds.
The authors hope their detailed report will help other hospitals start or fine-tune their own command centers and the procedures that guide their clinical operations.
“We have tackled a lot of factors that affect the length of a hospital stay, and created procedures that let us use every last bed all the time, and optimize the capacity in the system,” said Vikas Parekh, M.D., associate chief medical officer for U-M Health and the study’s senior author.
“There’s still work to be done, but our efforts have translated into shorter waits for patients and increased the number of patients who can get the care they need from our highly skilled clinical teams.”
Key achievements in hospital bed use efficiency
The M2C2 project was co-led by the paper’s lead author Jennifer Pardo, MHSA, a senior information technology project manager, and Maxim V. Garifullin, M.S., a lead solution architect in the Capacity Management team.
The new paper assessed performance before, and two years after, the M2C2 opened.
In that time, the team found:
The total time adult patients spent waiting for available beds at University Hospital and the Frankel Cardiovascular Center dropped by 33%. This included a 37% drop in the time it took to get a bed assigned to adults who arrived at U-M via the emergency department and were approved for an inpatient stay.
Children waiting for beds at the U-M C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital had a 13% reduction in the bed-assigning time.
U-M Health went from accepting 70% of requests to transfer patients from other hospitals to accepting 80% of them, thanks to new processes for prioritizing transfers in a data-driven way so that more patients can receive high-level quaternary care.
Patients who were ready to leave the hospital procedures experienced a 12% drop in the time from discharge order to departure for adults, and 9% for children, thanks to streamlined processes after physicians sign discharge orders.
Length of stay for adults dropped 8%, even after adjustment for patient complexity.
And while the command center cost $2.1 million to build in converted space on the medical campus, and the staff needed to run it cost $1.5 million per year, the effort has still yielded an estimated $19.5 million net positive impact on U-M Health’s bottom line. Some of the funds to create M2C2 came from donors.
Technology plus operational improvements
Pardo notes that the M2C2 command center relies heavily on two technological tools: the data dashboards made possible by the Epic electronic health record system that U-M Health and many other hospitals use, and an artificial intelligence patient placement tool developed in-house by a team led by her colleague and co-author.
“These data and analytical tools are critical, but so are the structure, governance, workstreams, procedures and goals that allow our staff to make the most of them,” she said.
She notes that because U-M Health built its own data infrastructure, rather than purchasing services from one of the companies offering such tools, it was able to share the information publicly through the paper.
M2C2's full name is the Michigan Medicine Capacity Operations and Real-time Engagement, or C.O.R.E., Center. It combines the operations of several units that previously coordinated bed use and transfers.
The walls of its three rooms are covered with 32 huge screens displaying key information that staff can monitor and use in decisions about moving patients into beds or accepting them from another hospital.
Key data are available via intranet to staff anywhere, with color-coding for levels of real-time bed availability.
How it started, where it’s going
Part of the impetus for creating M2C2 was the COVID-19 pandemic, and the abrupt and prolonged change in bed use that happened in its first months.
But even before then, U-M Health had faced high demand for inpatient care, with hospital occupancy rates far above national averages.
It was also instrumental during the opening of several observation units, most recently this April, for patients whose care requires a very short stay, often after an emergency department visit.
Two levels of the building known as University Hospital South, which once housed the children’s hospital, have been converted for such care to accommodate demand.
Now, the team is working with hospital leaders in U-M Health’s regional network by implementing aspects of the system at UM Health-Sparrow in Lansing and UM Health-West in the Grand Rapids area.
The command center will also be instrumental to the upcoming project to renovate and change bed use in University Hospital, which opened 40 years ago when two-bed rooms were the norm.
A pattern for others to follow
The space has become a magnet for visitors from other health systems seeking to emulate U-M Health’s success, and for students from the U-M Medical School, College of Engineering, School of Information and School of Public Health.
Hospitals seeking to build their own command centers should start by focusing on exactly what they are trying to achieve, and then using tools such as Epic’s dashboards to get there, said Garifullin.
"The key is building solutions for each challenge, such as managing transfers, or the goal of ‘no beds fly empty’, using technology, people and processes,” he said.
Parekh, who is a hospitalist physician and professor of internal medicine, agrees.
“You can’t put a command center on top of a non-optimized system. You have to optimize the system first,” he said.
Having buy-in from top leadership to align all relevant resources around the command center structure and governance – from information technology to nurse staffing – is also critical.
Erica Herbst, R.N., who manages the team of patient flow coordinators in M2C2, notes that the opening of the command center has allowed her team to take a proactive approach to placing patients in beds.
“What once required hours of manual work has become much easier based on a proactive approach, and the staff feel better supported to make difficult decisions,” she said.
In the end, said Parekh, “Our focus is on how to get rid of avoidable delays in the system that affect the patient’s journey, by leveraging every resource we have. A more efficient hospital stay also means meeting evidence-based milestones along the way – even something as simple as timely urinary catheter removal or getting a patient up walking soon after surgery. That will create better clinical outcomes, reduce length of stay and lead to fewer readmissions."
Additional authors: Many additional individuals contributed to the study and to M2C2’s outcomes. Some notable mentions include Niki Farquhar, M.S.E., a co-author on the Catalyst paper, as well as members of the M2C2 management and administrative team including Herbst, Christina Tikkanen M.S.W., Jess Bethel, Denyce Henderson R.N., Paul Paliani M.B.A., and Dolorence Okullo M.H.I.
Paper cited: “Designing a Hospital Command Center with Proven ROI: The University of Michigan M2C2 Model,” NEJM Catalyst. DOI: 10.1056/CAT.25.0080
When people are feeling happy, they’re more likely to see other people as happy. If they’re feeling down, they tend to view other people as sad. But when dealing with dogs, this well-established psychological effect ceases to work as expected.
That’s according to a new study by behavioral scientists at Arizona State University. In one experiment, nudging people into positive emotional states by showing them pictures that usually cheer people up did not significantly impact how they perceived dog emotions. In a modified experiment, the effect actually worked in reverse: people prompted to feel upbeat tended to rate dogs as being sadder. Those nudged into a negative mood deemed dogs to be happier.
“In this domain of how people understand dog's emotions, I'm continuously surprised,” said study co-author Clive Wynne, a professor of psychology and director of the Canine Science Collaboratory at ASU. “I feel like we are just scratching at the surface of what is turning out to be quite a big mystery.”
The research is part of a broader effort to uncover the biases of the human mind that shape our perceptions of animal emotions.
“If we can better understand how we perceive animal emotions, we can better care for them,” said first author Holly Molinaro, president and senior animal welfare scientist at Animal Wellbeing Solutions. She and Wynne published their findings in the journal PeerJ.
The researchers recruited a trio of dogs to help with the work: Oliver, a 14-year-old mixed-breed; Canyon, a one-year-old Catahoula dog; and Henry, a three-year-old French bulldog. They needed videos of the canines reacting in a positive, neutral or negative state, so they asked the dogs’ owners to prompt their pets with emotional cues.
For the positive nudge, a treat worked for Oliver and a toy for Canyon. Henry only had to hear he was going to see “Grandma.” To kill the mood, Oliver was shown a cat. Viewing a vacuum cleaner did it for Canyon and Henry. Neutral mood videos showed the dogs resting or waiting for their owner to present another prompt. The researchers edited the video clips so that only the dog was visible on a black background.
In the first experiment, 300 undergraduate students viewed images from a standardized set used by psychologists to bring about a positive, neutral, or negative mood. After watching short video clips of the dogs in positive, neutral, or negative states, the participants rated how happy or sad each dog looked, and how calm or excited it seemed.
While the priming successfully shifted people’s moods, it did not affect how people rated the emotional state of dogs.
“It just didn't work the way that it does when you do this with humans,” Wynne said.
To make sense of the surprising result, the researchers decided to run a second experiment. The wanted to find out if the priming didn’t work as expected because it relied largely on pictures of people.
“We thought what if we use priming images that were actually dogs – a dog playing in the park, a puppy in a teacup, for example, or a dog that looks sad behind bars or a dog left on the side of the street,” Molinaro said.
They recruited another 300 undergraduates to repeat the experiment with dog-only images used to prime their mood.
“This time what we found was an effect, but in the opposite direction,” she said. “All those that saw the happy dog images rated the dogs as more sad. And all those who saw the sad dog images rated the dogs in the videos as happier.”
Also noteworthy, the researchers found that merely watching the videos of dogs against a black background – even dogs shown in negative mood – lifted the emotional state of study participants.
In all, the remarkable findings highlight how much remains to be learned about our relations with dogs.
“People and dogs have been living intimately with each other for at least 14,000 years. And in that time, dogs have learned plenty of things about how to get along with human beings,” Wynne said. “And yet our research suggests that there are quite big gaps in how we understand what dogs are feeling.”
That matters because misreading or overlooking emotional cues can lead to inappropriate handling, delayed intervention, or unmet behavioral and psychological needs for animals in human care. Molinaro and Wynne believe their research can improve human-animal interaction and support more accurate, empathetic, and welfare-conscious care.
ASU Psychology Professor Clive Wynne poses for a portrait with his greyhound Ginger at his home in Tempe on Nov. 4, 2025.
Credit
Photo by Samantha Chow/Arizona State University
Journal
PeerJ
Method of Research
Experimental study
Subject of Research
People
Article Title
Paw-spective shift: how our mood alters the way we read dog emotions
Article Publication Date
5-Dec-2025
Tuesday, December 02, 2025
Stopping dog meat sales in Indonesia is more about shuffling paperwork than morality
Dog meat consumption in Indonesia sits at the intersection of cultural food traditions, public health challenges, animal welfare concerns, and political risk. Unlike many mainstream livestock animals, dogs are increasingly recognised as companions in urban households, service roles, and community protection efforts across Indonesia. This evolving social perception has built momentum for legal intervention, particularly as rabies remains a deadly risk in several regions.
Although national legislation has yet to impose a blanket prohibition on dog meat consumption, especially in rural areas, provinces and cities are now accelerating local frameworks to restrict its trade and processing. The capital, Jakarta, has become a focal point of this regulatory shift, influencing discourse in neighbouring provinces and reigniting long-dormant legislative discussions.
Jakarta legalises ban, establishing a major precedent
Jakarta introduced a binding provincial rule in late 2025 that outlaws the trade and slaughter of animals categorised as carriers of rabies for food-related purposes. The Jakarta Governor, Pramono Anung, became a central figure in the rollout by confirming the regulation’s operational date as November 24, which was publicly shared via his Instagram channel, MerahPutih.comreports. This regulatory milestone positions dog and cat meat sales as formally unlawful in Jakarta. The policy’s intention was framed as a safeguard for public health, sanitation, and zoonotic disease prevention, rather than an assessment of cultural dietary customs.
The newly enacted rule, numbered 36/2025, extends beyond household pets to include a larger group of rabies-transmitting species such as monkeys, bats, civets, and similar animals, explicitly banning them from market circulation for dietary uses. The regulation establishes clear supply-side restrictions, making the sale of live dogs, raw meat, or processed food products from rabies-transmitting animals illegal if directed for consumption. Markets under Jakarta governance are now expected to adhere to these health classifications when selling or slaughtering animals.
The Jakarta food marketplace operator, Pasar Jaya, had previously confirmed that dog meat sellers operated within parts of Jakarta, including at Pasar Senen, which motivated regulatory tightening and enforcement commitments from the provincial leadership.
To ensure compliance, the ban includes escalating administrative penalties. For initial breaches, authorities are expected to issue written cautions and temporarily confiscate rabies-transmitting animals for disease monitoring, especially where symptoms such as rabies are detected. Repeat offences allow the government to seize animals again, close businesses, or remove trading permits entirely. The ban, according to the governor, completed a campaign promise to activists advocating for domestic animal protection and stricter consumer health measures, Antaranews reports.
Jakarta legislator Hardiyanto Kenneth emphasises sustained advocacy by animal welfare communities, veterinarians, and activists,Tempo.co reports. He highlighted the governor’s political resolve in establishing firm legal controls despite the complexity of navigating culturally sensitive consumption habits. Kenneth underscored that activists had pushed for years to solidify Jakarta’s regulation against dog and cat meat trading. He further cited resident concern over rabies spread, calling the issue a public health imperative rather than a symbolic cultural revision.
Kenneth also reinforced legislative backing for enforcement oversight, urging Jakarta’s Dinas Ketahanan Pangan, Kelautan dan Pertanian Provinsi DKI Jakarta to coordinate monitoring, conduct routine checks, and deliver firm administrative enforcement when necessary. He stressed that the rule protects citizens from rabies, a serious zoonotic disease risk that public institutions must prioritise. This marked Jakarta’s political transition toward building a humane and modernised livestock health governance model, grounded in consumer protection and portable to possible future national frameworks.
Additionally, Kenneth applauded Pramono’s campaign fulfilment, recognising it as a milestone in Jakarta’s urban development narrative, with potential influence across provinces wrestling with enforcement gaps. He urged exporters and local traders to ignore the rule to be held accountable through multi-agency operations and licencing oversight.
Antaranews also documented Pramono’s regulatory endorsement, reiterating that rule 36/2025 shuts supply routes permitting dog meat distribution for consumption in Jakarta.
Bantul at the heart of controversy and enforcement barriers
Just outside Jakarta’s regulatory lens, however, a viral video circulated in late 2025 showing dogs packed into sacks in an alleged dog meat supply chain in Bantul, Yogyakarta, sparking public outrage and new regional commitments, detiknews reports. Gubernur Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta, Sri Sultan Hamengku Buwono X responded by confirming that new regulatory reinforcement was being prepared to restrict the dog meat trade. He noted that local authorities had been unable to act due to the absence of enforceable trading laws prohibiting dog meat consumption.
Although the DIY administration had previously distributed a regional circular in 2023 to control the distribution of rabies-transmitting animals for food purposes, he publicly acknowledged that the circular lacked sufficient enforcement weight.
Sultan proposed strengthening the circular into a governor decree, elevating the administrative enforceability of dog meat restrictions across districts and cities, which may require consultation with regencies and municipalities. This gap between administrative intent and enforcement authority has been a repeated theme in the national dog meat discourse, illustrating how regulatory escalation often encounters friction in the informal trading economy.
Sultan’s announcement followed police inspections led by AKP I Nengah Jeffry who verified the location of dog meat processing stalls in Bantul at Kapanewon Bambanglipuro where authorities recorded five active food stalls selling dog meat products. Jeffry confirmed that police had inspected the viral video site but found no animals being traded at the time, although processed dog meat sales were occurring. However, due to the absence of enforceable trading prohibition laws, police actions remained advisory in nature, focusing on outreach rather than obstruction. Local enforcement lacked regulatory authority to issue legal penalties, as Indonesia’s penal code currently sanctions animal abuse but does not prohibit consuming dog meat itself.
Legislature begins drafting fundamental food safety law
The legislative body in DIY has restarted regulatory drafting to supply the province’s first framework governing all animal-sourced food safety controls, including animal health conditions, slaughtering standards, and processed meat quality oversight. The proposal, named Pemberian Jaminan Keamanan Pangan dan Mutu Pangan Asal Hewan, is only in initial stages. The head of DIY legal drafting committee Yuni Satia Rahayu confirmed that the policy remains in early academic drafting, requiring comprehensive supporting research before the legislative process advances, HarianJogja reports.
Rahayu explained that the proposal aims to govern the health and safety controls for all animal-derived food products in the province, including mainstream livestock, non-mainstream meat, and rabies-transmitting species such as dogs. The proposal will form the province’s first consolidated foundation for animal-sourced food safety governance, establishing public inspection authority, legal penalties, oversight mechanisms, and trader compliance education. She also confirmed that when passed, the regulation may introduce surveillance pathways, compliance support, and penalties for breaches involving illegal or unsafe meat trade.
Human rights, religious freedom
In one of the most sensitive and related controversies in late 2025, national ministry Kementerian Imigrasi dan Pemasyarakatan confirmed that authorities had opened investigative proceedings to examine an allegation that a correctional facility administrator coerced Muslim detainees to eat dog meat, a dietary violation under Islamic law. The facility administrator under scrutiny, Chandra Sudarto, remains under internal review, with sanctions promised if coercion is proven. This allegation was released publicly by Indonesia’s national parliament member Mafirion, who argued that regardless of detainee status, religious freedom and dietary boundaries remain protected rights under human rights frameworks.
Mafirion demanded administrative suspension and law enforcement progression to restrict social polarisation around the matter. The ministry spokesperson Rika Aprianti confirmed formal provincial verification had been initiated, promising administrative action if abuse or coercion is evident, CNBC Indonesia reports.
From local experiment to national implications
As is, Jakarta’s binding rule creates Indonesia’s most substantial experiment in stopping the dog meat trade by using a public health classification strategy, targeting supply channels rather than cultural beliefs. Bantul, lacking enforceable laws, reveals the compliance risk that may redirect trade rather than reduce it. DIY legislature, now drafting the region’s first animal-sourced food safety regulation, reflects how local controversy has revived legal prioritisation.
What happens next will not be decided only in government offices. Tracking supply routes, educating consumers, supporting traders in transition, expanding rabies prevention, and unifying veterinary inspection standards will determine whether regulations sustainably reshape behaviour or reorganise the contours of informal trade in man's best friend.
