Asteroid Bennu's mysterious missing craters suggest 'impact armoring' protecting the surface



Tereza Pultarova -
Space

The surface of asteroid Bennu is riddled with craters. But data from NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission show that, in fact, many craters are missing. The findings suggest that some unexpected geological processes are underway on the 0.3-mile-wide (0.5 kilometers) space rock recently visited by the American space probe.

NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft spent nearly two and a half years between 2018 and 2021 studying near-Earth asteroid Bennu. While the probe won't deliver its small pieces of that space rock to Earth until next year, scientists have already analyzed thousands of images and troves of data gathered by the spacecraft.

This amount of data and images has made Bennu one of the best explored bodies in the solar system, Edward "Beau" Bierhaus, a space science researcher at Lockheed Martin and lead author of a new paper detailing the findings told Space.com.

"We've collected thousands and thousands of images and literally billions of LIDAR measurements that give us the topographic shape of Bennu," Bierhaus said. "Now we have the most detailed topographic map of any body in the solar system."

Related: This is NASA's best view yet (and closest, too!) of asteroid Bennu

Bierhaus and his colleagues spent months going through those images with the aim to learn more about how craters form on the asteroid, and what the researchers found surprised them.

The 1,590-foot-wide (484 meters) Bennu is pockmarked with craters — the scientists found over 1,500 of them, ranging from 3 feet (1 m) to 660 feet (200 m) wide. But then the researchers compared these numbers with data about the frequency and intensity of crater-forming collisions on Earth, the moon and other bodies. Those calculations show that the scientists should have found many more such impact scars.

"Statistically, we would expect to see many more small craters," Bierhaus said. "But they are not there."
Missing craters

Scientists base their understanding about crater-forming asteroid collisions on observations of surfaces of rocky planets, like Mars and Mercury, or the moon. Without a proper weather-producing atmosphere and little to no volcanism, these barren worlds keep an accurate record of their past battering.

But on Bennu, things don't seem to work the same way.

Bierhaus said that what the scientists found on Bennu was somewhat similar to what Japanese spacecraft Haybusa discovered on the asteroid Itokawa, which it visited in 2005. That asteroid, somewhat smaller than Bennu, didn't have many craters at all, Bierhaus said.

"We think this absence of small craters has to do with the character of Bennu's surface," said Bierhaus. "It's extremely rugged, covered with boulders, and very different from the moon or Mars."

Bennu is what scientists call a rubble-pile asteroid: Rather than a solid block of rock, the little world is essentially a clump of boulders, pebbles and sand, all produced in earlier collisions, that are held together only by gravity. This structure, Bierhaus said, works like "the crumple zone in a car," absorbing many impacts, especially less energetic ones, nearly without a trace.
Planetary defense

Scientists call the production of that crumple zone "impact armoring."

"When something hits Bennu, the energy of the impact is not efficiently transmitted into the bulk volume of the asteroid," Bierhaus said. "It might be entirely absorbed by one boulder or a small number of boulders. It's not allowed to propagate into the rest of the surface and make a crater."

Understanding how rubble-pile asteroids behave during impacts is interesting not only from the scientific perspective, Bierhaus said. Scientists believe that the vast majority of near-Earth asteroids — those that could possibly impact our planet — are rubble piles.

If one day a sizable asteroid is found on a collision course with Earth, humankind will have to send an artificial impactor its way, in an attempt to avert the collision. But that's a complicated task.

"Our ability to do this is very dependent upon our understanding of the construction of these objects, how they are put together and how they respond to energetic events," Bierhaus said. "By studying rubble-pile asteroids, we are not only gaining insight into the history and evolution of the solar system, but also into our potential ability to protect Earth."
Youngest surface in the solar system

Bennu has offered other surprises as well. When analyzing the characteristics and distribution of the asteroid's craters, the scientists realized that unlike the moon, Bennu doesn't keep a very long record of its past encounters. On average, traces of past events are wiped out every few million years, and while the asteroid itself is up to a billion years old, its constantly changing surface is relatively young.

"Based on the observed crater population, you can estimate the age of the surface," Bierhaus said. "For Bennu, we got something like 2 million years, and that is remarkable. It's one of the youngest crater-derived surface ages we've seen in the solar system."

The finding challenges some earlier assumptions about the life of asteroids. On these "geologically dead" bodies, without volcanism and weather-producing atmospheres, clearly other phenomena are at work that keep them more alive than one would expect, Bierhaus said.

"We thought we had some basic understanding of all the different ways that impact cratering could manifest," he said. "And it was surprising to look at Bennu and find that there is a whole new regime that we just haven't fully appreciated before."

The study was published in the journal Nature Geoscience on Thursday (April 7).

Follow Tereza Pultarova on Twitter @TerezaPultarova. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

US High school student scouring gravitational wave data makes neutron star discovery

Rahul Rao - 
Space

Around the world, astrophysicists are poring over the blips of gravitational waves that ripple through Earth when distant black holes or neutron stars collide. One of those astrophysicists is Christine Ye, a 17-year-old student from Eastlake High School in suburban Seattle.

Ye's work on gravitational waves, in which she observed the ripples in space-time from a collision between a black hole and a neutron star, has earned her first place in the Regeneron Science Talent Search, a nationwide competition.

Ye's interest in astronomy began in middle school, when she fielded an astronomy-themed project in a regional science fair. Wanting to explore more, Ye came across a group of researchers at the University of Washington who worked with the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav).

Related: Meet the 17-year-old who discovered an alien planet

At first, Ye's work was relatively simple: sifting through the mounds of data from gravitational wave observations. But the more she looked, the more she found herself paying attention to something traditionally under gravitational wave observers' radar: the stellar corpses called neutron stars and a particular flavor of these objects called pulsars.

"I got to spend a lot of time with NANOGrav, looking at and using pulsars," Ye told Space.com.

Black holes are gravitational wave observatories' typical fodder, but tools such as the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and the European Virgo interferometer can see neutron stars, too. The problem is that neutron stars are less massive than black holes. As a result, when they collide or interact with each other, the ripples aren't as strong, so it's harder for gravitational wave observers to see them from Earth.

Still, Ye began looking into the data. In particular, she started simulating binary star systems — how they might evolve and die, transforming into black holes and neutron stars that might collide and make waves. She wanted to see if her simulations might reproduce the waves that earlier astrophysicists had seen.

One thing you can learn from neutron stars is how massive they can get. Astronomers have seen plenty of neutron stars and plenty of black holes, but the most massive neutron stars are still less massive than most known black holes.

Astrophysicists call this discrepancy a mass gap, and any object whose mass lies in the gap's murky depths is of great interest.

When Ye simulated collisions of neutron stars with black holes, she made the neutron stars rotate — something many neutron stars, including pulsars, are known to do. She found that, if a neutron star were spinning, it could be massive — more massive than any neutron star known, placing it well within the mass gap.

Ye's work is currently being peer reviewed and will be published soon. Ye looks forward to a future in which astrophysicists and gravitational wave watchers can see more than one event at a time.

When she looks back on the project, Ye said she was surprised by how much modern astronomy is different from the stereotypical image of a person peering through a telescope.

"The vast majority of the work I did was programming, and running all these statistics and doing all these inferences," Ye told Space.com.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Brazil picks technocrat to lead Petrobras after succession plan mess

By Gram Slattery and Gabriel Araujo

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - After two messy, drama-filled weeks struggling to fill the top job at state-run oil company Petrobras Brazil's government turned this week to low-profile technocrat José Mauro Coelho, and investors welcomed the move.

Coelho's record indicates he is not keen on sacrificing Petrobras profits to keep fuel prices low for Brazilian drivers, or to accomplish other policy aims. He was picked on Wednesday, and Brazil-listed preferred shares in Petrobras, formally Petroleo Brasileiro SA, shot up 3% on Thursday morning.

Last week, energy consultant Adriano Pires backed out of the government's nomination to take the helm at Petrobras, shortly after soccer magnate Rodolfo Landim declined a nomination as chairman. Coelho, whose appointment as CEO needs to be confirmed at a shareholders' meeting next week, is a relative unknown compared to those two.

But Coelho's stance on fuel prices should allay concerns for investors as President Jair Bolsonaro is under pressure to rein in pump prices ahead of a heated October election contest.

Those views line up broadly with high-profile oil and gas consultant Pires, who withdrew his name from consideration after charges arose of conflicts of interest with longtime clients.

Late last month, Bolsonaro ousted current Chief Executive Joaquim Silva e Luna amid tensions over rising fuel prices. The government approached Landim and Decio Oddone, CEO of oil independent Enauta Participacoes SA, two sources with knowledge of the matter said, though both declined.

Coelho, a long-time researcher at Brazil's state energy think tank, now serves as chairman of Pre-Salt Petroleum (PPSA), a government agency that receives and sells oil handed over by offshore producers as a condition of their operating concessions. For a year and a half ending in 2021, he also served as the secretary of oil, gas and biofuels at Brazil's Mines and Energy Ministry.

Coelho and PPSA did not immediately respond to requests for an interview. In an October interview on state television, he defended the current, market-friendly policy of Petrobras pricing its fuel in line with global oil markets, saying this was necessary to avoid fuel shortages.

"We have to have domestic market prices related to import prices," Coelho said at the time.

In another interview Coelho granted upon receiving an award in mid-2021, he made the case for Petrobras to keep a narrow focus on deepwater oil production, by far the firm's most profitable division.

Analysts and investors were heartened to see the government settle on a no-thrills technocrat. Still, they warned that the risk of political interference remains significant, particularly if crude prices remain high and Brazilian voters feel pain at the pump.

"Although we anticipate a positive market reaction tomorrow," analysts at Itau BBA wrote to clients in a late Wednesday memo, "we note that the company could continue to face recurring challenges in ensuring the convergence of prices toward international parity."

(Reporting by Gram Slattery in Rio de Janeiro and Gabriel Araujo in Sao Paulo; Additional reporting by Rodrigo Viga Gaier in Rio de Janeiro and Sabrina Valle in Houston; Editing by Brad Haynes and David Gregorio)

BC

Why a highly anticipated Site C dam ‘mega trial’ isn’t happening right now


Updated on April 7, 2022 

An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that a full version of Peter Milburn’s report on Site C was never released. In fact, a heavily redacted version of the report appears on the B.C. government’s website. The story has been corrected and a January 2021 quote from Tim Thielmann, former legal counsel for West Moberly First Nations, pulled from previous Narwhal reporting, in which he drew attention to the government deciding not to make some details public, has been removed.

For those following the Site C dam project closely, March 14 was supposed to be a big day. After years of negotiations and court proceedings, a six-month “mega trial” was set to begin in B.C.’s Supreme Court to determine whether the $16 billion project — the most expensive dam in Canadian history — infringes on Treaty 8 Rights.

Instead, representatives from West Moberly First Nations, who brought forward the case against B.C., the federal Attorney General and BC Hydro, are having “confidential discussions to seek to settle this litigation” outside of court, according to a BC Hydro progress report submitted to the BC Utility Commission on March 31.

The report reveals the case was adjourned on Jan. 21, 2022, raising questions about why the parties have once again entered private discussions and what this will mean for the future of the case and the project.

“I​​f they think that there’s a possibility of them getting a negotiated settlement, then they will postpone,” explains lawyer Cynthia Callison, founding partner of Callison and Hanna law firm and member of the Tahltan Nation. The Indigenous-led firm focuses on providing advice and strategies to Indigenous governments on decisions and agreements related to resource development.

Callison says negotiating an agreement is preferable to slogging through a lengthy court case — for everyone involved.

“In my mind, a negotiated settlement is far superior than what could be crafted from a judge’s decision,” she said, adding that doing so sets the stage for a healthier, ongoing relationship between the First Nations government, the province and BC Hydro.

“It’s good in the sense that the government side, the [BC] Hydro side, is recognizing that there are some rights and that they need to have a negotiated settlement,” she told The Narwhal in an interview.

“For a long time, there was denial — deny, deny, deny — and now we’re moving into an era where there’s supposed to be an acknowledgement or recognition and reconciliation.”

The Site C dam, which has been mired in controversy, would flood 128 kilometres of the Peace River watershed in northeast B.C., submerging First Nations burial grounds, agricultural lands and areas of cultural significance, including important hunting, trapping and fishing grounds.

In 2018, a B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled the West Moberly First Nations case must be heard before mid-2023, the earliest point at which flooding to create the dam’s reservoir would occur. Adjourning the trial means the clock is ticking to resolve the litigation on this timeline.

This isn’t the first time West Moberly has entered confidential discussions with the B.C. government and the public utility to resolve the litigation. The nation was previously in discussion from February to August of 2019 and Chief Roland Willson said at the time those talks were “essentially kicking a dead horse.”

“They wanted to have discussions and now we’re not talking anymore. We’re going to court,” he told The Narwhal in 2019.

The nature and scope of the current discussions is unknown. Willson told The Narwhal he is unable to comment, given the nation is still embroiled in a legal challenge.

A spokesperson for the public utility reiterated the contents of the progress report but did not provide any further information.

“BC Hydro remains committed to working with Indigenous communities to build relationships that respect their interests,” the spokesperson wrote in an email to The Narwhal.

“We can confirm that earlier this year, all of the parties to the litigation agreed to adjourn the trial that was scheduled to begin in March 2022. Confidential discussions are continuing between the parties,” the BC Hydro statement says.

Premier John Horgan’s office declined to comment and referred The Narwhal to the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation, which said all parties agreed to adjourn the trial and are now in negotiations.

“Out of respect for the ongoing discussions, the ministry will not be providing any further comments at this time,” a spokesperson wrote in an email.

Wrapped up in the anticipation of this “megatrial” is the potential for documents that have been kept secret finally being made public. Despite this being a publicly funded project, documents that analyze safety concerns about the stability of the dam, geotechnical issues, projected final costs and risk mitigation strategies have been fully or in-part withheld from the public.

“Site C has all the elements of a typical boondoggle, including cost overruns and questions about whether it’s even a good idea — and it’s all due to excessive government secrecy,” Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch, told The Narwhal in an interview.

West Moberly has been using the court system to try to obtain as much documentation as possible. Last year, their efforts paid off as the court ordered the province and BC Hydro to release Site C financial and safety documents to West Moberly. But a condition of releasing these documents was that West Moberly keep them confidential.

“All the reports, everything they’re doing on this project, should be available to the public,” Willson told The Narwhal at the time. “The court has said we have to hold whatever information we get in confidence and not divulge it to anyone. There’s nothing we can do about it. That’s the condition.”

At the heart of the secrecy controversy is a 2020 report on the status of the project prepared by former deputy finance minister Peter Milburn. He was brought on as special advisor to examine the project and give the government independent advice.

As The Narwhal previously reported, Milburn focused on four key areas of the Site C project: governance and oversight, geotechnical issues, risk and construction supervision and claims management.

He found that the level of resources BC Hydro dedicated to risk management were “very inadequate” and that the crown corporation should have made greater allowances for the geotechnical risks.

The government initially released a 37-page summary document of Millburn’s report. In mid 2021, after the report was provided to West Moberly under court order, a heavily redacted version of the full report was released to the public.

The recent BC Hydro progress report noted Milburn’s review made 17 recommendations aimed at “improving oversight and governance and strengthening Site C risk reporting and management” and said all 17 recommendations had been implemented by Sept. 30, 2021.

“This includes changing the structure of the project assurance board by having a majority of independent members on the board with expertise in the areas of capital project construction and management; delivery of major civil projects; commercial negotiations and construction-related claims settlements,” the progress report said.

Yet, many details around the project — which has been described as “extraordinary” by international hydro expert Harvey Elwin for its lack of transparency — remain hidden from the public.

BC Hydro’s progress reports have a “project status dashboard” that outlines various pieces of the project and give each one a red, amber or green light. When it comes to the regulatory permits and tenures BC Hydro gives itself an amber status, meaning there are “moderate issues” with this piece of the Site C puzzle.

This “reflects the possibility that the Blueberry River decision could affect the timing of the issuance of provincial permits required for the completion of the project,” according to the most recent report.

In June, 2021, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled that the province had infringed on Blueberry River First Nations’ Treaty Rights by permitting and encouraging vast industrial development on its territory. Since the ruling, all new proposed projects on Blueberry River territory have been paused while an agreement is negotiated with the province. The Site C dam, if completed, would have significant impacts on the already heavily impacted territory.

The BC Hydro report noted that as of Dec. 31, 2021, it has obtained 84 per cent of the estimated 633 provincial and federal permits required for the project.

Blueberry River, like West Moberly, is a Treaty 8 nation and the implications of the court ruling on the Site C project and Treaty Rights have been described as a “game changer” by legal experts.

Chris Tollefson, professor of law at the University of Victoria, told The Narwhal in a previous interview the implications of the ruling to Site C are “enormous.”

“I don’t think this was a development in the law that was necessarily expected but it is a game changer for the Site C litigation,” he said last fall.

Conacher says while the impact of a successful court case like the Blueberry River ruling may extend beyond the nations’ territory, a win in the courts doesn’t address the underlying problems.

“If you look at the history of these cases, governments again and again do the same thing and essentially challenge whichever Indigenous Peoples or First Nations are in the area to go to court,” he says. “The default position is pile head, we have full power to make any decision we want.”

Callison notes this is an immense burden to First Nations — bringing forward litigation on issues related to rights and infringement is a barrier to many nations across the province.

“It’s prohibitive, not just in terms of cost but in terms of time, the length of time to have these cases moved through the court system,” she says, explaining many nations simply don’t have the capacity or resources to pursue litigation.

Whatever the outcome of the discussions between West Moberly, BC Hydro and the province and the fate of the Site C dam, all parties will need to work together on new and existing projects.

“Reconciliation isn’t just a one-off commitment — it’s basically an ongoing working relationship,” Callison says.

Cynthia Callison is the sister of Candis Callison, who is a member of The Narwhal’s board of directors. The Narwhal’s board is not involved in editorial decisions.

Matt Simmons, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Narwhal

After seeing how gas stoves pollute homes, these researchers are ditching theirs

Emily Chung 
cbc.ca

Gas stoves produce more indoor air pollutants than even some scientists expect. After taking measurements, many of these researchers are switching to electric stoves — and warning the public about the health risks of cooking with gas.

When Tara Kahan took pollution readings inside homes after cooking with a gas stove in 2017 and 2018, the University of Saskatchewan chemist and her colleagues were surprised by both how high the levels of nitrogen oxides were and how long they lasted.

Exposure to nitrogen oxides, produced when gas is burned, is linked to respiratory problems such as asthma and decreased lung function, especially in children. For example, a 2013 meta-analysis of 41 studies found that children living in a home that used gas for cooking had a 42 per cent increased risk of having asthma.

Kahan's measurements found that not only did levels of nitrogen oxide pollutants sometimes exceed Health Canada guidelines for a one-hour exposure, but the pollutants often lingered for a couple of hours.

"It really took a long time to go away," said Kahan, associate professor and Canada Research Chair in Environmental Analytical Chemistry. "All of the researchers were pretty horrified."

Kahan immediately applied the new knowledge to her own life.

"After that, as soon as it was feasible, I switched from a gas stove to [electric] induction," she said.

She's not the only one.

Rob Jackson, professor of environmental sciences at Stanford University, co-authored a recent study that found gas stoves leak unexpectedly high levels of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, even when they're off — and they generate significant levels of indoor air pollution.

What he found pushed him to work on electrifying his home too.

His gas stove has an electric oven, but it doesn't seem possible to swap out just the burners.

"I am reluctant to throw away a perfectly good electric oven," he said. "But we're going to do that."

The combined health and climate impacts of stoves are also starting to catch the attention of celebrity chefs, such as John Horne, Angus An and John Kung, who have become evangelists for electric induction stoves in a field where gas stoves were once considered an essential tool for anyone serious about cooking.

Dr. Melissa Lem is a Vancouver family physician and president-elect of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment. The group ran an ad campaign last year highlighting the negative health impacts of natural gas, including those linked to:

Climate change caused by leaking methane, the main component in natural gas and a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Indoor air pollution from cooking with natural gas.

Lem noted that in 2015, Health Canada issued new residential air quality guidelines for nitrogen dioxide — one of several pollutants created when cooking with a gas stove — due to its negative health impacts.

"Most gas ranges in Canada do not even come close to meeting these air quality standards," she said. "And research shows that this can harm your health, like worsening asthma … in kids" or exacerbate chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in adults.

Lem added that nitrogen oxides aren't the only pollutants released when cooking on gas stoves — others include formaldehyde, nitric oxide and carbon monoxide, which can be deadly.

The experts we talked to recommend if you can. But if that's not possible – for example, if you're a renter or can't afford a new stove — there are other things you can do to reduce your risk.

Homes are where we stay to be safe and protected. But what happens when the home itself poses a safety hazard? Slipping and falling in the shower. Your child choking on a toy or burning themselves on a stove. A fire ignited by a faulty electrical outlet. Radioactive gas leaking through your foundation. And the list goes on.

We offer this compilation of some of the most common safety hazards around the house, so you can take necessary steps to make your safe refuge truly safe.


Jackson has started using his microwave more, along with a portable countertop electric induction burner.

. "Before this study, I never turned the hood on," Jackson said, noting that studies show most people don't because they're noisy.

But he's changed his habits after seeing the pollutant measurements. "Now I always turn the hood on, and I nag my friends and family to turn the ventilation hoods on when they use the gas stove, every time."

Jackson cautioned that many hood fans don't actually vent outside — they simply run air through a filter before dumping it back into the room. "And that is problematic because those filters do not scrub noxious gases."

Kahan said hood fans can help, but they only cut pollutant levels in half.

She said other forms of ventilation, such as opening a window, are also a good idea when possible.

More gases from the back burners are captured by your range hood fan compared to the front burners.


Researcher Eric Lebel attaches sensors to a stove to measure how often it is used in Stanford, Calif., in 2020, for a study he did with Professor Rob Jackson. The team found gas stoves are worse for the climate than previously thought because of constant tiny methane leaks.

Jackson said that while other appliances such as furnaces, water heaters and fireplaces burn gas, most — unlike stoves — are required to be vented outside.

That said, there's some evidence that furnaces can also cause nitrogen oxide pollution.

Michael Thomas, founder of Carbon Switch, a website focused on living sustainably, said he never worried much about having a gas stove, because it was only on for a short time each day. But while expecting his first child, he started reading about the pollutants generated by gas stoves. That prompted him to buy and install some indoor air quality monitors in his house. He reported the results in a blog post earlier this year.


© CBC News Michael Thomas holds an air monitor that he used to measure the air quality in his home. He found that nitrogen oxide levels spiked when cooking with his gas stove, but were also high in the early morning when his furnace was running.

Sure enough, they showed that nitrogen dioxide spiked after cooking with his gas stove. That alarmed him.

But there were also spikes between midnight and 4 a.m.

Thomas soon realized that's when his gas furnace was running to keep the home warm during cold nights.

"And so I realized that the gas furnace was actually leaking nitrogen dioxide into our home throughout all of the vents."

Thomas consulted an environmental epidemiologist, Josiah Kephart, who said that while individual homeowners are often told this is unusual and linked to faulty equipment, his tests have shown high levels of indoor nitrogen dioxide are the norm.

"My opinion is that we just shouldn't be allowing these appliances to be installed in homes, given that they so often fail and end up ultimately creating a lot of unsafe indoor air pollution," Thomas said.

He and his wife haven't decided yet if they're going to stay long-term in their Boulder, Colo.-home, but if they do, "then the plan would be to get an induction range and cooktop and then electrify all the space heating and water heating."

Jackson said he's not sure how the indoor air pollution from gas stoves compares to other sources of pollution in people's lives, such as those from highways, but it's pollution that people don't need to be exposed to.

"I think it makes sense to eliminate all sources of pollution in our lives that we can, especially if there's another technology available that's just as good and is much cleaner," he said.

A bonus is that going electric also cuts greenhouse gas emissions. Not only did Jackson's study find that gas stoves leak more methane than thought, but newer, more expensive stoves were no less leaky than older, cheaper ones. He suspects there's no other way to fix the problem.

"I view electrification as a win for climate, but also a way to improve the air that we breathe — improve our health. And so I think it's a good idea to do that, particularly if you're a family with young children in your home."

Thomas acknowledged this isn't an option for everyone, but suggested thinking about it especially if you are considering getting a new stove or building a new home.

In fact, his advice is to electrify if you're replacing any gas appliances, whether it's your furnace, water heater or stove.

"If you have the choice, then I think putting in a gas stove is crazy at this point, given all the research on the health impacts and the methane leaks."

Fungi May Be Communicating in a Way That Looks Uncannily Like Human Speech

A new study has identified patterns of nerve-like electrical activity being produced by fungi. What's more, patterns within the activity appear to be comparable to similar structures in humans speech.


© Mathew Schwartz/UnsplashMicro X-ray of tiny mushrooms.

David Nield -
ScienceAlert

Assuming the impulses might be influencing other cellular activities in a network of fungi, it's a finding that could shed new light on communication in mycological organisms.

Computer scientist Andrew Adamatzky, from the University of the West of England in the UK, was able to spot up to 50 different 'words' or groups of spikes of activity produced by the fungi networks that were studied.

Electrical buzzes in fungi have been known about for years, but analyzing this activity as if it were a language could stand to reveal many things we don't know about what this fungi phenomena represents.

"Assuming that spikes of electrical activity are used by fungi to communicate and process information in mycelium networks, we group spikes into words and provide a linguistic and information complexity analysis of the fungal spiking activity," writes Adamatzky in his new paper.

Caterpillar fungi being analyzed. (Andy Adamatzky)

Adamatzky looked at electrical activity across four types of fungi, looking for patterns in ghost fungi (Omphalotus nidiformis), Enoki fungi (Flammulina velutipes), split gill fungi (Schizophyllum commune), and caterpillar fungi (Cordyceps militaris).

Electrical activity was detected and recorded using tiny microelectrodes inserted across areas where the fungi had colonized, and spikes in activity were then organized into groups. Each type of fungi varied in terms of its spike duration and length, with some spikes lasting up to 21 hours.

Split gill mushrooms were shown to put together the most complex 'sentences', but overall the average fungal 'word length' of 5.97 – measured by spike groups – matched up with languages such as English (4.8) and Russian (6).

"We do not know if there is a direct relationship between spiking patterns in fungi and human speech," Adamatzky told the Guardian. "Possibly not. On the other hand, there are many similarities in information processing in living substrates of different classes, families and species. I was just curious to compare."

Although the comparisons with human speech are notable, the research doesn't give any indication of what the fungus network might be communicating, if at all, or why these organisms might need to keep in touch across a wider area.

Considering fungi live rather simple lives, there aren't too many possibilities that come to mind. It's possible that these signals are ways in which mushrooms are able to warn about threats to their survival, or about a change in available resources, for example.

Ecologist Dan Bebber from the University of Exeter in the UK, who wasn't involved with the study, says that there's a long way to go before we can be sure that fungi are talking to each other.

"Though interesting, the interpretation as language seems somewhat overenthusiastic, and would require far more research and testing of critical hypotheses before we see 'fungus' on Google Translate," Bebber told the Guardian.

The research has been published in Royal Society Open Science.

"Fungi from Yuggoth" by H. P. Lovecraft 

https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/poetry/p289.aspx

Oct 20, 2009 ... Ecstasy-fraught, and as a day-dream free. It is in sunsets and strange city spires, Old villages and woods and misty downs, South winds, the sea ...

Fungi from Yuggoth - Wikipedia 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fungi_from_Yuggoth

Fungi from Yuggoth is a sequence of 36 sonnets by cosmic horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. Most of the sonnets were written between 27 December 1929 – 4 ...

It's time for the Canada Infrastructure Bank to reclaim its public purpose

Thomas Marois, Reader in Development Studies, SOAS, University of London, 

David McDonald, Professor, Global Development Studies, and Director, Municipal Services Project, Queen's University, Ontario, 

Susan Spronk, Associate Professor of International Development and Global Studies, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa - 

The Conversation

Yesterday 

The Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB), a federal government financial institution, opened its doors five years ago with great promise, vowing to deploy $35 billion of investments towards “the next generation of infrastructure Canadians need.”

But rather than investing public money in public services, the CIB has instead privatized our water, transportation and electricity. For every dollar invested by the CIB, the hope was that $4 to $5 would be invested by the private sector.

This extraordinary leap of faith in private capital and market forces was baked into the CIB Act:

“The purpose of the Bank is to invest and seek to attract investment from private sector investors and institutional investors, in infrastructure projects in Canada or partly in Canada that will generate revenue.”

Five years later, the CIB has not been able to deliver on its promise. Of the $19.4 billion invested to date, only about one-third has come from private and institutional investors ($7.2 billion).

The public-private partnership model (PPP) promoted by the CIB has failed. Typically, PPPs involve long term contracts where public money supports private, for-profit delivery of public services and infrastructure.

Read more: COVID-19 illustrates why Canada needs more — and better — public banks

In Mapleton, Ont., for example, the CIB aimed to funnel private investment into public water provisioning in a form of PPP. Local authorities pulled out when the contractual terms worked against the public good, underscoring the problems of PPPs that have been well documented around the world.
Safeguarding a public purpose legacy

Not all public banks operate in this way. The Council of Europe Development Bank, for example, recognizes PPPs as inherently problematic, noting that they can “require extensive use of consultancy and legal services at considerable additional costs”. Kommunalbanken, a Swedish public bank, focuses entirely on publicly owned and publicly operated infrastructure.

It’s not too late for the CIB to renew its vows and become a more pro-public institution. In fact, there are signs this is already happening. Some of the CIB’s investment partnerships include projects that promote public-public partnerships by funding public sector zero-emission buses and municipal building retrofits. The CIB also funds public interest projects, like decarbonizing production.

But more needs to be done to remake and safeguard the CIB as a public bank with a public purpose.

First, it needs a far more robust sustainability mandate. If a project cannot demonstrate how it will reduce carbon emissions or protect the environment, it should not get funded. The publicly owned Finnish Climate Fund and the Dutch Invest-NL incorporate such binding conditions.

Second, the CIB needs to improve its governance. Current provisions for the board of directors are vague and subject to political cycles. The CIB Act fails to specify who is appointed on the board and on what representational basis.

A more robust governance framework would see broad stakeholder representation written in to the bank’s legal framework, much like the German public development bank, Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau. Its highest governing forum, the Board of Supervisory Directors, includes designated representatives from government, trade unions, municipalities and other key areas.
Time for change

The recent Private Member’s Bill C-245, intended to amend the CIB Act, is a step in the right direction. Put forward by Manitoba MP Niki Ashton, it is pitched as “an alternative to the Liberals’ privatization agenda that uses public ownership to support communities in the fight against climate change.”

It starts with jettisoning the CIB’s current emphasis on PPPs by having the CIB prioritize lending to all levels of public institutions, including northern and Indigenous communities. It is also a first step in improving governance by proposing the inclusion of First Nations, Inuit and Métis members on the board.

Moreover, binding free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) of Indigenous Peoples needs to be one part of a broader strategy of public financial institutions in Canada contributing to reconciliation.

The CIB must also take leadership from the Costa Rican Banco Popular and commit to gender equity in all of its decision-making bodies.

The goal should be to foster inclusive, green and democratic networks that mutually reinforce the public purpose of the CIB. Recent scholarship suggests democratization and inclusion lead to public banks funding better and greener infrastructure with fewer social conflicts.
The five-year itch

The notion of changing the CIB is within reach. This year, the CIB must conduct its first five-year review and deliver it to Parliament.

Canadians should be aware of this opportunity and communities across Canada should be engaged in it. Ask the CIB about its public consultation plans, reach out to MPs, see how unions are responding and encourage cities to demand more of the CIB.

The CIB has failed on its own terms, presenting an opportunity to reclaim its public purpose. Rather than underwriting private interests and the privatization of public services, the CIB can build a democratic institutional legacy of providing patient, low-cost and appropriate financing for green and just community transitions in the public interest.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

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Federal budget 2021: billion is a step towards closing gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities

THE CHURCH HAS REPLACED THE PARTY AS THE STATE

Russian Patriarch says Orthodox faithful are holding back the antichrist

© Reuters/MAXIM SHEMETOV



LONDON (Reuters) - The head of the Russian Orthodox faith was quoted as saying on Thursday that his church and its faithful were holding back the antichrist.

Patriarch Kirill was speaking six weeks into Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which has forced over 4 million people to flee, killed or injured thousands and left cities and towns destroyed.

While he was not quoted specifically referring to Ukraine, Kirill's comments backed the Kremlin line on the war by implying that Russia's actions there were a forced response to a foreign aggressor.

"Why did external forces rise up against the Russian lands? "Why do they strive to destroy, divide, set brother against brother?" Kirill was quoted by Russia's RIA news agency as saying.

The Kremlin says the invasion is a special operation to demilitarise and "denazify" Ukraine, arguments Ukraine and Western governments reject as a false pretext for an invasion.

Kirill, an ally of President Vladimir Putin, has defended Russia's actions and sees the war as a clash with a Western liberal culture he considers decadent, in particular in its acceptance of homosexuality.




That stance has angered some within the Orthodox Church and in affiliated churches abroad.

Referring to a New Testament text in which intensifying conflict between good and evil culminates in the second coming of Christ, Kirill said "the Book of Revelation mentions a certain force that holds back the coming into the world of the antichrist."

"Some thought it is the church that is holding this back, and that is correct," he was quoted as saying.

"The church keeps people from losing their bearings in life ... it is the Orthodox faith, living and acting in the Orthodox church – this is the force that holds back (the antichrist)."

Kirill said it was no coincidence that "at this force today are aimed all the sharp arrows of all those who seek to compromise the church, to divide and tear it from the people," according to RIA.

(Reporting by Peter Hobson, editing by Mark Trevelyan and Jonathan Oatis)

Experts say the shipping industry's 'moral sanctions' against Russian trade are unlike anything 'in the history of mankind'

htowey@insider.com (Hannah Towey) -

Activists from the environmental organization Greenpeace demonstrate in the Baltic Sea in front of a ship carrying Russian oil. 

Frank Molter/picture alliance via Getty Images

Historically, the shipping industry has done the minimum when it comes to following sanctions.
But since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, companies are choosing to self-sanction for moral reasons.
The shipping and commodities sector has never seen "moral sanctions" like this, two experts told Insider.

When Shell bought Russian crude oil one week after the invasion of Ukraine, the internet, well, freaked out.

The energy giant swiftly apologized for the purchase and vowed to "choose alternatives to Russian oil wherever possible." In a statement posted to Twitter, Shell said it would donate the profits from the exchange to humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.

Shell's purchase was entirely legal and complied with sanctions at the time. But in that moment, the public decided that simply following the rules would no longer cut it.

While the Russia-Ukraine conflict isn't the first crisis to be broadcasted on social media, it is the "most viral" war, as The Economist reported. For many global companies, keeping a clean name is more valuable than keeping Russian clients.

The energy giant's response is just one example of what experts are calling "moral sanctions," or voluntary business limitations created in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. In the notoriously ruthless shipping and commodities industry, the trend has led companies like Shell to avoid all trade associated with Russia — even when it's legal.

"Historically, companies have done the minimum amount of sanctions," Ami Daniel, CEO of the maritime risk consultancy Windward, told Insider. "However, what we've seen in the last month is a lot of companies do the maximum."


In early March, British dockworkers refused to unload Russian crude oil from Seacod, a German-flagged tanker, due to the Ukraine war. 

Lindsey Parnaby/AFP/Getty Images

The murky line between ethics and reputation control

Companies up and down the supply chain have severed ties with Russia over the past month, citing everything from safety concerns to financial sanctions.

The mass withdraw includes oil companies like BP and Shell, as well as the world's largest freight forwarders and container shipping lines. Even insurers that once covered trade in disputed areas have stopped doing business in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, according to a March report from Windward.

And it's not just coming from the top ranks. In early March, British dockworkers refused to unload Russian crude oil from Seacod, a German-flagged tanker, due to the Ukraine war.

Daniel, who founded Windward 13 years ago, said the shipping industry hasn't seen moral sanctions like this "ever in the history of mankind."

"Companies like Nike or Apple or IKEA pulled out of Russia, saying it's immoral to make money with Russia and support Putin's work," he said. "We've never seen that. Nobody's ever seen that."

The term "moral sanctions" implies that companies are going beyond the letter of the law purely for ethical reasons. But as seen in the Shell example, reputational risk is also at play.

"In practice, I think those grounds can get mixed." Raj Bhala, a distinguished professor at the University of Kansas Law School, told Insider.

"I think there are lots of [companies] who genuinely want to do the right thing," he added, noting that more businesses are incorporating ESG into their decisions as younger generations come into leadership.
The short-term and long-term impact of moral sanctions

The blanket rejection of Russian trade by the shipping industry "plugs holes" that legal sanctions left open for exploitation, Bhala said. For example, the European Union has not yet banned Russian oil purchases, but Western companies are still refusing to buy it, Reuters reported.

Beyond the short term, Bhala told Insider that moral sanctions could permanently change the shipping industry.

"Once a company has decided that it is going to self-sanction based on moral grounds, arguably, it's never going to go back," he said. "It's set a precedent in the Russia case."

On the flip side, Russia's swift isolation from the Western world may lead prompt Russian businesses to attempt to evade sanctions. The industry reported surges in deceptive shipping practices in March, including vessel flag changes and dark activity.

"Russia is still making oil. They're still making gas. It's still making refined products. And it has to go somewhere," Daniel, the Windward CEO, told Insider. "So I think what we're seeing is a lot of people are trying right now to start circumventing the sanctions."

Ian Scott says CRTC supportive of Bill C-11 and its enforcement powers

Also known as the Online Streaming Act, the bill aims to promote Canadian content, govern streaming services with the same rules as broadcasters, and give the CRTC power to make this happen.

MobileSyrup - Monday


Ian Scott is doubling down on the government’s message that Bill C-11 won’t impact user-generated content.

The Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) chair said suggestions the bill would impact this kind of content are “just not true.”

“As it’s drafted at the moment, the bill draws a distinction between the users of social media, and the platforms themselves. It’s clear to us that the bill’s intent is to exclude individual users from regulation,” Scott said in a speech to a media class at Ryerson University.

Also known as the Online Streaming Act, the bill aims to promote Canadian content, govern streaming services with the same rules as broadcasters, and give the CRTC power to make this happen.

But many have taken issue with what these changes could mean for individual creators.

A recent briefing from YouTube said the bill might cause Canadian content creators to lose foreign revenue if they’re forced to promote local content.

Questions also remain as to what power the CRTC will have. While Scott said the bill would modernize “the CRTC’s enforcement powers,” he doesn’t speak about what this could look like.

However, he does address the lack of details in the legislation, saying “being too specific in the legislation” can have problems of its own. Doing so could disclude many issues that arise years down the road before legislation is looked at again.

Scott said the CRTC can only enforce powers consistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and that the organization has “always strived to adopt a light-handed approach to regulation.”

“The CRTC has a long history and a strong track record of implementing effective policies and adapting its approaches over time to meet the evolving needs of Canadians and of the broadcasting system,” Scott said.

“We’ve been doing it for more than 50 years. And we will continue to do so under the new Broadcasting Act regardless of the platform, and only when regulation materially contributes to the objectives of the Act.”

The legislation is currently in its second reading.

Image credit: CRTC/screenshot

Source: CRTC