Opinion

Why the Webb telescope’s snooping will change life here on Earth — and Delaware will help

Ron Leary
Fri, September 29, 2023 

Delaware Online | The News Journal

On July 12, 2022, the James Webb Space Telescope delivered its first dazzling photographs in brilliant color of places millions of light years away: the Carina Nebula, Stephan’s Quintet, the Southern Ring Nebula. NASA called it a “new era in astronomy.”

Indeed, the knowledge we will gain from the JWST will dramatically alter our future exploration of worlds beyond own. It will also alter our life here on Earth. In fact, it already has.

More than 50 years ago, W. L. Gore & Associates, a feisty startup company launched from its founders’ garage in Newark, created some insulated cables that ended up in outer space, tethering a seismograph to Apollo 11’s lunar lander. Amid the grand achievements of a mission that included the first steps on the moon, a few feet of cable seemed to be a small thing, no big deal — until it wasn’t.

Those cables that served in 1969 as high-tech rope that could withstand the harsh conditions of outer space have evolved to become the conduits for high-speed computer data, undersea cables that enable us to communicate across oceans in a fraction of a second, and now, the SpaceWire Assemblies on JWST that transmit stunning, infrared photographs that capture the mysteries of the universe.

In short, these cables transformed communications technology.

Space exploration ignites our sense of wonder. It sparks our imagination. It awakens our curiosity. And it costs billions of dollars. That may seem like a high price to pay for something so ethereal. Yet over six decades, space exploration has proven to be a driver of technological innovation worth trillions of dollars.

Just like the Apollo missions, the JWST will be a technological game changer.

The JWST mission delivers new insights beyond our imagination every day. The infrared technology allows us to capture the birth 13 billion years ago of a star and the chemistry of the universe. This ability to download the images while the spacecraft continues its work millions of miles away means we don’t have to wait until the craft returns to Earth to learn from its data. The data that the JWST transmits from the far reaches of the universe will determine the path of future manned and unmanned space explorations.

The technology that got us to this moment in space will advance innovation in communications, energy, medicine, aviation, and materials science for us Earthlings.

What is the James Webb Telescope?: What to know about the NASA space camera and its dazzling images

Already, the technology developed to perfectly position JWST at a point in the Earth-Sun system that maximizes its view of the universe while keeping it close enough to communicate with Earth has delivered dividends for commercial satellite makers.

While the spectacular photos transmitted by the JWST grab the headliners, there are other space explorations underway that will have profound ramifications for our earthly existence.

Gore’s precision ethernet cables are once again in plan as part of NASA’s Orion spacecraft. Orion spacecraft, a partially reusable crewed spacecraft that will send four astronauts around the moon and return them home as part of the Artemis II mission, will use Time-Triggered Ethernet as its onboard data network.

TTE, which can move data at a rate 1,000 times faster than systems used on the space shuttle and International Space Station, enables NASA engineers to prioritize different sets of data and plan how and when it travels through the system. Traditional Ethernet is event driven — it goes to work when we send an email or execute a task within the system without regard to time, traffic or bandwidth. Previous space systems needed to have multiple complex systems for critical and non-critical data to ensure an astronaut’s videoconference with an elementary school didn’t crowd out navigational commands or life support.

TTE allows engineers to use one system. It prioritizes time critical data, such as navigation or life support data, over other non-essential data, which can execute when the bandwidth clears. Having a single system reduces size, weight, cost and power requirements for the spacecraft.

TTE and the highly durable Gore Ethernet cable already have critical earthbound applications where size, weight, ability to withstand harsh conditions and power supply matter. We will be seeing TTE in aircraft and automobiles, industrial automatic and off-shore wind turbine in the near future.

While the successful launch and first year of exploration for JWST is a monumental and breathtaking success in and of itself, we can hardly fathom what is yet to come. The data and imagery still to be transmitted by JWST and the lessons learned will, without a doubt, shape the next century here and beyond.

Ron Leary is an application engineer on the Aerospace team at W. L. Gore & Associates.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: James Webb Space Telescope: Delaware's contributions to space exploration

The Euclid 'Dark Universe' Space Telescope Is Off to a Faltering Start

Isaac Schultz
Fri, September 29, 2023 

An artist’s impression of the Euclid mission in space.

The European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope launched from Earth on July 1 and has since been getting set up to begin its investigation of the dark universe. But the instrument commissioning hasn’t been rainbows and butterflies, as the telescope’s engineers and scientists have worked to untangle several issues that have come up in the process.

You can read all about the Euclid mission here; in short, the telescope will study the dark universe—the parts of our cosmos made up of dark energy and dark matter, about 95% of everything. Euclid is equipped with a visible light camera (VIS), a near-infrared camera, and spectrometer (NISP) to make its observations. Its current issues are threefold: the telescope’s fine guidance sensors are occasionally losing track of stars, stray sunlight is sneaking into the telescope’s early images, and, X-rays are reaching Euclid’s detectors as a result of that unwanted sunlight, spoiling some of the images.

“I’m relieved to say that initial tests are looking good,” said Euclid Operations Director Andreas Rudolph, in the ESA release. “We’re finding many more stars in all our tests, and while it’s too early to celebrate and more observations are needed, the signs are very encouraging.”

Commissioning is an ordinary part of a space telescope’s timeline, a period after the spacecraft’s launch in which the mission’s various instruments and systems are set up for scientific observations. The commissioning process takes time; the Webb Space Telescope began commissioning in late January 2022 and its first scientific images weren’t released until July 2022.

But Webb’s commissioning went relatively smoothly, though one of the telescope’s mirrors was hit by a micrometeoroid—a small bit of space rock—in May 2022.

“Only the science images can provide us with absolute certainty that Euclid’s pointing is performing well,” said Euclid Project Manager, Giuseppe Racca, in the same release. “However, all evidence so far makes us very optimistic. We will continue to keep our fingers tightly crossed, but the restart of the performance verification phase gets nearer every day.”

Euclid needs to be shielded from the Sun’s bright light in order to peer into the distant cosmos. But some sunlight is sneaking into the eyeline of the VIS instrument by reflecting off a thruster bracket that juts out from the shadow produced by the spacecraft’s sunshield. The Euclid team believes the reflected light is showing up in some of VIS’s test observations.

Meanwhile, X-ray-producing solar flares are a concern. The team believes that these X-rays may make it to Euclid’s detectors at certain angles, ruining some of the telescope’s data. An analysis of the telescope revealed that depending on solar activity—solar flares vary in their frequency and intensity—Euclid could lose 3% of its data if the issue is unaddressed.

The Fine Guidance Sensor issue is currently being handled, but the light issue will require different approaches. According to the release, repeat observations and data processing could reduce the impact of the X-rays on observations, and the telescope’s survey can be reprogrammed to mitigate the sunlight.

Euclid’s undertaking is a vast one—literally as vast as the cosmos and its darkest secrets. With any luck—and a lot of attention—the issues discovered in commissioning can be mitigated, and the telescope can begin its survey of the universe.

More: The Euclid Telescope’s First Images Have Arrived and They’re Stunning

Gizmodo

As employers face labor shortages, Biden administration rolls out playbook for training workers

JOSH BOAK
Fri, September 29, 2023 

 President Joe Biden delivers remarks on his economic agenda at a training center run by Laborers' International Union of North America, Feb. 8, 2023, in Deforest, Wis. The Biden administration on Friday, Sept. 29, is releasing a playbook on best practices for training workers — as the low 3.8% unemployment rate and years of underinvestment have left manufacturers, construction firms and other employers with unfilled jobs.

(AP Photo/Morry Gash, File) 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration on Friday is expected to release a playbook on best practices for training workers as the low 3.8% unemployment rate and years of underinvestment have left manufacturers, construction firms and other employers with unfilled jobs.

Worker shortages have been a frustration for some employers, who upped their investments in new factories and construction projects after President Joe Biden signed into law funding for infrastructure, computer chips and a shift toward renewable energy sources. Finding employees to replace retirees also has become a challenge.

As part of the 2021 pandemic rescue package, state and local governments have committed $11 billion to worker training. The money must be spent by the end of 2026 and the administration is trying to ensure the investments pay off as promised.

“This is a chance to make a once-in-a-generation investment in the skills and well-being of workers in your communities — an investment that will reap benefits well beyond pandemic recovery," Treasury Department official Veronica Soto says in draft remarks obtained by The Associated Press.

The eight-page playbook being issued in conjunction with the remarks details possible models that the administration believes state and local governments can follow.

The document encourages them to use registered apprenticeship programs, which have seen enrollment more than double over the past decade to 607,509 active apprentices, according to the Labor Department. Starting salaries for those who complete the programs average $80,000.

Harris County, Texas, committed $10.9 million to place 1,000 of its low-income residents into union apprenticeships and technology training programs, having put a focus on opportunities for women, people of color and those without a four-year college degree. The state of Maine plans to double its total number of apprenticeships with $11 billion.

Funding also has gone to community colleges, with Oklahoma budgeting $80 million to expand its nursing education programs. Connecticut is using $19.5 million to improve the mentorship and coaching given to community college students, a program that has increased students' grades and kept more of them enrolled.

Money also is going to supportive services for child care and transportation, which are two of the big reasons why people are unable to complete training or stay on the job. Iowa is making $26.6 million available to help employers make child care available, while Phoenix's airport is offering child care scholarships to workers.

US Senator Warren: Supreme Court CFPB case threatens all bank regulators

Thu, September 28, 2023 

U.S. Senator Warren arrives at the U.S. Capitol in Washington

By Douglas Gillison

(Reuters) - A case due to come before the U.S. Supreme Court next week has the potential to expose every federal bank regulator to political inference while also jeopardizing Social Security and Medicare, the federal health insurance program, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren said on Thursday.

The court next week is due to hear arguments in a challenge to the constitutionality of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (CFPB) funding. The Biden administration has said the case threatens the agency's ability to function, which would undermine the federal government's capacity to protect financial consumers.

Trade groups representing the payday lending industry, which brought the case, argue the U.S. Constitution prohibits the current arrangement in which the Federal Reserve supplies the CFPB's funding. The CFPB regulates and polices consumer finance industries, including payday and title lending, as well as mortgage origination.

"The CFPB's future is at stake in this court decision, along with the future of every other banking regulator," Warren, who helped create the CFPB following the 2007-2008 financial crisis, said in prepared remarks.

Warren noted that other banking regulators, including the Fed itself and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., as well as Social Security and Medicare, are funded outside Congress' annual budget-setting process.

"A bad decision by the Supreme Court could wreck the financial security of millions of families and turn our economy upside down," she said, adding that allowing lawmakers to set budgets for those agencies could "evaporate" their political independence.

(Reporting by Douglas Gillison; editing by Michelle Price)

Elizabeth Warren says student-loan companies can't use lack of funding as an excuse for bad customer service — and she's 'deeply worried' they're not ready for repayment starting next week

Ayelet Sheffey
Thu, September 28, 2023

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Sen. Elizabeth Warren led some Democratic colleagues in sending letters to four student-loan companies requesting information on the repayment restart.

They said they're "deeply worried" the companies are not prepared to help borrowers during this transition.

They also said a lack of funding is not a valid excuse for borrowers to be facing bad customer service.

Senator Elizabeth Warren is worried that four federal student-loan companies aren't up to the task of transitioning millions of borrowers back into repayment in a few days.

On Thursday, Warren led three of her Democratic colleagues — Sens. Chris Van Hollen, Ed Markey, and Richard Blumenthal — in sending letters to the CEOs of Nelnet, MOHELA, EdFinanical, and Maximus Federal Services requesting information on how they have prepared for repayment leading up to the October restart. The fifth federal loan servicer, Central Research Inc., is the only new servicer that signed a contract with the Education Department and did not receive a letter because their operations are not scheduled to begin until 2024.

After Warren and five of her Democratic colleagues asked servicers for details on their repayment preparation in July, the lawmakers' Thursday letter said the servicers' responses left them "deeply worried." The servicers warned of customer service delays due to a lack of funding from Congress — House Republicans have proposed cutting funding for Federal Student Aid, which the Education Department has previously warned would pose a challenge to repayment and debt relief operations.

While Democrats have called for Congress to fulfill President Joe Biden's request to increase funding for the agency, the four lawmakers on Thursday said a lack of money is not enough of a reason for servicers to deliver poor customer service to borrowers.

"We recognize that the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) is facing a daunting challenge—holding servicers accountable to ensure they are helping millions of federal student loan borrowers resume payments and implementing congressionally mandated reforms to fix the student loan system—on a limited budget," they wrote.

But they added that they're "skeptical of [servicers'] claim that insufficient funding is keeping them from fulfilling their most foundational obligation considering that they were paid on average approximately $2 a month per account amounting to billions of dollars, while payments, interest, and collections were suspended during the public health emergency."

Additionally, responses to Warren's July letter indicated that at that point, nearly 6 million borrowers still had not created accounts with their new servicers. Nearly 17 million borrowers were transferred to different servicers during the pandemic, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau previously found those transfers have resulted in missing paperwork and issues keeping track of payments. Some servicers also did not have borrowers' proper contact information on file — meaning some might not have received any communications leading up to repayment.

This information will likely not come as a surprise to borrowers who have been attempting to get help with repayment over the past for months. As the lawmakers noted in their letter, some borrowers have been "waiting three or four hours before connecting with a representative" due to the influx of calls servicers have been receiving, with some borrowers being forced to hang up without receiving any assistance.

The lawmakers requested the CEOs provide information on a series of questions by October 11, including the average call time wait for borrowers, how many steps it takes borrowers to navigate the automated call center menu, how many borrowers have complained about errors in their monthly payments, and the percentage of staff that are fully trained to help borrowers with their inquiries.

These letters come just days before pandemic relief for federal borrowers comes to an end. After over three years, interest began accruing on balances in the beginning of September, and borrowers' first bills will start becoming due in October. Along with Warren and Democrats, Republican lawmakers have also expressed concerns with servicers' preparedness to handle this unprecedented transition back into repayment. Rep. Virginia Foxx and Sen. Bill Cassidy, top Republicans on the House and Senate education committees, respectively, recently requested the Government Accountability Office investigate the guidance the Education Department has given to servicers regarding repayment.

A looming government shutdown if Congress fails to reach a funding agreement by September 30 could also complicate matters. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a Monday press briefing that it would further strain Federal Student Aid's ability to assist borrowers over the next month.

"A prolonged shutdown lasting more than a few weeks could substantially disrupt the return to repayment effort and long-term servicing support for borrowers," Jean-Pierre said. "So, the Department of Education will do its best to support borrowers as they return to repayment, as we have been saying for the past several months. But an extreme Republican shutdown, if this occurs, could be disruptive."

Turkey's top appeals court upholds philanthropist Kavala's life sentence -media

Reuters
Thu, September 28, 2023 

 Protest against Turkish court decision that sentenced philanthropist Kavala to life in prison, in Istanbul

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey's top appeals court on Thursday upheld the life sentence for philanthropist Osman Kavala, broadcaster Haberturk and other media reported, while overturning 18-year prison sentences for three others in the same case.

Kavala, 65, was sentenced to life in prison without parole in April 2022, while seven others in the case received 18 years based on claims they organised and financed nationwide protests in 2013.

At the time, the verdict was seen as symbolic of a crackdown on dissent under President Tayyip Erdogan, and the punishment of the government's perceived foes through the judiciary. All have denied the charges, saying the protests developed spontaneously.

On Thursday, the appeals court upheld the life sentence for Kavala and an 18-year sentence for Can Atalay, who was elected a member of parliament in May, and three others, Haberturk said.

The court overturned 18-year sentences for Mucella Yapici, Hakan Altinay, and Yigit Ekmekci, it said.

The ruling effectively marks the end of the appeals process for Kavala, who has been in detention since 2017. Turkey's Constitutional Court previously rejected his appeal too.

Hundreds of thousands marched in Istanbul and elsewhere in Turkey in 2013 as demonstrations against plans to build replica Ottoman barracks in the city's Gezi Park grew into nationwide protests against Erdogan's government.

Erdogan has equated the protesters to terrorists, and has personally accused Kavala numerous times of being the financier of the protests.

Ankara's Western allies, opposition members, and rights groups say Turkish courts are under the control of the government. Erdogan and his AK Party say they are independent.

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Turkey must free Kavala and others for violations of their rights. Turkey has not taken any action and now faces possible suspension from the Council of Europe.

(Reporting by Burcu Karakas and Ali Kucukgocmen; Writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)

Azerbaijan quickly advanced on Nagorno-Karabakh 

Survivors Reveal War Crimes as Putin’s Men Stood Aside

AZERBAIJAN IS TURKIYE'S CLIENT STATE

Anna Conkling

/The Daily Beast

Fri, September 29, 2023 

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty

GORIS, Armenia—Two ethnic Armenian soldiers who survived the blitzkrieg onslaught against Nagorno-Karabakh told The Daily Beast they witnessed apparent war crimes committed against civilians who lived in the disputed enclave.

The assault on Nagorno-Karabakh last week was carried out by Azerbaijan despite the presence of Russian peacekeepers who had been defending the residents of the border region. It took only two days for Azerbaijan to successfully take control of the enclave after the assault began on Sept. 19. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has since accused its Russian ally of failing to intervene.

One civilian allegedly had his leg cut in two by a bullet from a sniper that struck him during the attack, according to the soldiers. They also told The Daily Beast that they had witnessed indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas, in contravention of the International Criminal Court’s Rome Statue on war crimes.

The University Network For Human Rights, a non-governmental organization documenting crimes against humanity are currently in Armenia collecting witness testimonies of war crimes allegations against Azerbaijani soldiers. Among them are forced deportation, attacks on civilian infrastructure, and forced deportation.

“People are fearful to say anything, because they still have relatives in Nagorno-Karabakh,” said Anoush Baghdassarin, a consultant attorney for The University Network For Human Rights, who has spoken to around 25 families in recent days about human rights violations during the war.

First Look Inside the Historic Mass Exodus Putin Failed to Prevent

“Every single person that we have been speaking to are a victim of forced displacement and ethnic cleansing. We have been documenting their departure, we’ve been documenting what happened since last Tuesday, Sept. 19,” Baghdassarin told The Daily Beast.

“People have been telling us that as fast as they could, they went into bunkers or they fled into forests, and they had to leave behind the people who were too sick or too elderly to leave with them. Telling us [that] many of them are still missing, they haven’t heard from them, haven’t had any contact with them, and they don’t know if they are dead, where they are,” said Baghdassarin.

“We’ve been hearing a lot of stories of flight, of fear, of missing people, and of loss. People have left their homes. 30 minutes before soldiers were coming to their village, they fled to the next village,” she added.

“When Armenians get to the border, Azerbaijan is scanning the car and going in and looking at the individuals in the car, and taking out the men. One woman told me she had read that a boy that they took out of the car’s ear was cut off at the border, but it’s not corroborated,” said Baghdassairn.

Refugees wait in their car to leave Karabakh for Armenia, at the in Lachin checkpoint, on September 26, 2023.
Emmanuel Dunand / AFP 

Azerbaijan’s war on Nagorno-Karabakh was not something the breakaway region’s military expected. They were not prepared for the invasion and did not have enough bullets in their rifles to ward off the enemy force. In just a matter of hours, they would surrender to Azerbaijan’s military, leaving the fate of their homeland that residents refer to as “Artsakh” to become occupied by Baku.

In a series of interviews with The Daily Beast, the two soldiers—who agreed to speak on the condition of using their first names—recounted additional horrors they allege to have witnessed as a part of Nagorno-Karabakh’s military.

The fighting began around 1 p.m., said Amik, one of the soldiers who spoke to The Daily Beast outside of a humanitarian aid center in Goris, Armenia. He was at his military post in one of Nagorno-Karabakh’s villages that he declined to name at the time.

Refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh gather around a fire to warm themselves after getting stuck in a queue of vehicles on the road leading towards the Armenian border, in Nagorno-Karabakh, September 25, 2023.
David Ghahramanyan / Reuters

“We didn’t know it would start,” he said while sitting with his mother, father, and brother outside of a humanitarian aid center in Goris, Armenia. “We understood it won’t be a long war. There was no sense. We have limited people, we didn’t have weapons, we had one grenade launcher, but it didn’t shoot, there were no projectiles,” he added.

Azerbaijan quickly advanced on Nagorno-Karabakh, and Amik came face to face with the invading force. He said that first, his position was bombed by Azerbaijani soldiers. Then he saw in another area of the village that Russian peacekeepers, too, were under shelling. But shortly afterwards, Amik said, “We saw 50-60 guys started to go in our direction with weapons. We responded.”

‘No Artsakh Anymore’

Amik and his brigade fought for 24 hours before being forced to surrender to Azerbaijani soldiers. At that time, Amik said, “We saw killings of civilians; 13 kids died in Stepanakert. I saw how they bombed (civilians). They bombed with artillery, planes from Sushni,” a city in Nagorno-Karabakh that became occupied by Azerbaijan after the 2020 war in the region.

“I saw injuries from shells and from bombing. There was a man with no hand or leg. There were dead in my unit, three to four people in each post. We shot back. Stayed for almost the whole day. On September 20, [the war] ended at 1:30 p.m.,” Amik added.

On September 20, Amik’s brigade was told by his commanding officers that the war was over and that it was time to surrender their weapons. “We knew they would kill us, we knew we would die,” he said.

Amik managed to escape from his position through a forest that brought him to Stepanakert, where he met his family, who were already there waiting for him. “We felt like losers. We are here,” Amik said as he looked around at the humanitarian aid centers surrounding him.

The soldier believes that Azerbaijani citizens will move into homes in Nagorno-Karabakh that have been deserted in the aftermath of the war. Meanwhile, Amik and the 70,000 other refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh are left with “No home, nothing. We don’t know where to go.”

Thousands of refugees are now facing the same experience as Amik. They do not know where they should go next, and many are still grasping to understand how their lives could be destroyed in just one day.

Vehicles carrying refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh waiting to cross the Armenian border, in Nagorno-Karabakh, September 25, 2023.
David Ghahramanyan / Reuters

On the grounds of the same humanitarian aid center as Amik, a 22-year-old soldier named Robert was sitting with his grandmother, parents, and brother. He told The Daily Beast that he saw an Azerbaijani sniper “shoot the leg of a civilian,” which was sliced off by the bullet.

Robert was able to escape with his family while dressed in plain clothing. But he said he knew of other soldiers who were unable to get out of Nagorno-Karabakh.

“They [Azerbaijan] won’t let them leave. That’s what I have heard. I can’t explain this feeling. It’s very tough as my friends were fighting. The hardest is to lose friends,” said Robert

“There is no Artsakh anymore,” he added.

The Daily Beast.

In taking Karabakh, Azerbaijan's president avenged his father

Fri, September 29, 2023

By Andrew Osborn

(Reuters) - Early on September 19, Azerbaijan's president set in motion a lightning-fast military plan months in the making that would redraw the geopolitical map and avenge an ignominious defeat suffered by his father some 30 years before.

In power for two decades and with one successful war already under his belt, President Ilham Aliyev had often spoken of returning the mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh enclave to Azerbaijan's full control after its ethnic Armenian inhabitants broke from Baku's rule in the early 1990s.

Now, a confluence of factors had convinced Aliyev, 61, that the time was right, Elin Suleymanov, Azerbaijan's ambassador to Britain, told Reuters.

"History takes turns and zigzags," Suleymanov said. "We could not do this earlier and it would probably not be a good idea to do it later."

"The stars aligned for certain reasons and President Aliyev saw the alignment," said Suleymanov, who previously worked in Aliyev's office.

Prominent among these "stars" was the new inability or unwillingness of Russia, the West, or Armenia to intervene to protect Nagorno-Karabakh. The self-governed enclave had 10,000 fighters at its disposal according to Azerbaijan, whose own army - estimated at over 120,000-strong by Western experts - dwarfed it.

In conversations with Reuters, two senior officials and a source who has worked with Aliyev underscored that the decision to take back the breakaway region took shape over months as diplomatic realities shifted.

It was also deeply personal for the president, they said.

Speaking to the people of Azerbaijan the day after his troops had gone in, Aliyev said he had ordered his soldiers not to harm civilians. Baku would later say that 192 of its soldiers had been killed in the operation that followed; the Karabakh Armenians that they had lost over 200 people.

"President Aliyev is completing something that his father could not do because he ran out of time," said one of the sources, who requested anonymity because they were not authorised to give comments to the media.

Aliyev's actions have loosened Russia's decades-long grip on the strategically important South Caucasus region which is crisscrossed with oil and gas pipelines, lies between the Black and Caspian seas, and borders Iran, Turkey and Russia.

In three interviews, one before and two after the military operation, Aliyev's foreign policy adviser Hikmet Hajiyev said Baku's patience with the status quo had snapped.

Less than two weeks before Azerbaijani forces swept into Karabakh, Hajiyev told Reuters that Baku was not seeking any military objectives "at this stage" but remained vigilant. It could not accept what he called a "grey zone" with Karabakh's own armed security forces, which he likened to the mafia, on Azerbaijani territory, he said.

The Karabakh defence force has since disbanded under the terms of a new ceasefire deal, but they have rejected Azerbaijani criticism in the past, calling themselves a legitimate fighting force.

On the day of the military operation, after fighting abated, Hajiyev listed what he called "triggering elements" that prompted Baku to resort to military action, mentioning a landmine explosion that killed two Azerbaijani civilians earlier that day in part of Karabakh recaptured in a 2020 war.

"Enough is enough," Hajiyev said.

Aliyev also referred to the mine attack, and a similar incident which had killed four others. Karabakh Armenians called the assertions an "absolute lie." Reuters was unable to independently verify what had happened.

In the event, Russia, which has peacekeepers on the ground but is busy with its own war in Ukraine, stood to one side.

Hajiyev said Azerbaijan gave the Russians "minutes' notice" before the operation began.

Nikol Pashinyan, prime minister of neighbouring Armenia, which twice fought major wars over Karabakh, did not heed calls from opposition politicians to intervene and said his country needed to be "free of conflict" for the sake of its own independence.

The West - which had previously tried to mediate - merely urged Aliyev to halt his operation and was duly ignored.

Pashinyan went on to harshly criticise Russia for not doing enough to avert the crisis. On a conference call last week, the Kremlin denied its peacekeepers should have intervened.

Russia's foreign ministry added he was making "a massive mistake" and accused him of trying to destroy Armenia's centuries-old ties with Moscow.

WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY

Trouble had been brewing for months.

With Russia distracted in Ukraine, Aliyev appeared to sense a window of opportunity.

In December last year, Azerbaijani citizens describing themselves as environmentalists unhappy about illegal mining began to block the Lachin corridor, the only road linking Karabakh to Armenia.

Karabakh officials at that time said the protesters were a front and included Azerbaijani officials. Baku denied the accusation.

Apparently reluctant to risk escalation, armed Russian peacekeepers did not act to remove the protesters by force.

In June, citing a shooting incident, Azerbaijan blocked the corridor, stopping transport including the passage of humanitarian aid. It only allowed medical evacuees out, a step that deepened Karabakh's food and medicine shortages.

Armed border guards manned a checkpoint close to a base for the Russian peacekeepers, who again did not intervene. Baku ignored calls from Washington and Moscow to unblock the road, citing a weapons-smuggling risk.

In May, in an attempt to advance peace negotiations, Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan made what looked like a breakthrough offer: Armenia was ready to recognise Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, if Baku guaranteed the security of its ethnic Armenian population.

Aliyev appears to have seized on what he saw a long overdue admission of reality as a sign of weakness. The source who has worked with Aliyev called the shift "very important."

"After Armenia recognised Karabakh as an integral part of Azerbaijan, what status can the criminal regime that has been calling the shots in Karabakh for 30 years have?," Aliyev told Azerbaijanis in his victory speech last week.

On the same day, the Russian foreign ministry accused Pashinyan of sowing the seeds of Karabakh's demise as an ethnic Armenian enclave by recognising it was part of Azerbaijan. That, it said, had changed "the situation" for Russia's own peacekeeping contingent.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Karabakh slipped from Azerbaijan's grasp in the chaos that followed the Soviet Union's breakup. In a 1988-1994 war, around 30,000 people were killed and over 1 million displaced, over half of them Azerbaijanis.

Aliyev's father, then President Heydar Aliyev, was forced to agree to a ceasefire that cemented Armenia's victory.

Ilham, who had succeeded Heydar on his death in 2003, signed an oil deal with a BP-led consortium a year later that gave Azerbaijan funds to start building a modern army.

More recently, Azerbaijan benefited financially from the West's decision to cut energy purchases from Russia. The European Commission last year agreed to double imports of Azerbaijani natural gas by 2027.

For years, Moscow's alliance and defence pact with Armenia - where it has military facilities - deterred Baku from using force even as Russia sold weapons to both sides.

But Moscow's ties with Armenia began to sour in 2018 when Pashinyan, a former journalist, led street protests that brought him to power at the expense of a long line of pro-Russian Armenian leaders.

And as Azerbaijan's army overhaul and modernisation drive intensified, Armenia limped from crisis to crisis.

Seeing there was no love lost between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Pashinyan, who had spoken in favour of ties with the West, Aliyev tested the waters. In 2020, he launched a 44-day war that his army won - with the help of advanced Turkish drones, clawing back a chunk of Karabakh.

Russia brokered a ceasefire that appeared to be a win for Moscow, allowing it to deploy nearly 2,000 Russian peacekeepers to Karabakh. The step gave it a military footprint in Azerbaijan, an apparent buffer against further Azerbaijani military action.

Then Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 changed the equation again, drawing Moscow into a war of attrition with Kyiv.

FOG IN THE AIR

On the morning of Tuesday, Sept. 19, residents of Stepanakert, Karabakh's capital and known as Khankendi by Azerbaijan, heard loud and repeated artillery fire as fog hung in the air.

What Aliyev called an anti-terrorism operation had begun, with ground forces backed by drones and artillery sweeping in to overwhelm Karabakh's defensive lines.

At least five Russians were killed in the violence that followed, in an apparent accident which Aliyev apologised to Putin for.

Within 24 hours, Baku declared victory and the Karabakh Armenian fighters agreed to a ceasefire that obliged them to disarm.

Karabakh Armenians said they felt betrayed on all sides.

"Karabakh has been left on its own: Russian peacekeepers practically don't fulfil their obligations, the democratic West turned away from us, and Armenia also turned away," David Babayan, an adviser to the leader of the Karabakh administration, complained to Reuters a day after the rout.

Babayan has since given himself up to the Azerbaijani authorities, he announced on Telegram. The administration he advised has announced its own disbandment.

"Azerbaijan regained its sovereignty at around 1:00 p.m. yesterday," Aliyev told the nation.

Four days after the operation, some of Karabakh's 120,000 Armenians began what became a mass exodus by car towards Armenia, saying they feared persecution and ethnic cleansing despite Azerbaijani promises of safety. Ten days after Azerbaijan struck, 98,000 people had fled into Armenia, the authorities there said.

The return of Karabakh paves the way for hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis who once fled it to return, a promise Aliyev's father gave repeatedly.

"President Aliyev has delivered the testament of his father," said Suleymanov, the ambassador to Britain.

(Reporting by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel)

A species of jellyfish carrying one of the most deadly venoms in the world is capable of learning despite not having a brain, new research shows


Katie Hawkinson
Sat, 23 September 2023 

Box jellyfish do not have brains yet seem to be capable of learning, a new study reveals.

Auscape/Getty Images

Box jellyfish do not have brains — yet, a new study shows they are still capable of learning.


Researchers over time managed to train box jellyfish to avoid obstacles in a low-light environment.


That means they can learn and change their behavior using only their nervous system, the study shows.

Known for carrying heart-stopping venom that can kill a person in 15 minutes, and for their ability to grow up to 10 feet long, box jellyfish have quite the reputation.

Now, researchers have discovered the killer creatures are actually capable of learning, despite not having brains.

A team of marine scientists published an article on Friday in Current Biology, a peer-reviewed journal, revealing that a species of box jellyfish can learn and change their behavior solely based on visual and mechanical stimulation. That means they learn through their nervous system and do not need a brain to form these connections.

This discovery challenges the long-held idea that associative learning requires a brain, according to the study.

Researchers demonstrated this by setting up obstacles for these jellyfish, using stripes to represent the mangrove roots they would need to navigate in the real world.

Researchers placed the creatures in buckets with black and white stripes representing the roots and the water. At optimal brightness, the jellyfish did not run into these obstacles because they could see clearly, according to the study. But when researchers lowered the contrast over time, the number of collisions went up.

"The hypothesis was, they need to learn this," Anders Garm, an author on the paper, told The New York Times on Friday. "When they come back to these habitats, they have to learn, how is today's water quality? How is the contrast changing today?"

The jellyfish did indeed learn. The number of collisions went down over time because the jellyfish learned by combining mechanical stimuli — that is, the sensation of running into obstacles — and visual stimuli.

Garm told the Times this research could help answer the question of whether the learning is universal for organisms with nervous systems.

AUSTRALIA

An injured galah taught me that what makes something beautiful is also what makes it fragile

Natasha May

Guardian Australia
Fri, 29 September 2023 


We turned off the highway, headed down the road which leads to the pub and saw the pink little fellow hovering near his mate, who was dead by the side of the road.

Having moved to the country a little over a month ago, I was still getting used to the frequency of spotting creatures on the shoulders of western New South Wales’s arteries.

The melancholy sight of the galah mourning its partner followed us into the pub and hovered over dinner.

Related: ‘What’s your favourite bird?’ is almost impossible to answer. I am always torn | Sean Dooley

However, when we left the pub, we noticed it wasn’t only its mate which was keeping the bird at the scene but that he too had been hit and was injured, having difficulty moving.

We called Wires, a wildlife rescue organisation, but without any volunteers in the remote area we would have to be the ones to bring the bird to a vet. Having no box in the car, we went in search of one back at the pub.

The other patrons weren’t shy about letting us know what they thought about our rescue attempts. One suggested we make parrot pie. Trawling through the bins outside, we managed to find one cardboard box still intact.

The bird was not too enthused at our rescue attempt either. As we approached, his cries were the timbre of desperate impotence, piercing the great expansive country twilight.

We weren’t prepared and did not have any gloves, so we tried to get him into the box with the jackets off our back awkwardly wrapped around our hands as makeshift protection from any potential biting.

One patron coming back from the pub saw us struggling and offered up his services – he could put the bird out of its misery with a single blow from the wrench in the back of his ute. Standing in the rapidly waning dusk, accepting his offer was certainly the easier choice, but weighing up whether it was also the ethical one was more difficult. In the end neither of us could bring ourselves to be the arbiters of the bird’s fate.

In between multiple attempts to get him in the box, the injury allowed me to appreciate the galah closer up than I ever normally would. Every feature seemed more unreal; the sheen of the eye’s black orb, the intensity of the musky pink plumage, the tough sheath of the keratin beak emerging from soft feathers. By the time we finally got him in the box, the difficulty of getting a hold of him had justified the name Houdini.

The drive back home was slightly terrifying as our imagination was live to the possibility, however remote, Houdini would miraculously overcome his injuries, fly out of the box and wreak havoc to escape the car.

He didn’t. At home, still following Wires’ instructions, we covered the box with a towel, to help keep Houdini calm. Removing it in the morning, sadly it wasn’t enough; we found him with his wings spread like a snow angel in full extension at the bottom of the box.

Related: What’s in a name? The renaming of the pink cockatoo is no small thing in Australia’s violent history | Andrew Stafford

We brought him to the local vet, who folded his wings inwards with a gentleness I will never forget.

She told us a bird’s fast heart rate is what allows them to pump enough blood to the wings to allow them to fly, but it also makes them more susceptible to cardiac arrest.

The fact was new to me, but somehow also familiar. Like a snowflake, like ballet, like memory itself, precisely the quality that makes something beautiful, is also what makes it fragile.

Inextricable. And perhaps it was naive not to imagine that all of life itself is about accepting the fragility of how easily things break.

• Natasha May is a health reporter for Guardian Australia

Scientists have found great white sharks believed to have fled for their lives from liver-eating killer whales

Maiya Focht
Updated Wed, 27 September 2023 

Killer whales hunt great white sharks in waters across the world.[top] Kenneth C. Balcomb/Center for Whale Research, permit number: NMFS 21238; [bottom] Reuters

Killer whales have been killing great white sharks off South African shores.


But lately, there's been a mysterious disappearance of great white sharks in these waters.


Scientists suggest that the remaining great whites who survived moved east to avoid trouble.

For years, great white sharks were turning up dead on South Africa's False Bay and Gansbaai shores, missing something crucial — their livers.

Killer whales had been extracting the sharks' livers with chilling precision, killing them in the process.

Then, the sharks stopped washing ashore. They stopped swimming near those shores — some of their most well-known South African habitats — altogether. They were just gone.
A mysterious mass disappearance

"The decline of white sharks was so dramatic, so fast, so unheard of that lots of theories began to circulate," Michelle Jewell, an ecologist at Michigan State University Museum, told Hakai Magazine.

People were worried that overfishing of both the food the sharks eat and the sharks themselves may have killed off large swaths of the population.

But a new study in the journal Ecological Indicators' October issue indicated that the sharks didn't die off; they were just hiding out in a new part of town, trying to avoid trouble.
Where great white sharks fled for their lives

By following reports of human-shark incidents, scientists determined the South African shark populations had shifted east to places such as Algoa Bay and the KwaZulu-Natal coastline.

"We know that predators have a huge influence on the movement and habitat use of their prey, so this isn't really surprising," Jewell told Hakai Magazine.

The tourism industry in Gansbaai, South Africa, relied on the large population of great white sharks found in the area.Dan Kitwood / Staff / Getty Images

Through a process of elimination, the scientists in the study looked at the leading possible explanations, including prey decline in the region where the sharks disappeared and rapid reproduction in the areas where a large number of new shark sightings were reported.

Ultimately, they concluded the most likely explanation was that the great whites fled to avoid continued killer-whale attacks. The study said its conclusion was supported by white shark behavior in other parts of the world.

In North America, for example, at the Southeast Farallon Islands, great white sharks have been recorded fleeing from hunting areas after killer whales showed up.

Though many people think of the great white as an apex predator, this study is a prime example of the saying, "There's always a bigger fish."

"The indirect effect of predation (or the fear of predation) profoundly influences animal behavior," the study said.

Italy wants migrant rescue ships sent back to countries funding their operation

Sky News
Fri, 29 September 2023 


Rescue ships run by charities that pick up migrants at sea should be returned to the countries funding them, Italy's foreign minister has said.

Antonio Tajani spoke after Germany confirmed it was supporting three non-governmental organisations (NGOs) regularly bringing migrants to Italy.

Italy has been struggling to deal with an influx of migrants, with 133,170 coming from boats so far this year - compared to 70,796 over the same period last year.

It's been a source of embarrassment for Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who came to power promising to stem migration from North Africa.

It has led to Rome calling for more time to review the text of a new EU migration pact, unexpectedly delaying an agreement on Thursday.

"We want to make a deal for a new pact," Mr Tajani told state television RAI.

"The NGOs flying a German flag or that of another country should pick up the migrants and take them to their countries."

Earlier this week, Ms Meloni wrote to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz telling him she had learned of the German financing with "astonishment".

German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock met Mr Tajani on Thursday and defended the decision, saying the groups were saving lives.

Ms Meloni's coalition has accused the rescue charities of encouraging people to make the dangerous crossing, which they deny.

Read more:
Chaos at island epicentre of European migrant crisis 'sanitised' for leaders' visit

Meloni tells EU in crisis talks it has 'responsibility' to help tackle migrant surge

Italy has also accused charity ships of acting as a de-facto taxi service for migrants, with the country bringing forward legislation this year to restrict their operations.

Only around 5% of all those who have tried to reach Italy in 2023 have been picked up by the NGOs, they say, adding their sole purpose is to save lives.

But Italy has clashed with European allies in the past, including a major row with France last November when it refused to let a ship run by a French NGO bring 230 people ashore.

The boat then brought the migrants directly to France.