Forever chemicals are in our drinking water – here’s how to reduce them

The Conversation
November 1, 2024 

Woman Drinking Water (fast-stock/Shutterstock)

News reports of so-called forever chemicals in drinking water have left people worried about the safety of tap and bottled water. But recent research has shown there are ways to significantly reduce the levels of these harmful chemicals in our water.

Per and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a wide range of synthetic chemicals that are used in many everyday products such as cosmetics, fabrics and food packaging (where they are used to make products resistant to water and grease), as well as in fire-fighting foams.

Unusually in the chemical universe, the structures of PFAS include groups of atoms within the same molecule that imbue them with both water-hating and water-loving properties. They are also resistant to degradation.

While this latter characteristic can improve the quality of the products we buy, it also means it is nearly impossible to break these chemicals down once they escape into the environment. Some PFAS chemicals are are also toxic. For example, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) has been classified as carcinogenic to humans, and has been found to lower immune response to common childhood vaccines.

PFAS can penetrate human skin and have been found in our drinking water, air, food, and even in human milk.

Concerns about their safety has led numerous jurisdictions to set limits on levels of some PFAS in drinking water. Nevertheless, many news stories have reported on research finding dangerous levels of PFAS chemicals in drinking water sources in England.


With this in mind, my colleagues and I measured concentrations of ten key PFAS in 41 samples of tap water from the West Midlands of the UK and 14 samples from Shenzhen, China. We also measured the same PFAS in 112 samples of bottled water.

We sampled 87 different brands from 15 countries that we bought either from shops or online in the UK and China. The PFAS we tested included many of those regulated in drinking water as well as some others we have found previously in indoor air and dust.


Forever chemicals are in our drinking water. Shining symbols/Shutterstock

We compared concentrations of PFAS in plastic and glass bottled water, as well as in sparkling versus still water. In neither case did we find significant differences in concentrations of PFAS. In contrast however, in China we found significantly higher concentrations of PFAS in natural mineral water than in bottled purified water.

Crucially, while we found PFAS in every sample analysed, the maximum concentration limits set recently by the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) for some PFAS were only exceeded for PFOA in some samples of tap water from Shenzhen.


Concentrations of PFAS were lower in bottled water than in tap water from the same locality. This finding is in line with studies conducted in other countries like Spain.

It may be reassuring to some extent but our study only examined a relatively small number of tap water samples from two municipalities and cannot be taken as representative of the UK or China overall. There is no room for complacency as the USEPA’s target concentration limits for two of the PFAS we measured are zero.

So, taking note of the lower concentrations we saw in bottled purified water, we examined the effectiveness of boiling and filtration using activated carbon jug filters.

Boiling in a regular kettle reduced concentrations of all ten of the PFAS we tested. The level of reduction varied between different PFAS though. For PFOA and the three other PFAS that we measured for which there are USEPA concentration limits, concentrations reduced by 11%−14% but were much greater (61%-86%) for the more volatile and non-regulated PFAS we examined that are more easily evaporated.

Reductions were greater for all the PFAS we tested (81%−96%) when we passed the water through an activated carbon jug filter. Boiling the water after activated carbon filtration, as sometimes happens in China, reduced concentrations a little further to between 81 and 99.6%.

These results suggest that using a jug water filter can substantially reduce concentrations of some regulated PFAS in our tap water. Boiling water before drinking also reduces PFAS concentrations but is less effective.

Our findings add to those of a 2024 study in Montreal, which suggested that using a filter fitted to the kitchen tap reduced concentrations of 75 PFAS in tap water.

Our findings are a small first step towards reducing our exposure to PFAS. But we should not lose sight of the need to reduce and eliminate such forever chemicals. There’s still a lot we don’t understand about these chemicals but what we’ve learned so far shows that some of them present an urgent threat to the health of both humans and wildlife.

Stuart Harrad, Professor of Environmental Chemistry, University of Birmingham

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

WHITE Extremists posing as aid workers urge NC locals to tear down cell towers and hit military

Jordan Green, Investigative Reporter
November 1, 2024 

Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer booking photo from 2018 (Courtesy Tucson Police Department)

A group of anti-government extremists who showed up in western North Carolina promising to provide disaster relief after Hurricane Helene is now threatening to destroy cell-phone towers and sabotage military vehicles.

The group, Veterans on Patrol, attracted attention by setting up a disaster relief staging area in the parking lot of the Ingles grocery store in Lake Lure, about 50 miles from Asheville.

But locals, including some who initially cooperated with the group, began to complain about threats and harassment.


Over the past three weeks, members of the group, which falsely claims that Helene was caused by a “weather weapon,” have been making conspiracy-driven claims that the U.S. military is attempting to kill U.S. citizens with “directed energy weapons.”

Veterans on Patrol’s channel on the encrypted social-media platform Telegram posted a message on Thursday displaying photos of what appears to be a cell tower on a mountaintop. The message asserted that locals “are in Live Exercises where the United States Military is permitted to destroy your homes, bodies and minds,” while suggesting that equipment on the tower “is solely for providing the U.S. military the means to murder Americans.”

“Focus on tearing down their weapons,” the message reads. It continues, “All it takes is one weapon tower being toppled with the stated reason spoken boldly.”


Another message posted in the group’s Telegram channel appears to advocate for sabotaging military vehicles and assets.

“Simple acts of pouring sugar into fuel tanks of military equipment, backup power systems, and personal vehicles of military personnel can wreak havoc on those who murdered all these people out here,” reads the message, which was posted on Wednesday.

Soldiers from Fort Liberty and Fort Campbell have deployed to western North Carolina to assist in the disaster response, along with National Guard members from nine states.


Veterans on Patrol is led by Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer, who has a long history of anti-government extremism, dating back at least 10 years. Meyer, according to the extremism watchdog group Southern Poverty Law Center, is not a veteran.

Reached by phone on Friday, Meyer doubled down on the threats.

“Jesus used bullwhips and flipped tables,” he told Raw Story. “We’re going to use our bullwhips and topple towers.”


At first during the interview, Meyer argued that the Telegram messages weren’t advocating for targeting cell towers, saying instead that the group would “surgically” remove the supposed “directed energy weapons." He went on to say that they would provide Appalachian residents with generators and Starlink boxes so they could maintain power and communication links.

Asked about the message referencing “pouring sugar into fuel tanks,” Meyer told Raw Story: “We’re going to destroy your tanks…. You want to get dirty? That’s what we should be doing.”

Veterans on Patrol has promoted multiple conspiracy theories based on false claims since arriving in western North Carolina.


One message posted on Telegram on Oct. 22 claimed that “Helene was a Weather Weapon steered to destroy the area, while also claiming that the investment fund BlackRock is attempting a “land grab” and describing the storm and its aftermath as “an act of war perpetrated against the People.”

As the final day of voting in the presidential election approaches, posts on the group’s Telegram channel have taken on an increasingly urgent tone.

The Oct. 22 post claimed that “stolen elections” are a real phenomenon, along with “weather weapons,” “Satanic pedophiles” and “adrenochrome," which refers to a QAnon conspiracy theory that a cabal of elites tortures children to extract a chemical from their bodies which is then used as a recreational drug.


In another post last week, a Veterans on Patrol member nicknamed “Shepherd” claimed that the U.S. Air Force command is instructing pilots “to deploy additional weather weapons.” The post goes on to say, “These people don’t have 2 weeks to wait for vote and 3 months to hopefully wait for a Regime change.”

Another message on the group channel that was published on Wednesday suggests without basis that Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff is the beneficiary of BlackRock’s supposed landgrab.

Speaking to Raw Story, Meyer seemed to all but dare law enforcement to intervene.


“For people to go and do something to prevent weapons from being deployed — that’s not a crime,” he said. “If they want to bring this to court and charge us with conspiracy, then let’s go.”

The FBI did not respond to an inquiry about Veterans on Patrol's activities, but Meyer told Raw Story in an email that he "would imagine the FBI knows full well what we are attempting through Operation Leaning Tower."

Meyer told Raw Story that he notified the office of Gov. Roy Cooper about his "operation." Cooper's office did not immediately respond to a voicemail message from Raw Story.

Phone calls from Raw Story for this story to officials in Lake Lure and Rutherford County, which surrounds the town, went unreturned.


Meyer’s history of extremism dates back to the Bundy Ranch standoff, when armed militants faced down the FBI and other federal agencies in 2014 during a dispute over rancher Cliven Bundy’s refusal to pay grazing fees. Meyer’s involvement in the Bundy Ranch standoff came to light later, when the Oregonian reported that he and a group of friends got into a brawl with other anti-government extremists during the standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, which Bundy and a group of armed supporters had occupied.

Meyer founded Veterans on Patrol in Arizona in 2015, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Prior to presenting itself as a disaster response group in the aftermath of Helene, Veterans on Patrol has claimed its efforts were directed towards rescuing children from sex trafficking, addressing veteran suicide and dubious claims that the military is maliciously harming civilians. Meyer’s activities have frequently landed him in trouble with law enforcement.

Meyer was arrested twice in 2015 after emergency responders talked him down from a light pole in Surprise, Ariz. in 2015.


In 2018, was arrested by the police in Tucson, Ariz. for trespassing and an outstanding warrant for an assault charge, after occupying a tower on an industrial property. A press release from the Tucson Police Department claimed that Meyer “found an abandoned homeless encampment” on the property, “and fictitiously declared, without evidence or corroboration, that the area was the site of a sex-trafficking ring.”

The Tucson police said they received complaints from Tucson residents that Meyer and his followers had threatened and intimidated them, and Meyer made “multiple threatening and hostile remarks directed towards various elected and appointed officials” through social media.

In the summer of 2024, before Hurricane Helene, Veterans on Patrol was active in Spokane, Wash. In Telegram message from July 2, 2024, Veterans on Patrol announced to the police that it “would no longer be safe” for one of its officers “to work his beat.” The channel also posted the home addresses of city council members.


Jordan Green is a North Carolina-based investigative reporter at Raw Story, covering domestic extremism, efforts to undermine U.S. elections and democracy, hate crimes and terrorism. Prior to joining the staff of Raw Story in March 2021, Green spent 16 years covering housing, policing, nonprofits and music as a reporter and editor at Triad City Beat in North Carolina and Yes Weekly. He can be reached at jordan@rawstory.com. More about Jordan Green.

To hell with Trump's voters

D. Earl Stephens
October 28, 2024 

A supporter of Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump holds a MAGA hat during a rally at Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center in Aurora, Colorado, U.S., October 11, 2024. REUTERS/Isaiah J. Downing

This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers. 

I have heard way more than enough of this grotesque garbage that perhaps we should try to understand what makes the Trump voter tick, and somehow sympathize with their support of an unapologetic loudmouth who is so vile he sees “good people” on both sides of a violent white supremacist rally.

Have you seen or heard any of this crap?

Have you seen or heard this heated drivel that Kamala Harris and other Democrats have done an inadequate job of connecting with Trump voters who see nothing dangerous about a man who refers to human beings as “vermin,” and has adopted Adolph Hitler’s talking points at his odious campaign rallies?

Have you seen or heard this absolute low-grade nonsense that we should work to lower the temperature in this country, and maybe not take it so personally when one party has gone completely in the tank for a hideous man who told the people who attacked America on January 6, 2021 that he “loves them?”

It is deplorable, and I’m here to remind you it is not normal.

These Trump supporters are shattered people, who have proven only one thing the past eight years: They can ALWAYS go lower, even if it means diving into the dumpster themselves to prove that they truly do believe in their lower cause.


Do not allow yourselves to be gaslit during this the most important election since the Civil War. Understand: If you support the Democratic Party, it does not make you perfect, but is does put you squarely on the right side of human decency and history.

This not only needs to be said out loud, and over and over again, but SHOUTED, because if you are telling me you support the despicable Donald Trump, you have essentially told me everything I need to know about you.

-You have told me you don’t really believe in “law in order” because in fact you support a convicted felon, who is currently facing scores of other felony charges for all manner of crimes, instead of supporting the career prosecutor who locked cheating lowlifes like Trump away behind bars ...


-You have told me you don’t believe in democracy, because you support the traitor who helped plan and execute the first attack on our Capitol since 1812, and attempted a violent coup that was one corrupt vice president away from possibly succeeding.

-You have told me you don’t believe in truth and honesty, because you support the man who told an astonishing documented 30,573 lies and mistruths during his epically awful presidency, and does nothing but lie from the time his fat little feet hit the deck in the morning until he finally passes out from overexposure at midnight.

-You have told me you don’t believe in our children’s future or the future of our planet, because you support the complete imbecile who is a sworn enemy of science, thinks climate change is a hoax, and that wind turbines cause cancer.


-You have told me you don’t have a shred of respect for the women in your lives, because you support the felon who physically attacks and berates them, and does not believe they should have the same rights men do.

-You have told me you don’t believe in a strong economy because you support the guy who wrecked the perfectly good one he inherited from Barack Obama so magnificently by failing to pass the only real test of his gross presidency. His multi-pronged failures to answer the COVID crisis, was among the greatest failures in American history. He simply couldn’t find it in his dark, empty soul to drum up even a shred of compassion for the millions of Americans who were sick and dying, and even went so far as suggesting that maybe we try drinking Lysol to combat COVID’s terrible effects. Even wearing masks was a bridge too far for the guy who would have died from the disease if he had listened to is own sickening counsel.

-You have told me you don’t believe all Americans deserve affordable healthcare, because the guy you support tried to do away with that without any plan to replace it, and now pathetically tells us he has “a concept of a plan” to make it better. Can you really be this damn stupid?


-You have told me you don’t really support blue collar, working Americans because you support the guy who passionately hates unions, refuses to support raising minimum wage, and has relentlessly stood up for the corporations, starting with Big Oil, who grease his bottomless pockets.

-You have told me you really aren’t Christian, if I am to understand this religious orthodoxy at all, because I just don’t think Jesus Christ would have much respect for a foul-mouthed, abusive slob, who dutifully avoids church, belittles people who have less than him, and pawns off Bibles online like they are some steak, sneaker, or watch to pay off his endless stream of lawyers, and pad a lifestyle spent behind locked gates, where he cheats at golf and avoids working-class Americans at all costs.

-You have told me you don’t really support the men and women in uniform because you bow to a reprehensible draft-dodger who calls our fallen “suckers and losers” and just weeks ago disgraced the hallowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery for a cheap, campaign photo op. The last two chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of staff, including one he appointed are telling you that the man you support means our country harm, so kindly save all that phony patriotic garbage you are trying to dump on the rest of us.


Truth is, I could go on for three full pages here pointing out your wretched hypocrisies, and gladly would if I thought it would have the positive effect of shaking some damn sense into you.

But I’m not interested in wasting my time with that. You have successfully proven you are broken beyond repair. So congratulations for that.

I am only interested in making good and damn sure people know that YOU, and YOU alone, are responsible for the extreme danger that this country finds itself in right now.


You are complete frauds and phonies, who are most likely white, male and angry to the point of violence. You are going nowhere in life, except lower because you are weak in character, and have allowed gravity and depravity to tug you in that lazy, misguided direction.

You want everything done for you and handed to you on a silver platter, because despite your despicable selves, you somehow think you are owed everything simply because of the color of your lily-white skin.

In fact, you are racist as hell, even if you’d like to somehow think you aren’t, because you lack the capacity to do even the minimal amount of introspection needed to attain the most basic understanding that in this country ALL men (and women) are supposed to be created equal.

You don’t believe in a better America, you believe in an America where you can legally drag good people through the dirt, who you still somehow think are lesser than you, and then have a good laugh about it.


You support the monstrous, orange man because he has given you license to be just as completely awful as you want to be. He brings out the very worst in you, and because you are weak in character, you somehow get off on it.

I will always blame the gross “leadership” in your broken party — 80 percent who know better — for the predicament we are in, as we fight tooth and nail to keep this anti-American loudmouth out of our White House, and preserve our republic.

How dare you put this on us, and threaten to end a country 250 years in the making so casually and pathetically.


And I will alway blame my former brethren in the bought-off, reprehensible corporate media for normalizing one of the worst people in world history. They have done catastrophic damage with their refusal to cover one of the biggest stories ever with the weight and vigor it deserves.

He will do everything he can to end us, and YOU know it, damn you.

But it is you, Trump voter, who I reserve the majority of my disdain. You have been coddled long enough in this country. You aren’t misunderstood. The truth is you have very effectively spent the past eight years making it crystal clear to anybody paying even the slightest amount of attention just how revolting and toxic you truly are.


I understand you all too well, and hope you all go straight to hell for the damage you have done to America, the majority of our people, and the brave souls who gave their lives defending her.

NOW READ: Kamala's secret weapon against Trump: The F-word that's changing everything


D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

It's official: Conservatism is dead — and what's replaced it is far worse

Lindsay Beyerstein, Alternet
November 1, 2024

Donald Trump Jr., son of Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump, speaks during a rally for Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden, in New York, U.S., October 27, 2024. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly

Conspiracist ideology has consumed the Republican Party. At his rally at Madison Square Garden, Trump pledged to demolish the deep state, drive out the globalists, and rout the fake news media. Speaker after speaker referenced the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, a dogma that was once confined to the manifestos of mass shooters, but which is now the Trump campaign’s closing argument for the presidency.

Former Fox host Tucker Carlson, who promoted the Great Replacement over 400 times on his now-defunct show, told the crowd at Madison Square Garden that the political class “despises [the people] and their values and their history and their culture and their customs; really hates them to the point that it’s trying to replace them.”

The former president’s son, Donald Trump, Jr, was even more explicit.

“The Democrat[sic] Party has forgotten about Americans. Rather than cater to Americans, they decided, “You know what? It would just be easier to replace them with people who will be reliable voters.”

"Our elections are bad, and a lot of these illegal immigrants are coming in, they're trying to get them to vote," Trump Jr., said last month

The Republican National Committee under Lara Trump is claiming that millions of undocumented migrants could vote next week. A vast body of research, including recent audits by Republican-controlled states like Georgia, has found that voting by non-citizens is essentially nonexistent.

By hyping this fake threat, Republicans are creating a pretext to challenge the election if Trump loses, putting a racist spin on their perennial allegations of voter fraud, and creating excuses for Republican governors to purge their voter rolls.

However, this obsession with noncitizen voting goes deeper than that. The lie of mass voting by undocumented migrants is the conceptual glue that binds the three major components of their conspiracist ideology: The Deep State, the Big Lie, and the Great Replacement.


Let’s review their delusional belief system:

The Deep State is a shadowy network of elites inside and outside of government who supposedly direct the course of history. This cabal is responsible for everything from Trump’s impeachments and prosecutions to voting laws and immigration policy. Some say it controls the weather.

The Big Lie is the debunked claim that voter fraud cost Donald Trump the 2020 election. Trump kicked off his Madison Square Garden rally by vowing to “totally obliterate the Deep State.”

The Great Replacement is the charge that the Deep State is deliberately importing migrants in order to replace white Americans, a process sometimes known as “white genocide.” The lie of massive noncitizen voting explains why the Deep State is supposedly importing all these migrants to commit election fraud.

These beliefs meld seamlessly into a paranoid whole. Trump told rallygoers in Atlanta that the Democratic immigration policy must be the result of evil or stupidity. “Well, they’re not stupid because anybody that can cheat on elections that good is not stupid,” Trump told rallygoers in Atlanta. “But I never really talked about the third reason because it’s so sinister, but they want to sign these people up to vote, and if they do that, this country is destroyed.”

Trump has been blaming migrants for his political failures for years. In 2016, Trump lost the popular vote and blamed it on millions of illegal voters. Incredibly, Trump claimed that he would have won deep blue California – a state he lost by 30 points and 4 million votes – if not for those improbably civic-minded migrants. Trump convened a special commission to investigate voter fraud, which fizzled without finding evidence of the conspiracy.


Conservative ideology as we knew it is dead.

Conspiracism is all.

Elon Musk-backed super PAC hit with class action lawsuit from its canvassers: report

Matthew Chapman

RAW STORY
November 1, 2024



A group of canvassers working on behalf of America PAC, the pro-Trump political organization funded by tech billionaire Elon Musk, has filed a class-action suit against their employer, WIRED reported Friday.

America PAC, which along with its subcontractor Blitz Canvassing is tasked with independent get-out-the-vote operations for former President Donald Trump and a number of other Republicans, is effectively standing in for what in previous years the Republican National Committee and GOP presidential campaigns did in-house.

Named plaintiffs Tamiko Anderson and Patricia Kelly, who were doing voter outreach work for Rep. Michelle Steel (R-CA), allege they were hired under the pretense they would be paid an hourly wage, but once onboarded, were told their pay would actually depend on how many doors they knocked, significantly jeopardizing the amount they thought they would earn.

According to the report, the canvassers are also suing over a "failure to reimburse business expenses and for allegedly being provided inaccurate wage statements."

This comes after separate reporting that canvassers said they were abused and overworked, being threatened that they wouldn't be compensated for their hotel rooms and airfare if they didn't meet wildly inflated work quotas like knocking 1,000 doors a week. At least one of them said they weren't even told the job would involve canvassing for Trump and Republicans, or on behalf of Musk, when they applied.

All of these allegations provide context for other reports that some of the door-knockers working with Blitz Canvassing had resorted to fabricating data with GPS spoofing, to the point that up to 25 percent of their voter contacts in the battleground states of Arizona and Nevada may have been faked.

Blitz Canvassing has reportedly threatened employees against talking to the press.

Meanwhile, America PAC has faced multiple threats of criminal investigation, including allegations that they improperly obtained voters' personal information through a nonfunctional voter registration portal, and allegations that Musk's $1 million a day lottery for registered voters who sign his "pro-Constitution" petition is an illegal vote-buying scheme.

Columnist shreds Trump’s economic playbook that tariffs made manufacturing great

Erik De La Garza
November 1, 2024 

Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump is interviewed by Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait at the Economic Club of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois, U.S. October 15, 2024. 

REUTERS/Joel Angel Juarez

Did tariffs make America great? According to a New York Times op-ed published Friday, the short answer is no.

Peter Coy, a veteran business and economics columnist for the Times, dug into a report written by two leading economists who set out on a mission to discover if steep tariffs imposed “during America’s Gilded Age – roughly 1870 to 1900” could be credited with the rise of American manufacturing during the period.

What they concluded undercuts former President Donald Trump’s economic plan for the country, which includes imposing huge new tariffs, in he returns to the Oval Office.

“Their conclusion: ‘The era’s high tariffs are unlikely to have helped the United States become a globally competitive manufacturer,’” Coy notes in his op-ed, citing the report by Alexander Klein and Christopher Meissner, which was issued by the Center for Economic and Policy Research in London.

Coy adds that Trump “isn’t the first to attribute America’s manufacturing success to the tariff wall that made imported products expensive compared with those produced at home.”

“In reality, though, tariffs didn’t make much difference in the United States because the domestic economy was both large and relatively isolated from world trade, Klein and Meissner wrote in their paper,” Coy wrote.


He noted that the economists found that the one area that tariffs did make a difference “was to reduce rather than enhance the productivity of labor, which is the output of goods per hour of work.”

Coy ended his column Friday by telling readers that Klein and Meissner do not directly reference Trump’s fascination with tariffs in their report, but added that “their title gives a hint: ‘Did Tariffs Make American Manufacturing Great? New Evidence from the Gilded Age.’”

Nosferatu creeps up on the Alban Film Festival


By Dr. Tim Sandle
November 1, 2024

St Albans Cathedral at night. Image by Tim Sandle

A screening of the full-length version of the German silent film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror took place at St. Alban’s Cathedral, Hertfordshire, UK. The cathedral is the second oldest in England, with construction starting in the 11th century, commissioned by the new ruling Normans.

The screening was accompanied by a live organist and various electronic additions (also performed live). This special screening – on Halloween – was part of the Alban Film Festival 2024, playing to a full house of 450 people.

The 1922 film is directed by F. W. Murnau and it features the actor Max Schreck as Count Orlok. Schreck plays a vampire who preys on the wife (Greta Schröder) of his estate agent (Gustav von Wangenheim) and brings the plague to their town.

If the plot sounds similar to Bram Stoker’s Dracula that is no coincidence. This was an unauthorized and unofficial adaptation, which led to legal action being taken and an instruction for every copy of the film to be destroyed.Getting ready for the screening inside the cathedral. Image by Tim Sandle

Luckily some prints remained and the movie, now acknowledged as a fine example of the earliest forays into the horror genre, remains available for modern audiences to become acquainted with.

The name of the titular vampire – Nosferatu – derives from the archaic Romanian word Nesuferitu, meaning “the offensive one”.

The film is an example of German Expressionist cinema, so named as the emotions of the artist (or director) are central to the film and take precedence over the plot. This wave of film-making continued until the early 1930s (when political currents brought this wave of German cinema to an end)

.

Bird sculptures inside St Alban’s Cathedral as film goers mingle. Image by Tim Sandle.

Murnau was an acknowledged leader of this movement. He made 21 films, although only 12 survive in their complete state. Murnau was killed at the young age of 42 in a road traffic accident.

Thematically, Nosferatu is seen by some film critics as representing the fear of ‘the Other’ (or suspicion of ‘Otherness’ – alien cultures, different ways of life, immigration and other socio-cultural factors).

The music captured Hans Erdmann’s original score, with some additional features designed to enhance the feature. Such features were necessary since a large proportion of the original film score has been lost.

The quality of the film was very good, moving between monochrome, sepia and blue-ish white. Whatever the scheme, Orlok – the inhuman and corpse-like vampire – remains slightly terrifying

.

Nosferatu shadow, created from a candle light. Image by Tim Sandle

The screening was very atmospheric, both for being within the cavernous cathedral and due to the live music accomplishment. Being on Halloween too add that extra special touch.

For those less enamoured with film history, a remake of Nosferatu, written and directed by Robert Eggers (who made The Lighthouse), opens in December 2024 / January 2025 (depending on territory).

Nuts! NY authorities euthanize Instagram squirrel star

By AFP
November 1, 2024

New Yorker Mark Longo said he rescued Peanut after seeing his mother killed by a car, going on to bottle feed the baby black squirrel, similar to the one pictured here - Copyright AFP/File Eva HAMBACH

A squirrel named Peanut who was propelled to the heights of internet celebrity has been euthanized, New York authorities said Friday, biting a government staffer on the way out.

With 537,000 followers on Instagram, the domesticated black squirrel had fans around the world who delighted in his exploits, such as nibbling on waffles and doffing tiny costumes.

New Yorker Mark Longo said he rescued the animal after seeing its mother killed by a car, going on to bottle feed the baby squirrel before attempting to release him into the wild.

However, the animal lost part of its tail and returned to Longo, living with him for seven years and starring in posts on the Instagram account peanut_the_squirrel12.

“Internet, you WON. You took one of the most amazing animals away from me because of your selfishness. To the group of people who called (the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation), there’s a special place in hell for you,” Longo wrote in an Instagram post.

He said he was “in shock, disbelief, and disgusted… for the last seven years, Peanut has been my best friend.”

The Chemung County Department of Health and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation said in a statement Friday that Peanut, along with a racoon living with Longo, were possessed illegally, and had been euthanized to test for rabies.

“On October 30, DEC seized a raccoon and squirrel sharing a residence with humans, creating the potential for human exposure to rabies,” the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) said.

“In addition, a person involved with the investigation was bitten by the squirrel. To test for rabies, both animals were euthanized.”

The department called on anyone exposed to the animals to consult a doctor.

Longo wrote that “the fight goes on” and called on supporters to donate to his legal bills and plans for an animal sanctuary.

TRICK OR TREAT

OpenAI releases ChatGPT search engine, taking on Google

By AFP
October 31, 2024

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that search is his favorite feature since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022 - Copyright AFP Jason Redmond

OpenAI on Thursday beefed up its ChatGPT generative AI chatbot with search engine capabilities, as the startup takes on Google’s decades-long dominance of web search.

The upgrade enables users to receive “fast, timely answers” with links to relevant web sources –- information that previously required using a traditional search engine, the company said.

The significant upgrade to ChatGPT enables the AI chatbot to provide real-time information from across the web.

ChatGPT’s homepage can now also offer direct tabs to sourced material on topics ranging from weather forecasts and stock prices to sports scores and breaking news, the company said.

These would link to news and data from providers that have signed content deals with OpenAI, including France’s Le Monde, Germany’s Axel Springer and the UK’s Financial Times.

Examples of the new interface shown on the OpenAI website closely resembled search results on Google and Google Maps, though without the clutter of advertising.

They also resembled the interface of Perplexity, another AI-powered search engine that offers a more conversational version of Google with sources referenced in the answer.

Both OpenAI and Perplexity are facing lawsuits from the New York Times for scraping or linking to copyrighted content without permission.

Rather than launching a separate product, OpenAI has integrated search directly into ChatGPT for paying subscribers, though this will be expanded to users that use the free version of the chatbot.

Users can enable the search feature by default or activate it manually via a web search icon.

The company added that any website or publisher can opt-in to appear in ChatGPT’s search results, with OpenAI actively seeking feedback from content creators to refine the system further.
Favorite feature

Since their launch, data on AI chatbots like ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude have been limited by time cutoffs, so the answers provided were not up to date.

This has been seen as a weakness of AI chatbots, especially at OpenAI, which does not have a stand-alone search engine providing more timely data. In contrast, Google and Microsoft both combine AI answers with web results.

For now, the feature would not include advertising, allowing ChatGPT to offer much cleaner results than Google.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote Thursday on X that search is his “favorite feature we have launched” on ChatGPT since the bot’s debut in 2022.

“I find it to be a way faster/easier way to get the information I’m looking for,” Altman added on Reddit.

The launch will raise more questions about the startup’s link to Microsoft, a major OpenAI investor, which is also trying to expand the reach of its Bing search engine against Google.

Altman has set his company on a path to become an internet powerhouse.

He successfully catapulted the company to a staggering $157 billion valuation in a recent round of fundraising that included Microsoft, Tokyo-based conglomerate SoftBank and AI chipmaker Nvidia as investors.

Enticing new users with search engine capabilities will increase the company’s computing needs and costs, which are enormous.

Climate shifts and urbanisation drive Nepal dengue surge


By AFP
November 1, 2024

A patient undergoes treatment for dengue in Nepal, where more than 28,000 have been infected by the mosquito-borne illness so far this year - Copyright AFP PRAKASH MATHEMA
Paavan MATHEMA

Nepal is fighting a surge in dengue cases, a potentially deadly disease once unheard of in the country’s high-altitude Himalayan regions, as climate change and urbanisation nurture fever-bringing mosquitoes in new zones.

Only a single case of dengue was recorded in Nepal in 2004. Two decades later, thousands of cases are being reported across the country.

Once confined to tropical regions in the country’s plains, dengue-carrying mosquitoes have begun breeding in the valleys and even cool mountainous areas, reaching elevations where its bite was once unknown.

Twelve people have died and more than 28,000 people have been infected this year, including 18 cases in Solukhumbu district, home to Mount Everest.

Doctors say the real number might be higher, as not everyone is tested.

“It should not be seen here at all,” Suman Tiwari, district health chief for Solukhumbu, which sits at an altitude of some 2,500 metres (8,202 feet).

“What is surprising is that some people with no travel history have also tested positive for dengue”.

In the worst cases, dengue causes intense viral fevers that trigger bleeding, internally or from the mouth and nose.

The capital Kathmandu, at an elevation of approximately 1,400 metres (4,600 feet), has seen over 4,000 cases.

“Unfortunately, it is expanding itself geographically,” said Sher Bahadur Pun, a doctor at Kathmandu’s Sukraraj Tropical and Infectious Disease Hospital.

“Once upon a time, it was just seen in a certain area, but it is moving up towards mountainous regions, even up to the Himalayan foothills.”



– ‘Grown exponentially’ –



In some districts, hospitals have been overwhelmed with dengue patients suffering from crippling fevers, body aches and rashes.

“In the last decade, it has grown exponentially,” Pun said.

“After every outbreak, the number of infected people has increased… and my experience is that after every outbreak, it has become more deadly.”

In October, the UN health agency said the number of reported dengue cases worldwide has approximately doubled each year since 2021, with over 12.3 million cases, including more than 7,900 deaths, reported in just the first eight months of 2024.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called the global spread an “alarming trend”.

Experts say changes in temperature and rainfall patterns driven by climate change and urbanisation are creating favourable conditions for Aedes aegypti, the mosquito responsible for transmitting dengue.

That means it can survive and breed at higher elevations.

Narayan Gyawali, a virologist who specialises in zoonotic diseases, said that urbanisation and increased mobility of people were also driving the dengue surge.

“When microclimates are established with urbanisation in new areas, internal temperatures become warm and there is humidity,” Gyawali said.

“A favourable environment is created for breeding and survival.”



– ‘Injustice’ –



This is the third consecutive year that Nepal has seen a dengue outbreak — an apparent shift from cyclical patterns where outbreaks are expected every two to three years.

The country’s worst outbreak was in 2022, with 88 deaths and nearly 55,000 cases, according to government figures.

Last year, 20 people died, with more than 50,000 cases.

“Dengue used to be reported in a cyclical trend, but in the last few years, it has been seen every year,” said Gokarna Dahal of the Health Ministry’s Epidemiology and Disease Control Division.

“Our preparation now is to fight with it every year”.

Dahal said it was an “injustice” that a developing country like Nepal — which makes a minimal contribution towards the burning of fossil fuels driving the planet’s warming — should shoulder greater impacts of climate change.

Meenakshi Ganguly, from Human Rights Watch, said that while the primary responsibility to protect its public’s health lies with Nepal, countries most responsible for global emissions also have an obligation.

“Those countries which are primarily responsible for global emissions need to do a lot more to protect people in countries like Nepal from the consequences of global warming,” Ganguly said.

“Combatting mosquito-borne diseases like dengue, which are spreading fast to new areas, needs to be part of that.”