It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, February 08, 2020
REVENGE Pangolin identified as potential link for coronavirus spread
AFP
The endangered pangolin may be the link that facilitated the spread of the novel coronavirus across China, Chinese scientists said Friday.
Researchers have long suspected that the virus, which has now killed more than 630 people and infected some 31,000, was passed from an animal to a human at a market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.
Researchers at the South China Agricultural University have identified the scaly mammal as a "potential intermediate host," the university said in a statement, without providing further details.
The new virus is believed to have originated in bats, but researchers have suggested there could have been an "intermediate host" in the transmission to humans.
After testing more than 1,000 samples from wild animals, scientists from the university found the genome sequences of viruses found on pangolins to be 99 percent identical to those on coronavirus patients, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
The pangolin is considered the most trafficked animal on the planet and more than one million have been snatched from Asian and African forests in the past decade, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
They are destined for markets in China and Vietnam, where their scales are used in traditional medicine -- despite having no medical benefits -- and their meat is bought on the black market.
- Shadowy wildlife trade -
Experts on Friday called for the Chinese scientists to release more data from their research.
Simply reporting the similarity between the genome sequences of viruses is "not sufficient," said James Wood, a veterinary medicine professor at the University of Cambridge.
Wood said the results could have been caused by "contamination from a highly infected environment."
"We would need to see all of the genetic data to get a feel for how related the human and pangolin viruses are," Jonathan Bell, a professor of molecular virology at the University of Nottingham, said.
China in January ordered a temporary ban on the trade in wild animals until the epidemic is under control.
The country has long been accused by conservationists of tolerating a shadowy trade in endangered animals for food or as ingredients in traditional medicines.
"If we want to do everything in our power to prevent deadly disease outbreaks such as coronavirus, then a permanent ban on wildlife trade, in China, and around the world, is the only solution," said Neil D'Cruze, global head of wildlife research at World Animal Protection.
A price list that circulated on China's internet for a business at the Wuhan market showed a menagerie of animals or animal-based products including live foxes, crocodiles, wolf puppies, giant salamanders, snakes, rats, peacocks, porcupines, camel meat and other game -- 112 items in all.
The SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) virus that killed hundreds of people in China and Hong Kong in 2002-03 also has been traced to wild animals, with scientists saying it likely originated in bats, later reaching humans via civets.
"Working to end the trade in wildlife can help to resolve some of the longer-term risks associated with animal reservoirs of zoonoses," Wood said, referring to infectious diseases that can be passed between animals and humans.
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Pangolin Suspect #1 as direct source of coronavirus outbreak
Researchers at the South China Agricultural University have identified the scaly pangolin as a 'potential intermediate host' for the virus
Chinese researchers investigating the animal origin of the deadly coronavirus outbreak in China said Friday the endangered pangolin may be the "missing link" between bats and humans, but other scientists said the search may not be over.
An earlier study—since discredited—pointed to snakes, and there remain numerous candidate species in the Wuhan wildlife market thought to be ground zero of the epidemic.
The SARS outbreak of 2002-3, involving a different strain of coronavirus, was transferred to humans by the civet, a small mammal prized in China for its flesh.
Missing link: A pangolin?
Many animals are capable of transmitting viruses to other species, and nearly all strains of the coronavirus contagious to humans originated in wildlife.
Bats are known carriers of the latest strain of the disease, which has infected at least 31,000 people and killed more than 630 worldwide, mostly in China where the outbreak originate.
A recent genetic analysis showed that the strain of the virus currently spreading among humans was 96 percent identical to that found in bats.
But according to Arnaud Fontanet, from France's Pasteur Institute, the disease likely didn't jump straight from bats to humans.
"We think there's another animal that's an intermediary," he told AFP.
Several studies have shown that the bat-bourne virus lacks the necessary hardware to latch on to human cell receptors. But it's still not clear which animal is the missing link.
Fontanet believes the intermediary was "probably a mammal," possible belonging to the badger family.
After testing more than 1,000 samples from wild animals, scientists at the South China Agricultural University found the genome sequences of viruses in pangolins to be 99 percent identical to those on coronavirus patients, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
But other experts urged caution.
"This is not scientific evidence," said James Wood, head of the department of veterinary medicine at the University of Cambridge. "Investigations into animal reservoirs are extremely important, but results must be then be published for international scrutiny."
"Simply reporting detection of viral RNA with sequence similarity of 99+ percent is not sufficient," he added.
Wild goose chase?
To conclusively identify the culprit, researchers would need to test each species that was on sale at the market—a near impossibility given that it's now permanently closed.
Martine Peeters, a virologist at France's Institute for Research and Development (IRD), worked on the team that identified the host animal of the Ebola virus during recent epidemics.
Graphic on pangolins, the world's most heavily trafficked mammals.
They found that it was indeed a bat that passed the virus on to humans, and Peeters believes that's likely to be the case this time around.
During her Ebola research, "we collected thousands of bat dropping from several sites in Africa," Peeters told AFP.
Fontanet said that Chinese researchers were doing likewise now.
"They say they've analysed samples from a rubbish truck," he said. "They don't say which, but I think it's likely to have been excrement that was just lying around."
Why does it matter?
While it may be too late for this outbreak, identifying the carrier animal for the novel coronavirus could prove vital in preventing future flare ups.
China for example outlawed the sale of civet for food in the wake of the SARS epidemic.
Eric Leroy, a virologist and vet at the IRD said the search could well turn up a result quickly like in the case of SARS. Equally, it could take years.
"With Ebola, research started in 1976 and we didn't see the first results published until 2005," he told AFP.
One determining factor could be what percentage of the same species are infected.
"If that's low, less than one percent for example, that's obviously going to lower the chance you stumble upon an infected animal," said Leroy.
Prevent future outbreaks?
For Fontanet, coronavirus is just the latest example of the potentially disastrous consequence of humans consuming virus-carrying wild animals.
He said that China needed to "take pretty radical measures against the sale of wild animals in markets."
Beijing has prohibited the practice, but only moved to do so last month, when the outbreak was already out of control.
"Each time, we try to put out the fire, and once it's out we await the next one," said Francois Renaud, a researcher at the Paris-based National Centre for Scientific Research.
He recommended compiling a watch list of all animals that could potentially transmit viruses to humans.
"You need to see epidemics before they come, and therefore you need to be proactive," he said.
We learned this lesson during the H1N1 Pandemic aparently the lesson needs to be repeated over and over
since this is also the way Norovirus spreads. by David L. Chandler, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Based on their study, the authors found that focusing efforts to increase handwashing rates at just 10 airports chosen based on the location of the outbreak could significantly reduce disease spread. In these maps, they show the airports that would be targeted for outbreaks originating near Honolulu, Hawaii, or Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
A new study estimates that improving the rates of handwashing by travelers passing through just 10 of the world's leading airports could significantly reduce the spread of many infectious diseases. And the greater the improvement in people's handwashing habits at airports, the more dramatic the effect on slowing the disease, the researchers found.
The findings, which deal with infectious diseases in general including the flu, were published in late December, just before the recent coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China, but the study's authors say that its results would apply to any such disease and are relevant to the current outbreak.
The study, which is based on epidemiological modeling and data-based simulations, appears in the journal Risk Analysis. The authors are Professor Christos Nicolaides PhD '14 of the University of Cyprus, who is also a fellow at the MIT Sloan School of Management; Professor Ruben Juanes of MIT's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering; and three others.
People can be surprisingly casual about washing their hands, even in crowded locations like airports where people from many different locations are touching surfaces such as chair armrests, check-in kiosks, security checkpoint trays, and restroom doorknobs and faucets. Based on data from previous research by groups including the American Society for Microbiology, the team estimates that on average, only about 20 percent of people in airports have clean hands—meaning that they have been washed with soap and water, for at least 15 seconds, within the last hour or so. The other 80 percent are potentially contaminating everything they touch with whatever germs they may be carrying, Nicolaides says.
"Seventy percent of the people who go to the toilet wash their hands afterwards," Nicolaides says, about findings from a previous ASM study. "The other 30 percent don't. And of those that do, only 50 percent do it right." Others just rinse briefly in some water, rather than using soap and water and spending the recommended 15 to 20 seconds washing, he says. That figure, combined with estimates of exposure to the many potentially contaminated surfaces that people come into contact with in an airport, leads to the team's estimate that about 20 percent of travelers in an airport have clean hands.
Improving handwashing at all of the world's airports to triple that rate, so that 60 percent of travelers to have clean hands at any given time, would have the greatest impact, potentially slowing global disease spread by almost 70 percent, the researchers found. Deploying such measures at so many airports and reaching such a high level of compliance may be impractical, but the new study suggests that a significant reduction in disease spread could still be achieved by just picking the 10 most significant airports based on the initial location of a viral outbreak. Focusing handwashing messaging in those 10 airports could potentially slow the disease spread by as much as 37 percent, the researchers estimate.
They arrived at these estimates using detailed epidemiological simulations that involved data on worldwide flights including duration, distance, and interconnections; estimates of wait times at airports; and studies on typical rates of interactions of people with various elements of their surroundings and with other people.
Even small improvements in hygiene could make a noticeable dent. Increasing the prevalence of clean hands in all airports worldwide by just 10 percent, which the researchers think could potentially be accomplished through education, posters, public announcements, and perhaps improved access to handwashing facilities, could slow the global rate of the spread of a disease by about 24 percent, they found. Numerous studies (such as this one) have shown that such measures can increase rates of proper handwashing, Nicolaides says.
"Eliciting an increase in hand-hygiene is a challenge," he says, "but new approaches in education, awareness, and social-media nudges have proven to be effective in hand-washing engagement."
The researchers used data from previous studies on the effectiveness of handwashing in controlling transmission of disease, so Juanes says these data would have to be calibrated in the field to obtain refined estimates of the slow-down in spreading of a specific outbreak.
The findings are consistent with recommendations made by both the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization. Both have indicated that hand hygiene is the most efficient and cost-effective way to control disease propagation. While both organizations say that other measures can also play a useful role in limiting disease spread, such as use of surgical face masks, airport closures, and travel restrictions, hand hygiene is still the first line of defense—and an easy one for individuals to implement.
While the potential of better hand hygiene in controlling transmission of diseases between individuals has been extensively studied and proven, this study is one of the first to quantitatively assess the effectiveness of such measures as a way to mitigate the risk of a global epidemic or pandemic, the authors say.
The researchers identified 120 airports that are the most influential in spreading disease, and found that these are not necessarily the ones with the most overall traffic. For example, they cite the airports in Tokyo and Honolulu as having an outsized influence because of their locations. While they respectively rank 46th and 117th in terms of overall traffic, they can contribute significantly to the spread of disease because they have direct connections to some of the world's biggest airport hubs, they have long-range direct international flights, and they sit squarely between the global East and West.
For any given disease outbreak, identifying the 10 airports from this list that are the closest to the location of the outbreak, and focusing handwashing education at those 10 turned out to be the most effective way of limiting the disease spread, they found.
Nicolaides says that one important step that could be taken to improve handwashing rates and overall hygiene at airports would be to have handwashing sinks available at many more locations, especially outside of the restrooms where surfaces tend to be highly contaminated. In addition, more frequent cleaning of surfaces that are contacted by many people could be helpful.
This story is republished courtesy of MIT News (web.mit.edu/newsoffice/), a popular site that covers news about MIT research, innovation and teaching. 328 shares
Research voyage brings Zealandia secrets to the surface
Fresh evidence of how the continent of Zealandia was created has been published by an international team of scientists co-led by Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington's Professor Rupert Sutherland.
The research both upends the previous theory and establishes a new geological concept.
Professor Sutherland from the University's School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences was part of the team of predominantly GNS Science researchers that made global headlines in 2017 when they announced Zealandia should count as a new fully-fledged continent, Earth's seventh and smallest.
New Zealand to the south and New Caledonia to the north are the only major land masses of the otherwise mostly underwater Zealandia, which, at 4.9 million square kilometers, is about two-thirds the size of Australia.
Its continental crust is mostly between 10 and 30 kilometers thick, which is thinner than the 30 to 45 kilometers of the six other continents, yet thicker than oceanic crust, which is about seven kilometers thick.
The first scientific drilling expedition to Zealandia in 1972 hypothesized it was underwater after its crust was stretched, thinned and ripped away from the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana (which included Australia and Antarctica) about 85 million years ago.
Although evidence remains compelling that this was at least part of the case, new samples collected and tested by Professor Sutherland and his colleagues during a nine-week Tasman Sea voyage under the auspices of the International Ocean Discovery Program indicate a key additional factor: Zealandia's subsequent modification during the formation of the Pacific Ring of Fire about 50 million years ago.
The Pacific Ring of Fire is a zone of volcanoes and earthquakes that result from the geological process of subduction, where a tectonic plate sinks back deep into the Earth. The process by which the zone formed has always been a mystery.
"We propose that a 'subduction rupture event' propagated around the whole of the western Pacific at that time," says Professor Sutherland. "We suggest the process was similar to a massive super-slow earthquake that resurrected ancient subduction faults that had lain dormant for many millions of years. This concept of 'subduction resurrection' is a new idea and may help explain a range of different geological observations."
As a result of the Pacific Ring of Fire, "things that were in 1,000 meters of water came up to sea level and then subsided down to be more than 1,000 meters deep again," he says. "The permanent effects included the New Caledonia Trough that comes all the way to Taranaki."
Professor Sutherland's team included more than 30 scientists from New Zealand, the United States, Italy, Spain, New Caledonia, China, the Netherlands, Germany, Brazil, Japan, the United Kingdom and South Korea. He co-led it with Professor Gerald Dickens from Rice University in Texas in the United States.
They used a 300-tonne drill to make six boreholes up to 900 meters below the sea floor, from which rock and sediment cores were collected and analyzed for clues about the timing and length of Zealandia's uplift.
"We used fossils from three of the sites to show that northern Zealandia became much shallower and likely even had land areas between 50 and 35 million years ago. At about the same time, two other sites subsided into deeper water, and then the whole region subsided by at least a kilometer to its present depth," says Professor Sutherland.
The team's evidence shows that events such as the creation of the Pacific Ring of Fire "can dramatically alter the geography of continents, and the sedimentary record preserved on Zealandia will help us figure out in more detail how and why it happened, and what the consequences were for plants, animals, and regional climate."
More information: R. Sutherland et al. Continental-scale geographic change across Zealandia during Paleogene subduction initiation, Geology (2020). DOI: 10.1130/G47008.1
New research to help identify safe sites for nuclear waste storage
Nigardsbreen glacier, Norway. Credit: Dr Darrel Swift
New insights into rates of bedrock erosion by glaciers around the world will help to identify better sites for the safe storage of nuclear waste, according to researchers.
A new analysis of global glacier erosion rates and flow speeds by scientists at the University of Sheffield, University of Dundee and Keele University has overturned previous findings about the link between glacial flow and erosion rates.
Published in Nature Communications today, the findings confirm the importance of glacier flow speed in determining the rate of glacial erosion. But in an unexpected result, the scientists show that the increase in erosion rate with glacier flow speed occurs much more slowly than previously thought.
Dr. Darrel Swift, a member of the Energy Institute at the University of Sheffield, said: "As glaciers flow downhill, they slide over the bedrock beneath, causing the bedrock to be eroded. This analysis shows that a glacier that flows twice as fast as its neighbor does not necessarily produce twice the rate of bedrock erosion.
"This may be because, as glacier flow speed increases, spaces between the ice and the bed are formed in the lee of bedrock bumps. This means that the base of the glacier begins to separate from, or lose contact with, the bed.
"This effect has been suggested by some to enhance the rate of erosion, because it increases the stress placed by sliding ice on the few lumps of bedrock that remain in contact with the glacier's base. However, it is perfectly possible that this effect is negated by the fact that less and less of the bed is in contact with sliding ice."
For the first time, the analysis also shows the clear importance of local temperature and precipitation in determining glacial erosion rates at the global scale.
Dr. Swift explained: "The speed of glacier flow is important because this dictates how fast ice at the base of the glacier slides over the bedrock beneath.
"But a glacier also has to keep its bed clean. This is because sediment produced by erosion can accumulate at the glacier bed, and the accumulation of a thick sediment layer would eventually slow the rate of erosion. Warmer and wetter environments may help glaciers to wash their beds because glacial melt will likely be more abundant, and this means sliding ice will maintain closer contact with bedrock."
The findings help to explain patterns of glacial erosion produced by glaciers and larger ice caps or ice sheets, which are responsible for creating spectacular Alpine landscapes—and also have implications for the safe long-term storage of hazardous nuclear waste.
Dr. Swift, who has advised organizations responsible for the siting and development of deep geological nuclear waste disposal facilities, said: "For many countries, underground storage of hazardous nuclear waste in a deep geological facility is the accepted safest solution. Organisations responsible for finding suitable sites for these facilities, and for designing the necessary underground infrastructure, must ensure that future glacial erosion will not adversely affect the facility's integrity.
"Advancing ice during future glacial periods could, over many hundreds of thousands of years, remove many hundreds of meters of bedrock. This would likely affect the environment of the disposal facility beneath, where nuclear waste can remain dangerous for over 100,000 years.
"In many countries, otherwise ideal sites for the development of deep geological disposal facilities are in areas that have previously been covered by ice. This means that those sites will likely experience glaciation, and glacial erosion, in the future."
More information: Simon J. Cook et al. The empirical basis for modelling glacial erosion rates, Nature Communications (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-14583-8
Meet the 71-year-old staging a one-man protest in his Trump-loving retirement community
For most of his life, Ed McGinty kept his political beliefs to himself.
Ed McGinty is a rare protester in the Trump stronghold of The Villages. “When Trump won, it changed the whole ballgame for me,” McGinty says. “I thought to myself, ‘This was supposed to be a joke. What’s wrong with these people?’ ” (Chris Stanley)
Raised Irish Catholic in Philadelphia, the 71-year-old retired real estate broker has always been a Democrat, just like his parents before him. But the last time he remembers being especially politically motivated was when Hubert Humphrey ran against Richard Nixon in 1968. After that, he’d wake up the morning after Election Day, find out George W. Bush or another Republican had won and say, “Okay, well, back to work.”
Then Donald Trump was elected.
“When Trump won, it changed the whole ballgame for me,” McGinty told The Washington Post. “I thought to myself, ‘This was supposed to be a joke. What’s wrong with these people?’ ”
In the three years since then, the once-quiet political observer has transformed into the best-known Trump protester in The Villages, a sprawling, meticulously planned and maintained retirement community that lies about 45 miles northwest of Orlando. McGinty’s daily vigil with signs blasting the president as a “SEXUAL PREDATOR” (among other things) has drawn ire in the Trump-loving Florida town he has called home since 2016. It has also brought viral fame.
For his one-man protest against the president, McGinty has been berated as a baby killer and a “dumb a--,” decried in letters to the editor of a local news site and hit with an anonymous, handwritten threat — a sign that even a town that is described as Disney World for retirees and markets itself as “Florida’s Friendliest Hometown” is not immune to the divisiveness of this political era.
“There was always a divide, but we coexisted,” said Chris Stanley, president of The Villages Democratic Club. “There would be some good-natured back and forth, but your neighbors were your friends. You’d have dinner with the Republicans because it wasn’t a big deal. … These days, the division in the country shows up best in The Villages because now the Republicans, they won’t golf with you anymore, or you don’t want to golf with them.”
The 120,000-person enclave is a Trump stronghold in a county the president carried by nearly 70 percent, where Republicans outnumber Democrats two to one and golf carts — the main mode of transportation — are adorned with Trump bumper stickers. A regular stop for GOP politicians and hopefuls, it is Republican to its roots, created by billionaire conservative developer H. Gary Morse, who donated millions of dollars to the party’s candidates and committees before his death in 2014.
Even employees of The Villages have been pressured to support the Republican cause, according to Politico Magazine, which noted in a 2018 feature on the community that the development firm encouraged them to donate to Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign to show that “The Villages family is ‘all in.’ ”
Jerry Prince, president of The Villages Republican Club, disputed the notion that the town has become highly politicized as a result of Trump’s rise, saying that most political disagreements are benign and short-lived. He supports the president but has maintained friendships with people who do not.
“There’s radicals on both sides, okay,” he said. “And I’ve heard of people wearing a Trump hat and somebody berates them, and I’ve seen the Republican side berate people to the left down here. They would have done that if they were in New York, or wherever the hell they came from.”
In McGinty’s telling, however, merely wearing an Elizabeth Warren hat cost him the friendly relationship he shared with a neighbor who used to give treats to his dogs. The man demanded he stop wearing the Warren hat — “and that was what really began my quest,” McGinty said. He called it “the defining day of my life as far as protesting.”
Soon after that encounter, he added the first of many anti-Trump signs to his golf cart, which previously was decorated only with stickers bearing the Penn State logo and his and his wife’s names. He rode around undeterred and even amused by the response: People shouting obscenities and giving him the finger, along with the occasional thumbs-up.
These days, McGinty devotes about two hours a day to protesting, crashing rallies planned by the Villagers for Trump group and parking his golf cart in well-trafficked areas where people are most likely to see his signs: “TRUMP BIGOT AND RACIST,” “TRUMP IS A SEXUAL PREDATOR” and “TRUMP COMPULSIVE LIAR.” He said he rotates between about 30 posters carrying various anti-Trump sentiments. He sits in his cart reading while he puts them on display, enjoying the confrontations that follow.
His critics call it deranged. Stanley calls it “something that’s coming from his soul.”
McGinty said he watched Trump’s career in New York and was appalled by his tabloid-fodder infidelity. During the 2016 election, he was angered anew by the then-candidate’s mocking of a disabled reporter, which was personal, McGinty said, because he has a sister with a disability.
He thinks Trump is immoral and unqualified, and he is frustrated by his community’s vehement support for him.
“These people down here are emboldened because there’s so many of them,” McGinty said. “And they really try to intimidate any Democrat that even sticks his head above water.”
His chief adversary — Villagers for Trump, which hosts frequent sign wavings and turns out for visits from MAGA stars including George Papadopoulos and Roger Stone, both convicted in the special counsel investigation into Russian election interference — did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.
But Stanley, the Democratic club president, agreed that opposition to Democrats has become more forceful. She said her 800-member group has always had to rent office space outside of The Villages, unable to get a lease in town. But now the partisan divide has gotten “ugly,” she said, pointing to video of a man pulling down an anti-Trump protester who had climbed onto a bench during a rally for the president’s October visit to the town
She’s started new golf and dinner clubs for Democrats whose previous social circles were casualties of the 2016 election.
“If the rest of the country is as ugly as it is here,” Stanley said, “that’s terrifying.”
Tension over McGinty’s protest hit new heights last week, when he found a threatening letter on his front door. “BE VERY CAREFUL IF THE WELL BEING OF YOUR FAMILY IS OF IMPORTANCE,” it read. The Sumter County Sheriff’s Office took a report on the “vague threat,” noting that “Mr. McGinty advised he had no idea who had composed the note, but thought it was due to his political views.”
Days later, video of an exchange between McGinty and a woman who said she would “defend Trump until the day I die” went viral on Twitter, earning him notice outside of the Villages bubble.
“Do you live in a cave, lady?” he asked, closing the book he’d been reading: “A Very Stable Genius,” by Post reporters Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig.
There were honks and name-calling. Hill announced that she was going to send the video to Trump and his son, Donald Trump Jr. McGinty responded, “Good. And tell Donald Trump to come down here. I want to punch him right in the nose.”
“This guy should be arrested,” Hill told Villages-News.com, accusing McGinty of defamation. “You can’t say that about the president with no proof.”
But when she posted footage of the confrontation on Twitter, tagging conservative radio commentator and failed Florida congressional candidate Dan Bongino, people ridiculed her and rallied around McGinty.
“THIS GUY IS AN AMERICAN HERO!!” said one representative tweet. McGinty’s own sparsely used Twitter account (pinned tweet: “I can’t wait for the presidential election #GoodbyeTrump”) picked up nearly 20,000 followers. Hill briefly locked hers (bio: “Trumpateer. MAGA2020”), writing in a tweet that “Twitter liberals are the meanest” and that she had been harassed.
In letters to the editor of the local news site, one of McGinty’s neighbors suggested that he was “suffering from a devastating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome” and called his new Twitter fans “lemming Trump haters.” Another noted that his speech is protected by the Constitution, “besides the fact that I whole heartedly agree with him.” A third said the “rabid fans of Trump have made living in The Villages intolerable,” while a fourth brought up Hillary Clinton, imagining a “disastrous future” if she had been elected and brought “her rapist husband back into the White House.”
Prince, of the Republican club, told The Post he wasn’t familiar with McGinty, and doesn’t get agitated by protesters anyway.
“The thing I say is, ‘This is America and you can think what you want,’ ” he said.
For his part, McGinty was back in his golf cart this week with his “TRUMP COMPULSIVE LIAR” sign. During an hour-long phone interview with a Post reporter on Wednesday, he was approached by a man who hurled an insult not fit for print (McGinty responded in kind) and by a woman who called him “my hero.” He handed her the phone.
“I had to come over and shake his hand,” she said, declining to give her name. “I just admire him for being so courageous.”
It was just another day in the lonesome stand against Trump: Angry opposition, quiet praise and McGinty in the middle, reveling in it all. His wife worries, his neighbors think he’s crazy and some of his friendships have suffered.
But he said he has no intention of stopping: His newfound activism is one of the things he’s most proud of in his life.
“I’m proud that I’m standing up for what’s right,” he said. “There’s never been a doubt in my mind that what I’m doing is right.”
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A few climate models are now predicting an unprecedented and alarming spike in temperatures — perhaps as much as 5 degrees Celsius
New projections suggest the doubling of CO₂ in the earth's atmosphere could lead to an increase in global temperatures around 5°C. Gian-Reto Tarnutzer/Unsplash
A handful of climate projections are predicting much higher rise in global temperatures than scientists have seen in the models before. While there's concern over the number, some scientists hope the latest projections are outliers.
A 2-degree rise in temperature could lead sea level to jump, coral reefs to die, and water to become dangerously scarce in some parts of the world. Some models right now predict a 5-degree rise.
Several recent climate models have suggested the Earth's climate could warm to a far higher temperature than scientists previously predicted, according to a report from Bloomberg.
The startling anomaly first appeared in models from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), which suggested that if Earth's atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentration doubles (as it's expected to do by the end of the century), the planet could wind up 5.3 degrees hotter. That's 33% higher than the group's previous estimate.
About a fifth of new climate-model results published in the past year have indicated similarly stark global temperature spikes, according to Bloomberg. The UK-based Met Office Hadley Center predicted a 5.5 degrees of warming, the US Department of Energy calculated a 5.3°-degree jump, French scientists estimated a 4.9-degree increase, and a model from Canadian scientists predicted the largest rise: 5.6 degrees
Scientists hope the models are an "overshot," Bloomberg reported. It will take scientists a significant amount time – at least months – to figure out how to interpret the results.
The climate models estimate "climate sensitivity," which tells scientists how much warmer the planet will get as a result of rising CO₂ concentrations. For four decades, the expected temperature rise if CO2 levels double has been about 3 degrees.
These models have a proven track record of accurately forecasting climate change. A recent study from the American Geophysical Union found that climate projections over the past five decades have largely been accurate — actual climate observations aligned with the models' predictions.
Still, there's a hope among climate scientists that the new projections are outliers. About a dozen other models are still due to be released, Bloomberg reported, and they could help paint a clearer picture.
"We hope it's not the right answer," Klaus Wyser, a senior researcher at the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute told Bloomberg.
In the 2015 Paris climate agreement — from which President Donald Trump has started to withdraw the US —countries pledged to reduce carbon emissions in order to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees. It also established a more ambitious goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees, but that's likely now out of reach given that the planet has already warmed by about 1 degree.
If global temperatures rise by 2 degrees, models predict, sea levels would get 1.6 feet higher, global heatwaves would become far more common, and subtropical areas could lose a third of their supply of fresh water. Nearly all aquatic life in oceans worldwide would be impacted; 99% of coral reefs could die.
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It’s T-Shirt Weather in Antarctica as Temperature ...
A screen showing Chinese President Xi Jinping at a symposium
in Hong Kong in February 2019. Kin Cheung/AP
China has framed its fight against the Wuhan coronavirus as a national struggle and a "people's war." But its leader, President Xi Jinping, has been nowhere near the front lines. His right hand man, Premier Li Keqiang, has been dispatched instead. Some Communist officials have sought to portray Xi as an invisible force guiding the fight from afar. But experts say Xi could be staying hidden to protect himself from public anger. Citizens have accused the government of suppressing information about the virus, and punishing people who did speak out.
The outbreak of the deadly Wuhan coronavirus is sorely testing the Chinese Communist Party's grip on power.
With more than 630 people dead, citizens have turned their anger on their rulers, accusing the government of covering up the epidemic in its early days.
And the country's leader, President Xi Jinping, is nowhere to be found.
Xi has issued multiple statements about the virus, characterizing the battle against the disease as a patriotic national struggle, but has made no public or on-camera appearances.
He has called the fight against the coronavirus a "people's war" that requires "resolute actions," according to state media reports. Multipleofficials have praised Xi's leadership in their speeches and meetings about the virus — but Xi has not been seen on the front lines once
Instead, he's sent his right hand man, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. In late January Li visited Wuhan, where the virus originated, to rally workers at a local hospital and at a construction site of a new hospital panic-built to accommodate more patients.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, (center) wears a mask while speaking to medical worker at the Jinyintan hospital in Wuhan on January 27. cnsphoto via Reuters
Wuhan's mayor, Zhou Xianwang, has offered himself up as a scapegoat, offering lat month to step down to placate locals' anger at the outbreak.
(One such citizen who was censured for discussing the virus was Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist in Wuhan who warned his colleagues in late December of the outbreak. Local police later had him sign a letter admitting to "making false comments." He died of the coronavirus on Friday, sparking a public outpouring of grief.)
In other words, Xi is staying as far as possible from China's biggest crisis in years. In a country where he is considered the sole leader and dominant presence, it's obvious.
Experts say he is likely trying to ensure he can keep his grip on power even if the coronavirus destroys citizens' faith in the Communist Party.
"If the situation improves, he will take credit. If it worsens the blame will be pinned on Li Keqiang," Willy Lam, an adjunct professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, told The Guardian.
"The central government may be still in an active process in gauging when it's appropriate for Xi to appear to take the reins of the coronavirus fighting efforts," Rui Zhong, a China expert at the Wilson Center, told CNN's James Griffiths.
Medical staff rally in Wuhan before starting work in a newly-built hospital. Feature China/Barcroft Media via Getty Images
Bill Bishop, author of the Sinocism newsletter, suggested that seeing Xi wear a mask in public — as almost the entire country is now required to do — could weaken his image as leader.
"One of the key political tasks of all party members is to protect the core, i.e. Xi Jinping, and while you would think the 'people's leader' would want to be seen close to the people, perhaps in this case the risk of him catching the virus may be too high, and images of him wearing a mask might be anathema to the propaganda wizards," he said.
"That said, I do not know what is going on," Bishop continued. "I will bet that Xi and the other top leaders in the Party and the military understand that they either all hang together in this crisis or they may all hang separately, to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin."
Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at SOAS University of London, told Al Jazeera that Xi handled the crisis "very badly."
"You can't have him as the undisputed, unchallenged leader of China on one hand, and then say that in his watch, under his charge, the virus is being handled badly and it's got nothing to do with him," he said.
China's leadership appears to understand the gravity of the coronavirus and the challenge it presents to its power.
The official account of a Monday meeting of the Communist Party's Politburo Standing Committee — a body comprising the country's top leadership, chaired by Xi — said: "The outbreak is a major test of China's system and capacity for governance, and we must sum up the experience and draw a lesson from it."
The same meeting also acknowledged "shortcomings and deficiencies exposed in the response to this epidemic," and pledged to improve the country's emergency management system — a rare admission of fault in an authoritarian nation.
Members of the Politburo Standing Committee, including Xi and Li Keqiang (fourth and fifth from left) at Beijing's Great Hall of the People in October 2017. AP Photo/Ng Han Guan
But is it too late for the Communist Party to recoup its image?
Earlier this week, many people on Chinese social media had already started drawing attention to Xi's absence, asking euphemistically: "Where is that person?"
They posted images of former leaders responding to past crises on the ground, The New York Times reported, seeming to highlight the different approach taken by Xi.
An unnamed person in Wuhan wrote on Weibo earlier this week: "I know before long this country will go back to being a peaceful, prosperous society. We will hear many people screaming how proud they are of its prosperity and power ... But after what I have witnessed, I refuse to watch the applause and commendation."
It's a bold thing to say on Weibo, which often censors and removes content deemed politically sensitive, and in China, where people are frequently detained or disappeared.
Defective software could have doomed Boeing's crew capsule
by Marcia Dunn
ANOTHER BOEING SOFTWARE SCREW UP
In this Sunday, Dec. 22, 2019 photo made available by NASA, Boeing, NASA, and U.S. Army personnel work around the Boeing Starliner spacecraft shortly after it landed in White Sands, N.M. On Friday, Feb. 7, 2020, NASA said defective software could have doomed the crew capsule during its first test flight that ended up being cut short. (Bill Ingalls/NASA via AP)
Defective software could have doomed Boeing's crew capsule during its first test flight, a botched trip that was cut short and never made it to the International Space Station, NASA and company officials said Friday.
The Starliner capsule launched without astronauts in December, but its automatic timer was off by 11 hours, preventing the capsule from flying to the space station as planned. This software trouble—which left the capsule in the wrong orbit just after liftoff—set off a scramble to find more possible coding errors, Boeing officials said.
Hours before the Starliner's scheduled touchdown, a second software mistake was discovered, this time involving the Starliner's service module. Flight controllers rushed to fix the problem, which could have caused the cylinder to slam into the capsule once jettisoned during reentry.
Such an impact could have sent the Starliner into a tumble, said Jim Chilton, a senior vice president for Boeing. In addition, damage to the Starliner's heat shield could have caused the capsule to burn up on reentry, he noted.
He also conceded they wouldn't have found the second problem without the first.
"Nobody is more disappointed in the issues that we uncovered ... than the Starliner team," said Boeing program manager John Mulholland.
These latest findings stem from a joint investigation team formed by NASA and Boeing in the wake of the aborted test flight. The capsule returned to Earth on Dec. 22 after just two days, parachuting down to a landing in New Mexico.
The mission was supposed to be the company's last major hurdle before launching the first Starliner crew.
NASA has yet to decide whether Boeing should conduct another test flight without a crew, before putting astronauts on board. Just in case, Boeing reported last week that it took a $410 million charge in its fourth-quarter earnings, to cover a possible mission repeat.
Douglas Loverro, head of NASA's human exploration and operations mission directorate, said Boeing needs to check and verify all of its flight software before any decisions are made on a possible reflight. He told reporters NASA shares some of the blame for the software problems.
"Our NASA oversight was insufficient. That's obvious and we recognize that," he said.
The investigation team also is looking into a third problem, an intermittent space-to-ground communication problem that hampered controllers' ability to command and manage the capsule early in the flight. Interference from cellphone towers may have exacerbated the matter, Boeing officials said.
NASA said the independent review should be completed by the end of February.
Outside of this ongoing review, NASA is taking an extensive look at Boeing's culture, according to Loverro. He said it was prompted in part by software issues elsewhere in the company, an apparent reference to the grounded 737 Max fleet.
A second private company is on track to launch astronauts for NASA as early as this spring. SpaceX successfully completed a launch abort test last month at Cape Canaveral.
NASA astronauts have not launched from home soil since the space shuttle program ended in 2011, instead riding Russian rockets to get to the space station. The Soyuz seats go for tens of millions of dollars apiece.
NASA has been paying billions of dollars to Boeing and SpaceX to develop capsules capable of transporting astronauts to and from the space station. Even before Boeing's software issues, the commercial crew flights were years behind schedule. The space agency deliberately opted for two companies for redundancy, an advantage cited repeatedly Friday by NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.
Multiple software errors doomed Boeing crew capsule test AFP Multiple software issues and a poor radio link doomed a test flight of Boeing's crew capsule late last year, NASA said Friday, revealing for the first time a glitch that could have destroyed the spaceship on its re-entry.
The Starliner's December 20 mission, an uncrewed test flight, was ended early when it failed to engage its thrusters on time, due to a previously reported faulty timer.
NASA said in a statement Friday that the problem arose because it incorrectly pulled time from its Atlas V launch rocket, creating an 11-hour mismatch.
The second problem was intermittent space-to-ground communications, impeding the flight control team's ability to command and control the vehicle.
A third issue was confirmed by NASA and Boeing for the first time: a coding error in the program that governs Starliner's preparation for reentry into Earth's atmosphere.
The error would have caused the service module, which contains the spacecraft's support systems and is supposed to detach prior to re-entry, to be pushed toward the crewed module.
This could have resulted in impact, destabilizing the ship or damaging its heat shield, said Jim Chilton, senior vice president of Boeing's Space and Launch division.
The error was caught and fixed via a software patch the night before landing, said John Mulholland, project manager for the Starliner.
Douglas Loverro, a senior NASA official, said the multiple errors pointed to "insufficient" oversight by his agency, but he also added: "It looks as if there could possibly be process issues at Boeing. And so, we want to understand what the culture is at Boeing, that may have led to that."
Starliner's failure was the latest serious setback for Boeing, which is still reeling from two fatal crashes of its 737 Max aircraft. The crashes, in October 2018 in Indonesia and in March 2019 in Ethiopia, claimed a total 346 lives.
The findings of an independent review into the latest failure will be ready in late February.
NASA officials have refused to be drawn on what it all means for the future of Starliner, which is scheduled to take its first astronauts to the International Space Station in the coming months.
Meanwhile, Boeing's space rival SpaceX is preparing for its first crewed flight with its Crew Dragon, likely in the second quarter, according to boss Elon Musk.
NASA has committed to pay the two companies $8 billion in return for six trips carrying four astronauts each to the ISS. The US has relied on Russian rockets to carry its crews to the space station since ending the Space Shuttle program in 2011.
Amazon deforestation for January hits record
A handout picture released by the Communication Department of the State of Mato Grosso shows deforestation in the Amazon basin in the municipality of Colniza, Mato Grosso state, Brazil, on August 29, 2019
Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil more than doubled in January compared with the previous year, according to official data published Friday.
More than 280squarekilometers (110 square miles) were cleared, an increase of 108 percent. It was the largest area cleared in the month of January since 2015, when such data started being collected, according to Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE).
The data was collected by the INPE's satellite-based DETER system, which monitors deforestation in real time.
In comparison, 136 square kilometers were cleared in January 2019, 183 square kilometers in 2018 and 58 square kilometers in 2017.
INPE data published in mid-January found that deforestation in the Amazon in northern Brazil had soared 85 percent in 2019, clearing 9,166 square kilometers—the highest number in at least five years—versus 4,946 square kilometers cleared in 2018.
The sharp increase overlapped the first year in office of President Jair Bolsonaro, a climate change skeptic who has eased restrictions on exploiting the Amazon's vast riches.
Bolsonaro made headlines in August when he attempted to minimize the resurgence of forest fires that had shocked the world.
On August 2, INPE then-president Ricardo Galvao was sacked by Bolsonaro's administration, which accused him of exaggerating the extent of the deforestation.
On Wednesday, Bolsonaro unveiled a sweeping plan for the Amazon rainforest that would open indigenous lands to mining, farming and hydroelectric power projects.
Many NGOs said this would further increase deforestation.
The bill, which has yet to be approved by Congress, is a "dream" for the far-right leader but a "nightmare" for environmentalists and tribal leaders.
Based on their study, the authors found that focusing efforts to increase handwashing rates at just 10 airports chosen based on the location of the outbreak could significantly reduce disease spread. In these maps, they show the airports that would be targeted for outbreaks originating near Honolulu, Hawaii, or Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
