WikiLeaks Fast Facts

CNN Editorial Research  3 hrs ago

Here's a look at WikiLeaks and the trial of Chelsea Manning.

© Jack Taylor/Getty Images LONDON, ENGLAND - APRIL 11: Julian Assange gestures to the media from a police vehicle on his arrival at Westminster Magistrates court on April 11, 2019 in London, England. After weeks of speculation Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was arrested by Scotland Yard Police Officers inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in Central London this morning. Ecuador's President, Lenin Moreno, withdrew Assange's Asylum after seven years citing repeated violations to international conventions. (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images)


Facts

WikiLeaks is purportedly an organization that facilitates the anonymous leaking of secret information through its website.


It was founded in 2006 by Julian Assange, activist, computer programmer and hacker.

Chelsea Manning (born Bradley Manning), a former Army intelligence analyst who provided WikiLeaks with classified documents, was convicted of violating the Espionage Act in 2013 and sentenced to 35 years in prison. Her sentence was later commuted by President Barack Obama.


Timeline

December 2007 - WikiLeaks posts the US Army manual for soldiers dealing with prisoners at Camp Delta, Guantanamo Bay.

March 2008 - WikiLeaks posts internal documents from the Church of Scientology.

September 2008 - WikiLeaks posts emails from the Yahoo email account of Sarah Palin.

November 2008 - WikiLeaks posts a list of names and addresses of people it claims belong to the far-right British National Party.

November 2009 - WikiLeaks posts what it claims are 500,000 messages sent during the September 11, 2001 attacks.

April 5, 2010 - A classified military video is posted by WikiLeaks. It shows a US Apache helicopter firing on and killing two journalists and a number of Iraqi civilians in 2007. The military claimed that the helicopter crew believed the targets were armed insurgents, not civilians.

May 2010 - The US military detains Manning for allegedly leaking US combat video, including the US helicopter gunship attack posted on WikiLeaks, and classified State Department records. Manning was turned in by Adrian Lamo, a former hacker, who Manning confided in about leaking the classified records.

July 6, 2010 - The military announces it has charged Manning with violating army regulations by transferring classified information to a personal computer and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system and of violating federal laws of governing the handling of classified information.

July 25, 2010 - WikiLeaks posts more than 90,000 classified documents relating to the Afghanistan war in what has been called the biggest leak since the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War. The documents are divided into more than 100 categories and touch on everything from the hunt for Osama bin Laden to Afghan civilian deaths resulting from US military actions.

October 22, 2010 - WikiLeaks publishes nearly 400,000 classified military documents from the Iraq War, providing a new picture of how many Iraqi civilians have been killed, the role that Iran has played in supporting Iraqi militants and many accounts of abuse by Iraq's army and police.

November 28, 2010 - WikiLeaks begins publishing approximately 250,000 leaked State Department cables dating back to 1966. The site says the documents will be released "in stages over the next few months."

November 28, 2010 - The WikiLeaks website suffers an attack designed to make it unavailable to users. A Twitter user called Jester claims responsibility for the attack.

December 1, 2010 - Amazon removes WikiLeaks from its servers.

April 24, 2011 - Nearly 800 classified US military documents obtained by WikiLeaks reveal details about the alleged terrorist activities of al Qaeda operatives captured and housed in Guantanamo Bay.

September 2, 2011 - WikiLeaks releases its archive of more than 250,000 unredacted US diplomatic cables.

October 24, 2011 - WikiLeaks announces that it is temporarily halting publication to "aggressively fundraise." Assange states that a financial blockade by Bank of America, VISA, MasterCard, PayPal and Western Union has cut off 95% of WikiLeaks' revenue.

December 16, 2011 - Manning's Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a grand jury hearing that will determine whether enough evidence exists to merit a court-martial, begins.

February 23, 2012 - Manning is formally charged with aiding the enemy, wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the Internet, transmitting national defense information and theft of public property or records.

February 26, 2012 - WikiLeaks begins releasing what it says are five million emails from the private intelligence company, Stratfor, starting with a company "glossary" that features unflattering descriptions of US government agencies. The authenticity of the documents can't be independently confirmed.

July 5, 2012 - WikiLeaks begins publishing more than 2.4 million emails from Syrian politicians, government ministries and companies dating back to 2006.

February 28, 2013 - Manning pleads guilty to some of the 22 charges against him, but not the most serious charge of aiding the enemy, which carries a life sentence.

June 3, 2013 - Manning's court-martial begins.

July 30, 2013 - Manning is acquitted of aiding the enemy, but found guilty on 20 other counts, including violations of the Espionage Act.

August 21, 2013 - A military judge sentences Manning to 35 years in prison.

August 22, 2013 - Through a statement read on NBC's Today show, Manning announces he wants to live life as a woman and wants to be known by his new name, Chelsea Manning. She later formally changes her name.

July 22, 2016 - WikiLeaks releases nearly 20,000 emails from Democratic National Committee staffers. The emails appear to show the committee favoring Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders during the US presidential primary.

October 7, 2016 - More than 2,000 hacked emails from Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta are published by WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks claims that it has more than 50,000 of Podesta's emails and pledges to continue releasing batches of documents during the weeks leading up to the election.

January 3, 2017 - During an interview on the Fox News Network, Assange says that Russia did not give WikiLeaks hacked emails.

January 12, 2017 - WikiLeaks tweets that Assange will agree to be extradited to the United States if Obama grants clemency to Manning.

January 17, 2017 - Obama commutes Manning's sentence, setting the stage for her to be released on May 17.

March 7, 2017 - WikiLeaks publishes what they say are thousands of internal CIA documents, including alleged discussions of a covert hacking program and the development of spy software targeting cellphones, smart TVs and computer systems in cars. In a statement, Assange says that the website published the documents as a warning about the risk of the proliferation of "cyber weapons." The documents are not independently authenticated.

April 20, 2017 - Authorities tell CNN that they are taking steps to seek the arrest of Assange, preparing criminal charges against the WikiLeaks founder. The investigation of Assange and WikiLeaks dates back to 2010 but prosecutors struggled with the question of whether the First Amendment protected Assange. Now, they reportedly have found a way to proceed but offered no details on the nature of the charges they plan to file.

May 3, 2017 - During a Senate hearing, FBI Director James Comey refers to WikiLeaks as "intelligence porn," declaring that the site's disclosures are intended to damage the United States rather than educate the public.

May 17, 2017 - Manning is released from prison.

September 15, 2017 - Harvard Kennedy School withdraws an invitation to Manning to be a visiting fellow.

October 2017- CNN reports that in 2016 a Cambridge Analytica executive reached out to WikiLeaks requesting access to Clinton emails. Assange confirmed the exchange in a tweet, saying "I can confirm an approach by Cambridge Analytica [prior to November last year] and can confirm that it was rejected by WikiLeaks."

May 31, 2018 - The US Army Court of Criminal Appeals upholds Manning's 2013 court-martial conviction. Although Manning's sentence was commuted, her conviction under the Espionage Act, still stands.

March 5, 2019 - A federal judge denies Manning's effort to quash a subpoena and avoid testifying before a grand jury in Virginia. It is not publicly known what the grand jury in Virginia is investigating and what prosecutors' interest in Manning is.

March 8-May 9, 2019 - Manning spends 62 days in federal custody for refusing to testify about her disclosures to WikiLeaks. A group of Manning supporters called Chelsea Resists issues a statement claiming Manning is being kept in her cell for 22 hours a day, which they say constitutes solitary confinement and surmounts to "torture."

April 11, 2019 - Assange is arrested by the Metropolitan Police in London on an extradition warrant from the US Justice Department. He is charged with conspiracy to attempt to hack a computer in connection with the 2010 release of classified military info obtained via Manning. Assange's attorney says the indictment is troubling because of its implications for freedom of the press.

May 16, 2019 - Manning is again found in contempt for refusing to testify before a grand jury and returns to jail.

March 11, 2020 - Manning is hospitalized after attempting suicide.

March 12, 2020 - Federal District Court judge Anthony Trenga orders Manning to be released from jail after being held for 10 months.

January 4, 2021 - A British judge has rejects a US request to extradite Assange to America.

Supreme Court to take up right to carry gun for self-defence

SAME REASON WHITE SOUTH AFRICANS CLAIM THEY NEED THEIR GUNS FOR

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to hear an appeal to expand gun rights in the United States in a New York case over the right to carry a firearm in public for self-defence.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The case marks the court’s first foray into gun rights since Justice Amy Coney Barrett came on board in October, making a 6-3 conservative majority.

The justices said Monday that they will review a lower-court ruling that upheld New York’s restrictive gun permit law. The court's decision to take on the case follows mass shootings in recent weeks in Indiana, Georgia, Colorado and California and comes amid congressional efforts to tighten gun laws. President Joe Biden also has announced several executive actions to combat what he called an “epidemic and an international embarrassment” of gun violence in America.

The case is especially significant during the coronavirus pandemic, said Eric Tirschwell, the legal director of Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control group backed by former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg. “Gun violence has only worsened during the pandemic, and a ruling that opened the door to weakening our gun laws could make it even harder for cities and states to grapple with this public health crisis,” Tirschwell said.

The court had turned down review of the issue in June, before Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death.

1968

New York is among eight states that limit who has the right to carry a weapon in public. The others are California, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island.

In the rest of the country, gun owners have little trouble legally carrying their weapons when they go out.

Paul Clement, representing challengers to New York’s permit law, said the court should use the case to settle the issue once and for all. “Thus, the nation is split, with the Second Amendment alive and well in the vast middle of the nation, and those same rights disregarded near the coasts,” Clement wrote on behalf of the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association and two New York residents.

Calling on the court to reject the appeal, the state said its law promotes public safety and crime reduction and neither bans people from carrying guns nor allows everyone to do so.

1968

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that gun laws have made New York the “safest big state in the country” and that the “NRA-backed case is a massive threat to that security. Imagine someone carrying a gun through Times Square, onto the subway, or to a tailgate outside of a Bills game.”

Federal courts have largely upheld the permit limits. Last month, an 11-judge panel of the federal appeals court in San Francisco rejected a challenge to Hawaii’s permit regulations in an opinion written by a conservative judge, Jay Bybee.

“Our review of more than 700 years of English and American legal history reveals a strong theme: government has the power to regulate arms in the public square,” Bybee wrote in a 7-4 decision for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The issue of carrying a gun for self-defence has been seen for several years as the next major step for gun rights at the Supreme Court, following decisions in 2008 and 2010 that established a nationwide right to keep a gun at home for self-defence.

In June, Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, complained that rather than take on the constitutional issue, “the Court simply looks the other way.”

But Barrett has a more expansive view of gun rights than Ginsburg. She wrote a dissent in 2019, when she was a judge on the federal appeals court in Chicago, that argued that a conviction for a nonviolent felony — in this case, mail fraud — shouldn’t automatically disqualify someone from owning a gun.

She said that her colleagues in the majority were treating the Second Amendment as a “second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.”

Mark Sherman, The Associated Press

1969

Federal court refuses to end quarantine 

hotel rules, saying health order remains 

until full hearing in June

\

© Provided by National Post A man looks at his phone at a quarantine hotel near Toronto Pearson International Airport in Mississauga, Ontario, on Feb. 24, 2021.


The Federal Court refused to order an immediate end to the federal government’s quarantine hotel rules, but agreed it is an issue needing close judicial scrutiny because of restrictions it places on travellers.

“A public health emergency, like the global pandemic caused by COVID-19, is in one sense simply another emergency. However, it must also be recognized that it is a type of situation that can inspire irrational fears and passions, which may in turn provoke a government to adopt excessive measures that trench unduly on the rights and freedoms of individuals,” the court said in its ruling.

“It is necessary, therefore, to subject government rationale for any emergency measures to a degree of scrutiny that is proportional to the risk that Charter rights may have been impaired by actions based on irrational fears rather than the careful weighing of competing interests based on the evidence.”

That examination will come in June, when a full trial is scheduled by the Federal Court to hear a number of challenges to the government’s health restrictions in response to COVID.

For now, the apparent necessity of unusual actions in the face of an unusual threat means the order will remain in force.

“Against this, however, lies the very real risk that some of these travellers will unknowingly bring into Canada a potentially deadly virus, or one of the newly-emerging, more transmissible and perhaps more dangerous variants of concern,” Judge William Pentney concluded.

“Any harm to the Applicants’ rights and freedoms from a temporary stay at a hotel is not a sufficient basis to suspend a significant public health measure that is based on the advice of scientific experts, and seeks to prevent or slow the spread of COVID-19 and its variants into Canada.

“This evidence amply demonstrates that the public interest lies in not suspending the challenged measures.”

A joint motion by nine people asked the court to suspend the emergency measure requiring travellers arriving in Canada by air to pre-book and pay for a three-day stay in a government-approved hotel and remain in quarantine there until a second COVID test confirms they are not carrying the novel coronavirus.

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They argued the mandatory quarantine rules violate their rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms because they are law-abiding people who can safely quarantine at home. Most of the nine left Canada before the rules were put in place.

In response, the government argued that having to change travel plans and incur added travel costs because of the rules is not enough to upend a public health measures responding to the emergence of new COVID-19 variants of concern. Suspending the rules would have a significant negative impact on public health “at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic is already posing significant challenges in Canada, with tragic consequences for thousands of people.”

Many of the plaintiffs divide their time between a home in Canada and another in Mexico or Florida and object to the mandatory hotel stay for various reasons, from financial hardship, mental health, safety fears — and also an anti-testing objection.

The lead plaintiff in the appeal is Barbara Spencer, who moved from Ontario to Mexico after retiring in 2011. She wants to return to Canada to see her family, especially her first great-grandchild, and also to see her family doctor, court heard. She said she fears for her safety and does not feel comfortable at a mandated federal facility.

Reid Nehring, an Alberta resident, told court he doesn’t want the government to “insert a foreign object into my body under the guise of testing,” in his objection to the requirement of having a COVID test before arriving in Canada.

SOUNDS LIKE A UFO PHOBIA

Sabry Mohammad Belhouchet went to Algeria after the death of his father to tend to his father’s estate. He told court the fees of the mandatory hotel will create financial hardship on top of his travel and not working for three months while out of Ontario.

Michel Lafontaine, of Quebec, said he and his wife travelled south in response to the Canadian government’s dire warnings that the health care system might be overwhelmed during the pandemic. He complained the rules ignore that both he and his wife have been fully vaccinated while staying in Florida.

The nine plaintiffs are represented by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, a Calgary-based conservative legal group. 

THE Y SOUND  LIKE A FRONT FOR THE SOVERIGN INDIVIDUAL CULT

The organization reacted with disappointment their injunction wasn’t granted but were pleased the court recognized the risk of health restrictions breaching fundamental freedoms.

“The forced isolation of returning Canadian air travellers is arbitrary, unnecessary, and totalitarian. These quarantine hotels and restrictive measures are more consistent with a dictatorship than a free society,” Jay Cameron, the organization’s litigation director, said in a written statement.

• Email: ahumphreys@postmedia.com | Twitter: AD_Humphreys

 Freeze! New model to help protect ships from ice accretion

SKOLKOVO INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (SKOLTECH)

Research News

Researchers from Skoltech (Russia) and their colleagues from SINTEF (Norway) have developed a mathematical model of freezing water droplets moving in cold air. This model is a part of a joint RFBR-supported Russian-Norway research project. The project is focused on predicting ice accretion on ships and other offshore structures operated in Arctic climate, which may interfere with their proper functioning and endanger crew members and cargo. The paper was published in the journal Energies.

Ships travel in cold northern waters under constant bombardment by tiny water droplets populating the chilly air. The droplets are expelled into the air at the impact of sea waves on the ship hull or other surfaces. When they reach the ship's substructure, these semi-frozen droplets can either bounce off or stick. The probability of the droplets' sticking to the wall depends on their freezing state, i.e., completely frozen droplets simply bounce off, while others lead to different scenarios. If too many of them stick, the structure accumulates ice, which can threaten its stability and cause surface erosion. There are models describing this process for aircraft and electrical power lines, but so far, there are no simulation tools that accurately describe ice accretion at sea and not require a lot of computational resources.

"The ice accretion process consists of a few important stages. First, the droplets are generated from sea wave impact at a variety of sizes and speed. Then, they fly towards the ship in the form of a sea spray cloud, while the distribution of droplet size, location and velocity in the cloud is unknown. Finally, at impact with a surface, droplets contribute to the ice accretion with certain efficiency. Some droplets do not add up to the ice layer, while others become a part of it. These processes are hardly studied and contain many unknown parameters, which makes numerical simulations difficult. At Skoltech, we develop a few special experimental setups to obtain the unknown parameters in the laboratory and at sea. Our experimental results become a part of a complex model of ice accretion process. We also contribute with models of some subprocesses of the icing", senior research scientist Svyatoslav Chugunov, a coauthor of the paper, says.

Iskander Akhatov, professor and director of the Skoltech Center for Design, Manufacturing and Materials, professor Dmitry Eskin, MSc graduate Doston Shayunusov and Svyatoslav Chugunov built just such a model of the cooling of a droplet, its partial solidification, and its further interaction with the solid wall surface.

The model consists of two parts: the first part simulates the droplet partial freezing after leaving the core liquid, and the second part simulates the interaction between the droplet and the solid wall. The authors of the paper note that the new model is simple and suitable only for an approximate analysis, but they intend to incorporate it into a more complex 3D simulation tool.

"This work is in the active stage right now. We are assembling an experimental setup to measure distribution of the droplets' location and size in the sea spray cloud from a ship. We would make additional efforts to measure droplets velocity while running the major experiments. These studies are in our plan of work for 2021," Dr. Chugunov says.

Once the project is completed, scientists expect to get an open-source numerical code for realistic simulations of wave impact on a ship, to simulate seawater droplets' propagation in cold air and their deposition onto ship surfaces.

"This numerical tool could be applied to different types of existing and future marine structures to predict ice accretion under variety of climatic conditions. For existing structures, the plan of risk mitigation for ice accretion events could be improved. For prospective developments, the shape and location of ship components may be altered to reduce the effects of ice formation on ship functioning," Chugunov notes.

We've been at it a long time

Hebrew University researchers unveil oldest evidence of human activity in African desert cave

THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM

Research News

 

Few sites in the world preserve a continuous archaeological record spanning millions of years. Wonderwerk Cave, located in South Africa's Kalahari Desert, is one of those rare sites. Meaning "miracle" in Afrikaans, Wonderwerk Cave has been identified as potentially the earliest cave occupation in the world and the site of some of the earliest indications of fire use and tool making among prehistoric humans.

New research, published in Quaternary Science Reviews, led by a team of geologists and archaeologists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU) and the University of Toronto, confirms the record-breaking date of this spectacular site. "We can now say with confidence that our human ancestors were making simple Oldowan stone tools inside the Wonderwerk Cave 1.8 million years ago. Wonderwerk is unique among ancient Oldowan sites, a tool-type first found 2.6 million years ago in East Africa, precisely because it is a cave and not an open-air occurrence," explained lead author Professor Ron Shaar at HU's Institute of Earth Sciences.

The team were able to successfully establish the shift from Oldowan tools (mainly sharp flakes and chopping tools) to early handaxes over 1 million years ago, and to date the deliberate use of fire by our prehistoric ancestors to 1 million years ago, in a layer deep inside the cave. The latter is a particularly significant because other examples of early fire use come from open-air sites where the possible role of wildfires cannot be excluded. Moreover, Wonderwerk contained a full array of fire remnants: burnt bone, sediment and tools as well as the presence of ash.

Dating cave deposits is one of the greatest challenges in paleo-anthropology, aka the study of human evolution. To overcome this challenge, the team analyzed a 2.5-meter thick sedimentary layer that contained stone tools, animal remains and fire remnants using two methods: paleomagnetism and burial dating. "We carefully removed hundreds of tiny sediment samples from the cave walls and measured their magnetic signal," described Shaar.

Magnetization occurred when clay particles, that entered the cave from outside, settled on the prehistoric cave floor, thereby preserving the direction of the earth's magnetic field at that time. "Our lab analysis showed that some of the samples were magnetized to the south instead of the north, which is the direction of today's magnetic field. Since the exact timing of these magnetic "reversals" is globally recognized, it gave us clues to the antiquity of the entire sequence of layers in the cave," added Shaar.

Prof. Ari Matmon, Director of HU's the Institute of Earth Sciences, relied on a secondary dating method to further confirm when the earliest "humans" may have occupied the site. "Quartz particles in sand have a built-in geological clock that starts ticking when they enter a cave. In our lab, we are able to measure the concentrations of specific isotopes in those particles and deduce how much time had passed since those grains of sand entered the cave," he explained.

The dating of prehistoric human activity at Wonderwerk Cave has far-reaching implications. The co-directors of the Wonderwerk Cave project, Prof. Michael Chazan at the University of Toronto and Liora Kolska Horwitz at HU's National Natural History Collections, explained that the findings at Wonderwerk "are an important step towards understanding the tempo of human evolution across the African continent. With a timescale firmly established for Wonderwerk Cave, we can continue studying the connection between human evolution and climate change, and the evolution of our early human ancestors' way of life."

On the southern edge of the Kalahari Desert, Wonderwerk Cave is also a place of great spiritual significance to local communities, attesting to the cave's cultural importance for both past and present peoples. The Wonderwerk Cave Research Project is committed to protecting the site and to working with neighboring towns to develop the educational and cultural potential of this unique place.

Photos, Credits and Article available at https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/103a60qIZCOi9zzRFUUzP376ZG4KHWvP_?usp=sharing

FOREVER CHEMICALS

Toxic fluorocarbons - Not just in ski waxes

These chemicals are omnipresent in the environment, a new Norwegian study shows

NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Research News

 

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in ski wax have been receiving a lot of attention recently, but waxes constitute only a limited part of the problem of the PFAS group of toxicants.

PFAS are a large group of man-made fluorocarbon toxicants, and you are most likely full of them. The toxic substances don't break down and instead accumulate, both in nature and in your body.

"Due to their extensive use, humans and animals all over the world are continuously exposed to PFAS," says Håkon Austad Langberg, a PhD candidate at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) who has studied several of them in the last few years.

PFAS are used in many different products beyond the fluorinated ski wax that ends up in the ground on ski slopes and on trails, including Teflon, firefighting foam, water- and grease-repellent paper and impregnated textile fabrics, among many others.

"There are thousands of different PFAS," says Langberg.

Numerous health problems can be traced to PFAS. The toxic substances are either proven or suspected to increase the risk of kidney and testicular cancer, damage to the liver, disrupted cholesterol levels, reduced fertility, hormonal disorders, negative effects on development in children and weakened immune systems.

Langberg's research has included investigating how PFAS from individual Norwegian sources behave in the environment.

"That is, where they end up, like in waterways or the seabed, how they're transported in the environment and how they're taken up into the food chain," he says.

We need to understand how various toxic substances behave in nature in order to assess their risks, give the right advice on food and drink that could be PFAS contaminated and to clean contaminated areas.

Langberg hunted for PFAS near large emission sources and found large quantities.

"I investigated Svalbard Airport and Bodø Airport, both of which are polluted due to the use of firefighting foam, and Lake Tyrifjord, which is polluted by a factory that produced paper products," he says.

Runoff from the airports that Langberg investigated flows into the sea. Marine fish and crabs near the airports had higher levels of PFAS than those found in other areas, but due to the water exchange in the ocean, the levels were limited.

Despite its name, Tyrifjord in Viken county is actually a lake, and toxic pollutants can therefore accumulate quite strongly there.

The Norwegian Institute of Public Health stated last year that Norwegian women and children ingest too much PFAS. Fish is often the source of the toxicants. The Norwegian Food Safety Authority has warned against eating fish and drinking water from fresh water sources near airports. The Authority warned in particular against eating fish from Lake Tyrifjord.

PFAS stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. None of the many thousands of these substances break down in nature. Well, that's not entirely true. Some of them do break down, but only into other PFAS variants which in turn do not degrade. PFAS that can be converted to non-degradable PFAS are called PFAS precursors.

Once these toxic substances are released into nature, for all practical purposes they will remain there permanently or until they are actively cleaned up.

"Scientists often call them 'forever chemicals,' says Langberg.

The properties of the substances, and thus their behaviour in the environment, change when PFAS precursors are converted to non-degradable PFAS. Many PFAS precursors become more water soluble when converted. More water-soluble substances are in turn often more available for uptake into organisms and can also be transported faster by water currents.

Since different PFAS are used in different products, it is possible to find out which emission source has polluted what.

"For example, different types of PFAS are used in firefighting foam than the ones used to make paper water- and grease repellent," Langberg says.

Many sources of PFAS contamination are due to local use, either of the toxicants directly or of products that contain them. The surrounding environment near these point sources has often been shown to contain high concentrations of the toxic pollutants in water, the soil and seabed, and in fish and other animals.

"Factories where PFAS is produced are among the most studied point sources, along with places where PFAS-containing firefighting foam is used, such as at airports," says Langberg.

People who drink water or eat plants, fish or other animals from such areas risk being exposed to significant levels of PFAS in addition to the continuous exposure that we all experience.

Langberg found particularly high PFAS levels in Lake Tyrifjord.

"By looking at the composition of the PFAS detected in Lake Tyrifjord, we concluded that a factory producing paper products was the source of the pollution in the lake," said Langberg.

The PFAS released into Lake Tyrifjord are not very water-soluble. The toxicants are located on the lake bottom and can thus be absorbed into the food chain over time.

"In Lake Tyrifjord, these PFAS precursors are a continuous source of poison in the food chain since they're ingested by bottom feeders that are later eaten by fish," Langberg says.

Fish usually ingest such compounds from the surrounding water, but in Lake Tyrifjord the water concentrations are low, and the uptake of the pollutants instead happens via the fish's diet.

In this way, the substances in the food chain are transferred and converted over time to the non-degradable PFAS that are detected in significant amounts in fish.

"The pollution in Lake Tyrifjord wouldn't have been detected if only water samples had been taken. That's why our sampling also needs to include the seabed and various animal species if we don't know the source of the PFAS pollution, or if PFAS with unknown behaviours have been released into the environment," says Langberg.

This is the first time the production of paper products has been identified as leading to significant local pollution. The research shows that PFAS quantities released into Lake Tyrifjord are very high.

Langberg believes the production of paper products is probably a large and overlooked source of pollution elsewhere as well.

Langberg's research illustrates the need to assess risk from chemicals in consumer goods, starting during production, in the use phase and after the product lifespan.

"The EU is focusing on this topic through the development of a 'Chemicals strategy for sustainability,' which is a good thing," says Langberg's supervisor Sarah Hale. She is a senior specialist at the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute.

The results from Langberg's dissertation provide valuable information about contaminated areas. The new knowledge can be used later to identify sources of pollution, make risk assessments and assess remediation measures.

###

The work is part of a larger project called "Reducing the negative effects of fluorinated substances on the environment and humans" which is funded by The Research Council of Norway via project 268258.

Source: Aasim M. Ali, Håkon A. Langberg, Sarah E. Hale, Roland Kallenborn, William F. Hartz, Åse-Karen Mortensen, Tomasz Maciej Ciesielski, Carrie A. McDonough, Bjørn Munro Jenssen and Gijs D. Breedveld. The fate of poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances in a marine food web influenced by land-based sources in the Norwegian Arctic. https://doi.org/10.1039/D0EM00510J

 NEWS RELEASE 26-APR-2021

Ozone pollution in Germany falls thanks to lower nitrogen oxide emissions

INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED SUSTAINABILITY STUDIES E.V. (IASS)

Research News

 

Summer is the ozone season: The harmful gas forms at ground level on hot, sunny days. In recent years, however, the rise in ozone levels over the summer months has not been as pronounced in Germany as it was previously. According to a new study, this is primarily due to a reduction in nitrogen oxide emissions. This trend can be observed across Germany's southwestern regions in particular, while Berlin lags behind.

Nitrogen oxides (NOx) are among the precursors of ground-level ozone, which can irritate the eyes, nose and throat and aggravate respiratory conditions. The emissions are primarily produced during combustion processes in engines and industrial facilities. "Traffic is the most significant source of nitrogen oxide emissions in urban centers. In recent years, emissions have fallen significantly, partly due to improved vehicle exhaust values", explains lead author Noelia Otero (IASS Potsdam/FU Berlin). Together with her colleagues, Otero wanted to learn more about the effect of falling NOx emissions on the formation of ground-level ozone.

The researchers used long-term measurements of hourly ozone concentrations in conjunction with measurements of nitrogen oxide concentrations gathered at stations across Germany to determine the relationship between temperature and ozone over the period 1999 to 2008 and 2009 to 2018. The researchers discovered that warm temperatures caused ozone concentrations to rise more in the first period than in the second. This demonstrates that a reduction in emissions positively affects the formation of ozone.

As an example, the researchers compared data from measuring stations located at a town square in Wörth am Rhein (Rhineland-Palatinate) and on Nansenstraße in Berlin-Neukölln. In Wörth, nitrogen oxide concentrations declined by 35 % between the first and second periods, while in Berlin they sank by just 7.5 % in the second period. In Wörth, ozone concentrations sank in response to rising temperatures compared to the first period; this effect could not be observed in Berlin, however.

According to the researchers, these changes in ozone concentrations are likely to be driven not only by NOx emissions, but also by another ozone precursor: volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which derive from a range of sources, including traffic, industry, solvents and even vegetation. "In the absence of long-term data on volatile organic compounds, further analysis with short-term measurements of a range of VOCs would be necessary to quantify their contribution to the observed changes," says co-author Tim Butler (IASS Potsdam/FU Berlin). The researchers also note the need for further reductions in NOx emissions in Berlin to reduce ozone pollution in summ

 

Divide and conquer? New insights from the ancients of the microscopic world

UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY SYDNEY

Research News

 

Australian scientists have unlocked another mystery of the class of microorganisms believed to be among Earth's oldest of life forms, throwing new light on the study of cell division and the evolution of life.

In a newly published paper in Nature Microbiology a research team from the iThree Institute at the University of Technology Sydney describes the cell division process used by the microorganism Haloferax volcanii from the archaea realm of single-celled life, which is distinct from bacteria.

Archaea make up the third major grouping, or domain, of life on the planet, alongside eukaryotes (including all plants and animals) and bacteria, but were only recognised as being distinct from bacteria in the late 1970s.

They can survive in extreme conditions of cold, heat and salinity, exist in the soil, sewage, oceans, and oil wells, and even make up an estimated 10 per cent of the microbial population found within the human gut.

"Our results show that bacteria and archaea divide differently," said Associate Professor Iain Duggin who leads the Microbial Molecular and Cellular Biology research group at the iThree Institute.

"This is a new system to study cell division, and provides a means to compare and contrast with the well-studied bacterial cell division mechanism, based on the protein FtsZ, and related to the microtubules found in human and all other higher organism cells.

"It will help us understand the most important and fundamental aspects of how microbes multiply and the things they all appear to do in common."

A principal author on the study, Dr Yan Liao, said the findings about archaea had unveiled the mystery of a novel "two FtsZs" strategy for cell division, different from bacterial cell division.

"This work opens a door to identifying fundamental activities across the full spectrum of cellular life. We still have so much to discover about the world of archaea, and in doing so gain a better understanding how complex life on Earth evolved.

"Cell division is a central aspect of the biology of all living organisms. For example, abnormal cell division can cause a tumour/cancer to develop. A better understanding of archaea can not only answer basic biological questions but also lead to the development of new biotechnological tools, such as methods for delivering vaccines or drugs that potentially could get around antimicrobial resistance."

Associate Professor Duggin said the study of archaea might also hold solutions to problems beyond human health.

Organisms in the archaea domain are responsible for all biological methane, a major greenhouse gas, as occurs in cattle and other ruminants.

"We've found that the methanogenic archaea responsible for this appear to divide differently from other archaea," Associate Professor Duggin said. "Besides being very interesting in regard to the evolution of the cell wall and its relationship to the division mechanism, it also offers the possibility of vaccinating livestock so they don't produce methane."

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The paper, 'Cell division in the archaeon Haloferax volcanii relies on two FtsZ proteins with distinct functions in division ring assembly and constriction' by Iain G. Duggin, Yan Liao, Solenne Ithurbide and Christian Evenhuis (iThree Institute, UTS) and Jan Löwe (MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology), has been published in Nature Microbiology, DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41564-021-00894-z.

The study was supported by the Australian Research Council and the UK Medical Research Council.

How do slow anomalies beneath subducting slabs affect giant megathrust earthquakes?

CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES HEADQUARTERS

Research News

 

IMAGE: ILLUSTRATION OF THE INFLUENCE OF SUBSLAB HETEROGENEITY ON THE GENERATION OF GIANT EARTHQUAKES view more 

CREDIT: IOCAS

Earthquakes and volcanoes in subduction zones may cause great human catastrophe. Previous studies on subduction zone structure and causal mechanisms of giant megathrust earthquakes (M ≥ 9.0) have mainly focused on aspects like subducting plates and plate interfaces.

In contrast, the oceanic asthenosphere structure beneath the subducting slab (at depths of 100-250 km) and its influence on the nucleation of giant megathrust earthquakes have not been well studied.

Recently, Dr. FAN Jianke from the Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOCAS) and Prof. ZHAO Dapeng from Tohoku University turned their attention to this problem by investigating the oceanic asthenosphere structure of six subduction zones where giant earthquakes have occurred.

Their findings were published in Nature Geoscience on April 26.

The researchers adopted P-wave tomographic inversions and compiled updated tomographic models. The tomographic images clearly reveal subslab low-velocity (slow) anomalies beneath forearc regions in the six subduction zones.

"The giant earthquake hypocenters are generally located above the edges of the slow anomalies or above the gaps between them. Large coseismic slips of the giant earthquakes mainly occur above gaps between the slow anomalies," said Dr. FAN.

The buoyancy force of a subslab slow anomaly can increase interplate shear stress by enhancing interplate normal stress. Interplate shear stress increases the critical stress threshold for rupture, and the critical shear stress above the slow anomaly gap is slightly smaller than that above the slow anomaly.

However, critical shear stress is still large enough and relatively easier to reach. As such, it can induce a giant megathrust earthquake above the slow anomaly gap, which is primarily controlled by structural heterogeneity on and around the plate interface.

In addition, the buoyancy force of the slow anomaly can cause a morphological response from the subducting slab, thus increasing the shear stress on the plate interface. Thermal conduction or thermo-mechanical erosion from the slow anomaly may result in transformation of the interface rheology from frictional to viscous shear.

This transformation may partly account for the occurrence of slow-slip earthquakes above slow anomalies. The slow-slip area can impede rupture propagation and host afterslip of a giant megathrust earthquake.

"It's necessary to conduct seismic tomography to investigate more detailed asthenospheric structures beneath a subducting slab, which may pinpoint the potential location of a future giant megathrust earthquake," said Dr. FAN.

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This study was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.

 

Airports could generate enough solar energy to power a city: Study

Australian airports are ideal hosts for large-scale solar installations

RMIT UNIVERSITY

Research News

IMAGE: MAP SHOWING THE LOCATION OF AUSTRALIA'S LEASED FEDERAL AIRPORTS view more 

CREDIT: RMIT UNIVERSITY

A new study has found Australia's government-owned airports could produce enough electricity to power 136,000 homes, if they had large-scale rooftop solar systems installed.

Researchers at RMIT University compared electricity generated by residential solar panels in a regional Australian city to the potential green energy production of 21 leased federal airports.

They found if large-scale solar panels were installed at the airports, they would generate 10 times more electricity than the city's 17,000 residential panels, while offsetting 151.6 kilotons of greenhouse gasses annually.

Researcher Dr Chayn Sun said the analysis showed the value of focusing renewable energy efforts on large, centralised rooftop solar systems.

"We can't rely on small residential solar panels to get us to a zero-emission economy but installing large panels at locations like airports would get us a lot closer," she said.

"We hope our results will help guide energy policy, while informing future research in solar deployment for large buildings.

"There's so much potential to facilitate national economic development while contributing towards greenhouse gas emission reduction targets."

Sun, a geospatial scientist in RMIT's School of Science, said airports were ideal for solar panels but were not currently being used to their full potential - many Australian airports are without adequate solar systems.

"Airports get good sun exposure because they're not shaded by tall buildings or trees, making them a perfect spot to harness the sun's energy," she said.

"Australia is facing an energy crisis, yet our solar energy resources - such as airport rooftops - are being wasted.

"Harnessing this power source would avoid 63 kilotons of coal being burned in Australia each year, an important step towards a zero-carbon future."

For the study, published in the Journal of Building Engineering, geospatial researchers estimated the solar electricity generated from 17,000 residential solar panels in Bendigo, Victoria, over one year.

Lead author Athenee Teofilo, a Master of Geospatial Science student, then mapped the buildings in every leased federal airport - excluding unsuitable structures like dome and blister-type hangars - and identified 2.61km2 of usable rooftop space.

Researchers determined the optimum tilt angle for the solar arrays for each airport, to maximise efficiency.

Perth Airport had most energy-generating potential; placing solar panels there could produce almost twice the solar output of Bendigo, equal to the combined production from Adelaide, Sydney, Moorabbin and Townsville airports.

Even Melbourne Airport alone would outperform Bendigo's annual solar electricity production by almost 12 gigawatt hours a year.

Airport buildings less suited to solar panels could still be useful for ground-mounted solar systems, the study found.

Sun said the research underlined the necessity for energy policies to include a plan for installing solar panels at airports.

"Based on our solar radiation analysis, we know airports with decent solar systems could not only be self-sufficient but would generate enough electricity to send the excess back into the grid," she said.

"We mapped airports owned by the federal government, but Australia has more than 150 privately-owned airfields, which could also have panels installed.

"Australia receives so much solar radiation, so every airport in the country would benefit from having the right type of solar panels installed.

"The same could be said for many airports and large buildings located around the world."

Sun said reflections from the panels would not be a problem, as modern solar arrays absorb rather than reflect sunlight.

Previous studies have deemed airports as great solar generators but the RMIT research goes further by precisely modelling the use of large-scale systems.

The findings could also be extended to assess the solar potential of other sites, such as large commercial buildings, warehouses or distribution centres.

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'Investigating potential rooftop solar energy generated by Leased Federal Airports in Australia: Framework and implications', with Athenee Teofilo, Dr Chayn Sun, Nenad Radosevic, Yaguang Tao, Jerome Iringan and Chengyang Liu, is published in the Journal of Building Engineering (DOI: 10.1016/j.jobe.2021.102390).

CAPTION

Comparison of the annual estimated GHG offset, estimated electricity production and solar PV array areas.

CREDIT

RMIT University