By Jove! Stunning New Images Show Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, Superstorms, and Gargantuan Cyclones

TOPICS:AstronomyAURAGemini ObservatoryHubble Space TelescopeJupiterPlanets

By ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY (AURA) JULY 11, 2021

Three images of Jupiter show the gas giant in three different types of light — infrared, visible, and ultraviolet. The image on the left was taken in infrared by the Near-InfraRed Imager (NIRI) instrument at Gemini North in Hawaiʻi, the northern member of the international Gemini Observatory, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab. The center image was taken in visible light by the Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble Space Telescope. The image on the right was taken in ultraviolet light by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3. All of the observations were taken on 11 January 2017. Credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/NASA/ESA, M.H. Wong and I. de Pater (UC Berkeley) et al.

Stunning new images of Jupiter from Gemini North and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope showcase the planet at infrared, visible, and ultraviolet wavelengths of light. These views reveal details in atmospheric features such as the Great Red Spot, superstorms, and gargantuan cyclones stretching across the planet’s disk. Three interactive images allow you to compare observations of Jupiter at these different wavelengths and explore the gas giant’s clouds yourself!

Three striking new images of Jupiter show the stately gas giant at three different types of light — infrared, visible, and ultraviolet. The visible and ultraviolet views were captured by the Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble Space Telescope, while the infrared image comes from the Near-InfraRed Imager (NIRI) instrument at Gemini North in Hawaiʻi, the northern member of the international Gemini Observatory, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab. All of the observations were taken simultaneously (at 15:41 Universal Time) on January 11, 2017.

These three portraits highlight the key advantage of multiwavelength astronomy: viewing planets and other astronomical objects at different wavelengths of light allows scientists to glean otherwise unavailable insights. In the case of Jupiter, the planet has a vastly different appearance in the infrared, visible, and ultraviolet observations. The planet’s Great Red Spot — the famous persistent storm system large enough to swallow the Earth whole — is a prominent feature of the visible and ultraviolet images, but it is almost invisible at infrared wavelengths. Jupiter’s counter-rotating bands of clouds, on the contrary, are clearly visible in all three views.

This infrared view of Jupiter was created from data captured on 11 January 2017 with the Near-InfraRed Imager (NIRI) instrument at Gemini North in Hawaiʻi, the northern member of the international Gemini Observatory, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab. It is actually a mosaic of individual frames that were combined to produce a global portrait of the planet. In the image warmer areas appear bright, including four large hot spots that appear in a row just north of the equator. South of the equator, the oval-shaped and cloud-covered Great Red Spot appears dark. Credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA, M.H. Wong (UC Berkeley) et al., Acknowledgments: M. Zamani

Observing the Great Red Spot at multiple wavelengths yields other surprises — the dark region in the infrared image is larger than the corresponding red oval in the visible image. This discrepancy arises because different structures are revealed by different wavelengths; the infrared observations show areas covered with thick clouds, while the visible and ultraviolet observations show the locations of chromophores — the particles that give the Great Red Spot its distinctive hue by absorbing blue and ultraviolet light.

This visible-light image of Jupiter was created from data captured on 11 January 2017 using the Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble Space Telescope. Near the top, a long brown feature called a ‘brown barge’ extends 72,000 kilometers (nearly 45,000 miles) in the east-west direction. The Great Red Spot stands out prominently in the lower left, while the smaller feature nicknamed Red Spot Jr. (known to Jovian scientists as Oval BA) appears to its lower right. Credit: NASA/ESA/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M.H. Wong and I. de Pater (UC Berkeley) et al.
Acknowledgments: M. Zamani

The Great Red Spot isn’t the only storm system visible in these images. The region sometimes nicknamed Red Spot Jr. (known to Jovian scientists as Oval BA) appears in both the visible and ultraviolet observations.^[1] This storm — to the bottom right of its larger counterpart — formed from the merger of three similar-sized storms in 2000.^[2] In the visible-wavelength image, it has a clearly defined red outer rim with a white center. In the infrared, however, Red Spot Jr. is invisible, lost in the larger band of cooler clouds, which appear dark in the infrared view. Like the Great Red Spot, Red Spot Jr. is colored by chromophores that absorb solar radiation at both ultraviolet and blue wavelengths, giving it a red color in visible observations and a dark appearance at ultraviolet wavelengths. Just above Red Spot Jr. in the visible observations, a Jovian superstorm appears as a diagonal white streak extending toward the right side of Jupiter’s disk.

This ultraviolet image of Jupiter was created from data captured on 11 January 2017 using the Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble Space Telescope. The Great Red Spot and Red Spot Jr. (also known as Oval BA) absorb ultraviolet radiation from the Sun and therefore appear dark in this view. Credit: NASA/ESA/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M.H. Wong and I. de Pater (UC Berkeley) et al., Acknowledgments: M. Zamani

One atmospheric phenomenon that does feature prominently at infrared wavelengths is a bright streak in the northern hemisphere of Jupiter. This feature — a cyclonic vortex or perhaps a series of vortices — extends 72,000 kilometers (nearly 45,000 miles) in the east-west direction. At visible wavelengths the cyclone appears dark brown, leading to these types of features being called ‘brown barges’ in images from NASA’s Voyager spacecraft. At ultraviolet wavelengths, however, the feature is barely visible underneath a layer of stratospheric haze, which becomes increasingly dark toward the north pole.

Similarly, lined up below the brown barge, four large ‘hot spots’ appear bright in the infrared image but dark in both the visible and ultraviolet views. Astronomers discovered such features when they observed Jupiter in infrared wavelengths for the first time in the 1960s.

As well as providing a beautiful scenic tour of Jupiter, these observations provide insights about the planet’s atmosphere, with each wavelength probing different layers of cloud and haze particles. A team of astronomers used the telescope data to analyze the cloud structure within areas of Jupiter where NASA’s Juno spacecraft detected radio signals coming from lightning activity.

Labels added to this visible-light Hubble Space Telescope image of Jupiter point out several atmospheric features on the planet, including a ‘brown barge’, four hot spots (which appear bright in the infrared image from Gemini North), a superstorm, the Great Red Spot, and Red Spot Jr. (also known as Oval BA). Credit: NASA/ESA/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M.H. Wong and I. de Pater (UC Berkeley) et al.

The scientific story behind these striking images is told in full in a new NOIRLab Stories blog post. As well as discovering the science behind these images, we invite you to inspect observations of Jupiter at home! Three interactive images let you compare observations of Jupiter at different wavelengths and peer beneath the gas giant’s clouds:

• Interactive image comparison of Gemini infrared data and Hubble visible data
• Interactive image comparison of Hubble visible data with Hubble ultraviolet data
• Interactive image comparison of Gemini infrared data with Hubble ultraviolet data

“The Gemini North observations were made possible by the telescope’s location within the Maunakea Science Reserve, adjacent to the summit of Maunakea,” acknowledges the observation team’s leader, Mike Wong of the University of California, Berkeley. “We are grateful for the privilege of observing Ka‘awela (Jupiter) from a place that is unique in both its astronomical quality and its cultural significance.”

More information on the infrared observations from Gemini is provided in the article Gemini Gets Lucky and Takes a Deep Dive Into Jupiter’s Clouds.

Notes

1. While it appears red in Hubble’s visible-light image of Jupiter taken in January 2017, Red Spot Jr. does not always appear red. It was white when it first formed but turned red several years later. It has changed color since then and once again appears white.
2. The three storms that merged to form Red Spot Jr. in 2000 were similar in size to each other and similar in size to Red Spot Jr. Interestingly, Red Spot Jr. did not become much larger than any of the three individual storms after they merged.

References

“High-resolution UV/Optical/IR Imaging of Jupiter in 2016–2019” by Michael H. Wong, Amy A. Simon, Joshua W. Tollefson, Imke de Pater, Megan N. Barnett, Andrew I. Hsu, Andrew W. Stephens, Glenn S. Orton, Scott W. Fleming, Charles Goullaud, William Januszewski, Anthony Roman, Gordon L. Bjoraker, Sushil K. Atreya, Alberto Adriani and Leigh N. Fletcher, 1 April 2020, The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series.
DOI: 10.3847/1538-4365/ab775f

“First ALMA Millimeter-wavelength Maps of Jupiter, with a Multiwavelength Study of Convection” by Imke de Pater, R. J. Sault, Chris Moeckel, Arielle Moullet, Michael H. Wong, Charles Goullaud, David DeBoer, Bryan J. Butler, Gordon Bjoraker, Máté Ádámkovics, Richard Cosentino, Padraig T. Donnelly, Leigh N. Fletcher, Yasumasa Kasaba, Glenn S. Orton, John H. Rogers, James A. Sinclair and Eric Villard, 9 September 2019, The Astronomical Journal.
DOI: 10.3847/1538-3881/ab3643

More information

NSF’s NOIRLab (National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory), the US center for ground-based optical-infrared astronomy, operates the international Gemini Observatory (a facility of NSF, NRC–Canada, ANID–Chile, MCTIC–Brazil, MINCyT–Argentina, and KASI–Republic of Korea), Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), the Community Science and Data Center (CSDC), and Vera C. Rubin Observatory (in cooperation with DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory). It is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with NSF and is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona. The astronomical community is honored to have the opportunity to conduct astronomical research on Iolkam Du’ag (Kitt Peak) in Arizona, on Maunakea in Hawaiʻi, and on Cerro Tololo and Cerro Pachón in Chile. We recognize and acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence that these sites have to the Tohono O’odham Nation, to the Native Hawaiian community, and to the local communities in Chile, respectively.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by AURA.

 

Dutch study finds commercial support for nuclear new build

08 July 2021

Market participants - such as contractors, operators and suppliers - would invest in the construction of new nuclear generating capacity in the Netherlands provided the government contributes to the cost and there is public support, a report by consultancy firm KPMG indicates. In response to the study, demissionary Minister for Economic Affairs Dilan Yesilgöz-Zegerius has requested a study into the possibility of including nuclear power in the country's plans for meeting energy and climate goals.

(Image: KPMG)

A motion was adopted in the House of Representatives on 17 September 2020 in response to a motion by Klaas Dijkhoff - former leader of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy - who asked the cabinet to investigate the conditions under which market parties are prepared to invest in nuclear power plants in the Netherlands, what public support is required for this, and in which regions there would be interest in hosting a nuclear power plant. The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy subsequently asked KPMG to conduct a market consultation on nuclear energy in the Netherlands.

KPGM began work on the study on 8 February this year. It interviewed 41 national and international market participants, including contractors, core technology suppliers, operators, decommissioning specialists and financiers. Interviews were also conducted with 14 Dutch regions. Publicly-available information sources were also consulted.

Proven technology preferred

The consultation found most of the potentially involved companies emphasised the importance of choosing a proven reactor technology that meets applicable safety requirements. Small modular reactors (SMRs) are seen as an interesting option, but these are not yet commercially available. An SMR based on a generation III+ reactor design is expected to take about 10 years to licence and build, but a proven design will only become available in 2027-2035 at the earliest, the study found.

The market participants said Generation IV reactors have potential benefits in terms of safety and/or waste, but are not expected to be commercialised until after 2040, as a result of which they will come to market too late to achieve the 2050 climate target. Market parties therefore indicated broadly that the Netherlands should opt for a Generation III+ reactor now and in due course for a Generation IV reactor once the technology has been proven.

The study found that market participants consider stable government policy with regards to nuclear energy a pre-condition for nuclear new build. They said the substantial financing size, substantial risks and lead time mean government involvement seems inevitable. This could be by providing guarantees to financing risks.

KPMG found that provincial authorities in the province of Zeeland - where the country's only operating nuclear power plant, Borssele, is located - were in favour of another plant being built. In addition, the province of Noord-Brabant said the construction of a plant there would be negotiable under certain conditions.

Furthermore, there was wide support for the Borssele plant, whose 485 MWe (net) pressurised water reactor is currently scheduled to shut down in 2033, to be kept online longer as it is economically profitable and nuclear knowledge would be preserved. However, it still needs to be investigated what investments will be required for this.

Further studies

In response to KPMG's report, Minister for Economic Affairs Dilan Yesilgöz-Zegerius yesterday wrote to the House of Representatives saying she has requested a study examining how nuclear energy can play a role alongside other sustainable energy sources, such as solar and wind, for the period 2030 to 2050 and beyond.

She said she is also exploring how the country's Nuclear Energy Act can be amended to keep the Borssele plant in operation for longer. This is at the request of the House of Representatives, following a motion by Agnes Mulder and Mark Harbers.

"We do not have the luxury of excluding a sustainable energy source," Yesilgöz-Zegerius said. "The Netherlands wants to emit less CO2 and generate more sustainable energy. To achieve our climate goals, we will have to pull out all the stops, including nuclear energy if it is profitable and safe. That is why I also want to look at how we can maintain and strengthen the nuclear knowledge we have in the Netherlands. We must keep all options open."

Nuclear power currently has a small role in the Dutch electricity supply, with the Borssele plant - which began operating in 1973 - providing about 3% of total generation.

Last year, EPZ - operator of the Borssele nuclear power plant - called for an extension to its operation beyond 2033 and/or the construction of two new large reactors at the site in order to help the Netherlands meet its energy and climate goals.

The KPGM report (in Dutch) can be downloaded here.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Agreement on IAEA monitoring of Fukushima water release

09 July 2021

The scope of technical assistance the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will provide in monitoring and reviewing the planned discharge of treated water stored at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant site has been agreed. The Terms of Reference defining the objective of the IAEA's assistance, how it will be implemented and its organisational arrangements were signed yesterday by the agency and the Japanese government.

Tanks of treated water at the Fukushima Daiichi site (Image: Tepco)

The document was signed by IAEA Deputy Director General Lydie Evrard, who heads the agency's Department of Nuclear Safety and Security, and Ambassador Takeshi Hikihara, Japan's permanent representative to the international organisations in Vienna.

At the Fukushima Daiichi site, contaminated water is treated by the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS), which removes most of the radioactive contamination, with the exception of tritium. This treated water is currently stored in tanks on-site. The total tank storage capacity amounts to about 1.37 million cubic metres and all the tanks are expected to be full around the summer of 2022.

In April, the Japanese government announced its formal decision that the treated water stored at the Fukushima Daiichi site will be discharged into the sea. The basic policy calls for the ALPS-treated water to be discharged "on the condition that full compliance with the laws and regulations is observed, and measures to minimise adverse impacts on reputation are thoroughly implemented".

After its announcement, the Japanese government requested assistance from the IAEA to review the country's plans and activities against international safety standards and also to support and be present during environmental monitoring operations there. The IAEA has said Japan's chosen disposal method is both technically feasible and in line with international practice.

"The signing of the Terms of Reference marks an important step as the document sets out the broad framework for how the IAEA will support Japan when it implements its plan to gradually release the treated water in a safe and transparent way," the IAEA said. "The agency's involvement before, during and after the water disposal will provide confidence - in Japan and beyond - that it takes place in line with the international safety standards which aim to protect people and the environment."

The IAEA said the signing of the document allows it to plan and implement a detailed programme of activities including review missions, in line with relevant IAEA safety standards and guidance. The first mission is expected to travel to Japan later this year.

Under the agreed terms, the IAEA will examine key safety elements of Japan's discharge plan, including: the radiological characterisation of the water to be discharged; safety related aspects of the water discharge process; the environmental monitoring associated with the discharge; the assessment of the radiological environmental impact related to ensuring the protection of people and environment; and, regulatory control including authorisation, inspection and review and assessment.

An IAEA Task Force will implement the assistance to Japan, which will include advice by a group of internationally recognised experts from Member States, including members from the region, under the authority of the IAEA Secretariat.

Japan intends to start releasing the treated water in about two years' time, and the entire operation could last for decades.

Tokyo Electric Power Company, operator of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, said it will "continue to move forward with suitable handling of ALPS-treated water based on the advice, etc. received during this review".

"The IAEA will play a vital role in monitoring and reviewing Japan's implementation of its plan," said IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi. "As the eyes of the international community, IAEA experts will be able to verify that the water discharge is conducted safely. This is of paramount importance to reassure people in Japan and elsewhere in the world, especially in neighbouring countries, that the water poses no threat to them."

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

 

MEPs call on EC to recognise nuclear as sustainable

09 July 2021

Nearly 100 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have called on the European Commission "to follow the science" and include nuclear under the EU's Sustainable Finance Taxonomy. According to a letter sent to Commissioners and published by European nuclear trade body Foratom, the MEPs urge them "to choose the path that their scientific experts have now advised them to take", namely to include nuclear power in the EU's Taxonomy on Sustainable Finance.

Swedish MEP Sara Skyttedal is one of the signatories to the letter (Image: Twitter)

"The EU has just 30 years to decarbonise its economy in a sustainable way," said Yves Desbazeille, Foratom director general. "Member States who wish to invest in low-carbon nuclear should not be prevented from doing so just because others are politically opposed to nuclear," he added.

In the letter, MEPs draw attention to the fact that the scientific assessment of nuclear concludes that "the existing legal framework provides adequate protection in terms of public health and the environment", which Foratom says means nuclear complies with the requirements of the Taxonomy. It therefore asks the Commission "to take this scientific work seriously and not to discriminate against nuclear".

The full text of the letter is:

"We, the undersigned members of the European parliament, acknowledge the hard work that the Commission has put into completing the first delegated act of the Taxonomy Regulation. The European Union has committed itself to becoming climate neutral by the middle of the century. This requires great efforts from the Member States as well as the EU as a whole. No effort can be spared in this important work, neither from the EU nor from the Member States. The taxonomy regulation has the potential to be a decisive tool in this regard.

"We cannot afford to ignore any energy sources that have the prerequisites to make a positive contribution on the path towards climate neutrality. That nuclear power is such a kind of energy source is, to us, obvious. Therefore, those member states that for this reason choose to invest and wish to mobilize private capital towards nuclear installations should not be met with resistance, but encouragement, from the EU. We are very pleased to see three different expert reports from the Commission that points in a similar conclusion. Not the least the Commissions Joint Research Centre (JRC) report “Technical assessment of nuclear energy with respect to the ‘do no significant harm’ criteria of Regulation (EU) 2020/852”, published this March. Last week the results of two scientific boards - Article 31 report and the SCHEER report - were published by the Commission. Reports that mostly confirms the findings in the JRC report, that the existing legal framework provides adequate protection in terms of public health and the environment.

"We welcome the findings of the JRC and the two scientific boards, which specific environmental aspects where assessed scientifically by a committee with expertise in environmental science, nuclear safety and safe nuclear waste disposal. This means that the scientific review acknowledges key elements of the “do no significant harm” principle. If we, and the EU as a whole, are serious about facing the climate crisis with powerful tools, then we cannot reasonably discriminate against any fossil-free technology with as much potential as nuclear power objectively has.

"There are obvious political wills from Member states without nuclear power, or with nuclear power currently being phased out, to persuade the European Commission to ignore scientific conclusions and actively oppose nuclear power. We urge the Commission to be brave enough to disregard these calls and to choose the path that their scientific experts have now advised them to take, namely to include nuclear power in the taxonomy.

"The taxonomy regulation should be guided by the desire to achieve climate neutrality and by the principle of “do no significant harm”. In the past, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has pointed out nuclear power as a key in the fight against climate change. The European Commission's expert body has now reached similar conclusions. It is our hope that the European Commission is courageous enough to create EU regulations that do not actively generate disadvantages for investments in nuclear power, or any other fossil free technology."

One of the MEPs who signed the letter, Sweden's Sara Skyttedal, posted the letter on Twitter, urging the Commission "not to create EU regulations that actively generate disadvantages for investments in nuclear power. Europe needs more, not less, nuclear energy".

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

 

US-led initiative aims to lower advanced nuclear construction costs

08 July 2021

The US Department of Energy (DOE) is teaming up with GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) and providing USD5.8 million in funding for a project to demonstrate how three construction technologies from other industries can be applied to advanced reactor designs, to improve the economics of bringing advanced reactors to market. The Advanced Construction Technology (ACT) Initiative aims to reduce cost overruns and schedule slippages.

(Image: NRIC)

The three technologies have been used successfully in other industries but have not yet been tested within the context of nuclear energy, the DOE said. Together, they could reduce the cost of new nuclear builds by more than 10%. They are:

• Vertical shaft construction, a best practice from the tunnelling industry that could reduce construction schedules by more than a year;
• 'Steel Bricks', modular steel-concrete composite structures, much like high-tech LEGO pieces, which could significantly reduce on-site labour requirements;
• Advanced monitoring, coupled with digital twin technology, which can create a digital replica of the nuclear power plant structure. 

"Construction costs and schedule overruns have plagued new nuclear builds for decades," said Acting Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Kathryn Huff. "By leveraging advanced construction technologies, we can drive down costs and speed the pace of advanced nuclear deployment."

GEH's portfolio includes the BWRX-300 small modular reactor, currently under review by nuclear regulators in both Canada and the USA. "We know this funding will significantly benefit the commercialisation of SMRs and pave the way for other advanced reactors," the company's executive vice president, Jon Ball, said.

The GEH-led project team includes Black & Veatch, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Purdue University, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and the Tennessee Valley Authority, in addition to the UK's Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (Nuclear AMRC), of which EPRI is a member, and two UK companies, Caunton Engineering and Modular Walling Systems Limited. Modular Walling Systems is the developer of the Steel Bricks technology, which GEH earlier this year said it intends to use in the construction of the BWRX-300.

"In the nuclear industry, we don't have to invent everything ourselves. Being prudent about leveraging tech from other industries will accelerate advanced nuclear deployment," EPRI's Chief Nuclear Officer Rita Baranwal tweeted.

"The assurance of construction integrity is a vital consideration for advanced nuclear reactors, and we are seeing more reactor designs using below-ground construction to provide additional protection from natural or man-made hazards," Li Li, head of the Nuclear AMRC's controls & instrumentation group, said. "By applying sensor-based structural health monitoring and real-time condition monitoring techniques, we will help bring the digital replica alive to optimise the cost of construction, operation and maintenance, and to improve the safety of advanced reactors over decades of low-carbon power generation."

The work will be funded and managed through DOE's National Reactor Innovation Center and is to be carried out in two phases. The initial phase will focus on technology development and preparation for a small-scale demonstration, and pending the successful completion of the first phase and future appropriated funds, a second phase will carry out the demonstration within three years of the initial award.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

PROUDHON'S PEOPLES BANK

White farmers blocked a much-needed federal relief program for Black farmers.

 The saga proved Black farmers won't overcome racism unless they take their economic future into their own hands.

insider@insider.com (Cornelius Blanding) 

© Getty A Black farmer checks the condition of his soy bean field. Getty
In a historical step to redress racism, the USDA was poised to issue $4 billion in debt relief to farmers of color.

White farmers and banks pushed back, in an attempt to uphold the racist structures they've benefitted from for centuries.

Black farmers won't overcome racism until they take the levers of finance into their own hands and forge their own financial institutions.

This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.

This month, in a historic step to redress racism, the United States Department of Agriculture planned to begin issuing $4 billion in debt relief to minority farmers around the country. The move follows a long and ugly record of discrimination, including by the USDA itself.


Depressingly but not surprisingly, a group of white farmers has sued the USDA over the relief program, which was passed as part of the American Rescue Plan back in March. These longtime beneficiaries of systemic racism now claim they are victims of reverse discrimination. On June 10, a US District court issued a temporary restraining order on the USDA's plan while it decides if the agency's program discriminates against white farmers. A judge in Florida also ruled against the program on June 24, throwing the future of the aid further into doubt.

More shocking, though, has been the reaction from banks. Three of the country's biggest banking trade groups are fighting to stop the debt relief. In a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, they issued a barely veiled threat to withhold credit from farmers of color if the USDA moves ahead with the initiative.

The three trade groups - the American Bankers Association, the Independent Community Bankers of America, and the National Rural Lenders Association - collectively represent a huge swath of American financial institutions, including the very ones that spent much of the 20th century denying home and business loans to people of color. Their attack on an effort to correct the effects of their actions shows how acceptable blatant racism remains in America's most powerful institutions.

It also shows that ending financial discrimination against people of color will take more than a new federal program. We need strategies that enable people of color to take control of their economic fates.

A reparation

For years, financial institutions have used discriminatory practices to withhold credit from non-White farmers. The USDA - which plays a central role in farming through loans, grants, insurance, technical help, and other services - has also failed to help Black farms equally, as Vilsack recently acknowledged. As a result, they struggled and shrank as White-owned farms grew. Consider that, in 1920, 14% of the nation's farmers were black. By 2017, fewer than 2% were.

There have been efforts to remedy these injustices. In 1999, Black farmers won a major civil rights class action lawsuit, Pigford v. Glickman, which alleged systemic race-based discrimination by the USDA.

But this victory was undermined by settlement terms that made it onerous for claimants to collect their due. For instance, some 60,000 otherwise legitimate claims were rejected for being filed late. And one rule demanded that claimants come up with "specifically identified, similarly situated white farmers" who had not faced discrimination - legal research that could take a whole law firm months to produce.

This supposed cure, in short, was just as racist as the disease.

Even today, agricultural policies disadvantage farmers of color. Take the $8.5 billion Trump-era farm subsidy known as the Market Facilitation Program. Though about 10% of US farmers are people of color, more than 99.4% of those funds went to non-Hispanic white farmers.

Still, the battle to stop aid for non-White farmers continues. Hoping to stir controversy, some have characterized the USDA debt relief program as a form of reparations for slavery - even though the program is intended for "socially disadvantaged farmers" as a group. About 4% of American farmers are Hispanic, 3% Native American, and 1% Asian or Pacific Islander.

In the banking groups' letter to Vilsack, they warned that, should debt relief move forward as planned, "the likely result will be less access to credit for those seeking USDA guaranteed loans in the future, including [socially disadvantaged] farmers/ranchers."

That sounds like intimidation from an industry determined to uphold racist structures. The banks complain that by repaying farmers' loans early, the USDA will deny them the chance to earn income from interest or by selling off the debt.

People of privilege pay off loans early every day without their banks complaining to the government and threatening to withhold future loans. But they aren't the Black farmers who financial institutions had hoped to keep in debt for the rest of their days.

If black farmers and other farmers of color are to ever overcome the financial sector's entrenched racism, they'll need to forge their own financial institutions - specifically, member-owned financial cooperatives. These organizations offer the same services as traditional banks, but unlike banks, are deeply invested in the financial well-being of their member-owners.

The Administration's debt relief program is a welcome move. But the ultimate solution for marginalized farmers is to take the levers of finance into their own hands.

Cornelius Blanding is the Executive Director of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund.

Read the original article on Business Insider

 

How learning Braille changes brain structure over time

White matter reorganizes at specific time points to meet the needs of the brain

SOCIETY FOR NEUROSCIENCE

Research News

IMAGE: CHANGES IN MOTOR, VISUAL, AND LANGUAGE-RELATED WHITE MATTER AREAS OVER TIME. view more 

CREDIT: MOLENDOWSKA AND MATUSZEWSKI ET AL., JNEUROSCI 2021

Learning changes the brain, but when learning Braille different brain regions strengthen their connections at varied rates and time frames. A new study published in JNeurosci highlights the dynamic nature of learning-induced brain plasticity.

Learning new skills alters the brain's white matter, the nerve fibers connecting brain regions. When people learn to read tactile Braille, their somatosensory and visual cortices reorganize to accommodate the new demands. Prior studies only examined white matter before and after training, so the exact time course of the changes was not known.

Molendowska and Matuszewski et al. used diffusion MRI to measure changes in the white matter strength of sighted adults as they learned Braille over the course of eight months. They took measurements at five time points: before the training, three times during, and once after. White matter in somatosensory areas strengthened steadily over the course of the training. But white matter in the visual cortex did not reorganize until halfway through the training, the point where the Braille words start to take on semantic meaning. White matter in both regions went back to the pre-training level two and a half months after the training ended. These results demonstrate white matter reorganizes itself across regions and different timeframes to meet the brain's needs.

###

Paper title: Temporal Dynamics of Brain White Matter Plasticity in Sighted Subjects During Tactile Braille Learning - a Longitudinal Diffusion Tensor Imaging Study

About JNeurosci

JNeurosci, the Society for Neuroscience's first journal, was launched in 1981 as a means to communicate the findings of the highest quality neuroscience research to the growing field. Today, the journal remains committed to publishing cutting-edge neuroscience that will have an immediate and lasting scientific impact, while responding to authors' changing publishing needs, representing breadth of the field and diversity in authorship.

About The Society for Neuroscience

The Society for Neuroscience is the world's largest organization of scientists and physicians devoted to understanding the brain and nervous system. The nonprofit organization, founded in 1969, now has nearly 37,000 members in more than 90 countries and over 130 chapters worldwide.

 

Symbionts sans frontieres: Bacterial partners travel the world

Some bacterial symbionts in travel the globe and are true cosmopolitans

MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR MARINE MICROBIOLOGY

Research News

IMAGE: THIS IS WHERE THE INVESTIGATED CLAMS LIKE TO LIVE: LUCINID HABITAT CHARACTERIZED BY SANDY PATCHES WITHIN SEAGRASS (THALASSIA TESTUDINUM) BEDS IN BOCAS DEL TORO, PANAMA. view more 

CREDIT: LAETITIA WILKINS

The Lucinidae family, lucinids for short, comprises approximately 500 living species of bivalves. They are at least 400 million years old, according to fossil records, and have managed to colonize a wide variety of habitats, from beautiful beaches to the abyssal depths untouched by the sun over a kilometer below the sea surface. Their ability to thrive in a wide variety of habitats is made possible by their 'partner in crime', a sulfur-oxidizing bacterial symbiont that utilizes hydrogen sulfide, better known as 'rotten egg gas', as an energy source to power primary production. This process is not unlike photosynthesis used by plants, yet not dependent on sunlight, and generates enough sugars to feed both the symbiont and the lucinids themselves.

Striking up partnerships from near or far

Finding a suitable partner out in the wild is a matter of life and death for lucinids. They have to pick up their bacterial partners at a very early life stage when they settle in the sediment after their larval stage. From this time on, they rely on their bacterial symbionts for nutrition. However, bacterial cells are miniscule and the oceans are awash with a multitude of possible candidates. Typically, animals that rely so heavily on bacteria are expected to strike up partnerships with local residents. These microbes are likely to work best under the unique conditions of their local habitats. A new study based on metagenomic analyses of symbiotic bacteria in lucinids now reveals that this is not always the case: Some bacterial symbionts travel the globe and are true cosmopolitans.

CAPTION

Lucinids are the most species rich and widely distributed family of marine bivalves hosting bacterial endosymbionts. In this picture, a large specimen of Ctena imbricatula is checking out its environment with its foot that it can enlarge ten times its body size.

CREDIT

Laetitia Wilkins

Globally distributed symbionts

"Using state-of-art DNA-sequencing and genome assembling, we discovered that a single bacterial symbiont species was the most abundant symbiont in eight lucinid species spanning three oceans - the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans - across the tropics of both hemispheres," said Laetitia Wilkins from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany, shared first author of the publication together with Jay Osvatic from the University of Vienna, Austria. "These symbionts are virtually all over the place." No other known symbiont is so successful at dispersal and establishing symbioses with lucinids, the researchers report. They named it Candidatus Thiodiazotropha taylori - "to acknowledge the wisdom of John Taylor from the Natural History Museum in London, who has devoted 25 years of his life to studying lucinid biology and taxonomy", as Osvatic pointed out.

"This unexpected finding challenges previous concepts that symbionts are acquired locally. It suggests that lucinid symbionts are much more mobile", Osvatic added. The remarkable flexibility in this partnership is advantageous to both host and symbiont, as it increases the likelihood of locating a compatible partner across diverse habitats all over the globe. Prior to this study, lucinid research has mainly been carried out in easily accessible locations. Now for the first time the team around Wilkins and Osvatic presents an expanded, global dataset that has led to and will continue to facilitate new discoveries and show how distant habitats might be connected.

Scientists collaborating to find collaborating organisms

Just like the relationships between symbionts and lucinid clams, this discovery would not have been possible without the scientists reaching out and forming collaborations across the world. "Our contacts (and now friends) across the world have given us access to an unprecedented diversity of lucinds, both direct from the beaches and from museums across the world", said Benedict Yuen from the University of Vienna, senior author of the paper. "We were given access to a wide variety of lucinid samples at the Natural History Museum in London through John Taylor. Samples were also collected personally by our team and collaborators Matthieu Leray in Panama, Yolanda Camacho in Costa Rica, Olivier Gros in Guadeloupe and Jan A. van Gils in Mauritania."

CAPTION

Fluorescence microscopy reveals that lucinid gills are packed with symbionts. Lucinids host them in specialized cells called bacteriocytes. Bacterial symbionts are labeled in green and magenta, host nuclei in gold.

CREDIT

Lukas Leibrecht

Also discovered: Two new species in cosy togetherness

Moreover, the extensive data collection of Wilkins, Osvatic and their team resulted in the discovery of two new lucinid symbionts, which have now been described and named after Miriam Weber and Christian Lott, both former researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen. These symbionts - now known as Thiodioazotropha weberae and lotti - are found in the clam Loripes orbiculatus on the Italian island of Elba, where the symbionts peacefully co-exist in the gills of the same host. "Before genomic analyses were used, it was assumed that each clam hosts only one species of symbionts", Wilkins explained. "However, many clams on Elba harbor two symbiont species. Miriam and Christian discovered this clam population in the bay of Fetovaia and it is thanks to them that we could amass a very powerful dataset on this symbiosis."

Next, the researchers want to find out how the symbionts travel. "They leave their bivalve home to traverse the globe", added co-senior author Jillian Petersen. 'Both beneficial symbionts such as Candidatus T. taylori but also pathogens can disperse in the environment, but we usually don't know how.'

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Original publication

Jay T. Osvatic†, Laetitia G. E. Wilkins†, Lukas Leibrecht, Matthieu Leray, Sarah Zauner, Julia Polzin, Yolanda Camacho, Olivier Gros, Jan A. van Gils, Jonathan A. Eisen, Jillian M. Petersen*, and Benedict Yuen* (2021): Global biogeography of chemosynthetic symbionts reveals both localized and globally-distributed symbiont groups. PNAS (July 12, 2021)

† shared first authorship

* shared last authorship

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2104378118

Participating institutions:

Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Germany
University of Vienna, Austria
University of California, Davis, USA
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Republic of Panama?
Universidad de Costa Rica, Costa Rica
Universite? des Antilles, Guadeloupe
Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, The Netherlands

Sea-level rise solutions

Stanford researchers map how sea-level rise adaptation strategies impact economies and floodwaters

STANFORD UNIVERSITY

Research News

IMAGE: NEW RESEARCH MAPS HOW SEAWALLS AND OTHER TRADITIONAL APPROACHES TO COMBATING SEA-LEVEL RISE CAN CREATE A DOMINO EFFECT OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC IMPACTS FOR NEIGHBORING COMMUNITIES. view more 

CREDIT: DJPERRY/ISTOCK

Communities trying to fight sea-level rise could inadvertently make flooding worse for their neighbors, according to a new study from the Stanford Natural Capital Project.

The research, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows how seawalls constructed along the San Francisco Bay shoreline could increase flooding and incur hundreds of millions of dollars in damages for communities throughout the region. The researchers emphasize how non-traditional approaches, like choosing to flood certain areas of land rather than build walls, are smarter, more sustainable solutions for the Bay Area and similar coastal bay communities.

"It's not practical to keep building taller and taller seawalls to hold back the ocean," said Anne Guerry, chief strategy officer and lead scientist at the Stanford Natural Capital Project and senior author on the paper. "Our goal was to show how the threat of sea-level rise is interconnected with the whole social-ecological system of the Bay Area. Communities need to coordinate their approaches to sea-level rise adaptation so we can find solutions that are best for the whole bay."

By 2100, sea levels are projected to rise by almost seven feet in the Bay Area. Millions of people live and work in buildings that are collectively worth hundreds of billions of dollars within the Bay Area's projected sea-level rise zone. As water levels increase, governments are looking for ways to protect their communities and economies.

Following the flow

The researchers used complex mathematical models to map how floodwaters - and the economic damages related to floods - would flow depending on where new seawalls were built. They found that blocking certain areas of the bay's shoreline would be particularly damaging to communities throughout the region. For instance, if a seawall were built along the San Jose shoreline, communities throughout the bay, from Redwood City to Napa and Solano counties, would face an additional $723 million in flood damage costs after just one high tide, according to the models.

Damages to buildings and homes aren't the only losses that could result from walling shorelines - it also can cut off habitat for important bird and fish species, limit the natural area available to store carbon and create water quality issues by destroying wetlands that naturally provide water treatment.

"You may be protecting your immediate community, but you may be creating serious costs and damages for your neighbors," said Robert Griffin, an economist at the Natural Capital Project and co-author on the paper. "When it comes to current sea-level rise planning, there's some incomplete cost-benefit accounting going on."

CAPTION

The researchers modeled what would happen if a seawall were to be built along different parts of the San Francisco Bay shoreline. This map shows the increase in flooding that would result throughout the Bay Area if a seawall were built in the San Jose region.

CREDIT

Michelle Hummel et al.

Guiding the flood

The researchers identified places where Bay Area communities could strategically choose to guide floodwaters, rather than holding them back with walls. These strategic flood areas would act as overflow zones, absorbing the increased water and avoiding damage to communities.

One example is along the Napa-Sonoma shoreline, where Highway 37 is under threat of impending sea-level rise. Decision-makers are trying to decide how to adapt the road to prevent flooding in the future: either by building a taller embankment to raise the road or by rebuilding it as a causeway that allows water to flow between the bay and marshlands on the other side. The researchers modeled what would happen if the Napa-Sonoma shoreline were blocked by a concrete embankment and found that it would worsen flooding for almost all the Bay Area communities studied, from Martinez to San Jose. Building a causeway, on the other hand, would provide a natural absorption area for extra water to flow.

A Bay-wide strategy

"It's critical to consider the regional impacts of local actions," said Michelle Hummel, assistant professor at the University of Texas at Arlington and lead author on the paper. "Studies like ours can identify actions that will have large impacts, either positive or negative, on the rest of the bay and help to inform decisions about how to manage the shoreline."

Not every city or county has a landscape suitable for strategic flooding, which requires wide plains or valleys where water will naturally flow. Therefore, the researchers say it's crucial that Bay Area communities work together to identify the places where nature-based solutions like flooding make the most sense.

The researchers also looked at demographic information in their models to better understand who would be affected by possible strategic flooding plans. They say avoiding adaptation plans that add more pressure to poor or otherwise overburdened communities - by forcing them to move or creating increased economic stress - is key.

To understand the broader impacts of climate resilience decisions, including investments in nature, the researchers plan to model how sea-level rise adaptation strategies are connected with infrastructure, employment, community dynamics and more.

"Our plans should be as interconnected as our ecosystems," said Guerry.

CAPTION

A seawall built in the San Jose region would cause an increase in economic damages due to flooding. This map shows the millions of dollars in damages that would result throughout the Bay Area.

CREDIT

Michelle Hummel et al.

Katherine Arkema, lead scientist at the Stanford Natural Capital Project, is an author on the paper. Anne Guerry is also a Senior Research Associate in the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. Robert Griffin is also a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.