OMG DINO'S WERE COLLECTIVISTS 

Oldest known dinosaur herds found in Patagonia

Evidence of the earliest “gregarious” behaviour springs from the nest.

Artistic reconstruction of a nest of Mussaurus patagonicus with neonate individuals and an adult parent Mussaurus. Credit: Jorge Gonzalez.

Fossils from a 190-million-year-old nesting ground have revealed that its dinosaurs likely lived in herds. The species – Mussaurus patagonicus – are now the oldest known herding dinosaurs, according to a paper in Scientific Reports.

“We’ve now observed and documented this earliest social behaviour in dinosaurs,” says Jahandar Ramezani, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US, and co-author on the paper.

“This raises the question now of whether living in a herd may have had a major role in dinosaurs’ early evolutionary success. This gives us some clues to how dinosaurs evolved.”

Nest with eggs of Mussaurus patagonicus. Credit: Diego Pol.

The researchers gathered this evidence by examining Mussaurus eggs and skeletons from the fossil site, which is in the Laguna Colorada Formation, in southern Argentina.

“Such a preserved site was bound to provide us with a lot of information about how early dinosaurs lived,” says Diego Pol, a researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina (CONICET), who discovered the site and is lead author on the paper.

The site contains at least 80 Mussaurus skeletons and 100 eggs. The researchers scanned 30 of the eggs with a synchrotron, finding some had embryos inside them.

“We use high-energy X-rays to penetrate the sample without destroying it and get a full view inside it,” says co-author Vincent Fernandez, who did the scanning at the European Synchrotron in France.

“We spent four days scanning the eggs around the clock. It was tiring, but the exciting results were morale-boosting.”

All the embryos were the same species of Mussaurus, indicating that they came from a communal breeding site.

Fossilised egg of Mussaurus patagonicus. Credit: Roger Smith.

The researchers also examined the age of the dinosaur skeletons at the site.

“The bones of these dinosaurs grew in annual cycles, like tree rings, so by counting the growth cycles we could infer the age of the dinosaur,” says Pol.

Skeletons were also grouped by age, with one-year-old skeletons found in clusters together. Older adults and sub-adults were found in pairs or alone, but all within the same small area (a square kilometre in size).

“This may mean that the young were not following their parents in a small family structure,” says Ramezani. “There’s a larger community structure, where adults shared and took part in raising the whole community.”

The researchers calculated the site’s age at 193 million years using radiometric dating (specifically, uranium-lead dating). This is 40 million years prior to the current oldest evidence of “gregarious” (social) behaviour in dinosaurs.

“These are not the oldest dinosaurs, but they are the oldest dinosaurs for which a herd behaviour has been proposed,” says Pol.

The researchers suggest that their evidence throws the evolution of herding back even further. “Palaeontological understanding says if you find social behaviour in this type of dinosaur at this time, it must have originated earlier,” says Ramezani.

The researchers propose that herding may have started between 227 and 208 million years ago, at the same time as dinosaur bodies increased in size.

“Mussaurus belongs to the first successful family of herbivorous dinosaurs, so we postulate that being social and protecting their young together as a herd may have been part of the reason these long-necked dinosaurs were so common in all continents,” says Pol

.

Artistic reconstruction of the breeding ground of a herd of Mussaurus patagonicus. The illustration shows individuals of Mussaurus of different ages (neonates in nests, a group of young individuals, and fully grown adults) representing the findings from Patagonia. Credit: Jorge Gonzalez.

Originally published by Cosmos as Oldest known dinosaur herds found in Patagonia

Printable steak, insect protein, fungus among NASA space food idea winners

Astronaut Kate Rubins harvests radishes in December aboard the International Space Station. File Photo courtesy of NASA

ORLANDO, Fla. Oct. 22 (UPI) -- NASA has chosen 18 companies to continue developing space food that astronauts could eat on long-term, Deep Space missions to Mars or other planets, such as 3D-printed steak and ingredients including insect protein, fungus and algae.

The space agency believes its ongoing Deep Space Food Challenge is vital to keeping astronauts healthy and in good spirits during long isolation. NASA announced this week that more than a dozen organizations will receive $25,000 to keep working on space food solutions.

NASA has tried to focus on appetizing solutions for astronauts, but it also believes innovation requires new approaches, Ralph Fritsche, NASA senior project manager for space crop production, said in an interview.

He said about 10 NASA employees with expertise in food production and spaceflight judged the contest, which had more than 100 entries.

RELATED NASA will pay $500,000 for good ideas on food production in space

"These ideas didn't have to be anywhere close to fully developed," Fritshe said. "Some of our judges may have had some skepticism. But we've decided to open up space food development to many other groups to try and promote space innovation."

The 3D-printed space steak, for example, is proposed by an alliance of companies based in California known as Mission: Space Food.


A 3D-printed steak, which could provide food for astronauts on long missions, is cooked by Aleph Farms in February. Photo courtesy of Aleph Farms

One of those firms is Aleph Farms, which successfully printed a facsimile of a rib-eye steak in February. Aleph boasts advisory board members such as Academy Award-winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio and retired astronaut Karen Nyberg.

"As we progress in human exploration and colonization of our solar system, space agencies and private companies will need to invest significantly in ... food production so eating in space can minimally depend on resupply from Earth," Shahreen Reza, co-founder of Mission: Space Food, said in an email.

Judges didn't see anything completely new in the ideas for space food, Fritsche said. NASA has grown leafy greens, radishes and peppers in space, for example.

But some entries "moved the bar, pushed the variety of food that we could produce from any single system" by including fungus and algae along with traditional plant crops, he said.

RELATED Astronaut Kate Rubins: Fresh food in space is rare, desired

Mixed greens grow aboard the International Space Station. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo

Radishes are shown during harvest in late 2020 aboard the International Space Station. Photo courtesy of NASA

The idea to mix fungus, algae and plants came from Cosmic Eats, a startup company in Cary, N.C.

"Variety is very important on a long space journey, so anything that adds to variety is a big plus," Fritsche said.

One firm, Beehex, of Columbus, Ohio, won with a simple proposal to dehydrate and hermetically seal food so it could be rehydrated with flavor and nutrients intact up to five years later.

Winners from this year's competition will advance to successively narrower and more difficult challenges. Eventually, NASA will require kitchen demonstrations, taste tests and possible demonstrations on orbit.

NASA astronaut Tim Kopra photographed his breakfast in 2016 as it floated inside the International Space Station, where fresh food is rare. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo

Other winners include:

Astra Gastronomy, of San Francisco, which plans to grow and dehydrate fast-growing microalgae to form into "crunchy bite-sized snacks mixed with nuts and other ingredients."

Space Bread, of Hawthorne, Fla., which would develop a plastic bag to allow astronauts to store, combine and bake all bread ingredients for a "ready-to-eat yeast-risen roll."
Deep Space Entomoculture, of Somerville, Mass., which would use cells from insect tissue to grow more tissue so the final product would contain protein and fat from insect cells.

The goal of the so-called entomoculture project is "to create familiar meat analogs (burgers, ground meat) using [insect cells] that are more easily adapted to growth in space" than common meat would be, Sophie Letcher, a biomedical engineering doctoral student at Massachusetts-based Tufts University, said in an email.

NASA plans a livestream broadcast on its YouTube channel about the food challenge and the winning ideas with celebrities Martha Stewart and retired astronaut Scott Kelly on Nov. 9 at 11 a.m. EST.

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly corrals a supply of fresh fruit that arrived 2015 at the International Space Station, where fresh food is rare and delivered only occasionally. Photo courtesy of NASA

THIN SKINED HAN COLONIALISTS

China bans Boston Celtics games after Enes Kanter's Tibet comments


Boston Celtics center Enes Kanter (11), shown Nov. 20, 2019, made the comments in a two-minute video posted on social media before Wednesday's game against the New York Knicks.

 File Photo by Jon SooHoo/UPI | License Photo

Oct. 21 (UPI) -- Boston Celtics games have been removed from Chinese media platforms after center Enes Kanter expressed support for Tibet in a two-minute video posted to social media before Wednesday night's game against the New York Knicks.

Kanter called Chinese President Xi Jinping a "brutal dictator" in the caption of the post, and he wore a shirt with the image of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, in the video. The NBA big man also wore shoes with the phrase "Free Tibet" on them against the Knicks.

"I'm here to add my voice and speak out about what is happening in Tibet," Kanter said in the video. "Under the Chinese government's brutal rule, Tibetan people's basic rights and freedoms are non-existent."

On Thursday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Kanter was "trying to get attention" and the NBA player's remarks "were not worth refuting."

"Tibet is part of China," the spokesman said. "We welcome unbiased friends upholding objectivity across the world to Tibet. In the meanwhile, we never accept the attacks and smears on Tibet's development."

Later Thursday, the Washington, D.C.-based office of His Holiness The Dalai Lama issued a statement to ESPN that read in part: "We are thankful to Enes Kanter, NBA player, for speaking in support of Tibet. In a two-minute video message he summed up the existential threat faced by the Tibetans under Chinese communist rule. Every word that he said is true."

The statement from the organization also noted that Kanter's "courageous" comments came "at the huge risk to his personal life and career."

In response to Kanter's comments, Celtics games were pulled from Tencent -- the Chinese company that streams NBA games and has a content-sharing partnership with ESPN. Previous replays of games are no longer available, and upcoming Celtics games aren't set to be shown on the platform.

In addition, searches for Kanter's name have been blocked on China's Twitter-like social media platform, Weibo.

Philadelphia 76ers games also aren't streamed in China after a previous incident involving then-Houston Rockets executive Daryl Morey.

Two years ago, Morey -- now the Sixers' president of basketball operations -- tweeted his support for democracy in Chinese-ruled Hong Kong, a move that led China to temporarily halt broadcasts of NBA games.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M 
US Watchdog investigates 4 lawmakers on ethics violations

Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., is under investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics on allegations his wife, Victoria Kelly, purchased stocks with information gained from his office. File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo

Oct. 22 (UPI) -- The Office of Congressional Ethics has recommended issuing subpoenas for four House lawmakers as it has "substantial reason to believe" that they have breached ethics laws.

The reports were released Thursday concerning Reps. Jim Hagedorn, R-Minn.; Mike Kelly, R-Pa.; Tom Malinowski, D-N.J.; and Alex Mooney, R-W.Va., stating they have declined to provide the office with requested information concerning investigations related to either the misuse of founds or the purchasing of stocks.

According to the report on Hagedorn, he's under investigation on accusations of directing at least $453,000 of official funds to companies owned or controlled by two members of his staff who were suspend shortly after the issue made headlines in September of last year.

Friends of Hagedorn, his campaign committee, is also accused of failing to report having used private office space at no cost or for a rate below market value. However, starting in 2019, he began renting official office space at about $2,200 a month in the same building but on a different floor.

The report states that Friends of Hagedorn has listed Suite 7 at 11 Civic Center Plaza in Mankato, Minn., as its mailing address since 2013. However, despite its use of the office, there have been no Federal Election Commission files of rental payments.
The report states that the watchdog has sought his cooperation but he has refused.

Concerning Kelly, the committee said it is investigating whether his wife, Victoria Kelly, purchased between $15,001 and $50,000 worth of stock in Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. on April 29 of last year on confidential nonpublic information that he had access to during his duties.

According to the report, Victoria Kelly purchased the stock a day after her husband's office learned that the Department of Commerce agreed to open an investigation that could benefit Cleveland-Cliffs.

"Victoria Kelly purchased stock in Cleveland-Cliffs just after the Commerce Department advised Cleveland-Cliffs about its planned support ... but before the department publicly announced this course of action," the report said.

Malinowski is being investigated for failing to disclose stock transactions.

According to the report, as a new member of Congress in January 2019, he was trained on his financial disclosure obligations under the STOCK Act but he did not file Periodic Transaction Reports as he was required as "he regularly traded securities."

Staff periodically reminded him to file the PTRs and he received monthly statements from his broker that included all the transactions made in his account, it said.

"The OCE received and reviewed these statements, which confirm that Rep. Malinowski's broker made reportable transactions each month," it said.

Mooney is under scrutiny on accusations he "converted" expended funds from his campaign committees for personal use and failed to disclose required information in his FEC candidate committee filings.

DO SEAT BELT LAWS WORK
Study: Mandates get more people vaccinated than recommendations
By Denise Mann, HealthDay News

While COVID-19 vaccine mandates have motivated some protests, such as the Boeing workers pictured on Wednesday in St. Louis protesting the company's rule, but researchers say they are more effective at getting people vaccinated than recommendations. 

Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI | License Photo


Requiring COVID-19 shots for work, school or travel will boost vaccination rates without the backlash and mass walkouts that many have predicted, new research predicts.

The findings come as growing numbers of U.S. states, cities and private companies start to enforce COVID-19 vaccine mandates. High-profile refusers like Brooklyn Nets' guard Kyrie Irving and Washington State University football coach Nick Rolovich have incurred serious consequences for their defiance.

"Our studies present experimental evidence that mandates lead to stronger vaccination intentions than leaving vaccination entirely up to people who can choose whether to vaccinate," said study author Dolores Albarracín, director of the Social Action Lab at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication.

"The requirement condition works better across the board, for different racial and ethnic groups and even among people who dislike feeling and being controlled by others," Albarracín said.

With more than 700,000 U.S. coronavirus deaths, most public health experts agree that getting more people immunized is the best way to buck these trends.

Based on her research, Albarracín expects an uptick in vaccination rates now that more mandates are in place and being enforced across the United States.

Her team asked 299 adults whether they would get the COVID-19 shot if they were required to do so for work, travel or school, and 86% said they would.

Then, researchers conducted a series of experiments.

They asked 1,322 people if they would be more likely to get the shot if their employer required it, preferred it, or emphasized the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination. Once again, the majority said they were most likely to get vaccinated if they were required to do so.

The participants also completed a psychological questionnaire to assess their feelings about such regulations. Those who said they didn't like being told what to do were also more likely to take the jab if required to do so -- even if they didn't see the benefits of the vaccine, the study found.

"The mandate makes vaccination appear more advantageous [access to more, greater social acceptance] than does leaving the decision up to individuals," Albarracín said.

A mandate also signals that the vaccine is less risky, she said.

The findings were published online Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports.

The study comes as Irving and Rolovich face stiff penalties for refusing to get vaccinated. Irving has been barred from practice and play with his team, and on Monday, Rolovich and four vaccine-refusing assistants were fired. Rolovich has announced his intent to sue.

Despite these headline-grabbing cases of vaccine refusal, medical ethicist Arthur Caplan said the takeaway from the new study was evident: Vaccine mandates work.

Requiring health care workers and nursing home staffers to get flu shots bumped up vaccination rates, and mandates will also work for COVID-19 vaccines, he said.

"We tried persuasion and tried to incentivize people with a day off or a free meal if they got the flu shot, but nothing short of mandates really worked," said Caplan, head of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York City.

"This idea that we can persuade people to get the COVID-19 vaccine is less likely to work given the fact that the whole issue has become political," Caplan said.

The big fear is that mandates will trigger a massive backlash, but this study didn't find that to be a likely outcome, he said.

"Many people have a strong belief that they are free to make their own choices about medical issues, but that isn't true in a pandemic," Caplan said, stressing that the pandemic isn't over.

Vaccinated people are less likely to spread COVID-19, he pointed out.

"People who are vulnerable need to be protected from COVID-19," Caplan said, "And there is still a danger that new variants can spread more easily if we don't get more people vaccinated."

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has the facts about the COVID-19 vaccine.

Copyright © 2021 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

COP26 SUPERSPREADER EVENT

‘The UK really is in trouble’: Doctors warn of a dire Covid crisis as officials reject restrictions

PUBLISHED FRI, OCT 22 20211

Holly Ellyatt@HOLLYELLYATT

KEY POINTS

The U.K. is seeing rampant Covid infections and a slowly increasing number of hospitalizations and deaths.

The warnings come just as government officials have insisted that more restrictions on public life are not yet necessary.

Making matters potentially worse, the U.K. is also monitoring a mutation of the delta variant.


Firefighter Matt Smither is seen working alongside critical care nurses in the Intensive Care Unit at Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth, southern England.
ADRIAN DENNIS | AFP | Getty Images

LONDON — An increasing number of doctors in the U.K. are warning that the country, and its health service, are facing a renewed health crisis due to rampant Covid-19 infections and a rising number of hospitalizations and deaths.

The warnings, from several big British medical bodies over the last couple of days, come as government officials have insisted that more restrictions on public life are not yet necessary, despite Health Secretary Sajid Javid warning Wednesday that Covid cases could reach 100,000 a day as we enter the winter period.

Making matters potentially even worse, U.K. experts are now monitoring a mutation of the delta variant that could be making the virus even more transmissible.

‘Incredibly concerning’

The British Medical Association slammed the government’s sanguine perspective on the situation, stating Wednesday that it was “incredibly concerning” that Javid was not, as the association viewed it, “willing to take immediate action to save lives and to protect the NHS.”

“Especially as we head into winter, when the NHS is in the grips of tackling the largest backlog of care, with an already depleted and exhausted workforce,” it added in a statement, echoing numerous reports of exhausted frontline health staff.

Read more: UK doctors call for urgent return of Covid restrictions as experts monitor new mutation

The BMA backed calls, made earlier this week by the NHS Confederation (which represents organizations across the U.K. health care sector) for the government to trigger its “Plan B,” which it had said last month that it would do if Covid cases threatened to severely impact the health care service’s ability to function.

“The reality today is an unacceptable rate of infections, hospitalisations and deaths, unheard of in similar European nations. In comparison to France, we have more than 10 times the number of cases and almost four times as many deaths per million,” the BMA said.

The U.K. has been recording between 40,000 to 50,000 new daily infections in the last week. While the number of daily deaths and hospitalizations remain far below earlier peaks in the pandemic thanks to Covid vaccines, data shows these numbers are climbing too.

On Thursday, the U.K. reported 52,009 new cases and 115 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test. In addition, another 959 people were admitted to hospital, official data shows.

The government has rebuffed concerns over whether the health service can cope. Health Minister Edward Argar told the BBC Thursday that the NHS is not under “unsustainable pressure,” noting that there were about 95,000 beds in NHS hospitals, with 7,000 occupied by Covid patients and 6,000 currently empty.

“We know how those numbers can rise swiftly, which is why we’re looking at that day-by-day, hour-by-hour. But at the moment we do have the ability to manage,” he said.

Other experts beg to differ and say the data could be worse than it appears.
‘The UK really is in trouble’

The U.K.’s Zoe Covid Study, which collects and analyses Covid data with help from King’s College London, estimated Thursday that the number of daily positive tests in the country is much higher than government data suggests. The data suggested there were 81,823 new daily symptomatic cases, on average, based on PCR and LFT (lateral flow test) test data from up to five days ago. That’s an increase of 17% from 69,993 new daily cases last week.

Dr. Tim Spector, a professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London who runs the study, commented that “with over 80,000 new cases a day the U.K. really is in trouble.”

“This hasn’t happened overnight, but frustratingly our calls for a more cautious approach to Covid management have gone unheeded, despite the upward trends we’ve reported now for several weeks ... The U.K. needs to act now to prevent the situation from escalating out of control ahead of winter,” he said.

WATCH NOW
VIDEO02:16
Covid cases surge in the U.K. as medical professionals urge government to reinstate restrictions

Experts agree that the U.K. finds itself in this troubling predicament for a variety of reasons, ranging from low usage of masks in crowded spaces (masks are no longer mandatory in the U.K. apart from on public transport) and large gatherings in enclosed spaces, as well as other factors including waning immunity following Covid vaccination (immunity is known to decline after around six months).

Read more: The UK has one of the highest Covid infection rates in the world right now: Here’s why

There are also growing concerns about a descendent of the delta Covid variant, known now as AY.4.2, that is being identified in an increasing number of U.K. Covid cases. There is a possibility that this mutation could be a possible factor in rising case numbers, although it’s too early to say for sure.

Stalling vaccinations

Medical experts also agree that the U.K.’s vaccination program, which got off to a flying start back in Dec. 2020, has stalled. Official data shows 79% of the population aged 12 and over is fully vaccinated.

“There are a number of developments that lie behind the dramatic rise in U.K. infections. Adherence to non-pharmaceutical interventions such as mask wearing has declined; the favorable summer seasonal is fading; and a new sub-lineage of the Delta variant, known as AY.4.2, is increasing modestly,” JPMorgan Chief European Economist David Mackie said in a note Thursday.

“But, in our view, the main issue is the combination of a stalled main vaccination programme, fading vaccine protection and an only modest start to the booster programme.”

The number of fully vaccinated individuals in the U.K. reached 45 million at the start of October, Mackie noted but by Oct.19, 45.4 million people had been fully vaccinated, “representing an average daily pace over the past few weeks of only 27,600. The main vaccination programme has effectively stalled,” he said.

Spector agreed that “the two main reasons we’re seeing cases back at January peaks are the U.K.’s flagging vaccine programme ... and lifting most restrictions too early.”

He said the government needed to encourage the unvaccinated to take up shots, and to reintroduce “simple measures, such as wearing masks on public transport and in crowded, poorly-ventilated places, avoiding large indoor gatherings and working from home where possible.”

“Doing nothing now will just make it worse. This pandemic is far from over, and whilst it seems some would rather bury their heads in the sand, Covid-19 and its new variants have other plans.”

Analysis: 99.9% of climate studies agree that humans are causing climate change


A new analysis of studies suggests that virtually all climate scientists agree that climate change has been caused and accelerated by human actions. File Photo by Free-Photos/Pixabay

Oct. 19 (UPI) -- Virtually all scientific analyses agree that climate change is mainly caused by humans, a survey of more than 88,000 studies published Tuesday by Environmental Research Letters found.

More than 99.9% of the 88,125 climate-related studies published between 2012 and November of last year concluded that warming temperatures, increased frequency of extreme weather events and polar ice melting, among other climate challenges, can be linked with humans, the data showed.

A similar analysis published in 2013 found that 97% of studies conducted between 1991 and 2012 supported the theory that human activities are altering Earth's climate.

"We are virtually certain that the consensus is well over 99% now," co-author of the current study, Mark Lynas, said in a press release

"It's pretty much case closed for any meaningful public conversation about the reality of human-caused climate change," said Lynas, a visiting fellow at the Alliance for Science at Cornell University.

Despite these and other findings, public opinion polls, as well as opinions of politicians and public representatives, on the issue remain divided.

In 2016, for example, the Pew Research Center found that only 27% of adults in the United States agreed with the statement that "almost all" scientists believe that climate change is due to human activity.

Similarly, a 2021 Gallup poll pointed to a deepening partisan divide in U.S. politics on whether the rising global temperatures observed since the Industrial Revolution were primarily caused by humans.

For this study, Lynas and his colleagues examined a random sample of 3,000 studies out of the 88,125 English-language climate papers published between 2012 and 2020.

Of these 3,000 studies, they found only four that were skeptical of human-caused climate change.

RELATED International Energy Agency: Global carbon-cutting efforts fall 60% short of goal

Next, co-author Simon Perry, a Britain-based software engineer and volunteer at the Alliance for Science, created an algorithm that searched out keywords from papers the team knew were skeptical, such as "solar," "cosmic rays" and "natural cycles," the researchers said.

"To understand where a consensus exists, you have to be able to quantify it," Lynas said.

"That means surveying the literature in a coherent and non-arbitrary way in order to avoid trading cherry-picked papers, which is often how these arguments are carried out in the public sphere," he said.

The algorithm was applied to all 88,125 papers, and the search yielded 28 papers that were implicitly or explicitly skeptical of human activity being the cause of climate change, according to the researchers.

"It's critical to acknowledge the principal role of greenhouse gas emissions so that we can rapidly mobilize new solutions," co-author Benjamin Houlton said in a press release.

"We are already witnessing in real time the devastating impacts of climate related disasters on businesses, people and the economy," said Houlton, dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell.

Maine's North Woods offers glimpse of future fights for 'green energy'

Maine voters next month will vote on whether to allow construction of a transmission line to carry electricity generated by dams in Canada, part of which will cross the state's North Woods, which is where the pictured Gold Brook and its source, Rock Pond, are located. 

Photo by Sam Steele/Natural Resources Council of Maine

BANGOR, Maine, Oct. 22 (UPI) -- A proposed energy project in Maine's North Woods has made for strange bedfellows and turned old friends into enemies over whether shipping electricity from Canada to New England is good for the environment.

To deliver hydroelectric power from Canadian mega dams to ratepayers in Massachusetts, the New England Clean Energy Connect project would carve a 53-mile corridor through undeveloped forest in Maine's North Woods

Maine voters will decide on its fate Nov. 2.

"The project will impact 263 wetlands and cross 200 different rivers and streams, the best brook trout habitat remaining in North America," said Pete Didisheim, senior director of advocacy at the National Resource Council of Maine, a group that opposes the corridor.

RELATED Two-thirds of the world's longest rivers are no longer free-flowing

"It is a high-environmental impact project that was designed to maximize profits for CMP," Central Maine Power Co., Didisheim told UPI.

To complete the CMP Corridor, an existing path carved for operating transmission lines would be widened from to 225 feet from 150 feet. In total, the corridor would stretch 145 miles.

The project, which proponents say would diminish the region's reliance on fossil fuels and bring jobs to Maine, has pitted retired foresters against registered fishing guides and forced environmental activists and oil and gas companies into awkward alliances.

Mainers, who are being barraged by televised political ads for and against the project, are to decide the corridor's fate Nov. 2, when they cast a vote on referendum Question 1.

A "yes" vote on Question 1 would halt the construction of New England Clean Energy Connect and require a two-thirds vote of each state legislative chamber to approve future "high-impact" transmission line projects.

Previewing the future

While the controversy surrounding the referendum comes to a head next month, the political drama may be a prelude to future fights.

In Maine, New England and elsewhere, the race to decarbonize the economy is becoming more urgent and new energy developments are sold as essential to fight climate change.

For the ecologists, forest managers, economists and environmental advocates who say they care deeply about the planet and the threat of climate change but find themselves on opposite sides of the debate over the CMP Corridor, the project's green energy benefits remain the primary point of contention.

The disagreement extends all the way to the source of the power promised to Massachusetts -- the dozens of mega dams owned and operated by HydroQuebec.

Though environmental groups like the Sierra Club and the NRC may occasionally support small-scale hydropower operations, provided they accommodate migratory fish, they strongly oppose mega dams.

"These giant reservoirs are really incredibly impactful environmentally," Becky Bartovics, a volunteer leader with Sierra Club Maine, told UPI. "The scale of these is beyond comprehension."

The massive amount of water being held back in the forest will destroy its ability to sequester carbon, she said, adding "that's not green to do that."

Downsides of hydroelectricity

When forests are flooded, the decaying plant matter releases methane, which continues bubbling up for several years.

"The impacts of methane are becoming more and more of a concern, and that's important, as it is the most potent greenhouse gas," Matt Cannon, campaign and policy associate director at Sierra Club Maine, said.

Other problems exist with mega dams, Bartovics and Cannon say.

Decaying plants also release methyl-mercury in the water, a harmful neurotoxin that can accumulate in fish. What's more, mega dams and the massive reservoirs often displace thousands of people.

In Quebec, hundreds of Indigenous people, members of several First Nation tribes, have been displaced by HydroQuebec. Land they hunted and fished for millennia is now permanently flooded.

"In a location where people were once able to fish, they've been told by the power company that they're no longer able to fish there because it is too toxic," Bartovics said.

A coalition of Quebec's First Nation tribes are suing HydroQuebec to prevent completion of the CMP Corridor, arguing that its construction will require HydroQuebec to increase production capacity at its reservoirs, further stressing ecosystems.

No new infrastructure

Lloyd Irland, a professional forester and former Maine state economist who has publicly backed the corridor, said he might feel differently if HydroQuebec were proposing to build additional mega dams.

But, he told UPI that the infrastructure already is built and the power is waiting to be brought to New England.

Irland points to studies suggesting that hydropower, especially hydropower in northern climates in which plant decomposition is minimized, produce considerably cleaner energy than oil and gas facilities.

Irland and supporters of the project say unused capacity at HydroQuebec's reservoirs will ensure it leads to long-term greenhouse gas emissions reductions, but opponents insist the project will create no new clean energy.

They add that once hydropower is redirected to Massachusetts, it would force HydroQuebec's other customers, including those in New York and Quebec, to replace lost supply with dirtier forms of power.

"This project is not about the climate. It's simply about moving energy around to capture the highest rate of return," Didisheim said. "There are not additional climate benefits from this project."

HydroQubec, for its part, has mostly opted to highlight the reliability and affordability of its power.

"So, the question about whether this [NECEC] will make a difference in climate change. CMP has no doubt that it will -- [but] we can't guarantee it," CMP spokesman John Carroll told attendees of a meeting in 2019. "That's not our job, that's not our business."

Let regulations regulate

Opponents argue that fewer question marks around the project's impacts on regional power production would exist had an independent study of its emissions impacts garnered the required two-thirds support in Maine's state Legislature.

"CMP spent hundreds of thousands in 2019 to lobby against verifying their proposal's cleanliness independently," Maine state Rep. Seth Berry, an opponent of the CMP Corridor, told UPI in an email. "If that bipartisan bill had survived the veto, we might know how 'clean' their line actually is."

But Irland, dismayed by the polarization and politicization of the CMP Corridor, said there is no need for additional accounting, as several state agencies have weighed the corridor's pros and cons.

"We invented regulatory agencies to take these questions out of politics. That system basically works," Irland told UPI. "But when powerful groups object to the answers, politics and PR campaigns get involved."

"For the Clean Energy Corridor, we now have opponents who ignore the results of five regulatory determinations that it is a sound project," he said. "They fill editorial pages and mailboxes with claims that have been rejected by multiple regulators as technically and scientifically unwarranted."

If professed climate advocates can't agree on what counts as "clean energy" and a solution to climate change, what chance do average voters have?

"It can be difficult for the public to evaluate the pros and cons of a specific energy project, because every project is unique, and they all have environmental, economic and social dimensions that need to be considered," Warren Leon, executive director of the Clean Energy States Alliance, told UPI in an email.

"The standard should not be zero negative impacts, because anything built in the real world will have some negative impact on someone. Instead, the standard should be whether the overall benefits outweigh the overall negative impacts," Leon said.

Regional solutions to global problem

While regulatory agencies may help depoliticize the assessment of energy projects, they're not typically required to look very far beyond their state's borders. That's a problem, said Berry, a businessman and former educator.

Maine's Public Utilities Commission "sidestepped the global climate impact, focusing instead on the regional," he said.

HydroQuebec did not testify during the commission's review process.

"If redirecting electrons from Canada causes more coal or tar sands to be burned, regionally, that's Canada's problem, but globally, it's everyone's," Berry said.

That's why Berry would like to see governments and regulatory agencies change the way they track and tally emissions.

"We need to shift from production-based to consumption-based carbon accounting," he said. "Otherwise, the shell games are all too easy. For now, both Maine and most nations and states use the former."

That means most states and countries are only accounting for a portion of their carbon footprint.

It's not that the global nature of climate change precludes small-scale solutions -- Berry said he is an advocate for consumer-owned utilities. He wants to see more and more Mainers get their power from local solar and wind production.

But when assessing energy projects, it's vital to think globally, Berry argues, to ensure states and municipalities aren't simply exporting their carbon footprint.

Biden Just Threw a Bone to Big Almond
As yet another drought parches California’s 

nut-dominated San Joaquin Valley.



TOM PHILPOTT

Reporter Bio | Follow
FOOD

SEPTEMBER 15, 2021




butenkow/iStock/Getty Images Plus

To fill the post of chief agricultural negotiator at the United States Trade Representative’s office, the Biden administration dipped into California’s hot, dusty, drought-plagued San Joaquin Valley and plucked out an almond-industry lobbyist. According to the job’s official description, the negotiator’s main function is to “conduct trade negotiations and enforce trade agreements relating to United States agricultural interests and products.”

Tapping Elaine Trevino, president of the Almond Alliance of California, doesn’t mark a break from past administrations in terms of placing this particular post in the hands of a powerful, export-dependent agriculture sector. President George W. Bush gave the job first to an Iowa soybean flack, then to a GMO seed exec. President Barack Obama turned to a lobbyist for the seed/pesticide industry; while President Donald Trump bestowed the position to a guy who had served as chief economist for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. The current drought is yet again exposing the folly of devoting so much land to such water-sucking crops in what is essentially a desert.

But Biden is favoring the $6 billion almond industry at a particularly fraught time in its history. The ever-expanding groves of California’s Central Valley churn out nearly 80 percent of the globe’s almonds. The industry’s dramatic expansion over the past 30 years means that to stay profitable, almond farmers and processors require a fast-growing market for the delicious nut.

That’s where foreign markets come in. “As California almond growers consistently produce yields at record or near-record levels year after year, it is important that those nuts find a home,” the California Almond Board recently stated. “Increasingly, that means expanding existing export markets and continuing to grow demand in those regions, while always keeping an eye on new opportunities globally.” About two-thirds of US-grown almonds flow out of the country, and if that trend slows down, the industry will face a glut, which would bring prices down and wipe out profitability.

This chart, tracing annual US almond output moving to domestic and export markets, tells the story of an industry heavily reliant on exactly what Trevino is tasked with doing in her new job: finding a foreign home for lots and lots of almonds.  

Almond Board of California

For decades, the situation has worked out splendidly. People in Europe and Asia happily buy up US almonds, keeping their price up; and farmers keep taking advantage of the rising demand by planting more almond groves. Similar dynamics hold for pistachios and walnuts, and those nut crops have taken over the valley, pushing pretty much everything else to the margins, as this chart by UC Davis researchers shows. Note how the expansion continued during “dry or critically dry” years, i.e., droughts.





The problem, as I showed in this 2015 feature article and in my 2020 book Perilous Bounty, is that the industry has expanded beyond the limits of the region’s climate-change-haunted water resources. The current drought, the second historically severe one to grip the region in the past decade alone, is yet again exposing the folly of devoting so much land to such water-sucking crops in what is essentially a desert. The San Joaquin Valley’s 4 million residents are already seeing wells go dry as nut farmers dig ever deeper wells to capture water from ever-sinking aquifers.

Rather than empowering an almond flack to peddle more product overseas under the seal of the US government, the Biden administration should be helping California figure out how to rein the industry in—before all the water’s gone.

 THE WEAPONIZATION OF AI

NATO releases first-ever strategy for Artificial Intelligence

• 22 Oct. 2021 -
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On Thursday (21 October 2021), NATO Defence Ministers agreed to NATO’s first-ever strategy for Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Copyright: IoT Business News

A summary of the strategy is available here.

The strategy outlines how AI can be applied to defence and security in a protected and ethical way. As such, it sets standards of responsible use of AI technologies, in accordance with international law and NATO’s values. It also addresses the threats posed by the use of AI by adversaries and how to establish trusted cooperation with the innovation community on AI.

Artificial Intelligence is one of the seven technological areas which NATO Allies have prioritized for their relevance to defence and security. These include  quantum-enabled technologies, data and computing, autonomy, biotechnology and human enhancements, hypersonic technologies, and space. Of all these dual-use technologies, Artificial Intelligence is known to be the most pervasive, especially when combined with others like big data, autonomy, or biotechnology. To address this complex challenge, NATO Defence Ministers also approved NATO’s first policy on data exploitation.

Individual strategies will be developed for all priority areas, following the same ethical approach as that adopted for Artificial Intelligence.

Summary of the NATO Artificial Intelligence Strategy

• 22 Oct. 2021 -
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• Last updated: 22 Oct. 2021 13:43

1. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing the global defence and security environment. It offers an unprecedented opportunity to strengthen our technological edge but will also escalate the speed of the threats we face. This foundational technology will likely affect the full spectrum of activities undertaken by the Alliance in support of its three core tasks; collective defence, crisis management, and cooperative security.
2. In order to maintain NATO’s technological edge, we commit to collaboration and cooperation among Allies on any matters relating to AI for transatlantic defence and security. NATO and Allies can help accelerate these efforts by building on the existing adoption efforts of several NATO and Allied bodies.
3. The aim of this Strategy is fourfold:

• To provide a foundation for NATO and Allies to lead by example and encourage the development and use of AI in a responsible manner for Allied defence and security purposes;
• To accelerate and mainstream AI adoption in capability development and delivery, enhancing interoperability within the Alliance, including through proposals for AI Use Cases, new structures, and new programmes;
• To protect and monitor our AI technologies and ability to innovate, addressing security policy considerations such as the operationalisation of our Principles of Responsible Use; and
• To identify and safeguard against the threats from malicious use of AI by state and non-state actors.

4. In the future, the NATO Alliance aims to integrate AI in an interoperable way to support its three core tasks. Such use will be conducted in a recognised, responsible fashion across the enterprise, mission support and operational levels in accordance with international law. Recognising the leading role of the civil private sector and academia in AI development, this Strategy will be underpinned by: significant cooperation between NATO, the private sector1 and academia; a capable workforce of NATO technical and policy-based AI talent; a robust, relevant, secure data infrastructure; and appropriate cyber defences.
5. Under the forthcoming Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA), national AI test centres could support NATO’s AI ambition. NATO and Allies will also conduct regular high-level dialogues, engaging technology companies at a strategic political level to be informed and help shape the development of AI-fielded technologies, creating a common understanding of the opportunities and risks arising from AI.
6. Furthermore, NATO will remain the transatlantic forum for AI in defence and security, leveraging the potential of AI while safeguarding against its (AI) malicious use by state and non-state actors.

PRINCIPLES OF RESPONSIBLE USE

7. At the forefront of this Strategy lie the NATO Principles of Responsible Use for AI in Defence, which will help steer our transatlantic efforts in accordance with our values, norms, and international law. The NATO Principles of Responsible Use (the Principles) are based on existing and widely accepted ethical, legal, and policy commitments under which NATO has historically operated and will continue to operate under. These Principles do not affect or supersede existing obligations and commitments, both national and international.
8. The Principles below were developed based on Allied approaches and relevant work in applicable international fora. These Principles apply across all types of AI applications. They are aimed at providing coherence for both NATO and Allies to enable interoperability. The Principles will be foundational to the discussion and adoption of more detailed AI best practices and should be considered a baseline for Allies as they use AI in the context of defence and security, noting that some Allies already have national principles of responsible use.

NATO Principles of Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence in Defence

9. Allies and NATO commit to ensuring that the AI applications they develop and consider for deployment will be – at the various stages of their lifecycles – in accordance with the following six principles:

A. Lawfulness: AI applications will be developed and used in accordance with national and international law, including international humanitarian law and human rights law, as applicable.
B. Responsibility and Accountability: AI applications will be developed and used with appropriate levels of judgment and care; clear human responsibility shall apply in order to ensure accountability.
C. Explainability and Traceability: AI applications will be appropriately understandable and transparent, including through the use of review methodologies, sources, and procedures. This includes verification, assessment and validation mechanisms at either a NATO and/or national level.
D. Reliability: AI applications will have explicit, well-defined use cases. The safety, security, and robustness of such capabilities will be subject to testing and assurance within those use cases across their entire life cycle, including through established NATO and/or national certification procedures.
E. Governability: AI applications will be developed and used according to their intended functions and will allow for: appropriate human-machine interaction; the ability to detect and avoid unintended consequences; and the ability to take steps, such as disengagement or deactivation of systems, when such systems demonstrate unintended behaviour.
F. Bias Mitigation: Proactive steps will be taken to minimise any unintended bias in the development and use of AI applications and in data sets.

Ensuring the Safe and Responsible Use of Allied AI

10. To ensure the safe and responsible use of Allied AI, NATO will operationalise its Principles of Responsible Use. These Principles will apply across the lifecycle of an AI capability. Allies and NATO will therefore operationalise these principles across all lines of development.
11. To further inform this work, the NATO AI Test Centre(s) will develop best practices for Allies, which will include assisting overall interoperability and information security efforts.
12. Underpinning the safe and responsible use of AI, NATO and Allies will consciously put Bias Mitigation efforts into practice. This will seek to minimise those biases against individual traits, such as gender, ethnicity or personal attributes.
13. NATO will conduct appropriate risk and/or impact assessments prior to deploying AI capabilities.

Minimising Interference in Allied AI

14. Some state and non-state actors will likely seek to exploit defects or limitations within our AI technologies. Allies and NATO must strive to protect the use of AI from such interference, manipulation, or sabotage, in line with the Reliability Principle of Responsible Use, also leveraging AI-enabled Cyber Defence applications.
15. Allies and NATO should develop adequate security certification requirements for AI, such as specific threat analysis frameworks and tailored security audits for purposes of ‘stress-testing’.
16. AI can impact critical infrastructure, capabilities and civil preparedness—including those covered by NATO’s seven resilience Baseline Requirements—creating potential vulnerabilities, such as cyberspace, that could be exploited by certain state and non-state actors.
17. Some state and non-state actors may also leverage disinformation opportunities within Allied societies by creating public distrust of the military use of AI. Allies will seek to prevent and counter any such efforts within the context of the Principles of Responsible Use and utilise strategic communications, where appropriate. NATO will support Allies as required.

Standards

18. NATO will further work with relevant international AI standards setting bodies to help foster military-civil standards coherence with regards to AI standards.