It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Sunday, February 06, 2022
How fault lines in a kitchen sink are changing what we know about geology
In a new paper recently published in the journal Geology, researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst unveiled a physical model that yields an unprecedented, high-resolution look at the slip rates of faults, which determine the likelihood of earthquakes.
When most of us picture a fault line, we imagine a giant crack in the earth where two tectonic plates smash into each other. When geologists think of faults, however, they see a branching system made up of thousands of individual faults. "The closer you look," says Michele Cooke, one of the paper's co-authors and a professor of geosciences at UMass Amherst, "the more you find, and when you look in detail, the picture gets very complicated."
Such complexity makes it difficult to accurately understand what is happening at any given place in the system—let alone to predict when an earthquake will occur, and where. To blur the picture even more, the vast majority of individual faults are buried under feet of dirt or obscured by vegetation, and so can't be directly observed. Finally, fault systems evolve over the course of thousands, tens of thousands, or even millions of years. Therefore, geologists have traditionally generated generalized slip rates for entire fault systems and theorized broadly about how fault systems evolve.
In a new study, the authors used a physical model, "about the size of a kitchen sink," says Hanna Elston, the paper's lead author and a graduate student in geosciences at UMass Amherst, and filled it with a carefully composed kaolin clay, "about the consistency of Greek yogurt," that behaves much like the earth's crust. At the bottom of the model are two plates that can be precisely moved. Elston and her co-authors then carefully cut the clay, to form a fault, and, over the course of four hours, which simulated a million years, moved the plates 12 centimeters, all the while taking pictures with an array of overhead cameras, which they could then analyze to uncover the slip rates and mechanics of their modeled faults.
The precision of the first-of-its-kind technique that Elston and her co-authors developed allows them to track slip rates at specific locations along faults, with an unprecedented fidelity, which can then provide a record that researchers can directly compare to field studies to estimate the slip rate at any particular point along a fault.
Not only does the model perform in ways that mirror real-life faults, it allowed Elston and her colleagues, including Cooke and Alex Hatem, now at the U.S. Geological Survey, to observe two different phenomena that no one else has seen before. First, the model shows that slip rates can change at a particular site on the fault as that fault evolves. Second, the team showed that slip rates are interactive: the rate can change at many different points along one fault in response to changing slip rates at other, nearby faults.
"This study gives us the finest-grained picture yet into how faults evolve, which could be used to help the assessments of seismic hazards," says Elston—and it's only the start. The research in this paper, which was supported by the National Science Foundation, represents a proof-of-concept for the team's analytical techniques. Future will detail make 3D reconstructions of different faults' evolution.
A video overview of the team's model is available from YouTube:
More information: Non-steady-state slip rates emerge along evolving restraining bends under constant loading, Geology (2022). DOI: 10.1130/G49745.1
Blaine Hotomanie's Gladue report did more than reduce the time he'll spend behind bars.
"It changed my life, the way I look at things," he said. "I've got a big family and I want to show my grandchildren not to drink and drive. I talk to them about it."
Gladue reports present circumstances of a self-identified Indigenous accused's life for a judge to consider while deciding on a sentence. These can include personal and community histories, and traumas such as colonialism and its ongoing impacts.
Even though Gladue reports are a right for every Indigenous person who appears in court — thanks to two court decisions from 1999 and 2012 — not everyone is aware of their right to them, or has access to Gladue report writers. Saskatchewan in particular ranks near the bottom of the country for the use of Gladue reports, according to data from the Aboriginal Legal Society, which intervened in the landmark 1999 court case.
Gladue reports are time-consuming and resource-intensive, but in late 2020 the Integrated Justice Program (IJP), which is funded by Public Safety Canada, created a team of legal experts and people who study and work with people with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), entirely focused on writing the reports for Saskatchewan trials.
WATCH| What are Gladue reports?
What are Gladue reports?
9 hours ago
Duration2:51
Gladue reports explain an Indigenous person’s history, their families history and their community's history to the courts to take the individual’s unique circumstances and challenges into consideration. 2:51
Advocates say the writing team is allowing more people to get the Gladue reports they are entitled to.
Hotomanie, 57, from Carry the Kettle Nakoda Nation — roughly 80 kilometres east of Regina — had at one point been facing 18 months for impaired driving last spring. After his Gladue report, which presented factors including his FASD, Hotomanie's sentence was reduced to six months.
Over the course of three days of three-hour interviews for his Gladue report, Hotomanie shared the pains he faced growing up. He experienced a lot of violence as a child in a home where both his parents drank. He lost loved ones — particularly his parents — and was in the residential school system.
It wasn't until his interviews with the IJP that Hotomanie learned how these traumas impacted him.
Now, with a large support network consisting of his wife, his six children, 25 grandchildren, friends and leaders in Carry the Kettle, he's more worried about his future than his sentence.
"I've got all that stuff out and I'm doing better. I've got a job. I've never had a job for a long time," he said.
"I'm kinda hoping that I can save my job, but time will tell."
Representing the most marginalized
The IJP was launched in 2019. It is a joint initiative run by the Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder Network and File Hills Tribal Council. The program focuses on comprehensive support for Indigenous people with FASD in Saskatchewan.
IJP launched the team focused on writing in-depth Gladue reports in fall 2020.
Hotomanie said he didn't know what a Gladue report was until he met Michelle Stewart and Robyn Pitawanakwat from the IJP.
Stewart, an expert on FASD, is the IJP's project lead and Gladue project coordinator, while Pitawanakwat is the program's coordinator, runs the organization's frontline services and conducts Gladue interviews.
"These are often the most marginalized people within the justice system," Pitawanakwat said.
"We work with them because their disability [FASD] isn't understood, and their disability often makes them more vulnerable to charges, where someone else who presents differently would probably not be charged."
Stewart, an associate professor at the University of Regina, said the initial goal was to work directly with people with FASD to ensure their complex needs were being met.
"Our goal is to expand that circle of support for them, because we're talking about individuals that experience compounding forms of marginalization and alienation," Stewart said.
Stewart and Pitawanakwat said their work — building relationships to learn about someone's traumas, personal and familial history, taking the time to understand those subjects, then preparing the reports — is an effort toward reconciliation within Saskatchewan's justice system.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 34th call to action calls on governments, "to make changes to the criminal justice system to improve outcomes for offenders with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD)."
Pitawanakwat said IJP writers provide courts with important context. Many of the interviewees have been separated from their families and peers, Pitawanakwat said.
"One of the strongest ways that we can push back against colonialism is to bring families back together; to bring people home and keep them home whenever possible," Pitawanakwat said.
Hotomanie's report did just that, allowing him to stay in Carry the Kettle a bit longer before he was incarcerated. He will also be able to reconnect with his family sooner, due to the reduction in his sentence the judge granted after reading the report.
Program's work greatly needed
The IJP team has completed more than 30 Gladue or pre-sentencing reports in Saskatchewan as of January 2022, Stewart and Pitawanakwat said.
Gladue reports can take weeks to months to complete, due to resource constraints within the justice system. The IJP's team-based approach has dramatically reduced turnaround times in Saskatchewan, where the need for the program is great.
The province ranks near the bottom when it comes to using Gladue reports in court, said Jonathan Rudin, the program director for Aboriginal Legal Services.
"In most parts of Canada where there are Gladue reports, the provincial government in particular, or the provincial legal aid plan, steps up with funding," Rudin said.
"In Saskatchewan the provincial government does not seem inclined to provide that funding at all."
Data provided by the Ministry of Justice showed that the provincial government paid a combined $78,080 for 24 Gladue reports over the past five years. That data doesn't include reports by independent agencies like the IJP.
In the 2019-2020 reporting year — the last time the province covered the costs for Gladue reports — the government paid for two reports. In the 2018-2019 reporting year it paid for 10, the most in the five years of data provided.
In the 2020-2021 reporting year, it paid for none.
Rudin said that, aside from IJP reports, the few cases where Gladue reports were completed in the province were primarily privately funded. In just a few instances, courts were asked to provide the money or ordered the government to provide the money.
Government support needed, expert says
Jane Dickson, who trained Stewart in Gladue writing and is currently a professor of law at Carleton University, said there shouldn't need to be independent agencies doing Gladue reports, as the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled every Indigenous person should be granted one.
"If government stepped up and adequately funded Gladue we wouldn't need to find these creative solutions to secure funding," Dickson said.
She said in Saskatchewan and many other parts of Canada, courts take it upon themselves to decide whether or not they have the right amount of information to determine someone's fate.
In Saskatchewan, the Ministry of Justice said courts were committed to using "relevant Gladue information" in pre-sentencing reports completed by community corrections staff like parole officers.
"Community corrections has made a concerted effort to heighten awareness of Gladue factors and provide Gladue information in pre-sentence reports," the ministry's statement said.
Dickson said legal professionals would rather see full Gladue reports like those being done by the IJP, but there is too much demand. She's working with organizations across Canada on a team-based approach like what the IJP is doing in Regina.
"The model is absolutely generalizable across the country," Dickson said.
A success, so far
Pitawanakwat said while some of the reports the IJP did were more beneficial than others, the program was successful so far because the people involved feel supported in their work.
Most importantly, Pitawanakwat said the clients involved in the program seemed to feel the process was good for them and judges seem to be recognizing the reports are well researched and well written.
Hotomanie said he felt comfortable during the interview process. When things got tough and he became emotional, the group pressed pause and agreed to continue the next day when he felt better.
He also felt as though he got to know Pitawanakwat and Stewart through the process as much as they got to know him.
The final report made him feel understood by the courts in a way the justice system never had.
"I wasn't just a person who was getting caught for impaired [driving], I felt good about myself," Hotomanie said.
Bryan Eneas is a journalist from the Penticton Indian Band currently based in Regina, Saskatchewan. Before joining CBC, he reported in central and northern Saskatchewan. Send news tips to Bryan.Eneas@cbc.ca.
CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Vast DOJ Probe Looks at Almost 30 Short-Selling Firms and Allies
Katia Porzecanski and Tom Schoenberg, Bloomberg News
, Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg
(Bloomberg) -- The Justice Department is collecting a trove of information on dozens of investment firms and researchers engaged in short selling as part of a sweeping U.S. hunt for potential trading abuses, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation seized computers from the home of prominent short seller Andrew Left, the founder of Citron Research, in early 2021, some of the people said. In more recent months, the Justice Department subpoenaed certain market participants seeking communications, calendars and other records relating to almost 30 investment and research firms, as well as three dozen individuals associated with them, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing confidential inquiries.
Many on that roster -- a veritable who’s-who of the activist short-selling realm -- said they haven’t been contacted directly by the government, leaving some exasperated about being left in the dark. Reached for comment, Left also said he’s frustrated.
“It’s very tough to defend yourself when you haven’t been accused of anything,” Left said. “I’m cooperating and I have full faith in the system and the First Amendment,” he added, referencing protections on free speech.
The long list of names underscores the breadth of the Justice Department investigation first described by Bloomberg in December and shows how authorities are trying to map out alliances and understand how short sellers handle research and arrange bets that stocks will fall. It remains unclear which, if any, of the names mentioned in subpoenas might be targets of the inquiry or merely have ties to other people or entities of interest.
SEC Scrutiny
The Securities and Exchange Commission also has sent some requests for information, people with knowledge of those inquiries said. Spokespeople for the Justice Department and SEC declined to comment. No one has been accused of wrongdoing, and in many cases, the opening of a probe doesn’t lead to anyone facing charges.
Prominent firms and their leaders mentioned in the Justice Department’s requests to some market participants include Melvin Capital Management and founder Gabe Plotkin; Orso Partners and Nate Koppikar; Sophos Capital Management and Jim Carruthers; as well as Kerrisdale Capital Management. The list also includes well-known researchers such as Nate Anderson and his Hindenburg Research, as well as Fraser Perring and his Viceroy Research.
Representatives for most of those firms -- Melvin, Orso, Sophos and Hindenburg -- declined to comment or didn’t respond to messages seeking comment.
“We haven’t been contacted by DOJ, SEC or any governmental authorities about any investigations,” Kerrisdale’s chief investment officer, Sahm Adrangi, wrote in an email. “We literally haven’t spoken to anyone at the government in many years.”
Viceroy’s Perring said his firm also hasn’t received requests for information.
“We will always cooperate with any such investigations and are happy to assist regulators in carrying out their duties,” he said. “All our reports are based on information that is publicly available, sourced from records that anyone at any given time could research or find. Our most recent contact with the DOJ was in assisting an investigation into the fraud at a company that we had researched.”
Firms in the Dark
Bloomberg had noted in December that Anson Funds, Marcus Aurelius Value, Muddy Waters Capital and Citron are part of the probe.
Other firms mentioned in requests include Atom Investors, Bonitas Research, Connective Capital Management, Falcon Research, GeoInvesting, Gotham City Research, GrizzlyRock Capital, J Capital Research, Oasis Management, Park West Asset Management, QKM, Sabrepoint Capital Management, Silverado Capital, Spruce Point Capital Management, Valiant Capital Management and White Diamond Research.
Representatives for many of those firms -- among them Falcon, GrizzlyRock, J Capital, Oasis, Valiant and White Diamond -- said they hadn’t been contacted by investigators. “It’s hard for us to comment on something we don’t know anything about,” said Taylor Hall, a representative for Oasis.
Valiant “has a long-standing policy of cooperating with any inquiries it receives from regulators and other government bodies,” but is not aware of being involved in the short-selling probe, chief compliance officer Michaela Beckman said in an email. “Compliance with securities regulations has always been a point of significant emphasis at the firm since inception and we have not been subject to any regulatory action regarding insider trading or short-selling in our 13-year history.”
“Ethics are a key part of my work, and I wouldn’t do anything unethical or untruthful,” said White Diamond’s Adam Gefvert. “I may write negative things about a company but I wouldn’t embellish anything. Everything is backed by proof.”
Not all of the firms enter into public battles with companies. Atom invests in short-selling hedge funds. And GrizzlyRock isn’t an activist short seller, founder Kyle Mowery noted, adding that he’s glad the Justice Department is looking into that space.
Representatives for the rest declined to comment or didn’t respond to messages.
Pressure on DOJ
Short selling often involves borrowing and selling shares, in a bet that they can be bought back cheaper later to lock in a profit. Investors may also use derivatives such as put contracts.
The Justice Department and financial regulators have faced a growing number of calls in recent years to dig into short sellers and their research partners. Corporate executives including the world’s richest person, Tesla Inc.’s Elon Musk, have decried short sellers, accusing them of maligning businesses for profit.
The Justice Department’s probe is being run by the fraud section with federal prosecutors in Los Angeles and there’s no public signal that authorities have drawn any conclusions. As Bloomberg previously reported, they’ve been examining trading in dozens of stocks, as well as relationships between funds and researchers, looking for signs that they manipulated markets or broke other laws to profit.
Tough Times for Shorts
The U.S. probe adds to a treacherous period for short sellers. Some bearish funds threw in the towel as government stimulus drove equity markets, a situation exacerbated during the pandemic. The pressure intensified during 2021’s meme-stock frenzy, when retail investors banded together to bid up shares of popular short targets, inflicting losses on hedge funds and other traders. By late January of last year, Citron vowed to give up short-selling research and focus on long bets.
Read more: Short Sellers Face End of an Era as Rookies Rule Wall Street
Some of the loudest short-selling critics include executives at companies that were later found to have engaged in malfeasance. But legions of small investors have also expressed outrage over stock slumps, especially during last year’s wild trading. Amid the complaints, members of Congress started demanding more government scrutiny.
Researchers make money in a variety of ways beyond placing their own bets. Some sell insights to subscribers, or make arrangements to give clients, such as hedge funds, ideas in exchange for a cut of the profits. Paying customers often get to see research alleging problems at publicly traded companies before publication.
One area of focus is how investors set up their bets that stocks will decline. Investigators have been looking, for example, for signs that money managers might try to engineer startling stock drops to induce selling by market makers or other investors, or engage in other abuses, such as insider trading, people familiar with the matter have said.
Meta Platforms Inc, better known for its controversial turn as Facebook, says its mission is to, "Give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together." But not too close, it seems.
The mega-corp wants to keep people apart in its metaverse. The ad biz, besotted with virtual reality now that it can no longer move fast and break things with impunity in the real world, has committed to cartoon social distancing.
Henceforth, avatars in its Horizon Worlds and Horizon Venues will be able to approach no closer than four feet – as that distance would be rendered to whatever scale fits the viewer's display screen – to prevent virtual molestation.
Vivek Sharma, VP of Meta's Horizon group, refers to the company's grope gap as a "Personal Boundary."
"Personal Boundary prevents avatars from coming within a set distance of each other, creating more personal space for people and making it easier to avoid unwanted interactions," he explained in a blog post on Friday.
These Personal Boundaries, he says, will prevent other avatars from invading your avatar's personal space, without any haptic feedback to simulate a collision.
"This builds upon our existing hand harassment measures that were already in place, where an avatar’s hands would disappear if they encroached upon someone’s personal space," Sharma explained.
Online harassment, trolling, and toxic behavior has been a problem on the internet since modems and bulletin boards. Those who have followed the tech industry for a while may recall a 1993 Village Voice article by author Julian Dibbell titled, "A Rape in Cyberspace," about text-based torment.
Well, that sort of behavior, something every mass market multiplayer game has had to confront, found its way into graphic environments where it has proven to be no more welcome and no easier to get rid of. It was a problem more than a decade ago in the precursor to the modern headset-based metaverse, Second Life, where virtual rape was sold for Linden dollars and sexual assaults on avatars are said to have accounted for about 20 per cent of reported infractions.
And it's a problem today. As the MIT Technology Review put it two months ago, "The metaverse has a groping problem already." The word "already" here might be better interpreted to mean "since forever."
A Pew Research study last year found 41 per cent of Americans have experienced some form of online harassment, a rate comparable to 2017. But certain forms of harassment show signs of rising: 11 per cent reported online sexual harassment, up from 5 per cent in 2014.
About 79 per cent of Pew Research respondents said social media companies are doing "an only fair or poor job at addressing online harassment or bullying on their platforms."
In a move underscoring the risk that unchecked cartoon abuse poses to Meta's multibillion dollar metaverse pivot, ad biz is activating Personal Boundary by default. "[W]e think this will help to set behavioral norms – and that’s important for a relatively new medium like VR," explained Sharma, allowing that such safety measures may get more customizable over time.
When Facebook grudgingly rolled out privacy controls for its social ad platform, they generally were not on by default.
So strap on your VR headset and enjoy a romp in a pixelated world, secure in the knowledge that between the hand-hiding and invisible barriers no one will "reach out and touch someone," as AT&T used to suggest. Just be careful not to injure yourself, whichhappens occasionally, and if you experience nausea, eye strain, or loss of balance, discontinue use immediately. The Health and Safety warning documents for Meta Quest (Oculus) headsets are extensive [PDF].
If you lose your lunch cavorting at a safe distance from VR trolls, know that Meta is losing its cash to bring this not-so-safe experience to you. At the company's recent earnings fiasco, Meta for the first time broke out revenue for Reality Labs, its metaverse division. In 2021, Reality Labs recorded a $10.2bn loss, having spent $12.5bn to earn $2.3bn in revenue.
That's more than twice the $1.1bn in revenue Reality Labs saw in 2020, but it's not yet close to being a healthy business. ®
Suspected Chinese spies break into cloud accounts of News Corp journalists
Online work accounts of News Corporation journalists were broken into by snoops seemingly with ties to China, it was claimed today.
Rupert Murdoch's empire announced the security breach on Friday, describing it as a "persistent cyber-attack," and saying it had hired Mandiant to figure out what happened. It is believed the intruders were seeking messages, files and other internal information for Beijing's spymasters.
The intrusion was discovered on January 20, the corporation's flagship British newspaper The Times reported this afternoon. The cyber-attack "included the targeting of emails and documents of some employees, including journalists," wrote defense editor Larisa Brown.
Murdoch's Wall Street Journal also said [paywall] it was targeted along with its stablemate the New York Post and other publications.
In a quarterly financial filing [PDF, 321 pages], submitted to the SEC and dated February 4, News corp stated:
The company ... relies on third-party providers for certain technology and 'cloud-based' systems and services that support a variety of business operations. In January 2022, the company discovered that one of these systems was the target of persistent cyberattack activity. Together with an outside cybersecurity firm, the company is conducting an investigation into the circumstances of the activity to determine its nature, scope, duration and impacts. The company’s preliminary analysis indicates that foreign government involvement may be associated with this activity, and that data was taken. To the company’s knowledge, its systems housing customer and financial data were not affected.
What cloud-based systems could News Corp be referring to here, precisely? Well, we're not going to speculate but doubtless some readers will notice that the corporation appears to use Google for email, at least. MX records for the aforementioned newspapers' domain names point to the backend servers of Google Workspace, the internet monolith's productivity suite that includes Gmail.
We have asked Google for comment and will update this article if the ad-tech titan responds.
David Wong, a veep of consulting at Mandiant, said in a statement: "Mandiant assesses that those behind this activity have a China nexus, and we believe they are likely involved in espionage activities to collect intelligence to benefit China's interests."
No further detail on whether the intrusions were state-sponsored, state-directed, or merely originated from Chinese servers was given by News Corp. Neither was any detail given on whether the attacks defeated security protections on a cloud provider's servers or whether luckless journalists had their work or personal devices or accounts individually compromised, giving the attackers direct access to email and file-hosting accounts and.
Along with the intrusion, News Corp also announced a $56m share buyback program today in a filing with the SEC. ®
Bootnote Last year a fake email was sent around announcing the chairman of Parliament's foreign affairs committee had resigned, citing Chinese sanctions as the reason. In fact Tom Tugendhat MP had done no such thing.
FOR PROFIT HEALTHCARE USA
Lower-cost formulations of prescription drugs could cut costs by 40%, study finds
Rising costs for prescription drugs paid by insurance and consumers may be in part due to more expensive formulations being ordered, according to a new study. File photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo
Feb. 4 (UPI) -- People in the United States can save up to 40% on prescription drug costs by switching to different formulations of the same medication, when available, a study published Friday by JAMA Health Forum found.
In the analysis of costs for 28 medications available as a tablet or capsule, 33% of prescription orders were placed for the high-priced formulation, the data showed.
Similarly, for 21 drugs dispensed as a cream or ointment, 47% of orders involved the more costly formulation, the researchers said.
If the lower-cost formulation had been ordered, spending for the analyzed drugs -- both in terms of out-of-pocket expenses and those covered by health insurance -- would have been reduced by 42%, according to the researchers.
"Our findings illuminate the stark and often unexplained variation in prices that can exist between similar medication treatments," study co-author Sunita Desai told UPI in an email.
"They also highlight the need for more transparency of prices to allow patients and providers to balance both clinical and cost considerations when making treatment decisions," said Desai, an assistant professor of population health NYU School of Medicine in New York City.
Out-of-pocket costs, or expenses above and beyond what is covered by insurance, have increased in recent years in the United States, fueled at least in part by rising prices for brand-name drugs and reduced availability of generic alternatives, research suggests.
In their analysis, the researchers found that the more expensive tablet formulation was ordered about 45% of the time, they said.
Had the less-expensive capsule been ordered instead, users of the prescription drug would have saved about 30% in out-of-pocket costs, the data showed.
Similarly, hydrocortisone, which is used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, among other conditions, was ordered in its more expensive ointment formulation when the less costly cream option would have saved the patients prescribed the drug about 10% in expenses, the researchers said.
Although prescribing healthcare providers may prefer one formulation over another due to convenience, safety or effectiveness, increased transparency regarding price differences would allow patients and providers to make more informed decisions, according to the researchers.
"Many medications are offered in multiple formulations, and the prices between two formulations can vary substantially," Desai said.
"In many cases, convenience or clinical differences may be minor and, in these cases, the patient and payer could save if they knew about these price differences," she said.
CDC bolsters efforts to use wastewater monitoring to track COVID-19
Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention plan to increase efforts to monitor wastewater for the presence of COVID-19 across the country in the coming weeks. File photo by David McNew/EPA-EFE
Feb. 4 (UPI) -- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced plans Friday to ramp up monitoring wastewater across the United States for the presence of the virus that causes COVID-19 to spot potential outbreaks.
As of this week, 400 communities across the country are participating in the program, called the National Wastewater Surveillance System, with "hundreds more" expected to come online "in the coming weeks," officials said.
For the first time, data collected from the system, which launched in September 2020, is available online as part of the CDC's COVID-19 Data Tracker, with daily updates, they said.
This system is "providing critical info on COVID-19 trends nationally," Amy Kirby, program lead for the National Wastewater Surveillance System, said Friday on a call with reporters.
"The data offers public health officials and better idea of COVID-19 trends in their local communities and serves as an early warning system for outbreaks," she said.
Since its launch, the system has collected and analyzed more than 34,000 wastewater samples, representing 53 million people across the United States, according to Kirby.
It is up and running at 400 sites in 37 states, four cities and two U.S. territories, with 250 more communities expected to be online within the next few weeks, she said.
She was unable to provide estimates as to how many people nationally or what percentage of the U.S. population the system would be able to monitor with the additional sites.
The CDC plans to expand the program to monitor for other infectious pathogens, including antibiotic-resistant bacteria, by the end of the year, she said.
The system can be used to test treated and untreated sewage to help officials track the spread of COVID-19 and, perhaps, identify cases in people who are not showing symptoms, according to the CDC.
The method could also serve as a tool to determine whether or not containment initiatives, such as social distancing, are working to eradicate the virus from an area, Kirby said.
In most cases, samples are collected using a device called an auto-sampler -- though some may be captured manually -- and sent to CDC-affiliated testing labs for evaluation, she said.
Environmental microbiologists have used sewage monitoring programs to study pathogenic viruses for decades, most notably as part of efforts to globally eradicate the polio virus.
A study published by the research team in 2008 suggests the approach can be used to effectively spot coronaviruses in general -- and notes that they die off in wastewater, with a 99.9% reduction in two to three days.
What makes wastewater monitoring so effective is that "it does not rely on healthcare access or access to testing," Kirby said.
"It will allow us to detect cases [earlier] so hospitals and public health officials can prepare for surges," she said.
VEGAN ELECTRICITY
Battery made from 2,923 lemons breaks Guinness World Record
The Royal Society of Chemistry earned a Guinness World Record when a battery made from 2,923 lemons generated 2,307.8 volts of electricity.
Feb. 4 (UPI) -- A team of chemists gathered 2,923 lemons in Britain to break the Guinness World Record for the highest voltage from a fruit battery.
Guinness said the Royal Society of Chemistry, an international organization of scientists, cut the lemons in half in Manchester, England, and hooked strips of zinc and copper to each end to extract a total 2,307.8 volts from the fruit.
The resulting battery broke the previous record by 1,521 volts, Guinness announced.
Professor Saiful Islam, a material science professor from the University of Bath who participated in the attempt, said the lemon juice acts as an electrolyte, with the zinc and copper acting as electrodes.
The lemon battery was used to activate an LED attached to a light sensor that triggered a relay and activated a pyrotechnic system to kick off a go-kart race.
The lemons used in the attempt were processed by Refood, a company that uses food waste to generate renewable energy for the National Gas Grid, and the remaining liquid was used to make bio-fertilizer for local farms.
Experts: Pandemic prevention strategies far less costly than impact of outbreaks
The proposed strategies are intended to help political and public health leaders prevent future pandemics by stopping the "spillover" of diseases from animals into humans
Photo by Julie Larsen Maher/Wildlife Conservation Society | License Photo
Feb. 4 (UPI) -- Three strategies designed to prevent future pandemics would cost less than 5% of the lowest estimated value of lives lost every year due to infectious disease outbreaks, researchers said in an analysis published Friday by Science Advances.
The strategies are intended to help political and public health leaders prevent future pandemics by stopping the "spillover" of diseases from animals into humans, according to the researchers.
They include better surveillance of pathogens, better management of wildlife trade and hunting and reduced deforestation, they said.
The annual costs of what they call "primary pandemic prevention" actions is about $20 billion, or less than 5% of the lowest estimated value of lives lost from emerging infectious diseases every year and less than 10% of the annual economic costs of outbreaks, the data showed.
"If COVID-19 taught us anything, it is that testing, treatments and vaccines can prevent deaths, but they do not stop the spread of viruses across the globe and may never prevent the emergence of new pathogens," Dr. Aaron Bernstein, one of 20 researchers behind the analysis, said in a press release.
"Spending only 5 cents on the dollar can help prevent the next tsunami of lives lost to pandemics," said Bernstein, director of the Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.
About 3.3 million people worldwide die each year from viral zoonotic diseases like COVID-19, according to the World Health Organization.
Through Friday, 5.7 million people have died from COVID-19, including a world-leading 894,000 in the United States, based on estimates from Johns Hopkins University.
The estimated value of these lost lives is at least $350 billion, with an additional $212 billion in direct economic losses, Bernstein and his colleagues said.
This amount is based on lives lost from every new viral disease that has "spilled over," or spread from animals to humans into humans, since 1918 and killed at least 10 people, the researchers said.
In 2021, a task force led by Bernstein found that the spillover of pathogens with the potential to cause pandemics occur from livestock operations, wildlife hunting and trade, land-use change and the destruction of tropical forests and rapid, unplanned urbanization.
Climate change also is shrinking habitats and pushing animals on land and sea to move to new places, creating opportunities for pathogens to enter new hosts, the task force found.
Preventing spillover at the source is rarely addressed when policymakers discuss pandemic risks, despite the fundamental role these events play in spreading emerging infections, they said.
To address this, they recommend revising the World Health Organization's "phases of infectious disease emergence" guidance to include a specific phase for spillover.
They also coin a new term, "primary pandemic prevention," to describe actions that stop new diseases before they spread, rather than actions that address disease outbreaks after they occur, they said.
Primary prevention actions and recommendations include improved monitoring for pathogens that may spread from animals to people, with special training for veterinarians globally as part of that effort, according to the researchers.
Enhanced management of wildlife trade and hunting, including more resources for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora and the World Organization for Animal Health, and reduction of deforestation, particularly in the Amazon, are others, they said.
As part of this latter step, agriculture must be reformed to minimize or reverse land conversion and demand for less sustainable food must also be curtailed, the researchers said.
"Resources placed into reducing deforestation are an investment to prevent future epidemics, but also to mitigate current threats, such as malaria and respiratory diseases," Marcia Castro Andelot, another of the researchers involved with the new report, said in the press release.
"Making these investments in prevention brings returns to human health, to the environment, and to economic development," said Andelot, a professor of demography and chair of global health and population at the Harvard T.H. Chan School.