ECOCIDE

Abandoned oil tanker off Yemen: a disaster waiting to happen

A satellite image from Maxar Technologies shows the FSO Safer oil tanker in June 2020 - -
Agence France-Presse
February 16, 2022 — Dubai (AFP)

For years, a rusty oil tanker has been moored off war-torn Yemen -- abandoned and threatening to break up or explode in what would be an ecological and humanitarian catastrophe.

On Tuesday the United Nations said it had reached an "agreement in principle" with Yemeni rebels to pump out the volatile cargo from the FSO Safer vessel and transfer it to another ship.

The 45-year-old ship, long used as a floating oil storage platform, has been moored off Yemen's western port of Hodeida in the Red Sea since 2015, without being serviced.

It is moored about 60 kilometres (40 miles) from the nearest inhabited areas with 1.1 million barrels of crude on board.

Apart from corrosion to the ageing hull, essential work on reducing explosive gases in the storage tanks has been neglected for years.

Greenpeace has warned the vessel could "explode at any moment".

Experts said the latest problem emerged in May 2021 with a leak in a cooling pipe, which was later fixed.

The UN has said an oil spill could destroy ecosystems, shut down the fishing industry and close Yemen's lifeline Hodeida port for six months.

Independent studies show it could expose more than 8.4 million Yemenis to heightened pollution.

Maritime traffic and coastal countries including Djibouti, Eritrea and Saudi Arabia could also be affected.

About 80 percent of Yemen's population depends on some form of aid for survival, with the civil war between the Saudi-backed government and Iran-allied Huthi rebels showing no signs of abating.

- Repeated delays -

Inspection of the deteriorating ship has dragged on for years with UN requests for access repeatedly declined by the Huthis, who control much of Yemen's north including Hodeida port.

The rebels have said they want guarantees that the value of the oil on board the Safer would be used to pay salaries of their employees.

The Yemeni government has said the money should be used for health and humanitarian projects.

In November 2020, the Huthis said they gave the green light for a mission to assess the fuel tanker.

The UN initially planned it in early 2021, but it has been repeatedly delayed.

The UN last year urged the Huthis to "facilitate unconditional and safe access for UN experts to conduct a comprehensive and impartial assessment and initial repair mission without further delay".

The UN said on Tuesday that an "agreement in principle" has been reached to transfer the toxic cargo from the tanker to another ship, without giving further details or a timeline.

"I am pleased to report recent progress in efforts to resolve the Safer tanker issue, including an agreement in principle to a UN-coordinated proposal to shift the oil to another ship," said Martin Griffiths, the UN's deputy chief for humanitarian affairs.

Yemen's civil war broke out in 2014 when the Huthis seized Sanaa, prompting a Saudi-led military coalition to intervene the following year to prop up the internationally recognised government.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed directly or indirectly in the conflict, while millions have been displaced in what the UN calls the world's biggest humanitarian crisis.

How world's most precise clock could transform fundamental physics


This handout photo provided by NIST shows a strontium atomic clock, one of the world's most accurate time-keeping pieces in the lab of Professor Jun Ye at the University of Colorado, in Boulder (AFP/Handout) (Handout)

Issam AHMED
Wed, February 16, 2022, 1:22 PM·3 min read

Einstein's theory of general relativity holds that a massive body like Earth curves space-time, causing time to slow as you approach the object -- so a person on top of a mountain ages a tiny bit faster than someone at sea level.

US scientists have now confirmed the theory at the smallest scale ever, demonstrating that clocks tick at different rates when separated by fractions of a millimeter.

Jun Ye, of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado Boulder, told AFP their new clock was "by far" the most precise ever built -- and could pave the way for new discoveries in quantum mechanics, the rulebook for the subatomic world.

Ye and colleagues published their findings Wednesday in the prestigious journal Nature, describing the engineering advances that enabled them to build a device 50 times more precise than today's best atomic clocks.

It wasn't until the invention of atomic clocks -- which keep time by detecting the transition between two energy states inside an atom exposed to a particular frequency -- that scientists could prove Albert Einstein's 1915 theory.

Early experiments included the Gravity Probe A of 1976, which involved a spacecraft 6,000 miles (10,000 kilometers) above Earth's surface and showed that an onboard clock was faster than an equivalent on Earth by one second every 73 years.

Since then, clocks have become more and more precise, and thus better able to detect the effects of relativity.

In 2010, NIST scientists observed time moving at different rates when their clock was moved 33 centimeters (just over a foot) higher.

- Theory of everything -

Ye's key breakthrough was working with webs of light, known as optical lattices, to trap atoms in orderly arrangements. This is to stop the atoms from falling due to gravity or otherwise moving, resulting in a loss of accuracy.

Inside Ye's new clock are 100,000 strontium atoms, layered on top of each other like a stack of pancakes, in total about a millimeter high.

The clock is so precise that when the scientists divided the stack into two, they could detect differences in time in the top and bottom halves.

At this level of accuracy, clocks essentially act as sensors.

"Space and time are connected," said Ye. "And with time measurement so precise, you can actually see how space is changing in real time -- Earth is a lively, living body."

Such clocks spread out over a volcanically-active region could tell geologists the difference between solid rock and lava, helping predict eruptions.

Or, for example, study how global warming is causing glaciers to melt and oceans to rise.

What excites Ye most, however, is how future clocks could usher in a completely new realm of physics.

The current clock can detect time differences across 200 microns -- but if that was brought down to 20 microns, it could start to probe the quantum world, helping bridge disparities in theory.

While relativity beautifully explains how large objects like planets and galaxies behave, it is famously incompatible with quantum mechanics, which deals with the very small.

According to quantum theory, every particle is also a wave -- and can occupy multiple places at the same time, something known as superposition. But it's not clear how an object in two places at once would distort space-time, per Einstein's theory.

The intersection of the two fields therefore would bring physics a step closer to a unifying "theory of everything" that explains all physical phenomena of the cosmos.

ia/mlm

Why defacing the Terry Fox statue touched a nerve with so many Canadians

The Conversation
February 16, 2022

Terry Fox statue (Screen Grab)

One of the first things that happened when the so-called “freedom convoy” arrived in Ottawa was that anti-vaccine mandate protesters defaced a statue of Terry Fox near Parliament Hill. The statue was draped in Canadian flags and had a sign that read “Mandate Freedom” wedged under its arm.

There was an immediate backlash on social media at the sight of a Canadian icon being used in such a political and polarizing way. People immediately took to Twitter to denounce the move.

Canadians coming to the defence of Terry Fox’s legacy is not surprising. He regularly ranks as one of the greatest Canadians. Furthermore, the irony of connecting an anti-vaccine movement with a man who ran more than 5,000 kilometres in support of medical research was not lost on most people.

But Canadians vehemently defending a statue is surprising. I have been interested in statue removals since 2018, when Halifax officials responded to a white supremacy demonstration by removing a contentious statue of the city’s founder, Edward Cornwallis. Now, my PhD studies at Dalhousie University focus on understanding why we have such complicated, controversial relationships with statues. During this time, there have been far more statues condemned than endorsed.

Those who disparaged the removal of statues claimed this was a slippery slope. Soon, all statues would be dispensable. Regardless of intentions, the Freedom Convoy protesters inadvertently proved them dead wrong.

A long, storied history


Statue defacing and removal is an evocative method of protest, especially when used by marginalized people challenging systemic discrimination. While the tactic predates the murder of George Floyd and the rise of Black Live Matter, the movement heavily utilized statue defacing to confront Confederate iconography, white supremacy, and ongoing racial discrimination.

Similar protests were carried out globally. The responses from officials were wide ranging, from removal, to re-interpretation, to leaving or reinstalling statues. The strategy spread to other movements, in particular Indigenous rights and anti-colonization movements.

Last summer, over 1,000 bodies of Indigenous children were found in unmarked graves at former Indian Residential Schools across Canada. Graves of this nature have been found dating back to the 1990s and confirmed what Indigenous people have known for decades.

Vandalizing statues that commemorated architects of settler-colonialism in Canada became a regular symbol of resistance. Statues of John A. Macdonald, Egerton Ryerson and Hector-Louis Langevin, a proponent of the residential school system, were among the targets. Statues were painted red, covered in graffiti, toppled, and even decapitated.

Sheila North, former Grand Chief of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak, told Global News: “These things (monuments) are perpetuating the racism and perpetuating the hatred towards Indigenous people without even realizing.”
Easily debunked arguments

In general, proponents for keeping the statues consistently present two arguments. The first is that the removal of a statue is the equivalent of erasing history.

This argument does not hold much water for researchers of commemoration and heritage. More often than not, statues do a pretty poor job of interpreting and educating about the past. That’s because statues are not history; they are heritage. History is the analytical observation of the past. Heritage is the emotional, somewhat nostalgic desire to represent the past in the present.

Removing a statue does not erase our knowledge of the person or event being commemorated. Instead, it declares that we no longer want to commemorate this part of our past as a reflection of our present values.


This image from 2015 gives a view of the Terry Fox statue in more peaceful times.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Fred Chartrand

The second argument proponents of statues tout — and the one that brings us back to the Terry Fox memorial — is that this is a slippery slope. As statue removals increase, some believe there will be no statues left.

In the age of social media and cancel culture, the argument goes, anything can cause outrage. We are walking on eggshells to ensure we do not say anything to offend. Furthermore, we should not evaluate people of the past by modern standards: they were only acting in accordance with the period. So, while John A. Macdonald may have done some bad things to Indigenous Peoples, if we take down his statue, it will open the door to any statue being torn down for the slightest offence.
An opportunity for new heroes

What happened to the Terry Fox statue silenced the slippery slope argument. When those opposed to vaccine measures adorned the Terry Fox memorial as part of their so-called freedom campaign, people quickly saw through the demonstration.

Despite all the calls for statue removals over the last two years, the public still finds value in heritage and sought to protect a memorial which continues to represent their values.

After Terry Fox succumbed to cancer in 1981, then Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau addressed the nation: “It occurs very rarely in the life of a nation, that the courageous spirit of one person unites all people.”

In a country that has long claimed to promote diversity over homogeneity, unifying national heroes are hard to come by. And as we are increasingly confronted with the mistakes and horrors of our national past and present, the national heroes we do have must be reassessed and scrutinized carefully.

But, the removal of their statues do not symbolize the death of history or the loss of heroes. Rather, it is an opportunity for new, inspiring figures to be brought to the forefront.

Grace McNutt, PhD Candidate in History, Dalhousie University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

WHOEVER GETS ELECTED KENNEY LOSES

Premier Jason Kenney calls March 15 byelection, UCP candidate campaigning to oust him

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has called a byelection that will feature his own candidate campaigning to topple him as leader.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

EDMONTON — Elections Alberta announced Tuesday the launch of a four-week campaign in Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche. Voters in the northern constituency will head to the polls March 15.

Brian Jean, a former Kenney political partner turned foe, is running to retain the seat for the United Conservatives.

Jean said it has become clear to him and many in the party that the core conservative values of the UCP can still bring political victory against the NDP in the 2023 election — but not with Kenney at the helm.

“I believe UCP policy is better policy (than the NDP’s),” Jean said in an interview.

“With a change in leadership style and direction, and in particular a person, it has a chance to win back the hearts and minds of Albertans.”

The constituency came open last August after UCP backbencher Laila Goodridge stepped down to run, successfully, for the Conservative party in the federal election.

Kenney waited until the final day of the six-month statutory window to call the byelection. He said he wanted to wait to get through the Omicron wave of COVID-19.

The NDP candidate, Ariana Mancini, said the byelection is about sending a message to a UCP government that has badly mismanaged health care during the pandemic and eroded the bottom lines for working families with policies igniting hikes to income taxes, property taxes, school fees, utility bills and insurance rates.

“I’ve knocked on so many doors over the past 10 weeks and families are telling me their bills are stacking up higher and higher every month,” Mancini said.

“Folks in Fort McMurray have had enough of the drama and the infighting in the UCP.

“We need a government that is focused on families and businesses here in our community.”

Paul Hinman, leader of the Wildrose Independence Party, has announced he will also contest the seat.

Kenney and Jean have a long history dating back to when they were federal Conservative MPs.




Both eventually left to enter Alberta provincial politics. Jean took over as head of the Wildrose Party and Kenney became leader of the Progressive Conservatives.

Together they co-founded the United Conservative Party in 2017. Jean lost the leadership of the new party to Kenney in a vote stained by accusations of secret deals, colluding candidates and fraud.

Jean, who is from Fort McMurray, has represented the area as a member of Parliament and as a provincial member of the legislature.

He eventually quit his UCP seat but announced last November that he was coming out of retirement to run again in the byelection with the goal of ousting Kenney as party leader and premier.

Jean has criticized Kenney's performance on multiple files and has suggested the premier's top-down approach to government was causing Albertans to ditch the UCP in droves.

The Jean fight is one of two brush fires Kenney is trying to put out while working to improve his low popularity numbers and boost party fundraising that lags well behind the NDP.

On April 9, party members are to gather in Red Deer, Alta., to vote on Kenney's leadership. The vote was originally supposed to happen this fall, but Kenney agreed to move it up to tamp down growing discontent within caucus over his job performance.

Kenney has framed the vote not as a referendum on his performance, but as important to repel fringe elements threatening the stability, core ideology and achievements of his party and government.

"There will be an effort obviously by many of the folks involved in these (COVID-19) protests — who perhaps have never belonged to a party before — to show up at that special general meeting to use it as a platform for their anger about COVID measures over the past two years," he said Monday.

"So it's incumbent on mainstream Alberta conservatives to also show up in large numbers to send a message about the importance of stability and maintaining a big-tent mainstream coalition for the interests of the future of the province."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 15, 2022.

Dean Bennett, The Canadian Press

TOO BAD KENNEY, YOU LOSE

Neolithic fisherman who died 5,000 years ago 'drowned in saltwater'

Ryan Morrison For Dailymail.Com 


A neolithic fisherman who died 5,000 years ago, and had been buried in a mass grave in Northern Chile, 'drowned in saltwater', a new advanced forensic test found.

Researchers from Southampton University in England used a modern forensics technique, used to determine the cause of death, on the ancient remains.

They confirmed saltwater drowning as the cause of death for the fisherman, closing a 5,000-year-old cold case, and opening up new possibilities for assessing the remains of our prehistoric ancestors using modern techniques.

The technique tests for diatoms, a group of algae found in oceans, freshwater and soils, inside the bones of victims.

Finding them suggests the person drowned. This is because if they had died before entering the water, they would not have swallowed any saltwater.

The team hope it will help archaeologists understand more about past civilisations in coastal regions, and the human stories behind the remains they discover.

© Provided by Daily Mail The Neolithic fisherman in burial site. A neolithic fisherman who died 5,000 years ago, and had been buried in a mass grave in Northern Chile, 'drowned in saltwater', a new advanced forensic test found

This is the first time diatom tests have been used to determine drowning in saltwater on prehistoric human remains, the team explained.

As well as those tests, the researchers carried out a range of microscopic analysis of the bone marrow they expected from the 5,000-year-old remains.

This allowed them to search for a greater range of microscopic particles that could provide more insight into the cause of his death.

Through the more detailed study, they found a variety of different marine particles, including fossilised algae, parasite eggs and sediment, which would not have been detected by the standard diatom test.

Professor James Goff, who led the study said: 'mass burials have often been necessary after natural disasters such as tsunamis, floods or large storms.

'However we know very little about whether prehistoric mass burial sites near coastlines could be the result of natural disasters or other causes such as war, famine and disease.

© Provided by Daily Mail Genevieve Cain, Prof Pedro Andrade and the fisherman. Researchers from Southampton University in England used a modern forensics technique, used to determine the cause of death, on the ancient remains

KEY FINDINGS: FISHERMAN IN 30s or 40s DROWNED IN MARITIME ACCIDENT

Researchers applied modern techniques used to determine the cause of death in forensic science, to study a 5,000-year-old skeleton.

They found the fisherman, between the age of 35 and 45, died in a fishing accident, drowning in salt water.

Findings

Skeletal remains of a 5,000 year old fisherman in a coastal mass burial.

Modified ‘Diatom Test’ performed on bone marrow of large bones.

Exogenous microscopic material indicates death by drowning.

Microscopic mineral grain size range indicates no contamination of bone marrow.

Combined archaeological and geological data indicated nearshore drowning.

'This gave us our light bulb moment of developing an enhanced version of a modern forensic test to use on ancient bones.'

At the start of the study, Prof Goff and Professor Pedro Andrade of the Universidad de Concepción in Chile, looked through archaeological papers for records of mass burial sites near coastlines.

Prof Andrade had previously studied an archaeological site known as Copaca 1, which is 18 miles south of Tocopilla on the Chilean coastline, containing a grave with three well preserved skeletons.

They selected this site, and the individual they studied out of the three was a male hunter-gather aged between 35 and 45.

The condition of his bones suggested he was a fisherman as there were signs of frequent harpooning, rowing and harvesting of shellfish.

This made him the ideal candidate to study for signs of drowning and for evidence of the event that led to his death.

'By looking at what we found in his bone marrow, we know that he drowned in shallow saltwater,' Prof Goff said.

'We could see that the man swallowed sediment in his final moments and sediment does not tend to float around in sufficient concentrations in deeper waters.'

The team believe that the man died in a simple maritime accident, rather than a major catastrophic event, such as a tsunami or mass flood, due to the fact the bones of the other people in the grave didn't contain marine particles.

The team said that if they tested other human remains on the site, outside of these three, as well as look for geological evidence of natural disasters in the area, they'd be able to shed more light on his cause of death.

© Provided by Daily Mail Prof James Goff and the fisherman. They confirmed saltwater drowning as the cause of death for the fisherman, closing a 5,000-year-old cold case, and opening up new possibilities for assessing the remains of our prehistoric ancestors using modern techniques

Most importantly, the scientist believe this new technique can be used for ancient mass burial sites around the world to get a richer picture of the lives of people in coastal communities throughout history.

'In taking more time over the forensic technique and testing for a broader range of beasties inside the prehistoric bones, we've cracked open a whole new way to do things,' Prof Goff explained.

'This can help us understand much more about how tough it was living by the coast in pre-historic days – and how people there were affected by catastrophic events, just as we are today.'

'There are many coastal mass burial sites around the world where excellent archaeological studies have been carried out but the fundamental question of what caused so many deaths has not been addressed. Now we can take this new technique out around the world and potentially re-write prehistory.'

The findings were published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

ICYMI 

Rocket poised to hit moon is Chinese, not SpaceX Falcon 9, student observations confirm
Elizabeth Howell - Space


A group of students has confirmed that a rocket stage poised to hit the moon next month is from a Chinese Long March launcher, not a SpaceX Falcon 9 as originally thought.

The rocket body, from the Chang'e 5-T1 mission, is set to slam into the moon's far side on March 4, more than seven years after its October 2014 launch. The object was originally misidentified as the upper stage of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that launched the Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite in February 2015.

"We took a spectrum, which can reveal the material makeup of an object, and compared it with Chinese and SpaceX rockets of similar types ... it matches the Chinese rocket," University of Arizona supervisor and associate professor Vishnu Reddy, who also co-leads the school's Space Domain Awareness lab, said in a statement Tuesday (Feb. 15).

"This is the best match, and we have the best possible evidence at this point," Reddy added of the new observations, which match independent work made public a few days ago. Students on the Arizona team include Grace Halferty, Adam Battle and Tanner Campbell.

Video: Rocket stage to slam into moon, seen by Virtual Telescope Project

Related: The greatest moon crashes of all time

The original, mistaken identification of the rocket body as a Falcon 9 upper stage came from Bill Gray, who manages the Project Pluto software used to track near-Earth objects.

He published an explanation Saturday (Feb. 12) about his rationale for originally identifying the rocket as part of a Falcon 9.

"I and others came to accept the identification with the second stage [of Falcon 9] as correct," Gray wrote. "The object had about the brightness we would expect and had showed up at the expected time and moving in a reasonable orbit."

Gray added, however, that the original evidence was not conclusive. And on Saturday, he said, he received a note from Jon Giorgini, an engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, pointing out that DSCOVR's postlaunch trajectory didn't take it all that close to the moon. After conducting further research, Gray wrote, he became convinced that the moon-bound rocket stage is actually from China's Chang'e 5-T1 mission, a precursor to the more famous Chang'e 5 mission that brought a sample of the moon back to Earth in 2020.

The University of Arizona students confirmed this newer work of Gray and others using the RAPTORS system, a telescope on top of the school's Kuiper Space Sciences building.

The group, however, performed their observations on the nights of Jan. 21 and Feb. 7, before Gray published his correction notice. "They estimate that it will hit somewhere in or near the Hertzsprung crater on the moon's far side," the university noted of the students' work.

"We don't often get a chance to track something we know is going to hit the moon ahead of time," Campbell added in the statement. Campbell is an aerospace and mechanical engineering graduate student who has worked with Reddy since 2017.

"There is particular interest in seeing how impacts produce craters. It's also interesting from an orbital prediction perspective, because it's traveling between the Earth and moon unpropelled," Campbell added. "It's just an inert rocket body tossed around by its own energy and by solar radiation pressure, so we can evaluate our models and see how good our predictions are."

The University of Arizona team has also tracked other space objects over the years, including the now-defunct Chinese space station Tiangong 1 that deorbited in 2018, a piece of an Atlas rocket that launched the NASA Surveyor 2 moon mission in 1966, and the 22-ton Chinese Long March 5B rocket that fell uncontrolled back to Earth in 2021.

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or on Facebook.

Despite battlefield success, small killer drones slow to spread in Southeast Asia

(Reuters) - Small, cheap, deadly drones caught the attention of military planners in 2020 when used to devastating effect in the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, but political sensitivities may keep them out of Southeast Asia, a regional defence expert said.

© Reuters/Brenda Goh

A drone model is seen on display at Israel Aerospace Industries' booth at the Singapore Airshow

Some armed models were among the drones on display at the Singapore Airshow this week, though none matched the precise features of the so-called "loitering munitions" used in the fighting two years ago - flying quietly overhead until diving down to destroy a target.

Yet many regional governments are interested in that capability, said Collin Koh, a research fellow at Singapore's Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies.

"Killer drones were well emphasized during that conflict... and there is certainly growing interest," Koh said.

"Some even argued that killer drones are a gamechanger to the future of conflict. All these lessons are being paid attention to in the region."

However, he said, with relative stability prevailing, acquiring such an offensive capability might alarm one's neighbours.

"Some countries might just see it as an additional expense ... or see acquiring such a system as provocative," he said.

Last year, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) said it had sold its Harop loitering munition, used in the 2020 fighting, to two unnamed Asian customers.

Such a deal would typically fall in the range of about $100 million for many drones, compared with roughly $90 million for a single F-35 combat aircraft.

Lockheed Martin is involved with producing the MORFIUS drone, a small, reusable autonomous aircraft designed to electronically disrupt or destroy swarms of enemy drones.

The system is not planned for international sale, however, said Tim Cahill, Lockheed Martin's senior vice president for global business.

"It will go out ... and go past an unmanned aerial vehicle that is flying at you and take it out," he said.

In general, there is high interest in unmanned systems in Asia and Southeast Asia for different roles, he said, including patrols of oceans, borders and coastlines.

Elbit Systems, an Israeli company, displayed a small, long-endurance drone that uses both an electric and a conventional fuel-powered motor.

Boeing separately touted its Loyal Wingman drone, meant to fly alongside and support a crewed fighter, which it is developing in Australia, as well as its MQ-25 uncrewed tanker aircraft.

Although no major drone deals were announced at the show, as countries recover slowly from the economic woes brought by COVID-19, some of their military spending will surely go toward unmanned systems, Koh said.

"Drones are an evergreen area to look at," he said. "Armed drones, and drones that are optimised for maritime surveillance."

(Reporting by Gerry Doyle; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Psychosis Risk Rises When People Abuse 'Speed'

Consumer news - HealthDay

TUESDAY, Feb. 15, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Amphetamines can pull people into a vicious cycle of addiction, but new research now shows that people who abuse these stimulants are also five times more likely to develop psychosis than non-users.

© Provided by HealthDayPsychosis Risk Rises When People Abuse 'Speed'

The effect of "speed" on neurotransmitter signaling in the brain often causes psychosis symptoms such as paranoia, voices and hallucinations. These typically resolve after a few days, but may persist for years in up to 15% of users.

While the link between amphetamine abuse and psychosis is known, the degree of psychosis risk or the effectiveness of drug rehabilitation therapy has been unclear.

To learn more, the researchers analyzed data on more than 74,600 illicit amphetamine users in Taiwan and a comparison group of more than 298,000 non-users matched for age and sex.

Compared with non-users, amphetamine users had higher rates of: depression (2% versus 0.4%); anxiety (0.9% versus 0.3%); ischemic heart disease (1.3% versus 0.8%); cardiovascular disease (0.8% versus 0.45%); and stroke (1.3% versus 0.7%).

By the end of 10 years of follow-up, speed users were far more likely to have psychosis than non-users. Rates were 468 per 100,000 people among speed users and 77 per 100,000 among non-users, according to the study published online Feb. 14 in the journal Evidence-Based Mental Health.

Among speed users, psychosis was more common among those 45 and older, and also among those with a longer arrest record. Those who had been arrested five or more times had a more than six times greater risk of psychosis, the researchers noted in a journal news release.

The study also found that speed users who went to drug rehab during deferred prosecution were 26% less likely to develop psychosis than those who didn't. This suggests that rehab may help lower the risk of psychosis, the study authors said.

"The relation of an induced paranoid psychosis with amphetamine abuse has been known for many decades. Nonetheless, our findings are from a detailed and comparative analysis using a comprehensive and large population dataset," according to Cynthia Wei-Sheng Lee, of the Centre for Drug Abuse and Addiction at China Medical University Hospital in Taiwan, and colleagues.

"Furthermore, it would be worthwhile to investigate the health benefits and cost effectiveness of deferred prosecution for drug crime offenders by providing appropriate therapy for drug addiction," the authors concluded.

The estimated worldwide rate of amphetamine use is less than 1%, but about one in 10 users become addicted.

More information

There's more on amphetamines at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

SOURCE: Evidence-Based Mental Health, news release, Feb. 14, 2022

A stitch in time: University student maps Edmonton's changing climate — on a quilt

Kashmala Fida Mohatarem 

CBC

Working toward a certificate in sustainability, University of Alberta student Emilia Housch spent 60 hours working on a visual demonstration of climate change in Edmonton.


© Submitted by Emilia Housch

Emilia Housch, a University of Alberta grad, created this temperature quilt as her final project to earn a certificate in sustainability.

Her final product: a temperature quilt.

"I wanted to do something cool," Housch told CBC's Edmonton AM on Tuesday.

"Originally, I was going to do an infographic, and then I was like, no that's boring. Temperature quilt time!"

Temperature blankets are crocheted, quilted or knitted records of the temperature throughout a certain time period.

Housch's king-size quilt is checkered with 15 different colour patches from reds, blues to green and yellow, showing daily high and low temperatures for the month of February in Edmonton.

Rows stretching from left to right across the quilt show February in 10-year increments, from 1920 to 2020. The columns — from top to bottom — show each day of the month.

Housch used red to depict the warmest temperatures; the coldest are represented with dark blue.

The lowest temperature she recorded was –36.2 C on Feb. 23, 1940.

The highest was 11.2 C on Feb. 28, 1990.

The graph on Housch's quilt depicts extreme changes in temperatures, addressing a common misconception about how climate change only means a rise in temperatures.

"It's getting warmer, but it's also getting colder," she said.

The quilt shows rows of homogenous colours at the top that become progressively colourful by the bottom.

"The bottom is just very variable and it doesn't seem like the days are connected to each other," Housch said.

She got the idea for the quilt from social media last year.

"I kept seeing people on TikTok making temperature blankets, but they were doing crochet and I thought they looked really cool but I cannot crochet to save my life," she said.

On Facebook, however, she came across temperature quilts and decided to get started.

She expected some pushback when she pitched the idea, but received an incredibly positive response from her superiors.

"Scientifically, I'm happy with it," she said. "It may seem a little crooked, or some of the squares a little different size … but that's the cool thing. Nothing's perfect."

Students interested in studying climate change, food security, renewable energy, biodiversity and social inequality can earn a certificate in sustainability at the U of A.

Showtime Donates $100,000 to Seneca-Iroquois National Museum

Sasha Urban - Variety


Showtime announced today that it is donating $100,000 to the Seneca-Iroquois National Museum, which is located on the Allegany Territory of the Seneca Nation, where the network’s series “Dexter: New Blood” is set.

The donation will fund the museum’s efforts to digitize its archives and record the history of the Seneca Nation, including footage, music, oral histories, print news and other media passed down from elders in the community. The contribution will also help fund the museum’s Onöhsagwë:de’ Cultural Center, which educates visitors on the tribal history of Western New York state.

“I’m excited to receive this gift from Showtime, which demonstrates its commitment to the preservation of heritage,” said Dr. Joe Stahlman, director of the Seneca-Iroquois National Museum. “We can’t wait to begin the digitization of media – some of which has not been viewed in decades.”

The Seneca Nation of New York is one of three federally recognized Seneca entities, with more than 8,000 citizens globally. “Dexter: New Blood” is filmed in Massachusetts, but the series is set in the fictional town of Iron Lake, N.Y. in the Seneca Nation.

“We’re honored to support the legacy of the Seneca Nation of Indians, whose people and rich culture are ingrained within the narrative of ‘Dexter: New Blood,’” said Puja Vohra, executive vice president of marketing and strategy at Showtime. “The team at Showtime is dedicated to helping make a meaningful difference that both commemorates the Seneca Nation’s history and strengthens its future.”

“Dexter: New Blood,” is the most-watched series in Showtime history. The drama stars Michael C. Hall as the infamous serial killer Dexter Morgan. The series picks up 10 years after the finale of “Dexter” which premiered in 2006 and quickly became one of the most acclaimed series on television. “Dexter: New Blood” is executive produced by Clyde Phillips, Hall, Scott Reynolds, Marcos Siega, Bill Carraro, John Goldwyn and Sara Colleton.